falling-enthusiastically

She just fell so enthusiastically (for Shoot from the Hip) Trying to retain some sanity while doing a PhD and using my non-existent free time to make edits and write :) 25 // she/her // 🏳️‍🌈

[badgebadge314]

Luke rocked his head against Tom as he laughed, the other man wrapping an arm around his back, just for a second. A second was all AJ needed though. Another moment frozen in time.

part 1 of god knows how many of drawing the photos described in A Thousand Words, a short and sweet shoot from the hip rpf fic where aj buys an old film camera.

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I'm going to need no one to talk to me for 5-10 business days while I get over this...

Art!! About words I wrote!!

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That is ABSOLUTELY a bot comment. your fics are fantastic, your writing is lush and gorgeous and i love it so much, your stories are driven and have a wonderful balance of emotion and peaceful moments. you're the first person to really make me like the idea of the guys as a polycule and that is entirely down to what you've written. whilst i really hope you do write again, because i always want more from you, i love what's written already, too, and i'll always feel lucky that i got to enjoy it.

Thank you :)

This is super kind of you to say! I am strongly against the thought of leaving it unfinished (and there are little snippets that I have written that I desperately want to share at some point!) so I really do want to get back to writing. Just need to get the ball rolling again!

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it’s a little late because my concept of time is not great but it’s officially been a whole year since I first binge read FaC in a day in bed at uni!! and while I am very much behind on Close to Home I just wanted to say I still think about the series on a weekly basis it just lives permanently in my brain now so thank you again for permanently altering my neural chemistry with your masterpiece 🫡 (/gen)

Well this cheered me up greatly :)

I was literally today getting myself back into writing (I hope) and I think this might have solidified those intentions. I think I've already told you that one of my favourite days of writing fac was the day you started commenting and I got to see all of your thoughts but in case I haven't, it really was!

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I've been rereading the entire FAC saga, and may I just say: all the little details that are in it? The pining before they got together? The mentions of quirks/behaviors that will come up later in the plot being hinted to in the past? THE LUKE ANGST ARC??? Despite occasionally forgetting which timeline I'm reading (entirely my own fault, I just get excited and read too fast without paying attention to the then/now/summaries) there are such good connections between all the stories and obviously that's the point in a universe like this but. my god, this is just one of the best-crafted stories I've ever read, I've cried so many times for so many reasons and felt the entire spectrum of human emotion while reading.

Idrk what my point is with this ask, I guess I just wanted to tell you how cool your story is and thank you for writing it.

Argh thank you so much!! Don't know what to do with all of this niceness :p

The then/now structure was a happy accident that I started just to have some semblance of structure and now has become its own beast (mostly because I am trying to loop everything back together by the end of CTH and my brain hurts :p)

The only problem I've created for myself is that when I was writing regularly I was so in the universe that I had a relatively good grasp on all of the strings and now I feel like I need to do a lot of my own re-reading to get back to that point! It's at moments like these that I am unhappy with my past self for writing so many thousands of words haha

But anywayyy, thank you so much! I will hopefully be back with some more stuff soon - mainly trying to finish CTH and finally tackling some of the post-uni stuff I constantly say I am going to write and never get round to!

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I've just started writing a "what if Luke didn't tell them he was struggling" AU thing for Four's a Crowd, and I was wondering if you had any tips for writing something multi-chapter? Because I always find I get tired after one chapter, but I really want to finish writing it. I really love your writing!

Sorry for taking so long to answer this! Ironically I have suddenly started having trouble making progress on multi-chapter things :p

I don't know if I have any good advice (although the angsty prospects of your premise make me eager to read if you manage to finish it!) because I kind of wrote FaC in two very different ways.

I started with zero plan and an unhealthy amount of hyperfixation! If you can get into the plot and the characters' motivations enough to try and play out scenes I always find I get a lot of motivation from that because I will daydream while doing other things and then have a ton of motivation to try and write it all out when I get chance.

Then I finally realised it was going to be extremely long and actually needed a plan to make everything make sense. From that point onwards, having a chapter-by-chapter idea of what was happening really motivated me to finish. Also writing out of order is totally fine and I actually recommend it! Filling in the blanks to get to an exciting bit of the plot has always motivated me to get through 'filler' or other sections that are less fleshed out.

Finally (because I said I had no advice but now it seems I am able to yap for multiple paragraphs :p) even if you have a plan don't be afraid to go off on a tangent. If something happens that is interesting, even accidentally, you can always change the plan and see where it takes you. Certain plot points in FaC (like Brennan lmao) were not really ever in the plan and then became kind of important in the end.

And actually finally because I've thought of something else, if you are motivated by people reading and engaging, try to publish as you go. A lot of comments I got on fac sometimes influenced the way I took the story too when I saw how people were interpreting things or I saw the small details that were seen as something bigger by the people reading it. And I think a huge part of fanfic writing is that back and forth with the people who are reading so take advantage of it if you can! :)

Good luck with writing and I hope you have fun with it!

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Wait so. Hang on. You've written Fours a Crowd, I know that much (and I loved that much this series has made me Feel Things that I haven't felt in a very long time), but apparently you also wrote AJ-isms? The first thing I've read in a very long time to actually make me cry? What the fuck do your talents know no bounds

Aww thank you??

AJ-isms has got very out of hand compared to what it was meant to be - 100% a comfort fic for me to write to try and figure some stuff out in my own head (and was not meant to get quite so angsty but hey ho XD ) and now it is a horrendous number of chapters and actually seems to have a plot :p

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Hey man just wanted to say that FaC is amazing and I adore the way you write them all and balance the Then and Now sections so well, I've been following since just before the og fic was completed and it's been so awesome to see the sequel develop :)

Bit of a warning here: you've become the unfortunate recipient of what I'm 90% sure is a bot comment on chapter 44 that appears to be using a bunch of long words to call you unemployed and walk the line between not outright saying that's a bad thing and insulting you for it? Just thought I'd let you know in case you hadn't clocked it. Stay safe, you're amazing and screw bots 💙

Hi, thank you so much for this and sorry for taking so long to get around to answering it!

I have not written in so long and the comment you referred to definitely kind of contributed to that (despite me also being 90% sure it was a bot, for some reason combined with a load of other things it definitely got in my head) so it is good to know it seemed weird to someone else.

I am hoping in answering some old stuff from my inbox, it might motivate me to get on with writing some new chapters soon too :)

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Doing my Spanish homework rn and in the reading one of the characters calls the other ‘mi cielo’. I am incredibly normal about this fact. You have definitely not infected my brain.

hehe my influence is corrupting 😂

I too now feel like I know far too many Spanish terms of endearment after doing research! Shame I couldn't have remembered the (semi) useful Spanish that I was taught in school...

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this is going to sound like a strange compliment, but I wanted to say thank you for not tagging asks and/or rpf adjacent posts so that they aren't showing up in the main sfth tag. It's just really great fandom etiquette and I appreciate it (and I'm sure others do as well)

on a completely different note, I'm loving all of your video edits, they're so well made!!!!!

Thank you, I should get back into editing at some point! 😊

On the RPF note, I'm not sure I can accept too much praise as I kind of selfishly do it to avoid getting hate 😂

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Thank you so much for AJ-isms! I love it loads and I feel so emotional reading it, since it's been so helpful for me to recognise that I might be autistic. I relate to AJ so much and it's led to a lot of article rabbit holes and questionnaires (him doing a bunch of quizzes where he underestimates everything and is surprised he gets the same answer every time is so accurate. it happened the first time for me with ADHD and it's happening again now)

Hi!

Thank you so much for reading and dropping by to send this! I'm glad it might have helped you realise that about yourself and I hope you can access the information/support that you need! :)

Considering it started as a complete comfort fic for me that I just decided to publish seeing as I was writing it, it makes me really happy to hear that it has helped other people or made them feel seen (also has the fortunate side effect of positively reinforcing my own diagnosis and stopping me getting in my own head about that haha!)

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Do you read any other fanfics in the sfth rpf sphere? Which ones do you like and do you have any fav authors or fic recommendations

I do! And I am now doubtlessly going to forget some favourites because I am terrible at remembering to bookmark stuff! Just to note, I've only linked tumblr accounts where they are clearly linked to the ao3 accounts in case people don't want to be identified! And please heed the tags/ratings of these fics - there is explicit stuff and things touching on the themes of fac, etc.

With all that out of the way, here are some of the authors/fics that I love:

First, favourite authors (would recommend anything by them):

its_stupidhours (@its-stupidhours)

Specific fac favourites include the phases of the moon series, To Love is to Worry, not close enough (uni AJ/Luke is the fastest way to my heart, let's be honest) and Living Blue

Non-fac favourites include the truth is, im just getting started and To Know Oneself

2. cinnamon_stargirl

All three of these fics are incredible and I love them and need to re-read them yet again: i'd lick the grief right off your lips, waste your life trying and silly me (to fall in love with you)

3. dwindledintogroans (@ethan-elliott)

The give us something to believe in series!!

And now some assorted other favourites that I had to mention:

thoughts of yesterday by SomethingChanged244 (@somethingchanged244) (favourite non-poly fic!)

damn the girl, she has to learn by sevvyitus

do it justice by sirjaythegay (@babycatgirlboy)

pause. by offmyface (@off-myface)

hurt and grieve but don't suffer alone by ahopeformore

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is there anything you've wanted to explore more in 4ac that the story hasn't led itself to so youve had to put on the backburner? and is there anything you'd like to see cropping up in fan pieces? i'm curious as to your process! love everything you do

A very interesting question! (And thank you!)

I guess to avoid spoilers I will hide most of what I'm going to say but in general if anyone wants to write set in 'fac-verse' I just like seeing their interpretation of things 😊

In terms of stuff I've put on the back burner, a lot of it is in prequel territory. So one day I sat down and actually figured out how the years between AJ graduating and them getting together looked like. I then planned a whole fic about it. I then got annoyingly busy with my actual life 🙃

I would love to write more stuff set at university because I was so happy with how everything is not what it seems turned out.

And then there are future things that I won't go into too much but I would like to explore when I get there although I don't know in what format (ooh mysterious)

Sometimes I get the urge to revisit the little blue universe but then I decide it's better not to go there

Random fluff I would write more of if it fit: Dawn bonding with everyone. Felt like I had to rush this a bit (even though it is still ongoing and she will be back soon...) and it would have been nice to focus on especially AJ being accepted by an older adult and knowing what that feels like and probably struggling a bit to let his guard down. You know, this sounds less fluffy as I write it but yeah 😂

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what are your thoughts/feelings on folks who write in a 4ac universe? are you chill with it or would you rather we didnt

I'm more than okay with it! There are quite a few really really good fics based on fac and honestly I am always very flattered that people would use their writing ability on my little universe 😊

So yeah, go for it if you would like to. I will be first in line to read it!

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Just here to let you know Im rereading all of fours a crowd over the next few days <3

Well I hope you enjoy the angsty end to your year 😂😊

I meanwhile will be trying to write with slightly more reliability than I have managed this month so far!

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You're the author of AJ-isms?!?! It's phenomenal, I can't wait to see where the story goes

I do appear to be :p

Thank you! What was once described (by me) as 'a fic that was actually going to be short for once' has yet again got out of control but it also seems to be untangling a few things in my own brain so I'm just going to go with it until I run out of ideas haha

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here to tell you I'm thinking about fac again. it's on my mind 24/7 I love it so much

Thank you!! And sorry for infiltrating your brain :p

I would love to have some more time to dedicate to it right now but I will try to wait patiently for my Christmas holiday 🙃😂

(this is why it is a terrible idea to try writing three fics at once haha)

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I feel obliged to follow you entirely based on your name

(also because I want to follow as many sfth people as I can)

What can I say? We clearly both have excellent taste in SFTH longforms...