Hermit writes

This is to share my writing. I can be found on AO3 as Hermit9.

[ruvviks]

OC ASK GAME

Where was your OC born, and where did they grow up?

How does your OC remember their childhood? Is this an accurate reflection of what their childhood was actually like?

If your OC could revisit their childhood, what would they want to change about it, if anything at all?

Describe three of the most important photographs your OC owns.

What is your OC's gender identity and sexual orientation? Is this also what they identify as in canon, or are they not (fully) aware?

How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they like who they are? What would they want to change about themself?

What is your OC's occupation?

What does your OC's family look like?

Describe a mundane day in your OC's life.

Does your OC have any physical scars? What is the story behind them?

What does your OC carry around in their pockets? What about their bag?

What is the worst thing that has happened to your OC? How has it affected their behavior, their health, and their life in general?

What is something your OC does (to others) that they would not like if others did to them? Are they aware that they do this?

Does your OC hold grudges? How good are they at letting things go? Do they believe in second chances?

What is your OC's fatal flaw?

Is there anyone your OC has lost contact with? What happened?

What are some of your OC's coping mechanisms during stressful or overwhelming periods in their life?

What are your OC's bad habits?

How does your OC handle preparing for and initiating a difficult conversation? How does the conversation itself go?

How quick is your OC to shift blame? Do they own up to their mistakes, or are they prone to start pointing fingers at others?

How does your OC handle criticism?

How good is your OC at apologizing, if they do this at all?

What is your OC like when they're angry?

What is your OC like when they're upset?

What is your OC's deepest desire? Would they ever ask for this?

How quickly does your OC reach their breaking point? What are they like when this point has been reached?

What are some assumptions others make about your OC? Are any of them true?

What does your OC think others are saying about them behind their back? Is any of this true?

What are three traits your OC has that can both have positive as well as negative qualities?

How paranoid is your OC? How does this affect their daily life?

Are there any places or people your OC is avoiding?

How does your OC handle rejection?

How does your OC handle jealousy?

What would be some of the signs your OC is starting to push people away?

If your OC had to kill someone, how would they do it? If killing is a near-daily occurrence to them, what is their preferred method?

Does your OC believe they deserve it when bad things happen to them?

What is the most common feeling or emotion in your OC's life?

What is the most recurring theme in your OC's nightmares?

What is your OC's pain tolerance like? What is the worst pain they have ever felt?

What is your OC afraid of?

Has your OC ever hurt someone, either physically or verbally?

How easily influenced by others is your OC?

What are common things your OC worries about?

Do others consider your OC to be scary or intimidating?

Does your OC keep their promises? Have they ever broken one before?

Does your OC carry any guilt with them?

If your OC had to pick a new identity and skip town, what would they come up with? Where would they go?

What would your OC do if they knew that this was their last day alive?

Does your OC fear death?

How does your OC die, eventually?

[hermit-writes]

Hermit Prints - Into the Split

This project was for the story Into the Split by @tryslora.

It is part of Welcome to PHU, a web serial about the students who attend Pine Hills University, a fictional liberal arts school, and the folks around them. It’s about magic, and love, and football, and music, and taekwondo, and just about anything else that college students might get involved in. And magic. Did we mention the magic? Because in this world, ten years ago, the public found out that magic is real, and ever since then, more and more Talents have become public in the world, and Pine Hills University happens to be one of the schools that welcomes these magical students with open arms.

You can read the stories as they are posted on Tumblr and on Pillowfort.

Into the Split is the third story of the “Twinned” trilogy and can be purchased as an e-book and trade paperback through Duck Prints Press or through most bookstores and libraries!

This is in the “6×9” format, with white paper and glossy cover options. The story has 144,994 words and the final book had 444 pages.

Front and spine view of the book, along with the thematic enamel pin available through @duckprintspress

Interior page – Chapter Start

[duckprintspress]

Now Available: Monsterotica Book and Leftover Merch!

Happy release day!! Our latest anthology, Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling, is now officially published and available to people who didn’t back our crowdfunding campaign.

You can buy Monsterotica in e-book or print formats direct from our webstore, via itch.io, or through one of the many other places that carry out books.

We also have some leftover campaign merchandise for you folks who missed the chance to buy the merch during the campaign!

art print of the full wrap-around Monsterotica cover art by Siao Bell

stretch goal art print of The Riddle by Shea Sullivan

enamel pin featuring a monster licking a person as they embrace, with art by reshipkmn

our signature campaign dux, this time in purple and rather tentacly, by Alessa Riel

a very snakey, Medusa-esque bookmark with art by Jagoda Zirebiec

our quirky, funny postcard set, featuring the designs of Xianyu Zhou

the amazing (and huge!) folding fan of a person only too delighted to be abducted by a dragon, with art by pukamuriska

[hermit-writes]

Hermit Prints - Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling

This project was for the anthology Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling by @duckprintspress.

Do you love queer tales? Adore monsters? Delight in reading erotic monsterloving stories? Then Duck Prints Press proudly presents Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling! Our authors have created titillating tales featuring unusual creatures (often with unconventional genitalia!) facing similar challenges: how to court the partner(s) of their choice (human or otherwise!). From aliens to undersea hybrids, from winged beings to myths come to life, from insectoid aliens to mountain cryptids, every creature in the 16 stories published in Monsterotica is inhuman, sentient, and very much DTF.

This book is available as both ebook (ePub and PDF) as well as printed (Digest format, 388 pages).

Cover and spine of the printed book.

Interior of the book, showcasing the start of a story with its tags and the decorated page numbers

[duckprintspress]

Ducks in a Row: Curated Collections of Short Stories

2 short story collections, one non-explicit and one explicit, featuring works by queer authors!

psssst.

our Kickstarter is two-thirds funded.

pass it on.

[hermit-writes]

LAST 48 HOURS!

[enoliel]

Days Like This Are Far Too Rare

Fandom: Criminal Minds (US TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe **Summary: **

Emily wasn't quite sure what she expected Steve Rogers to be like. And if someone had told her, she wouldn't have believed them.

Rating: E

Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes/Emily Prentiss, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Emily Prentiss/Steve Rogers

On AO3 : Here

[hermit-writes]

*✧･ﾟ Ficlet Friday *✧･ﾟ

Happy Friday, everyone! Thanks @ashes0909 for the tag!

The Rules: Copy the following prompts or make your own, post what fandoms you write for & your followers can request one of the prompts with a ship, character or fandom for a ficlet of 100-500 words. Please mention if you don’t want M or E content otherwise it will be assumed anything goes. Have fun!

This week’s theme is shenanigans:

Prank call

Picking up the wrong luggage

Tickling

Whoopee cushion

Surprise gone wrong

Crying with laughter

Clothes shrinking in the wash

Putting seasoning in a drink e.g. salt, pepper

Fandoms: MCU, SPN, Shadowhunters

Not tagging anyone, feel free to play if you see this!

[duckprintspress]

Ducks in a Row: Curated Collections of Short Stories

2 short story collections, one non-explicit and one explicit, featuring works by queer authors!

psssst.

our Kickstarter is two-thirds funded.

pass it on.

[duckprintspress]

Kickstarter Launch Day for “Ducks in a Row” and “Duxxx in a Row”!

Since Duck Prints Press was founded in January 2021, we have published over 200 stand-alone short stories by dozens of authors, ranging in length from just over 1,000 words up to 9,999 words. Most of these short stories are available for purchase individually from our webstore or are only available to people who back our Patreon… until now! With Ducks in a Row: A Curated Collection of Short Stories and Duxxx in a Row: A Curated Collection of Explicit Stories, Duck Prints Press dips into our vault, anthologizing stories we published from 2021 to 2023 into all-new collections!

Whether you’ve looked at our short story offerings and weren’t sure where to start, or you’ve heard about Duck Prints Press and wanted a tasting selection of what we offer, or you’ve wanted all your favorites in one lovely volume, or you had no idea we existed until today and just heard “short stories by queer authors” and said “SIGN ME UP,” Ducks in a Row and Duxxx in a Row have a little something for most everyone, with stories in different genres, with different types of characters, and by many different authors!

Ducks in a Row contains 22 short stories by 22 different authors and is 236 pages long. Duxxx in a Row features 19 short stories by 19 different authors and is 264 pages long. Each is being offered in e-book (ePub and PDF) and trade paperback formats, and we’ve also got some of our signature dux merchandise (including our first-ever dux enamel pin!) and art prints and bookmarks featuring the gorgeous artwork Pallas Perilous did for the book covers!

Visit our Kickstarter to learn more and become a backer today!

Campaign ends April 14th 2026!

[hermit-writes]

Hermit Prints — Hockey Bois

This project was for the novel Hockey Bois by A.L. Heard, published by Duck Prints Press.

Nick Porter has always loved hockey. Ever since he can remember, it’s been his favorite thing in the world. It’s too bad he never learned to play, he’d tell himself, but it was too late to do it now. Adults don’t just magically learn to skate and join a hockey team. That’d be ridiculous. Except maybe they do? On a whim, he decides to sign up for an adult  beginner’s class. He learns to skate, joins a team, and meets a really hot teammate… and it’s pretty much a disaster from there on out.

This is available in both hard covers and trade paperback, in the 6×9 format.

If you’d be interested in getting your story typeset and ready to print, please visit my commissions page.

You can purchase the hardcover, paperback, and e-book from Duck Print Press. The trade paperback should also be available to order at your local bookstore, and the e-book available in libraries!

[hermit-writes]

Just adding this...

[duckprintspress]

Back the Campaign to Fund Publishing the Twinned Trilogy Today!

Starting today, and running through Wednesday, January 28th, we’re raising funds to publish the third and last book of the Twinned trilogy by Tris Lawrence ( @tryslora ) ! Whether you backed the campaigns for books 1 and 2, or you’re just hearing about these books for the first time from this post, now is a great time to get one book, get two books, or get the whole trilogy so you can read the full story!

People with Talent—Mages, Dreamwalkers, shapechangers, and others—have always lived among mankind. Their existence was hidden until ten years ago, when the world was abruptly introduced to the existence of these secret magic users after a young gymnast spontaneously teleported during the Olympics. This event heralded the start of the Emergence; whereas, once, Talents were close-kept secrets that ran in family lines, now everyone knew that there were people with incredible abilities in communities all over the world.

The Emergence wrought changes at every level of society.

At Pine Hills University, a small liberal-arts college in Upstate New York, these changes have been pronounced, as the University has taken the lead in studying Talent academically: encouraging Talented students to apply, hiring Talented faculty, and debuting Talent-related curricula, minors, and majors.

This is the milieu against which the events of the Twinned trilogy unfold. Ten years has been just long enough for the young, Talented students of Pine Hills University to think they know where they fit in the world—but there are many changes yet to come…

For this campaign, we’re also making some fun Pine Hills University merchandise—the crest of the fictional university as an enamel pin, a car back-window sticker, and one of our signature dux in a PHU-colored varsity jacket.

Oh and – these books are hella queer! The main character is a gay aro man, the lead of the second is asexual biromantic and has a trans twin brother, and book 3 features an established m/m relationship between the leads. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; lots of the side characters are also LGBTQIA+.

Visit our Kickstarter campaign page and learn all the details, read the book blurbs and excerpts, see the merch, get to know Tris Lawrence, and more!

[tryslora]

2026 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

For those who have used it before, the 2026 Word Tracking Spreadsheet is now available!

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the annual word tracking spreadsheet is a robust Excel sheet (it can be used in Google Sheets or other programs that are able to read .xlsx files) which allows you to track your wordcount goals and actual achieved wordcount across several projects. There are graphs, time tracking, and many little bells and whistles.

This is a spreadsheet I created for myself back in 2012 and I’ve been changing it bit by bit as I discover new things I want to track, or ways to motivate myself. I can’t remember exactly when I started sharing it publicly, but I’m happy to share the blank spreadsheet each year.

Both the spreadsheet and an instruction document are available via Google Drive:

2026 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

Word Tracking Spreadsheet Instructions

This year we are not going into or out of a leap year, so there should be no bugs. I also happened to discover a bug in the annual stats rollup page that slipped past everything last year, and fixed that. Yay for stomping bugs! Sorry it slipped through before...

Sharing this spreadsheet continues to be a bit bittersweet for me, as this was another year where I struggled to write new words, whether they were fic, original, or blogs. I had my ups and downs, and at times, seemed to disappear completely. However, I did do a lot of editing, and am excited to be incredibly close to being done with that major push soon.

Again, there are no changes other than the dates being updated to 2026, and the additional columns for 2026 added to stats, and the dynamic 2025 columns being moved to static information. All charts should be updated correctly.

I do want to add tracking for project rollups (what kind of work was done), better tracking for time, and figure out a way to get a better view of the time I do spend on not just writing, but writing related tasks. However, I haven't managed to figure out how to chart it, so those aren't yet in the publicly shared sheet. Someday, I hope.

Please feel free to signal boost this post and share the file. If you make changes to the file and share it, please credit mine as the inspiration.

[hermit-writes]

Package from Duck Prints Press! I got my print copy of Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories!

As well as assorted merch from that campaign (bookmark with the authors signatures, enamel bookmark of a skull under a crystal cloche, Dux and bats stickers, post-its shaped like library borrowing cards, pencil case, illustrated journal, and a gigantic tote bag in the background)

Want a copy of this book, or any of @duckprintspress previous books? The Kickstarter for the next Erotica Anthology (Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling) is currently live!

You can add any of their previous books, like this one, as add-on! And [spoilers] there will be a special tier for the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend (from the 28th to the 30th)

Get their entire back catalogue. All eight of their previous anthologies in print and digital formats, plus all the highest-level backer rewards for the new book (and, of course, Monsterotica itself!) for only $310 – a 30% off discount!

[holmesandtheroman]

NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

[hermit-writes]

Hermit Prints — Tessa of Hundrfeld

This project was for the novel Tessa of Hundrfeld by A.L. Heard.

As war looms, fates collide in a battle of prophecy, vengeance, and power. Hjorrfold has known centuries of peace and prosperity, but all of that is threatened when a bloodthirsty prince discovers a book of ancient prophecy. With it, he sees a path to the throne. His ruthless ambition will stop at nothing to forge a legacy of blood and glory. The key to his rise isn’t in magic or steel. It’s a woman. Tessa must navigate the prince’s court and schemes, but her loyalty is a mask. She hasn’t come to be his puppet: she’s out for revenge. To unravel the prince’s prophecies, she must gather allies and play her part perfectly…or lose everything trying..

This is available for purchase in both e-book and trade paperback, in the 6×9 format.

Cover of the book and two photographs of the interior, showing the chapter headings as well as a scene break

[hermit-writes]

Hermit Prints — The Wish of a Dragon

This project was for the novel The Wish of a Dragon by JD Rivers.

Otar comes to on a dingy space station and discovers two things: First, he’s missing a good chunk of his memories. Second, Andres, his lover, has disappeared. Before he can retrace his steps, a knock at the door demands a debt be repaid—one Otar can’t remember. Captain Veil Dreamcatcher is in search of the dragons with only ruins to guide him. Otar agrees to help in exchange for a reduced debt and information about Andres. On their travels, Otar realizes Veil is as adrift in this world as he is. Both are on a quest for the impossible: finding the ones they have loved and lost. All the while, the shadows are watching with red glowing eyes.

This is available in softcover (5×8 format) and e-book.

Book photo, showing the front and spine of the book

Printed and screencaptured view of the same spread of the book.

[hermit-writes]

Mid-Week promo! I have a commission slot currently with a deep, deep, discount available as an auction on Marvel Trumps Hate!

Come give me your shiny words... https://www.marveltrumpshate.com/auction/4006-hermit/