jhoom writes stuff

ashley | she/her | Pittsburgh · hockey romance author · find me on: instagram · bluesky · ko-fi · goodreads · ao3

[jhoomwrites]

Look at these beauts... signed copies available at my ko-fi shop

A lot of you might have first met me through my days in fandom, but I'm still out in the wild writing! Over the past few years, I've written six books! If you're at all a fan of my writing, please check them out :) I have mm hockey romance, historical fiction, and fantasy novels, plus a bunch of short stories.

The best place to find my full catalogue is my website and my short stories are on my itch.io

[jhoomwrites]

just got back from watching the odyssey. i've got some thoughts

[jhoomwrites]

my brother made the mistake of asking about the movie, he accidentally triggered a gladiator 2 rant

[jhoomwrites]

them: what would you guys rate it out of 5 stars?

me: 3.5 i think. i could be convinced 3.75

them: does that mean we could convince you for 4 stars--

me: no.

[clytemnestraaa]

always such a struggle when you get to the sex scene part of the fic you're writing and you're not horny at all. i don't know. their things were touching. without ANY underwear. the end.

[jhoomwrites]

just got back from watching the odyssey. i've got some thoughts

[jhoomwrites]

my brother made the mistake of asking about the movie, he accidentally triggered a gladiator 2 rant

[jhoomwrites]

just got back from watching the odyssey. i've got some thoughts

[happydivorce]

the first thing u need to understand about athletes is that they are cringe losers bc they skipped school in hopes of never having to work a real job. the second thing you need to understand abt athletes is that they are first and foremost workers whose years of lucrative labour are capped by the very real limit that the strain of that selfsame work puts on their bodies which means they retire at an age before most people's careers even really take off and are expected to get by for the rest of their lives on the money they earned those few years. the third thing you need to understand is that they want to fuck their coworker.

[russianblush]

no ai usage over here. you’re gonna get my shitty authentic writing whether you like it or not

[jhoomwrites]

i write a lot of the same kind of thing (idiots who play hockey and fall in love), and it's always funny to take the same general idea and see how a few tweaks wildly change the outcome

[jhoomwrites]

Have you ever just wanted to die?

[jhoomwrites]

look. i don't go here anymore. BUT....

post season 15 dean/cas, where cas is back and human and dean is terrified that cas is gonna leave so he makes a sacrifice. he pretends he's in love with cas. says it, dotes on cas while he fakes being his boyfriend, has sex with him, all of it. and cas is happy :D

but dean feels guilty. because he's lying. to his best friend. and it eats at him. and finally, drunkenly, he confesses to cas that it's all a lie, he's faking it.

cas, instead of just leaving, somehow or other gets a truth spell (don't know don't care) and while dean is in a trance asks questions. because cas is confused. dean says it was a lie but it didn't feel like a lie. and all of dean's answer seem to imply that he maybe is in love with cas?

because he enjoys the sex (obviously). he enjoys having cas close. he enjoys the cuddling and the hanging out and the inside jokes and the smiling and the not-arguing. and yes when cas isn't around he feels awful and wants to die and just drinks all the time. has in fact maybe almost killed himself when he's thought cas was dead. and cas is his favorite person on earth and he wants him to be happy and is happiest when he's around and and and and

and cas is very confused. because again, this sounds like love (or something like it). and that's the thing dean doesn't have an answer to, even in this truth-enforced state.

"why do you think you're not in love with me?"

no answer.

anyway i think about that sometimes.

[jhoomwrites]

When did Brady know he was first attracted to Nick?!

omg pretty much instantly. he was able to talk himself out of it when nick had no idea what he was doing, but the more time they spent together and the more hockey competent nick became, the harder it was for brady to ignore XD

[duckprintspress]

Get to Know the Hockey Bois

Pre-orders for A. L. Heard's novel Hockey Bois open on December 1st, 2023. Yeah, it's a m/m beer-league hockey plot-ful romance, but what are these bois really like? Let's hear from them in their own words...

[template source]

[jhoomwrites]

Just remember that sometimes Brady's yinzer slips out without him noticing and Nick is D E L I G H T E D every time.

"careful, it's slippy."

"Jesus fuck, stop being so nebby."

"fucking jagoff"

"Nick, do we have any gumbands?"

"you want dippy eggs?"

"doesn't that place have a dek?"

[jhoomwrites]

It takes some pushing on Nick's part, but he finally convinces Brady to move up a league for hockey. He does a season of C league to get back into things, and aside from a bit of a rocky start, it's soon apparent that maybe that's not high enough for him. This time the nagging comes from Lucy, who comes to watch a game to support her brother. Nick has no idea why she's frowning the whole game, but as soon as Brady reappears from the locker room afterwards, he learns why: she demands he stop playing below his level and move up to B. Nick thinks this is maybe too much of a stretch, but Brady's shoulders sag in defeat and he admits yeah, he's having trouble reining himself in sometimes. Nick is obviously both devastated and turned on to find out his boyfriend is actually even better at hockey than he'd known.

(And it should be noted that while Nick is Brady's biggest fan, Brady is right there as Nick's too. When he first attends one of Nick's races - a local-ish 10k - he's gobsmacked by how fast Nick can run. And not just in a sprint!! He can maintain that speed for long distances!! At the next race, Brady makes a poster to hold up at the finish line, keeping it a secret until Nick crosses the finish line. And it's not just the sports - Nick's wickedly good at boardgames and card games, learning new ones and quickly devising strategies that almost break the intended game mechanics, and all to fuck with his cousins and keep them from winning. Brady doesn't necessarily condone the reckless competition between the cousins - which has notably resulted in a black eye, broken window, and Nick losing his voice on several occasions - but he does appreciate Nick's cleverness and maybe rewards it with a few new games every Christmas and birthday.)

Brady continues to play on the Jagr Bombs, of course. He's technically too high up in the league to be allowed, but he gets the commissioner to agree so long as he never runs up the score. He never has before, not in D league, so it's not an issue. Though it comes with a reminder to not "start any incidents." Brady knows damn well it really means "you punch someone, you're out for good this time." He agrees, mostly because he has no plans to punch anyone... but he admits to himself he probably would if they did that to Nick again. It'd be worth it, too.

Between both leagues, Brady's life outside of work fills with hockey again. It takes some time to get back to his high school level of conditioning (and he can never quite get there with his one bad ankle, but he compensates by being a better hockey player with the added years of experience), and he finds that pushing himself physically like that again helps with his mental health. He's got a job he enjoys, a boyfriend he loves, and he can physically push himself on the ice. It's great. Until the off season hits.

There isn't much of one, and usually there's only one league that's off and the other one's still running. But one summer, it lines up that both of his teams just... aren't playing. For three whole weeks.

Brady's been dealing with his depression long enough that the realization makes him antsy. He's jittery at dinner and too quiet, like he's waiting for something. And he is, really. He's waiting for the last bit of endorphins from playing to wear off, for the anxiety currently holding him together to not be enough, and the inevitable void to take over his mind for a few days. It's at the edges of his life, he's sure he can feel it, and it doesn't terrify him any less now than it did when he was younger and dealing with it alone.

But the crash never comes. Brady's in a bit of a mental fog, five days into his hockeyless summer break, when he realizes the fog is just his self-defense mechanism. He's not actually experiencing a depressive episode, he's fine. So he starts to wonder what's different, and the answer is, pretty clearly, that Nick's not letting him slip away.

When Brady's too quiet at dinner, Nick chatters away to fill in the silence. During all those times he should be at a game, Nick's found a hockey clinic or a stick and puck to fill that time. If Brady's too grumpy at night, Nick doesn't complain, just holds him a little tighter while they fall asleep. Brady looks at their shared calendar and realizes all the time stretching in front of him without hockey is actually filled with... well, not all of it's hockey, but a decent amount of it is, and the rest is social events or brewery outings. He's also fairly certain there's a thinly veiled surprise visit from Lucy in there, but he's sure he can muster up the appropriate fake surprise when that arrives.

So that night, he kisses Nick a little deeper than usual and as best as he can, thanks him for what he's done.

[jhoomwrites]

Riddles Three

you can blame @duckprintspress prompts for this one

“Before I can be wed to thee you must answer me these riddles three!”

Brady heaved a sigh, pinched the bridge of his nose, and mentally scolded himself for proposing to Nick after they’ve been drinking. There was never going to be another place to propose besides Krazy Dan’s (or possibly at a hockey rink, but he’d quickly nixed that because he was sure the team would be a distraction on what should be a private moment), but he hadn’t really thought about when during their weekly night out he should do it. Nick was in a good mood from a Caps win, buying shots for three other people in the whole beer, and Brady had seen his moment. 

And now of course, he regretted it just a little. 

“Okay,” he said as he looked back up to Nick, cheeks pink flushed from shot of tequila. “What’s the first riddle?” 

“Who was the last player on the Caps to have a six point game?”

“That’s not a riddle, that’s a trivia question-” 

“Answer it!” Nick said while playfully poking Brady square in the chest. 

Brady rolled his eyes and tried to think. He mustered all of the Caps knowledge he had (which was unfortunately more and more each day, much to Nick’s delight and Brady’s annoyance) and hoped he’d be able to come up with a reasonable answer. Ovechkin was the obvious choice, though Backstrom was another contender. Obviously Jagr had done it back in the day, but- 

He stopped, quirking his head to the side. Nick wouldn’t… 

“Jagr?” 

“Is that a question or an answer?” Nick said with a sly smile over the rim of his glass. 

“Answer.” 

“CORRECT!” Nick all but shouted. Brady shot an apologetic look to the other patrons at the far end of the bar, but apparently he and Nick were known quantities because they didn’t even glance their way. “Next question!”

“Nicky,” he all but pleaded. It wasn’t terribly effective - it never was, once Nick got going - in part because he was grinning. 

“What former Capital is a member of the Triple Gold Club?” 

This time Brady didn’t hesitate. “Jagr.”

“Also correct! Last question…” He licked his lips and leaned forward; Brady ignored the impulse to kiss him. “What Capitals player holds the record for most goals in a season?” 

As confident as he was in Jagr’s abilities, Brady knew where this one was going. “Ovechkin?” 

Nick winked. “That one was to keep you honest.” Now he grabbed Brady’s hand as he closed the last few inches between them and stole a kiss himself. “Guess we’re getting married.” 

[jhoomwrites]

lol this is the canon proposal BUT you can also read their wedding for free on my itch.io!

[duckprintspress]

Dialogue Prompts: Proposals Gone Wrong

We were in the mood for some silly fluff, so we cooked up the most awkward wedding proposal prompts we could think of.

“Why is my face on the jumbotron? Why are you on one knee? Oh God, can the whole stadium hear me right now?”

“This didn’t go at all like I planned.” “Which part - the downpour or the alligator?”

“No.” “But I haven’t even–” “Stop. Just no.”

“Oh my god - oh my god - does anyone here know the Heimlich maneuver?”

“Why did you drive me to a church? We’re engaged? We’re getting married? Since when?”

“Hey, you’re cute. Let’s get drunk and see if those Vegas chapels are as good as they say.”

“Before I can be wed to thee you must answer me these riddles three.”

“Okay, so…um…I really appreciate the whole song and dance…literal song and dance, wow…like, this was really something, but uh…no…I actually don’t want to marry you…ummmm…sorry?”

“Grandma’s will says I can’t inherit unless I marry someone by the end of the month… wanna go for it?”

“You could have warned me that marriage doesn’t grant citizenship in this country before I said yes…”

“Wow, that was a really sweet proposal… I would LOVE to spend the rest of my life with you…but…technically…I’m kinda already married…?”

“Darling…I love you…but we both know you’re clumsy as fuck, and maybe you should have considered that before pulling out a ring while kneeling beside the La Brea Tar Pits.”

“Marry you?? We’re in high school! I want to go to college, get a job, and at least travel to another country before I marry the first person I’ve ever dated!”

“How dare you?” “But…I proposed? I want to get married? To you?” “YES. THAT. HOW DARE YOU?”

“What’s this?” “A list.” “Of…?” “Challenges you’ll need to complete before I agree to marry you.” “…what does stealing from a gnome have to do with marriage?”

[runawaymarbles]

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

[zz9pzza]

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

[runawaymarbles]

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

[kyraneko]

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

[jeffsatyr]

(ID in alt)

[elodieunderglass]

Approximately one THOUSAND felonies