#and a bit sad irl...the catharsis is needed...

[burningcheese-merchant]

youll be fine merchant, after all i follow you because i like you saying things, you make things interesting in a way, im not sure how to describe it, but what i do want to say is that you dont need to feel that way, u doing fine and i hope you continue doing fine

I'm grateful for your kind words. I really am. I'm touched you took the time to say something to me. But... Idk.

I'm feeling very raw today. I want to be totally real just once. Just this one time. No sarcasm or joking around like I usually do. Be my therapist/blank wall to whom I address my words of woe for a minute. Then we can all go back to normal after that

I've been having a major crisis of self-confidence lately. Been feeling stupid. Useless. Good for nothing. Probably just the Big Sad talking but that guy hasn't shut up for an awfully long time and he's harder to tune out on some days

Writing was always an escape for me. A form of catharsis. I'm actually quite terrible at speaking to people irl. I'm very shy and awkward. Social anxiety on steroids. I always expressed myself better in writing as opposed to spoken words. Idk it just feels a lot less stifling to me. I feel more free. Less judged. More in control of my thoughts. If that makes any sense.

Bit the bullet and started posting fics on AO3 just to indulge myself. Never really expected to get any attention. There was a ship I liked and there weren't really any fics for it, so I became the change I wished to see in the world. That was all it was. You want something done right, do it your damn self.

Wrote more. Different things with different characters and different ideas. Gained a lot more traction. Caught another bullet in my teeth and made this blog. People seem to like my ideas for some reason. I start to think "hey. Maybe I really am a good writer."

Then I took a few story-shaped sledgehammers to the skull and remembered that no, I'm not. Lol.

Comparison is the thief of joy. I know that. Nobody needs to remind me. But it's easier said than practiced. Read biscuitlabyrinth's stuff and felt like a fraud. Read Jambound and felt like a skyscraper-sized fraud. It's hard not to compare yourself to others when the "others" are practically hailed as heroes by the fandom. When there are mountains upon mountains of fanart happily illustrating their work. When their story has the most hits and the most kudos and the most comments and the most bookmarks in the entire Cookie Run tag on AO3, and only receives more every passing day. When there are people who want to bind the fic and make it an actual, physical book, because they love it so much. No one has ever said or done any of that for me or my stuff. Never got even a fraction of that love or attention. Not even close. And I never, ever will.

Yeah yeah. Two cakes. Everyone has said that to me. But if you all had to choose. If you could only eat one cake while the other one went straight to the trash. You wouldn't pick mine, would you? You'd pick the other one. You'd pick Jambound. Everyone would. Even my friends on here would. Why bother wasting time and ingredients baking the thing if you know that's how it's going to be? What's the point?

I know I'm not owed success. Nobody is. It's earned. It just... hurts, I guess. It hurts to feel compelled to doubt yourself so strongly after finally allowing yourself to believe you've done a good job at something for once in your life. To feel like even when I try, even when I put my best foot forward, it's not good enough. Nobody actually cares. No one will ever think of you like they think of those other people and their work. No one will think of you at all. You're just a sad little wannabe loser, wallowing in their shadows.

I don't blame those people for these feelings. I don't blame anyone except myself. To think or do otherwise would be childish. No one is responsible for making me feel inferior/inadequate besides me. I accept that these thought and feelings are foolish. Whiny. Unfair. No one should pay them any mind. I'll sort through them on my own.

It's stupid, all of this. Oh no, some person's fanfiction is more popular than yours. Boo hoo. It's the end of the world. Stupid. It's all stupid. And yet, the feelings persist. It sucks. I don't want to feel this way. I'd rather just forget about it all and go back to being the loser who was content just writing for herself and nobody else, really. I don't look good in green, that's for sure lol. But it's hard. It's hard to let go of something that's got its jaws clenched around your neck so tight. Waiting for you to stop fighting and bleed out before it can finish its meal.

I always thought that writing was the only thing I was ever good at. That I was ever good for. Learned the hard way that that's not true. That my best was never anything but mediocre in reality. It's really no wonder Jambound is as beloved as it is. It's wonderful. Fantastic. It deserves all the praise it gets. I wish I could write half as well as that. But I don't. And now sometimes I wonder if anyone would even notice, even if I did.

I'm not happy writing anymore. Feels like it got snatched from me. The thing I love, that always brought me a measure of peace no matter how depressed I got. Gone. I can't draw worth a damn. I'm not funny. I'm not that smart. I never thought I had anything to give anyone except my writing. Now I understand that I don't have that, either. My cake sucks. No wonder everyone would rather eat theirs.

I'll get over it eventually. I'm stubborn if nothing else at all. I've got stories to tell and finish, even if they'll never mean anything to anyone except myself. Might as well. For my own sake.

There. Said my piece. Poured my miserable little heart out. Let's not talk about this anymore. Go back to enjoying the fancy, professional cake and celebrating the talented baker. Leave me to my cracked countertop covered in stale flour and rotten eggs and bland frosting. I never said anything worth listening to. I'm not sure I ever have.

No more self-pity after this, back to being a silly bozo as usual. Thanks for reading all this gunk if you bothered to for whatever reason. Y'all have a nice day. Better than mine, hopefully

[not-poignant]

I was thinking of how much work and effort you've poured into FFS and how you've had burnout and health issues since you've been writing it, and then I thought about how horrible Ef would feel knowing someone was experiencing all of that while trying to write his story and then I just felt really sad and protective of both of you.

I hope you're taking care of yourself. <3

I mean, I don't really like to think of it that way, because I get enough guilt from myself (and sometimes other people irl) and I don't want to feel guilty imagining what a fictional character feels re: how I live my life. And 'this person feels terrible about how you're treating yourself so maybe just don't treat yourself that bad so they don't feel terrible anymore' is like very much guilt-tripping. So you don't need to think about it that way anon!

Efnisien can't feel terrible about it, because he's a fictional construct, and I created this version of him mostly to help me get through the pandemic, and the story has very much succeeded at that, and I've talked about that a lot! :)

But quite aside from that - I've had burnout and health issues since I started writing. In fact, I started writing Falling Falling Stars as a way of coping with an even more severe burnout caused by The Ice Plague. It literally came into being as a comfort and catharsis fic for my own self-interest. I didn't really expect anyone to read it, except for like two people, my beta - who loves Efnisien - and...actually my beta lol.

I've always been very honest about being an ill writer. Chronically ill both in terms of mental illness and physical illness. That didn't start with Falling Falling Stars, and you may have missed it before, especially if you only came in to start reading re: the last year or so, but it's like... I have a big track record being very honest about everything from chronic suicidality, to cancer treatments, to burnout due to working too hard and seeing a therapist about it. I've taken long Patreon hiatuses, I didn't work on The Golden Age that Never Was for 8 months, like, me being burnt out, or exhausted, or sick, did not start with Falling Falling Stars.

It's one of the main reasons I write, because if I was healthier, I would have ended up in a different career choice. I write a lot of trauma recovery because I live a lot of trauma recovery. I tend to write characters who aren't actually going through as much as I am, because it starts to become one of those 'that seems unrealistic, no one is dealing with ALL of that stuff at the same time.' But some of us are.

Falling Falling Stars has been an incredibly helpful process for me, even though I've been sick and burnt out at times while writing it. And I've talked a fair bit about that too (maybe you've missed those posts, or maybe it's just easier to focus on the burnout ones). But here's a whole thread about it that I posted on Twitter. There's like 6 listed reasons in that thread re: how Falling Falling Stars has helped me so much, so I think reading that might help. :)

But even if Falling Falling Stars was really hard to write, and was causing more burnout, etc. I don't think imagining my characters feeling really awful about it, or thinking that they feel terrible on my behalf, is a very motivational thing for me to think about. I already have people in real life that wish I didn't push myself too hard, and you know what I do when I feel guilty? Hate myself. Try to hide my problems from them. And conceal the truth from others. You know what it doesn't do? Magically fix the fact that I work too hard to cope with incredible levels of incurable 24/7 pain, fatigue, PTSD and illness. I really really don't need to create more of that in my own head, y'know? Guilt might seem motivational, but it's not really that motivational.

I'm super happy that Efnisien doesn't feel terrible about how I live my life because he's just a character, and he doesn't feel anything about me at all. He doesn't even know I exist. Writing stories is a place I can go to not experience extra guilt and the difficulties of interacting with real people who might go: 'You know I feel awful that you treat yourself this way' and make my problems about themselves, and make me feel responsible for something that isn't actually my issue at the end of the day. (If they feel that bad about it, probably they need to either not be my friend, or see someone about how to cope with their own helplessness, because if other people truly thought that kind of thinking would fix me, I'd be fixed). I know you mean well anon, it might even be a way of thinking that really helps you! And if it does, I'm really glad that it does.

But I'm not looking to feel guiltier about being a sick person who engages in unhealthy behaviours sometimes to cope with being a sick person. And I love Falling Falling Stars, and I've already cut back on how much I was writing it compared to this time last year. (Which I've also mentioned in posts).

I cannot avoid burnout. Even if I did nothing, eventually being this sick just runs my body and brain into the ground. Sometimes waking up and having a shower makes me so tired I start crying and have to go back to bed. I'd rather experience burnout while also getting to feel productive, engaging with people online, enjoying myself and getting to write someone's trauma recovery! Rather than just by lying in bed, still getting brain fog, still feeling agony, still being exhausted, etc. Like obviously I need to learn to strike a balance with it, but I'm better at it than I used to be.

Take care, anon!

[taetaesbaebaepsae]

Bittersweet Deja Vu

A/N: No one asked for this, I just feel some type of way about Lim Changkyun, ok

Summary: It’s the same story, every time.

Warnings: Angst, alcohol tw, toxic relationship, a slap or two (but he lowkey likes it), smut, many many feelings, I’m projecting I’ve felt this IRL it’s ROUGH

Word Count: 1724

It's the same story, every time. You go out with your friends, you frequent the same clubs. He's there. He's always there, as if he can sense you trying to forget him, trying to move on, trying to feel anything other than the void you feel when you think of him.

It's a bittersweet deja vu, how he hovers, just close enough to make your skin tingle but not close enough to touch. When you move away, his eyes follow you. You feel them burning a hole in your back while you're dancing with someone else, can almost see the sneer on his face without turning around.

You know he'll wait until he's just buzzed enough to mask whatever he's feeling, to lash out at you, grab your wrist too roughly, and you hate the way both your chest and your body aches when he kisses you hard, hungrily.

You never quite remember getting back to your place or his, but that's always the same, too.

He's always mad at you, you're always indignant, you're both tipsy and petty and you both say the cruelest things to hide the truth.

"I can't believe I came home with you, with all the options I had," you snap when he won't stop being passive aggressive.

You hate yourself for the victory you feel when you see hurt flash in his dark eyes, if only for a split second, because you feel like your heart is torn open and bleeding with every harsh word from his mouth.

You're facing him in the living room, and he sets his jaw and looks away.

When he speaks, his voice is deep and calm but you know there's a fire boiling beneath.

"Forgive me. I'm sorry I interrupted your whoring for the night."

You hear the crack before you realize you've moved your hand to slap him.

He's advancing on you, backing you against the wall, and you're not afraid because you know he'd never physically hurt you but you are afraid because you can't stand being this close to him. It makes your skin quiver, makes your heart thump, makes you feel things you'd tried to bury years ago.

There's fire in his eyes and you know him well enough to know it isn't anger or lust but both, and you shiver when he hisses in your ear.

"Fucking hit me again. Do it."

You push against his chest, hard, hating the angry tears that threaten behind your eyes.

He barely budges. "Hit me. I can take whatever you've got, baby. Hit me again."

He's snaked his arms around your waist and you're trying to wriggle away before you give in but he just holds you tighter.

Finally you do hit him again, but it's weak, you're weak, you feel like if he let you go you'd slump to the floor.

He smirks at you.

"That's my girl."

Then his mouth is crashing down onto yours and you can't help the moan that's muffled by his lips.

He rocks his hips into yours and of course he's hard, isn't he always, you're both such goddamn masochists.

You're grasping at his shirt before you can stop yourself and he's already unhooked your bra with one hand while you were distracted, the bastard, and you hate him hate him hate him but you can't get enough of the feel of his skin smooth beneath your palms.

His breath speeding up is your favorite tempo, his voice, low and sultry, your favorite melody.

It's a race to your bedroom (although sometimes you don't quite make it, tonight you do) and he skates his hands over your naked body, making you shake.

"It's okay that you fuck other guys. You know why?"

As if you care, as if you needed his goddamn permission. You wanted to say it but the words catch in your chest because he's staring into your eyes like you're the only woman alive and that's what makes your throat ache with tears.

"Because I know the truth."

His voice is low and almost soothing as he twists one of your nipples between his long fingers, making you cry out, arch your back.

He leans over you and you spread your thighs and he's inside you in one smooth movement, breath hitching in his chest as he murmurs in your ear.

"You always wish they were me," he says, and he won't break eye contact even when you close yours and moan, arching up, nails digging into his shoulders, legs wrapping around his waist because you can't get him deep enough, can't get close enough to keep him with you after you've both come to your senses.

He moves his hips just quick enough to leave you gasping but not hard enough to make you come.

"Tell me you're mine, baby," he says, and you know he's taunting you but you also know he'd love to hear you say it.

"Never," you hiss, and he smiles at you but it's a bit sad and your chest hurts.

"That's okay. I know it, anyway. I know you're mine and no matter how much you hate me, you know it too."

You set your jaw and look away, screwing your eyes shut against the tears that spring to your eyes. Because he's right about both things. You're his and you hate him.

His low, growly moans have you bucking your hips because he's close and so are you and when you finally come you lean up to kiss him and you bite his lip, hard, tasting blood like iron on your tongue and he groans your name in your mouth and it's your favorite sound in all the world.

After it's over and you're both sweating and staring at the ceiling, one of you breaks.

Sometimes you break first, and sometimes he does.

Tonight, it's him, and you hate how much it hurts but also how giddy you feel.

He's got his forearm over his eyes, still panting, and he doesn't look at you.

"I fucking love you," he says, and his voice is almost defiant.

You keep your eyes trained on the ceiling, trying hard to keep your heart from galloping out of your chest. You don't trust yourself to speak, and he rolls over and props up on his elbow, trailing his fingers from your collarbone to your hip.

"You fucking love me too, I know it. Sometimes you even say it," and his voice gets deeper and deeper and you are angry at him and yourself for the tears that spill down your cheeks.

He kisses the tear tracks, rolling on top of you and taking your face in his hands. His eyes are wet, too, voice hoarse.

"Why do you do this, baby? Why do you hurt me so bad?"

You've said the same thing to him, almost verbatim, and your head spins. Is it now, or then? Now or two weeks ago, three months ago, a year ago?

How many times can you repeat the same scene and expect different results before you go insane?

"Because you won't love me in the morning," you say, and it's another repeat, another rerun.

"You're wrong," he says, jaw working, stubborn to the end, and you just shake your head and roll away from him.

You can't relax until he's got his hand on your back, though, rubbing soothing circles, and when he puts his arm around your waist you become a grateful little spoon, fitting perfectly with the back of your head on his chest, legs tangled together.

Sometimes the daylight streaming through the blinds wakes him and he kisses your throat and touches you so gently it makes you want to weep all over again.

He's sleepy and sweet, lips all over you and those mornings are what you replay over and over when you let yourself miss him.

His voice husky with sleep, praising you as you ride him are the words you replay when you're in bed alone.

"Look at my beautiful girl. I missed you so much, baby. You feel so good," and you let yourself love him, then, let your heart open like a blossom that only blooms in this moment.

It's the best feeling in the world, how he holds you tight against his chest when it's over, strokes your hair and apologizes for the night before.

"I'm sorry. I just...I love you so much I don't know what to do with it, you know?"

You nod against his chest because you do know, and you hate the way you hope this time it'll end differently.

"I hear about you going on dates and I see you dancing at the club and I lose it, baby. I just want you to be mine, okay?"

The hope tears at your throat because that is different, he's never said it quite that way before, and when he keeps talking you lift your head to look at him, shocked by how much he's revealing.

He strokes your jaw with his thumb and he's smiling so softly, revealing those dimples in his cheeks and you don't know if it is different or if you've just forgotten how in love with him you are.

"I think of this face every morning when I open my eyes. Doesn't matter where I am or who I'm with, it's always you."

You kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, his mouth, his nose, the tears that spill down his cheeks, his jawline.

His arms tighten around you.

"Tell me you love me, yeah? Just today. Just today, tell me you're mine."

You know you'll hate yourself later but it bursts out of you like fire.

"I always love you, Kyun. I'm always yours."

He holds you like that for hours and you talk and laugh and tease each other for the mean things you've said and done, and it hurts but it's like a catharsis, and your heart is soaring but you're wary, because this feels familiar, too.

You fall asleep again listening to his heart beat slow against your ear.

The most bittersweet deja vu of all is that somehow you've forgotten how much it hurts when he's gone when you wake, no trace of him but the smell of him on your skin, lingering on you like smoke.

[elcorhamletlive]

talking about preferring a tragic ending is hard because it touches a little in the larger fandom trend of “only happy/wholesome/pure things are allowed”, and this is a trend I find super alienating for several reasons. like... I don’t know if it can be called purity politics, but I feel like a large part of fandom has taken “things don’t need to be dark and edgy in order to be good” and “I personally only like consuming happy media because media is my escapism and I like it when it makes me feel good”, both of which are true statements, and turned into “only the happiest, cotton-candy sweet things are good writing, everything else is unnecessary and boring and if your fiction makes me feel even the slighest hint of a negative emotion you’re a shitty writer and you should be ashamed of yourself”. 

and that’s just... alienating in many levels, because it really feels like not even the smallest bit of stakes in a story are allowed. like... i’ve seen people saying endgame does not have a happy ending and i’m just like????? what? the bad guy is fully defeated??? nearly all the people who died in the previous movie go back to life unharmed??? the world is saved? how is this NOT an objectively happy ending? because a grand total of TWO people had to die in order to SAVE THE UNIVERSE??? 

i just... can’t. and it goes beyond that, too, all this incredibly annoying “2012 tower fic is THE BEST TYPE OF FIC EVER” talk, which of course bleeds into “AA is the best verse” talk (because the only amount of conflict tumblr can handle is the amount of conflict allowed in a children’s show), which just... becomes so suffocating to engage with after a while (especially because there’s this arrogant “THIS is what is actually good, fuck anything else” logic behind it). 

idk. i feel like this comes from many things, including the fact that this is a generation of fandom that grew used to consume nothing BUT fic and fic is, by nature, the most self-indulgent medium ever created (which is good but, when applied to other mediums, creates the very entitled attitude we see in fandom today). and to me it just gets... very very suffocating and annoying, even if i DO like wholesome fluffy shit sometimes, because it just implies that You Are Wrong if you don’t.

(there’s also an element of gendered expectations that bothers me immensely - that people feel very free to make the “wholesome media = fandom’s preference = women’s preference” equation, which just makes me feel bad as a woman who doesn’t care that much about that. and it’s even worse when anything different than Teh Wholesomeness(tm) is framed as “stuff coming from those icky toxic fanboys”. it’s just a bizarre moment of progressive tumblr politics reflecting the same tired, oppressive gender stereotypes we see in the real world)

and i guess to me it hurts because i really view fiction as a safe space to explore all sorts of negative feelings as well, and sometimes i really want to read/watch/play something and feel hopeless and sad and miserable about it, because this catharsis helps me feel deal with my negative feelings irl as well, and it feels like current fandom trends don’t even acknowledge this as a way to engage with things, let alone a “valid” one.

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told + Chapter 33 Update

Hello everyone! First off, I am so, so, SO sorry for taking so long to update. I am about to put the finishing touches on Chapter 33, and if all goes according to plan, I should have it for you between March 7th-9th - just in time for Captain Marvel! Meow. This chapter is clocking in at OVER 30,000 WORDS, so although it has taken me an abysmally long time to complete it, I hope the length will make it somewhat worthwhile. 

And now for your Asks! These contain a spoiler for chapter 15 and some milder spoilers for some of the later chapters (30-32-ish). 

I understand this completely. I have problems with a lot of military fics because of their verisimilitude (or lack thereof). I will say in general that I have had a good deal of affiliation with military-related environments and individuals in my life and that I have done my research to the best of my abilities. Part of why I take so long to update is the immense amount of research I do. That said, as I mentioned at the beginning of the fic, sometimes I may stretch or alter the details (a platoon/fire team/company is not as small as I portray it, same with convoy sizes etc.) in order to make it easier for me to write. And I will just plain screw stuff up because I’m a person. But over all, the most important thing for me is to capture the themes of deployment, war, recovery, readjustment (or not), trauma, etc. and convey these things with realism. But I do try to get a lot of the details right, too. 

I hope a lot of this stuff rings true to you in the fic. I invite you and other uniformed personnel and veterans to DM me and let me know how I can make the details ring truer. I have shaped the work in other ways based on feedback and am willing to do it further, provided I don’t have a good reason for making things the way they are now. 

Yeah, I’m sorry I had to turn off anons because of the trolls. I’m glad you enjoyed the emotional catharsis for Steve here. He really needed to actually feel his emotions rather than turning everything into pain and puke. (BTW, meta note, I write a lot of vomit for some reason. I know it’s a large part of being a heavy drinker, because you just can’t drink that much and not puke a lot, and I wanted Steve to be a puker because I wanted to showcase a huge somatic reaction, but yeesh, what is UP with the all the puke? I hate vomit IRL, so much.)

And I am the worst queer in the world, as I was just told by a virtual stranger yesterday, because I have NOT seen A Star is Born yet. But I am going to watch it this week! I’m glad that it rang true with this depiction of addiction. Relapse is messy, and it happens on anniversaries - Oh, the anniversary relapse is a BIG thing in recovery. I’m excited to see the parallels now. Thank you for the rec!

I am actually TERRIBLE at recommending fic in the sense that I barely read any at all :(    I’m ruined for most fics these days because if it’s not profoundly, painfully realistic, I have trouble buying into it. I hate that I’m so picky now. I wish I had a bunch of great recs I’m holding out on, but if you’ve seen my bookmarks, you’ve seen many of the ones that stick out most for me. A lot of them are because I love the writing itself, which helps me get my creative wheels turning when I need to craft good prose. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.

But seriously, @praximeter​‘s The Night War: 60th Anniversary Edition FTW. It’s my all time favorite fic and one of the most excellent character studies - and one of the best studies in trauma - I’ve ever read. Talk about an unreliable narrator. And it raises some excellent questions about who we let fight and under what circumstances - how much do we use people in war, even if they’re clearly so compromised from trauma that they can barely function? You’ve got to REALLY read it, though. It’s not a lazy read. Highly recommended, though. Be prepared to have your guts torn out of your body and thrown on the floor and danced upon by Prax. It makes her Mask Fic look like a giggling prance through the daisies.

Yeah - I think the last chapter was exhausting and distressing and disheartening for many. And it was maybe a bit confusing, in regards to Bucky’s relapse. On one hand, he’s a hawt LITERAL mess. But on the other hand... this is not unexpected. This is part of recovery, especially for a lifelong alcoholic. He planned it. He took some steps to mitigate risk. He was not trying to off himself. He had a limit set. He just didn’t want to cope in healthy ways anymore and he made an informed adult choice to drink a fuckton of vodka for a week. Was it healthy? Good GOD, no. But he was doing it with an oddly sound mind, right? He tried other means of coping first. He gave it his best, and he decided to do this instead. And he cleaned up his mess after and put his clothes on and did the big boy thing and called his therapist. So even though it was awful and gross and sad, you could also look at it as a stark contrast from his Carle Place days. And he LOOKED AT HIS DICK...!!!!! HOLY SHIT. That is a feat 19 months in the making. And he did it sober. That in itself is impressive. 

But I can definitely see pain for a lot of people, and the exhaustion of this chapter, the OH GOD just STOP IT, here we go AGAIN. And that is how friends and families and loved ones of addicts can feel, and the addicts themselves! Tired. Just tired of the same old thing, over and over. But he also made a lot of objective progress in important ways. Even if it doesn’t feel like it because the progress is covered in old pizza crust and vomit and dildos (yes, even the BIG ONE). 

This is referring to Chapter 15, when Bucky was in the hospital after his surgeries, yes? I don’t think he needed a trach tube, actually. He had his weapon up to his face to aim at the enemy, so his neck/airway didn’t sustain any major injuries because his arms and rifle took the brunt of the shrapnel. His internal organs were spared from major injuries because of his body armor. He needed to have his collapsed lung decompressed in the field, but that was it. That might have been followed up with more drainage later at a field hospital. I figured his alveoli were ruptured from the IED blast wave, leading to the collapsed lung, which is usually treated with 100% oxygen, so no trach needed there. And when I researched other reasons why one would need a trach, I didn’t see anything that would really apply to him. So no trach for Bucky! You can spare him that little bit of misery in your imagination, if you WANT.

Haha, yes, the “enjoyed... I think?” parallels the “I’m glad... I think?” that I feel/write when people say they’re wrecked by the fic. I’m so glad this has encouraged you to do some research! I’d love to know what on. There are so many threads to chase. Just glance at the TAGS, my God. Choose your own adventure. Thank you for letting me know you’re enjoying and that it’s sparking your curiosity!

Ugh, I would love to say that I have a great schedule for updating planned, but as you can probably surmise, I am slow and unpredictable. My life has gotten much, much busier since I started writing this fic and my work far more draining, so both time and energy aren’t on my side these days. I don’t dare to promise an update on any kind of schedule because I just can’t say. I’m sorry. And you’re absolutely right - it’s because I want to deliver the best quality I can. And I’m also trying to give you huge meaty chapters, too. But I HOPE it won’t be another five months before the next update. I really do. The next chapter will probably be shorter, so that’ll help. I will really do my best. 

This is a GREAT question. I think it’s important to note that dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) - although originally designed for borderline personality disorder (BPD) - is trans-diagnostic treatment as a skills group. This means that it can be for anyone who needs help with regulating emotions and managing their relationships better. We don’t really know what Bucky’s diagnosis is. BUCKY doesn’t know what it is. All he knows is that Scott identified his functional life problems and thought the group would be a good fit. Bucky sure does have some BPD traits, but it’s also important to note that some of these traits can also be present in someone with a fuckton of trauma - especially from childhood. 

I set out to write someone with just a lot of trauma, really. Someone who had difficulties with regulating emotions as a core problem. Someone who used sex and booze and avoidance to manage everything. And also someone with a lot of attachment and intimacy and trust problems, which can really all look like BPD! And they can all look like developmental trauma! I wanted it to not be entirely clear what was going on, because that’s often how people appear in real life. We’re not quite sure what Scott makes of him, except that he sees he needs healthy skills DESPERATELY and wanted to get him in this group ASAP. (Good call, Scott!) 

Okay, everyone! Thank you so much for all the love and great questions!! I’ll be in touch in a couple weeks with more BW for you. Thank you for all of your support and patience <3