#beenghosting

[wretchedly]

yeet

[laerugo]

27, 33, 48!

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

a bit of both. how it usually goes is like this:

get struck by an idea, usually in the form of an extremely specific hypothetical scene that would be neat to explore. jot down notes/dialogue for that scene while it’s still fresh.     - for “water on mars,” this scene was garrus and shepard standing at anderson’s grave.     - for “down girl,” this scene was more like a loose vision of shepard/garrus in which their positions were reversed after the war, with him in command and her as an attaché or ‘companion’ and him coming to visit her at her workstation, both of them pining for each other, in a universe where they didn’t get together. this scene as i imagined it never came to be, but i adapted it into another one.     - for “golden if you let me,” it was a sort of image of hawke, dissociating and lost in her own head after the fight with the nightmare, wandering the fade alone.

don’t touch it for a while, while i work on other stuff, but in the background i come up with a bigger context, and i’m on the lookout for inspiration or ideas to expand on it.

usually this leads to more eureka! scene ideas and i jot those down if i get them too. more often than not these “snapshot” ideas are unrelated to the overall plot, but they’re inspiration for dialogue possibilities, potential relationship developments, etc. usually it’s just dialogue without much context other than a vague sense of if it happens “before” or “after” the main scene that inspired the thing.

when i revisit the fic officially, ready to work on it, it’s a bit like having a few puzzle pieces already on the table, so you make the puzzle outline before you start filling in the blank. i sort the scenes i know or have already chronological order, and if i know it’s gonna be a long story, then i write out a vague outline if i’m worried i’ll forget something. i also tend to jot down the outline in the same document, below the prose, so it’s easily on hand. then i get to slowly delete more and more of my notes as i write the “real thing” until eventually I have all words, and no outline.

of course, the outline isn’t written in stone. if it’s not working then I ignore it completely or rearrange the puzzle pieces and start over.

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

funny enough, I just got a rather touching comment on ao3 the other day. the long and short of it was that the person liked my fic enough (it was The Variable) that it inspired them to want to make something themselves. that’s the kind of feeling I am struck with ALL THE TIME when I read great work, so knowing that that feeling is what drives me, and knowing that I might’ve (somehow, unbelievably) passed it onto someone else was a really cool feeling.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

hm, I’m not sure what common tropes I write other than maybe “angst with a happy ending”? pining galore, maybe? also, battle couples. really, partners-to-lovers in most senses. but as for environmental tropes…. I like amnesia and the faked/presumed dead tropes the most, but mostly to read, not write.

writing asks

[xylodemon]

dean/cas fic: circular (1k)

circular; 1k, pre-coda, inspired by the latest 12x19 promo.

[AO3]

Dean jumps slightly when the bunker's door creaks. It's been over a month, but he still thinks please, please, please before looking up.

"Cas," Sam says.

Cas' shoulders are stiff. "Hello."

"Hey. You're all right. Um ─" Cas turns away and starts down the stairs. Sam glances at Dean before continuing, "Where've you been?"

Dean's pulse is thumping in his ears. "Lemme rephrase that for Sam: where the hell've you been? And why've you ignored our phone calls?"

"Where I was," Cas says, pausing beside the table, "the reception was ─ um. Poor."

Dean's jaw tics; being angry is easier than ─ it's just easier. He grunts, "No bars," and looks back at Sam. "No bars ─ that's his excuse." He takes a breath and meets Cas' eyes. "Wow."

"I was in Heaven. I was... working with the angels."

Dean's mouth moves but nothing comes out. On his third try he says, "You ─ Heaven? You were in Heaven?"

"Yes."

"So you ─ uh. You." Heat crowds up underneath Dean's jaw. "You were - did you -?" He's not sure he wants to ask that question in front of Sam, so he grumbles, "Whatever," and walks out of the War Room.

+

Sam must not interrogate Cas too long because he comes to Dean's room about five minutes later. He doesn't bother knocking, so Dean doesn't bother turning around. The door sighs as Cas pushes it closed. Dean kills the neck of his beer, then clunks the bottle on his nightstand. He grabs a flannel out of the hamper and tosses it at the "darks" pile at the foot of his bed.

When Cas finally says, "Dean," his voice dips. "I ─"

Dean cuts him off with a grunt. "So you've been upstairs this whole time?"

"Most of it, yes."

"And you ─" Sighing, Dean balls a denim shirt in his hand. Blood is spattered down one sleeve. "Could you, um. Did you hear me when I ─ when I, uh."

Cas shifts his feet. Quietly, he says, "Yes. I heard you pray."

Dean drops the shirt on the bed and turns around. "Okay." He'd said the first one sitting on the edge of his bed, picking at a loose thread on his blanket as he asked Cas to give them a call. The second and third had come on the road; one with Sam snoring in his ear and the other with Stay With Me buzzing on the radio. "Okay, yeah." He'd been halfway through a fifth of Jim Beam when he mumbled out the fourth. "It's good to know you give a shit."

"I wanted to come to you. I would've come to you, but ─"

"You were busy, I get it. You ─" Dean waves his hand around "─ you had angel shit to do."

Cas takes a step closer as he says, "Dean," and Dean can smell it now ─ the cold, windswept edge Cas had carried around all the time when he still had his wings. "The angels don't trust me. They probably never will. But we're going to need them to deal with Dagon and the nephilim, and I couldn't risk ─"

"Yeah, sure," Dean says, turning back to his laundry. The hamper nudges the back of his thigh. "We wouldn't wanna upset 'em ─ not the guys who beat you and stabbed you and tortured you. Not the guys who ditched you when you needed an army." He shakes out a shirt so hard it snaps like a tacking sail. "Not the guys who brainwashed you."

"Dean." Cas' voice is knife-sharp, but he doesn't say anything else. He just sighs and closes his eyes. He looks ─ he looks tired. "Dean, please."

"What?"

Cas hesitates for a moment. Then he shakes his head and says, "Nothing. I just ─ I don't understand you sometimes. You don't like it when I go to Heaven, but you don't really want me here, either."

"You ─ what?" Dean sighs and rubs his face. A dull headache is squeezing the base of his skull. "When did I say that? You ─ I never fucking said that."

"Dean," Cas says again. This time, it's weirdly gentle. "Do you remember the night Ramiel stabbed me?"

Dean mumbles, "Yeah," and throws a muddy pair of jeans on the bed. His gut lurches. "Yeah."

"Do you remember what I said to you?"

"I ─" Dean nods. "Yeah. You said that you ─ um. You know. That you loved us."

"You. I said I loved you." Cas tips his head to the side. "And you never addressed it."

"Cas. You - you, um. You ain't─"

"Dean," Cas says sharply. "Don't insult me by telling me I don't know how I feel."

"I'm not," Dean mumbles, flushing. "I'm just ─"

Cas says, "Dean," again, then grabs the flannel Dean's holding and tosses it on the bed. He takes Dean's hands and brushes his thumbs against Dean's palms. "As I laid there, dying, all I wanted was a little more time with you. I've lived for millennia and I ─ I was desperate for one more minute."

His thumbs slip down to stroke Dean's wrists, and it's such a soft, slow touch that it makes Dean shiver. A chill sweeps up his arm and prickles at the back of his neck. Dean stares at Cas for a few seconds ─ at the line of his throat and the curve of his mouth. He still smells like sharp, cold air.

After a moment, he drops Dean's hands. He murmurs, "Sorry," and takes a step back. "I shouldn't have ─"

"You running out on me again?" Dean asks. He doesn't have to fake the edge to his voice ─ anger is easier, always easier. "I was gonna ask if you were staying for dinner, but I guess you got other shit to do."

"Dean." Heat is rising in Cas' cheeks ─ he's fucking gorgeous. "I would stay if I honestly thought that's what you wanted."

"What makes you think it ain't?"

"I told you I loved you, and you ignored it. What am I supposed to think?"

"I didn't ─ um." Dean scratches the back of his neck. "Look, that night was pretty nuts. You almost died, and we had to burn Wally. And then my mother ran off with a fucking ─" Dean huffs out a noise and reminds himself it isn't his business. "And you ─ you skipped outta here first thing in the morning."

"Dean ─"

"You ─ just c'mere." Dean grabs Cas' face in both hands. He curls his fingers in Cas' hair, and Cas breathes out a soft, surprised noise that reels Dean in like a fishing line. He kisses Cas easy and slow, their mouths brushing and catching again and again and again. When he finally pulls back, he rests his forehead against Cas' and asks, "You gonna stick around?"

Cas doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

[laerugo]

52 and 54!

52. How did writing change you?

i’ve been “writing” since middle school so it’s kind of hard for me to tell who i would’ve been without it, but all i know is that it’s been one of the few consistent hobbies i’ve had for over ten years now since it was with me during my ~formative years~ or whatever. i know i use it as both a tool to work through my overthinking, and an enabler to continue overthinking, particularly when it comes to character depth, authorial intention, and world development. and, not to sound obnoxious, but i do think that writing semi-consistently all this time has had a noticeable effect on my student and professional life; i find i have to fight a lot less for academics or superiors to take me seriously, which i do attribute to how i communicate with them digitally (our company is very big on emails, records, and memos…).

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

urm, i have to think of something off the top of my head that sounds good

1. trust the reader

2. don’t fight a story/characters if they want to go in a certain direction. even if you follow it and it’s not what you want/expected, it’ll usually go somewhere interesting/helpful

3. the reader doesn’t see the struggle that goes on behind the page – you can struggle for weeks on a certain passage but they’ll digest it easily and will accept what you tell them. this isn’t really advice but it is something that i need to remind myself of more often when i fight with a certain part and eventually after sharing the whole thing with a friend they say “i didn’t notice any issues with it.” so not to say that problems you notice are all in your head, but… sometimes they aren’t as big a deal as you think? lol

[wretchedly]

beenghosting

  when Cas moves in for good, he starts asking Dean...

poor sam tho

he cannot catch a break

[wretchedly]

How to summon me:

>arrange 5 candles, all huckleberry scented, in a line in order of aesthetic pleasure

>stare into a mirror shattered into exactly 23 pieces

>whisper Dean Winchester wonders if Cas is even into sex or if hooking up with April was a fluke or turned him off of it but once they get together he learns that Cas has a VERY healthy appetite and even has trouble keeping up with him

>tie a strand of horse hair into a knot, soak it in whiskey, and light it on fire

>whisper again no seriously Cas is like... always ready to go (unless he’s in a shit mood, which happens hey he’s only human) and either he’s initiating or Dean asks if he’s up for a round and suddenly Cas is straddling him and holding his face while he kisses him silly making soft noises that’ll turn into deep moans real soon stay tuned pardner

[frecklesandfeathers]

hi, just a heads up you tagged me as the source for a gif i didn't make: the tape cassette gif was made by the user novaks. also, reposting other people's gifs is generally frowned upon, so I suggest removing the gif/post.

HI there. Yes Novaks contacted me and I will change it. Most people (including myself) don’t mind people reposting gifs if they give credit as in this situation. I was just using it to point out something. Thanks for the heads up.

[my-chaotic-thoughts]

Been a while...

Do i still have interactive followers? Reblog and welcome me back..