#jaydickdonna

[strialternatives]

jaydickdonna commission for @runnfromtheak thank you so much for commissioning me, this was super fun to work on ♡ ♡ ♡ 

[runnfromtheak]

begrudging self-love retrospective

tagged by my loves @bitterleafs and @epistemologys

"Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2021. Tag as many creators as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!"

I wrote more than I thought this year tbh, so this will be a bit hard because a lot of my works were brain infestation passion projects that consumed me until I released them.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#1, of course, is a fic I am beyond proud of. My longest, my best, and my piece for the 2021 JayDick Summer Exchange: A Dwindling Mercurial High.

It was beyond fun delving into the different post-crisis periods and developing a case fic with twists and turns that surprised most people while delivering on the angst I am known for. It also has multiple endings for the lovely crow, and also because I couldn't see anyone way the case could end. Exploring Dick trying to uncover Gotham's post-Bruce Wayne mysteries while exploring Jason Todd grieving and trying to understand the dichotomy of Dick Grayson really helped me understand both of them better. It was a passion project, and I loved every minute of it.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Coming in #2 is my late offering to the still-active Catradora fandom that I adore far too much. Adora's such an interesting and complex character that I had to write out my take and it kept spiraling and spiraling as I got more and more in touch with who Adora is at her core. First and foremost, it is a character study, but it's also a bit of a tragic love story at the moment as Adora tries to let go of the one constant she's always had.

This one will be finished by February, hopefully, as my interests fluctuate but my need to explore Adora more remains constant.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#3 is a prayer for which no words exist, created in celebration of one of my best friends' birthdays (ico) and inspired by the works of Richard Siken from his collection Crush. It was a bit more project with coping mechanisms than most fics are, but I think that made it more raw and relatable. Writing it felt very intimate, and in ways, I think the fact that Dick is grappling with trauma most people can't understand but copes in ways we all do helps us understand him better. He's sad and pining, but he's trying to be strong because no one else is around to pick him up. And at the end of the day, be it romantic or platonic, don't we all just want to be loved and accepted?

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#4 is my contribution to aggressively arospec week, which celebrates those on the aromantic (a label I personally identify with) spectrum and the works they create around such things. I really, really, liked how this fic turned out and how people responded to it. Part of writing is throwing emotions into the void in hopes of reciprocity, or even understanding. Sometimes, it's a need to release emotion, and sometimes it is a need to let others know they aren't alone. This was a mix of the two, and I'm delighted it helped people. <3

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#5 might be a bit suprising. Majority of my fics are JayDick, with some rare-pairs cast in between, but this fic is dedicated to another of my best friends' birthdays (the wonderful Q aka @withthekeyisking-writer) and an exploration of the way I view one of the most deliciously problematic pairings people hate to love and love to hate: of course, I'm talking about Sladick. It may not be Alabama-style fun times, but it's deliciously dangerous and sexy in a way I didn't know I was capable of writing. It pushed the boundaries of my writing style and made me innovate a bit and grow a lot. Beyond that, it made me realize sometimes Dick just needs a Zaddy to make him stop angsting. Q, my dear, you're entirely to blame for my corruption.

I have (2) honourable mentions:

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

and

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

These are both fics I didn't think I was capable of articulating outside of my imagination, ones that seemed too big and grand for me. not to mention they are polyamorous, OT3-centric, fics which is very intimidating to write. Two people in a relationship is difficult, especially finding a good ebb and flow with clashing personalities and keeping them both in character. 3 or 4? Infinitely more so. But, the writing in them is beautiful to me, and I am so excited to continue them and develop these relationships that have come to mean so much to me. I'm proud that I am trying new things, and developing my style further and further. So, yeah.

Now back to my regularly scheduled self-loathing mwahahahahaha

taggin @luthienluinwe, @withthekeyisking-writer, @nightwingvixen23, and @stevieraebarnes in case some of you haven't already done it. Lmfao good luck!

[runnfromtheak]

So I would like to share that I did the fic! The JayDickDonna fic I’ve shared some snippets of! Anyways I’ll link it here!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30202626/chapters/74419272

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Here’s the summary:

There’s a saying, an excerpt from a story written on tea-stained pages, written in an old journal scented with the musk of age: you don’t fall in love, you shatter. You break parts and bits of yourself to fit that person in, make a mosaic from the old and the new, make a teacup lined with gold out of porcelain fragments. You don’t jump from a cliff of not love to land in it; love isn’t a journey, it’s an immersion, it’s a drowning, it’s a break in logic and a break in person and an opportunity for rebuilding and a new form of beauty in place of the loveliness of solitude. Dick doesn’t fall with love at Jason’s feet, with Jason’s bruise like a fingerprint on his skin, like a kiss or caress or marking. Dick shatters.

Three people fall together and apart like stars.

[runnfromtheak]

daily snippet time! This one comes from the JayDickDonna fic that will not stop growing, and is currently nearing 15k and only just at a halfway-ish mark unless I can speed things up. I love this particular part, and figured I'd share cause who doesn't love a little suit trauma and identity issues? Dick. Dick doesn't. But we all know by now this is not a safe space for him ;)

It isn’t just the suit, but that event and all things associated with it (see: Batdad beatdown with the rules of Fight Club, the exposure and the axing of (1) Richard John Grayson, Spyral and not-so-sexy missions with lots of blood and not a lot of morals, a Jason Peter Todd not speaking with him. See: Tarantula and Blockbuster and Chemo. See: Mirage and Koriand’r and engagement rings that burn. See: Damian’s corpse and Jason’s corpse and Joker’s blood crimson on azure. See: Renegade and Slade and Donna dead and Roy on drugs and Lian’s death. See: Joker burning down the circus and Firefly burning down the circus and Talon as his once-destiny and a gold suit built for him in his mind’s eye. See: everything and nothing at all.) The suit is too tight. The suit is too constrictive. The suit is too suffocating. The suit is the furthest thing from him imaginable, and he doesn’t know how to phrase that. How to admit to that.

[runnfromtheak]

Snippet from a fic project I’m hoping to release within the next week featuring JayDickDonna post Spyral ❤️❤️❤️ it’s entirely Epi’s fault.

(Everyone who would care, every person who would grieve and cry and write eulogies and miss him and carry him like a physical burden in their grief, already has done all that. They carry his memory like a torch or a mantle, they speak his name in past tense and feel pain whenever they see reminders that he’d existed. He is dead to them, in the most literal sense possible, and his own state of existence is only relevant by the frame of reference through which he is viewed. Isn’t that what Einstein had said? Everything is relative?

Or maybe it’s more of a Quantum thing. Maybe he’s Schrödinger’s spy, dead and alive until someone opens the box and looks, really looks and sees him.

Or maybe it’s that age old question if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? But instead it’s if a person dead in all but the medical sense dies and no one is there to witness it, when did he really die?)

[runnfromtheak]

@luthienluinwe tagged me FOREVER AGO to post seven lines from a WIP and tag seven people, so I shall!

“He’s really dead,” Donna Troy says over a vodka bottle they pass between them every sip or so softly, blue eyes staring off at something in the distance, glittering with unshed tears. “Isn’t he?”

It hadn’t really sunk in before now. Not even at the funeral with the speeches and with Bruce acting like a real human being with real tears being shed. It hadn’t sunk in when they’d watched Dick’s coffin being lowered into a six-foot deep hole made out of dirt, or when they’d gone home apart and met today. It sinks in now, in a quiet moment over Gotham city watching the sun set on a world where Dick Grayson isn’t going to fly across the skies ever again.

Because he’s dead.

Jason pries it from her ironclad grip and sits himself next to her, shoulder to shoulder, feeling the way her chest heaves, the way she shudders when he dips the bottle back.

From a previously mentioned JayDickDonna fic I am never going to finish because it won't stop growing <3 tagging: @icosagens, @stevieraebarnes, @boyblunder-thedarkheir, @epistemologys, @behindtherobinsmask, @strialternatives, and @nightwingvixen23

[runnfromtheak]

Post of the day for writing snippet! I would have done it earlier but I had a nap instead bc sleep deprivation be like that sometimes lmfao!! Have more JayDickDonna fic sneak peek as the word count grows!!

It’s the loneliness, the isolation of everyone you’ve ever loved thinking you’re dead because you’d died but not stayed dead. It’s the grief, the agony still cracking his ribs with every heartbeat, every reminder that his Robin is no longer in existence. It’s the pain, the hatred he feels for Bruce, the hatred he feels for every godforsaken member of this organization, the hatred he feels for himself for not fighting harder. It’s the fact that he knows he’s left his loved ones in a world of suffering thinking he’s dead when he’s anything but, not that Bruce cares any.

Being a number is inconsequential. The only number he has to watch out for here, after all, is number one. (God how he hates it.)

[runnfromtheak]

today's daily snippet comes from jaydickdonna fic, which officially is titled halfway to heaven with nowhere to go!

“He always did love his games,” Jason snarls, standing up and staring down at his past in some other kid’s skin. His death on some other kid’s head. “I’ll contact the others. Keep a patrol ‘round the Narrows. Last four kids frequented that area, so he’s probably snatchin’ them from there.”

Montoya nods, a flash of pity crossing her face as she looks back down at the kid.

Jason wonders if people had looked at him like that at his autopsy. That 'you’re too young to be dead, what a waste of life' look. He wonders if this kid will look the same as he did on that silver table with a y-incision carved in his skin.

He shivers. It isn’t cold.