No I’ll still post those! I’ve had this blog for too long and have too many friends to delete it, but I’m trying to be safe and store everything elsewhere. I’ll be more active socially in the other communities because frankly screw Tumblr. Also, if you want to make sure you get fic updates, subscribe to me on AO3! I’ll just make sure to not put any female presenting nipples in my update posts, and maybe we’ll be okay. 😉

Oh man, anon! I just looked in my in-box and saw that I’d missed this! What a lovely thing to read today! I’m actually working on C14 as we speak (along with about 4 other WIPs…). That particular bit in C10 was one of the two scenes I had in mind for this story from moment one, and I’m so stoked that you loved it!! I’m also really stoked for what’s coming up at the end of this new chapter, and for the art that’s going with it! 

Thank you so much dear.

I’ve literally thought about this message all day. I keep coming back to the phrase “childish wonder” and it just…makes me so happy. God forbid the day I lose that. I’ve told people before I’ll be 85 years old chilling in my assisted living playing Sims 19 and wearing a Star Wars t-shirt. I’m young at heart and I want to stay that way. There are so many burdens that weigh on us constantly, and I think retaining some small safe haven is the only thing that will get me through. I’m happy I found fandom and writing. I didn’t even know fandom existed until a few years ago. 

I don’t know how it is that I’ve helped you to not feel bad about not writing for long periods of time, but THANK GOD I have, because friend listen. You don’t need to feel bad, EVER, for not giving the world a piece of your heart / soul when you don’t have the energy or time to give it.  Lord knows I feel that way. I feel like if I don’t publish a new chapter every week people will just not care about my stories any more. And then, hey! We get posts like “where’s my Kylux content???” from people that haven’t seen anything new in the last week! It’s so discouraging.

I can tell you for absolute sure that I do NOT feel influential. I feel like a fucking shitstorm/trashfire just trying to get through the day, but if I’ve helped you at all then damn I guess it’s worth it. If you ever want someone to sob about creativity with, or hug you while you’re writing, or just…anything. I don’t bite. *snug*

Awww, thank you! @nerdherderette and @mssdare (who I can never tag) and I really had a lot of fun with it! 

It started with us just hashing out various ideas together in a chat. We made a little discord server just to talk about the fest and coordinate (and we still sit in there lol). We each picked an aspect of the fest we thought fit us best (like I’m on Tumblr a lot, so I managed the blog, and @nerdherderette is an AO3 ninja, and Mssdare managed our Twitter and she made all the boards with her amazing skills!). 

We were really lucky in that it seemed low key enough that nothing arose that was upsetting to any of the participants or us, and having a really clear set of rules / guidelines that we reposted with each board helped a lot, I think. We had a really clear plan and each board was complete for every week before we started.

I’m excited to imagine you might be thinking of running a fest! 

Sounds like you and I agree on that aspect of post-TLJ Kylux. I mean, if shipping Kylux after TLJ means I condone abusive relationships, does that mean that if I like Kylo Ren after TFA I condone patricide? It’s really not that much different (if it’s even different at all). 

I’m glad we got more material on Hux from the novelizations and other books, and I’m with you in feeling like he was comic relief in TLJ. That was (is) my primary motivation in the creation of GW–I absolutely hated what RJ did to his character so I determined to write something different for him. GW is actually a fix-it fic for Hux as much as a Kylux story. 

And no, your questions haven’t bothered me! I’m glad you care about my thoughts on the matter! ❤

I probably think about Kylux way too much, tbh, lol. Honestly that sentiment after TLJ bugged me a lot too, but I think most of those people left the fandom behind. I really have no patience for hearing about how I should or should not ship something, or what it means about me if I do. 

Aww, thank you! That makes me happy that you think this. 🙂

One thing that I’d like folks reading GW to understand about it is that writing a romance between these two is not a justification of anything. I’m not trying to convince anyone that this relationship is either intrinsically a good thing as a concept or good for the characters involved. 

My hope is to create characters that are believable as human beings, and human beings are flawed, fall into traps of their own making, repeat mistakes, make bad decisions, and accept and overlook treatment from others that isn’t always in their best interest. This is not an excuse on my behalf to dismiss addressing this, and you’ll see some of these concepts explored later on in the story, and not only with Hux. 

I believe this was where a lot of conflict / disconnect happened after The Last Jedi. There was quite a lot of (fair) discourse over whether two people could be written as in a romantic relationship if they had unhealthy dynamics involving abusive situations. Many people did not want to (fairly) explore that. Personally, it appealed to me from a canon viewpoint far more than pre-TLJ Kylux, because issues of abuse and negative patterns with loved ones and friends is something that I’ve struggled with often in my life. In my experience, self-esteem is what leads to being mired in these types of situations, and I see both Kylo and Hux as people that harbor a hole in the center of their beings that needs to be filled with whatever they can get their hands on. Quite often, without a lot of self-reflection, I think these things tend to be what’s easiest and closest to hand. 

Forgiveness, as a concept, is very subjective. What one person might forgive, you might find intolerable. Forgiveness does not always equate to acceptance; it can just indicate a desire to move on. It can mean one thing was weighed against another, and a choice was made to accept the one thing to have the other. I have some very strong personal examples of this in my life, so this concept makes a lot of sense to me, but just because I have forgiven and moved on from some things, doesn’t mean I ever accepted that it was right, nor expect that my actions should justify abusive behavior from someone either toward me or toward someone else.

I’m not suggesting that this is what you were implying, anon, but as a side note, I personally think it’s a slippery, dangerous road to look at fiction as a map to lay one’s own course by. Quite often a story is just a story, and not a message or a social or political statement. Any meaning one finds in a story is likely colored by that person’s own experience, and should always be examined.

This was probably too much of a reply, but there we go. 

Hmmmmmmmmm this is hard to answer for me, because the composition of a fic and what folks take from them is always different for everybody–for some, a lot of time might seem extraneous, while for others, it’s delicious. 

In my opinion, it’s not the length of the fic that matters the most in a slow burn, it’s the progression of the relationship. It depends on where you start. If you start with hate, it’s going to take you a long time to get to love in a believable way. It also depends on what’s actually burning. Is it the sex? The emotional connection? These two things can definitely happen on a different timeline. 

I’ve been ready to climb the walls with some slow burns I’ve read that I’ve lived on for even a hint of something between the characters.

In my experience, the longer I had to wait with an engaging story, the more ABSOLUTELY FREAKING LIBERATING it was when they finally realized how they felt about each other. 

Gravity Well, for example, is the first slow burn I’ve written, and I actually intended things to be shorter…for culminations of feelings to occur within the next 10k. However, at 72k, I’m not even close to getting my main character worked around from where I started to where I know he’s going to end up. What I thought would be a 80k fic will probably be more like 140k. I hope it’s worth the wait, in the end.

Ultimately, I’d say if you’re working on writing a slow burn, don’t put chapters / words in because you’re worried it needs to be a certain length to “qualify.” Just write the story from beginning to end the way you think it should happen and the way that feels believable to you! 

AHHHHHHHHHHHH like basically my favorite thing ever in the world is to get an ask about this fic so omg thank you! I love that you love that moment???? I actually wrote a different version of that chapter which I ended up deleting, but I reworked the entire new chapter around that exchange, because I felt like it was sort of at the core of why and how Kylo and Hux can relate to each other. And I am so pleased to hear that you had a similar understanding of that part of Kylo’s story in TLJ. We’re kindred souls, my friend. Kindred souls. 

oh goodness no, I can barely keep up with my fan fic projects. I don’t think I’d have much fun trying to force myself to write an entire novel in a month. I am eventually going to write one, though. I have plans!