#i have edited this scebe so much since i wrote it but i love the concept too much to not post it somewhere

[mjonesing]

Hello :) 6 for the new ask game, please!!

Guys I’m not even kidding, this is the PERFECT song for Peter post FFH. Every single lyric. It’s phenomenal.

So I’m technically cheating on this one? I could never do with this topic what so many incredible people have managed in actually thought out, planned fics. So this instead is a scene I wrote after seeing FFH for my own sanity, and was going to be part of a fic on reunions I’ll never finish. So I’m posting it here instead!

I'm just trying to find a way to make it back home

“I've got this image engraved in my mind,

Of a life that I had in a whole different time.

It still breathes and lives at the end of the road.

I've seen mountains and valleys through my missing days,

But I never once parted with how you begged me to stay.

I will run down that long hard and treacherous road to get home.”

It's 8am on the morning of her 19th birthday, and she's just finished a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. The humidity is already sticking to her skin but the forecast has promised a storm tonight, and she walks into her tiny, shitty student bedroom with the intention of lying directly under the fan her mother had sent until she can see the dark clouds through her pristine window.

Instead of this, however, there's a delicate shrill from her bedside table.

She jolts to attention and detours to her bed. "Yes, Arthur?"

Between her discarded glasses and the novelty lamp sits a piece of technology probably worth more than the complex she resides in - a strange concoction of Stark and Wakandan tech that's disguised as the kind of cat figurine her Grandma used to collect. It had been a point of serious contention that she eventually named Arthur, for lack of a term for the personalised A.I. that lurks inside.

The cat's eyes light up a vivid blue. "Michelle, someone is approaching your residence. What would you like me to do?"

She's supposed to be blissfully home alone for the next few weeks as her roommates have gone home or away for the beginning of summer break, so she's immediately suspicious.

"Pull up current footage," she requests.

The hologram flickers to show the hallway outside her apartment, a figure dressed in black taking the last few steps to her door. A hood hides their face, but she knows Arthur would have alerted her to any kind of weaponry. Something pulls her forward, tugging the worn cotton of the shirt that drapes over her.

She runs a hand through her hair, stops herself from trying to fluff it out.

"Any idea who it is?" she asks quietly as she makes her way out of the room.

"Negative. All defining features are currently hidden," Arthur informs her. She nods to herself, grabbing the cup of tea that's still brewing from the kitchen island. It's not much of a weapon, but the hot water should be disarming enough should the need arise. Arthur can take care of the rest.

She opens the door and her mug slips out of her hand, only to be caught without a drop spilt.

It's been three years since she's seen his face. His hair is longer, curling around his ears and sweeping across his forehead. There's a telling red mark across the curve of his jaw of an injury not quite healed, and some fine lines around his eyes. His clothes swamp him in a way that must be unbearable in this heat.

They watch each other, both too cautious to move, until she finally finds the courage to splutter, "Peter?"

"Hey," he exhales, dark eyes taking her in. She supposes she must seem as different as he does. Her hair is shorter, a little sleeker, brushing her shoulders as she shakes her head in disbelief. The oversized shirt swamps her figure enough to cover her, but her legs are bare, and his gaze gets stuck there for a moment before returning to her face, a hopeless optimism shining back at her.

"You weren't answering your phone," he explains without her asking.

"It kept buzzing at me, so I turned it off and threw it in the laundry pile."

"Oh sure. How annoying, all those people wishing you a happy birthday."

"If they really knew me, they'd know not to bother me until noon at the earliest."

He doesn't even glance over his shoulder; just tilts his head to the side. "I can come back later, if you'd rather…"

She sighs loudly, leaning against the door with her arms crossed. "No, it's fine. No point you making that long a journey twice - on the condition that you're hiding a really cool gift behind your back right now. Preferably heavy and bound."

He pulls a face. "Not exactly. I didn't know what you wanted so -"

"You know what I wanted."

He pulls his hand away from his back and it's empty. She pouts and he steps aside, revealing a suitcase. "Ta-da!"

She presses her lips together. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Last time you said that and then -"

"It's over, MJ. I'm here. For good." Then he grins, and it takes her breath away. "Actually, this is only phase one of the surprise. See, the suitcase is empty - it's for you. Hopefully you'll fill it, and you'll ditch this town and run away with me - come home with me. May has requested your presence for the celebration of my return - and your birth, of course."

She almost vibrates out of her skin but she keeps her expression schooled, inspecting her chipped nails.

"Also I haven't surprised Ned yet, and I thought you'd like to film that."

Unable to stop herself perking up at that, she grins wickedly and fiddles with the bottom hem of her shirt. "How long do we have?"

"Twenty minutes until the next train. Two hours for the one after that," he says to her legs.

"Good. I can be packed in fifteen minutes." She grabs his hand and pulls him into the apartment. "Let's waste some time."

Spotify Shuffle Game - Send me a number!

[loxxxlay]

like... i dont think i can describe how certain I am that this original idea is The One (TM) . I always think so when I begin working on an original story. (Even with some fanfiction projects, I tend to think I will never lose interest. "Its too good!" says my brain.) I daydream about the idea day and night. If it lasts long enough, I might even complete a first draft. I might even start edits.

But the thing is... there is always a pattern. My daydreams about the story get bored, and I start daydreaming about sequels. I get frustrated that Im not writing the sequel instead because thats where my daydreaming is at. Thats where my lust to write is at. So my writing of the current story isnt fleshed out because daydreams are never fleshed out. My first draft is shallow and wishy washy and full of purple prose and neglected scebes, and theres nothing to motivate me to work on revisions anymore except the desire to catch up with my daydreams and write the sequel. And eventually, during this period of frustration, even daydreaming the sequels gets boring. Another fancy shmancy hyperfixation of an idea comes along, and the cycle repeats.

Of course, all of my ideas will always be near and dear to my heart, but if I cant daydream about them, then 80% of my inspiration to write them dissipates. Most of the time, I can finish fanfiction (especially if I give up on editing/revising my chapters) on 20% inspirarion. But a novel? Requiring multiple rounds of revision? Of beta and critique? for something with a MINIMUM of 70k words? Of querying and receiving rejection after rejection, and if you even get a contract, youll have to go through even morre countless rounds of edits that are much more severe on the writerly heart? No. 20% inspiration wont do it.

So yeah, I came up with what I thought was another fancy shmancy hyperfixation of idea about Troy and Lola right after reading the Doctrine of Labyrinths series by Sarah Monette.. because wow.. i was finally reading a published book by an author interested in the themes I was interested in! I no longer had to think, "no one will publish a novel with these niche, dark interests," because proof to the contrary was sitting in my lap right in front of me. (@veliseraptor i will always be grateful to you for this rec and if i ever get published, youre top at my list of thanks/acknowledgements)

So I stopped holding back. I took every single thing I loved and I let it erupt into an idea. I was busy with finals week, so I didnt get time to work on the idea, but boy - the daydreaming never ceased. I was thinking about it 24/7. I looked for names that would make me happier and more comfortable to use for my characters (since theyre close to thor and loki's names as a way to trick my brain out of being intimidated). I daydreamed my plot points on a superficial level as always. The amount of daydreaming without writing allowed me to catch and remove elements that I realized I didnt like. It became perfect in my head. (All according to pattern, you see. A shallow, underdeveloped daydreamed idea.)

And then, as I often do, I bent much of this idea in my head to the assignments in my creative writing class. I wrote 10 short stories about Troy and Lola with a dumbed down plot and a dumbed down characterization (because re: short stories). I wrote my first 20k words of the idea. The daydreaming continued. I revised every single one of those short stories *twice*. The daydreaming continued. I submitted them to my prof who gave me super relevant and helpful feedback (his only relevant and helpful advice all semester -_- but thats another story.) My daydreaming started to incorporate the feedback to the original, undiluted idea.

School burned me out. I couldnt write very often. I couldnt work on anything for the next 6 months.

The daydreaming continued.

And this is where the pattern breaks. I came up with this idea and these characters one full year ago, and minus the 10 unusuable short stories, I have not written a single word until this month. A year. Yet no fancy shmancy idea has overpowered it. No loss of interest or boredom (or even frustration at how long its taking to write this fucker) has occurred.

Even more wildly - never in this entire year of daydreaming have I daydreamed about a sequel. Never. My daydreaming sometimes goes to the story's end. It sometimes goes to the story's beginning. Even more wildly, it loves exploring what happens in the middle! My daydreaming isnt linear like it often is - daydream one scene to death and move on to the next. No. each time I daydream about a scene, it fills in details that werent there before. It fleshes things out. It tries scenes from different angles, different povs, different settings. It revamps and reworks the last daydream. It fills in hazy scenes and excites me about plot points that I previously found uninteresting.

In other words, my daydreaming is working WITH me, not AGAINST me and wow...

that is an incredible feeling.

To know that no matter how long it takes to write this, my brain will remain interested. It wont get bored. It will stay with me and help me through revision. It will stay with me even when I go months without working on it.

Like. Ive never had an idea like this and it makes me so happy T.T this is The One (TM) .