#never thought i'd finish a fic this fast but--here we are 8'D

[twirlybumblevee]

I stole this from @bottleofchaos

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71 right now! (man I've been here for a long time, haven't I...)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

1,077,321

3. What fandoms do you write for?

currently it's Dteam (adjacent) and Tolkien's Silmarillion, in the past most notably Marvel (plus various others)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh boy. First, and by a mile, we have Sign Dirty to me and its sequel As loud as our hearts (MCU, Steve/Bucky modern AU where Steve is deaf and they meet under... embarrassing circumstances), then the next with not even half as many kudos is No other version of me I'd rather be tonight (Larry famous/non-famous AU), then a fic called First Sons and Superheros (Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four meets troubled gay president's son TJ from Political Animals), and then Cross the Line which was just a silly little MCU RPF get together fic but yeah, everything MCU related went HARD back in the day.

Everything and many others found here.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always!! It sometimes takes me a while but I never ever leave comments without a response over - if you see them, I just haven't gotten around to them yet. I think it's only fair - if people take their time to leave comments, I should show just as much appreciation back by responding. (That's why I don't comment on fics where I see lots of comments that have never been responded to because I just think it's rude.)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh man that's got to be the Silmarillion stories. Nightfall ending with murder and the dying of the Light (of the Trees), Shards that goes to incredibly dark places (but all the stories in that series aren't happy).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Ever a surprise / Ever as before where DNF literally life in a fairytale and get a fairytale ending. :D (Taizi and I did our best. <3)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. I remember once in an MCU Steve/Bucky fic there was a big discussion going on in the comments about an aspect of therapy in the story, but that was the height of it. It never went into hate territory.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Oh absolutely. XD Not sure I understand the question though, what kind. The sexy kind? Wholesome, sweet, kinky, dark, I've written it all.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have! The crasiest was probably First Sons and Superheroes (mentioned above) that sort of founded a whole new branch of fandom at the time. The premise was good though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

There have been several requests over the years, yes

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Constantly. XD I think 95% of fics on my account have been co-written. I don't know how to finish stuff by myself.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship

Mae/Fin and Tyelpe/Annatar (Silmarillion), but DNF is up there as well for sure :)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

The Holiday. It's a Remus/Sirius fic based on the movie and there's only ONE CHAPTER MISSING and I still get comments on it even years later and they're all so sweet and I always feel so bad about it and I wish I could finish it but I'm so out of the headspace. Maybe one day. Not giving up hope.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Worldbuilding. Picking things apart until everything makes sense. Believable character/relationship progression especially in adversary, I'd like to think.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Motivation and drive, for sure. I was never able to write big stories by myself, I always needed someone to do it with. I WISH I could, how cool would that be. But I just get too distracted too fast by other things.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I can only write in English. German, I guess, I am a native. XD But I haven't done that in forever and the thought of it just makes me cringe.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Lord of the Rings

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

That's the meanest question. I have so many favourites, DNF ones as well, so many amazing ones that have never even seen the light of day on AO3 for one reason or another. I think overall I am the most proud of all the Silmarillion stories because they all belong in the same universe and span thousands upon thousands of years and so much worldbuilding and progression.

If you want to do this yourself, please feel tagged!! This was loads of fun. :)

[chalabrun]

between the dirt & desperation, ch. 3

Word count: 2,191 Pairings: Symbrock Rating: T Warnings: Mentions of character death Summary:  Sequel to “Angry & Half in Love with You”, it’s been well over a month since Eddie moved away from San Francisco to start over in his hometown of Manhattan. Yet, it’s difficult to return to a normal life when what you were once addicted to becomes addicted to you. A/N: This is a crossover between Venom (2018) and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy (2002-07). This is also the last chapter!

( READ ON AO3 ) 

When he was kid, there was a morbid game Eddie would play with the other school kids. When it was too cold to go out and play, they’d be remanded indoors since the gym wasn’t large enough to play host to them and whatever PE class was going on at the time. There was a large, old globe in one of the corners. It was a game he started, and he didn’t entirely remember why; maybe something to do with the silent blame his father hung over his head for his mother’s death.

He and what few friends he had would take turns spinning the globe with their eyes closed, a digit suspended over the revolving world until a few seconds passed and they’d bring their finger down like the arm and head-shell of a record player down on the actual record. Then, wherever it’d landed, they’d invent some outrageous story on the spot. Of how they’d died.

Eddie remembered one in particular out of the innumerable times they’d played it, where his had landed smack dab on NYC itself. He didn’t remember entirely what story he’d invented, but it had to do with aliens and an explosion—some War of the Worlds crap.

Funny how those things turn out.

Eddie coughed roughly upon awaking, feeling as though he’d been dragged through cement and then an ocean, all tactile sensation rough and dirty, starched and coarse. Too much heat. Too much smoke when his lungs craved air. As though he’d been incubated in a volcano, Eddie craned up at his vision that was still black and interrupted by jettisons of water. Too familiar. Too fucking familiar. His breath misted and tasted like plastic, robotic.

Eddie…

“He’s awake! Man, you really got caught up in the wrong place. Can you hear me? That was quite an explosion.” He blinked blearily at the white-masked EMT who had propped him up enough to sit from the temporarily gurney inside an ambulance. How…? “We thought we’d have to take you to the hospital, but aside from some superficial scrapes, and the dirtiness, you seem fine. Unless you’d rather be taken in…?”

“Nah…’s okay. Thanks, though,” Eddie mumbled after unhooking himself from the respirator and picking his way through the cramped ambulance and to the edge of the site where the warehouse had been, looking like Galactus had punched a crater in the earth where it’d stood. Its gaping maw somehow barely strafed any nearby residences, just far enough, though debris and cinders scattered everywhere.

He needed air. Needed something blue or gray and without the acrid stench of smoke rotting dark and his lungs, to get away from this hellish ruin.

The blond’s clothes were intact, Eddie slipping behind a gathering bevy of news vans hastily setting up shop that he didn’t intend on sticking around for. Better for Spiderman to think he was dead than have his face plastered over the news. Thankfully, with the gathering throng of people, his restitution had been in a place off from the center of chaos where no one really paid him any mind. No one knew that there had been a single man, or that he’d survived

Eddie didn’t know how long they walked down bleak streets and slanting buildings that leaned into each other, this clearly a dilapidated part of town. Trees hung heavily, already beginning to turn their leaves, a phenomena that didn’t really occur in the sunny latitudes of San Fran. His walk was shaded, hood pulled over his head and feeling miserably cold. But quiet. Still. Something pulsed in him that wasn’t his.

Venom emerged and he could practically sense that it was weak, burrowing like a kitten into his neck, craving warmth. “Hey,” Eddie greeted throatily as they paused briefly, pressing his cheek against its squishy morass that began purring weakly. It was exhausted. It had been the only thing that had kept him alive. Just like last time. Kittenish licks could be felt against his jaw, meaning that the symbiote at least heard him.

This neighborhood became more familiar the more he walked. It was like a high pressure, nostalgia. Creeping like a tide to lap at his feet. Overgrown sidewalks gave way to a clearing that revealed a modest church, red brick and chipping white paint. Its belfry pierced the sky alone amid a ring of trees that encompassed it. If he looked close enough, he could see the playground he used to play at while his dad conversed with the priests. They’d be drinking buddies if vices didn’t go against their vocation.

Without really thinking of it, he walked towards the stoop and opened the double doors, the interior inside dusky and quaint. You’d think it was a church from some backwater, landlocked Midwest town and not Long Island, but here it was. Rays of pale sunlight filtered weakly through narrow windows, motes of dust swimming in it. Pews crowded close together, the interior firm and Spartan. Exactly as he remembered it. His father and he had always sat in the middle.

This was all before they’d moved to San Francisco when he was still a little kid, maybe in elementary school or so. Never mind that it had made things strained between him and his older sister, Mary. Aside from the bullying and trying to excel in school so he’d have some scrap of validation his father never gave him.

“This…is where your parents wed.” Its voice was still weak, but it was better than silence.

“Yeah,” Eddie confirmed, pocketing his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Looks’a lot smaller than when I last remembered it, Ven. Though, I was kinda a tiny tot way back when.”

Venom emerged cautiously as a beginning thaw, marveling at it as though it were the most amazing thing it’d ever seen. He could feel its swell of affection, something that made him freeze, but not with rejection. It felt heavy and he wasn’t ready to be crushed. While his expression seemed to darken, a note of hope was in Venom’s voice. “Here is where humans bond. Like we did. And we’re here now.” It sounded excited, and nervous.

Eddie leaned against the prayer rest of the front pew, one of his hands curled around its shape, against the lacquered grain. “So, what—you sayin’ we ought’a get hitched, is that what you mean, Ven?” The dry dubiousness in his voice cause Venom to shrink away. “We get ourselves all dolled up, then what? Get a fuckin’ priest to marry us? Invite my family that doesn’t acknowledge I exist and the rest a’ those buddies a’yours on Klyntar sure as hell wouldn’t come, since the betrayal an’ all? Anne’d… Nah. God!” He laughed bitterly.

Raking his fingers through his hair in frustration, his hood came off in the process. He was still filthy. But, maybe it was just karma. This was like a reflection of the outside, right? Everything ruined and decayed in him. The effigy of Jesus affixed to the crucifix gazed down at him with an old Bloodhound’s gaze. Eyes turned down like they were too heavy to smile with again. They were accusing, reminding him of what he was jabbing almost too intentionally.

“’m sorry, Ven. It’s just…a lot at once,” he sighed tiredly, feeling the symbiote emerge again. He felt like Lucifer from Cinderella, only a lot less humorous. Getting dust and grime everywhere he touched. Let alone on Venom, of all things.

“It’s gonna take awhile. Hell, I dunno how long. To get used’t—this. Whatever we think we are. Whatever we’re trying t’be.” Jesus’ eyes bore down at him, as if demanding he continue. So did thirteen more from the painted Stations of the Cross that encompassed the church. He had to drop his gaze back to the plain tile ground. “People don’t work that way. They don’t live inside’a each other’s heads, knowing what they’re seein’, smellin’, hearin’, thinkin’—it just ain’t like that. Hell, I’d say it makes us pretty damn stir crazy, Ven. We’re so used to livin’ like fuckin’ goldfish in a bowl and sometimes, the bowl is clear enough for people t’look in. But, the fish don’t get inside’a each other’s heads. Hell, if they’re together for too long, sometimes they downright start maulin’ each other. Two people in the same small space. Nevermind in each other’s bodies—”

“Know you’re not like us, Eddie. Never thought you would be, but—we’re trying to understand. Understand you, and the world. Can’t stop how we feel about you,” the symbiote reasoned adamantly, pearl-bright gaze holding his when he couldn’t meet that of the divine. “And…it’s strong. Very strong.”

Eddie’s brow wrinkled together in disbelief. “D’you really mean that, or ya just standin’ too close to the speakers and it’s all you can hear?” he asked defensively, feeling himself clam up again even while Venom was trying to get in.

It manifested as a large humanoid blot that swallowed the lights of the many candles, those for the prayers people lit as alms. A good head taller than him, all symbiote sinews and impenetrable density, Venom pushed him back against the pew he’d been leaning on—enough that his back curved from how it loomed over him. The burn of frustration and indignation welling passionately in its throat.

“Said it yourself. You know everything we think, feel—and you think we aren’t sincere? That we’re faking it?” Venom scoffed disdainfully, lips curling in a snarl, bringing its gaze level and powerfully over Eddie’s, strands of matters clinging to the hem of his jeans from their proximity. Even if he wouldn’t yield. “We know you’re bullshitting yourself if you really think that, Eddie.”

That didn’t mean he’d falter. Eddie pushed back, craning up to sink his teeth into Venom’s neck like that first night. That night he still couldn’t tell was a mistake or not. Venom’s chest rumbled audibly and it was enough to loosen its hold, insinuating more but instead taking Venom by its chin and forcing it to look in his eyes. “Not here,” he commanded firmly, but not cruelly, gaze boring with insolvent stone into Venom’s. By its chin did he guide it away, stepping from their intimate closure.

“That’s not what we’re here for,” he murmured after a long moment, Eddie’s gaze growing distant with grief as he fished for a wad of cash he tossed indiscriminately in the donation basket nearest the candles. He procured a relatively long but intact match and suspended it over an already lit candle, jerking his head for Venom to join him at his side while he knelt. “Help me with this. We met because’a Maria, y’know. We owe her one.”

Reverently did Venom’s tenebrous hand envelop Eddie’s and it was warm. He smiled low but approvingly, lowering together to light an untouched candle. “I dunno if you had any gods back where you were from, on Klyntar—I mean. But just…focus on Maria. I wanna feel everything.”

Though Venom seemed reluctant to open those floodgates, it sank on the kneeler, emulating Eddie’s pose. “…Knull. He created us,” the symbiote said, not expounding further. And Eddie didn’t push for it.

Pain. So much pain. Maria hadn’t been healthy before she’d died, and his palms twitched spasmodically and he grimaced, feeling her death throes. Everything before she perished. The panic, the voices, the fear and remembering him— Eddie exhaled stiffly and deep, head tucked down and back bowed before he could straighten. Venom’s hand steadied on his back, expression discernibly concerned.

“She had happy moments, Eddie. She showed us you. Untouched mornings. Brilliant sunlight. Kind people who made sure she was safe. Like you.” He didn’t know whether it was supposed to make him or Venom feel better, but he felt…a little less guilty. She hadn’t been alone, and her death hadn’t been their fault. Venom hadn’t known any better. Maybe for a moment. He still felt at fault, even if— …No. Venom felt guilt. He knew what Maria had been to him. “…She didn’t die hating you. You saved her…and us.”

“…Maybe,” Eddie said, unclasping his hands and staring deep at that flickering flame. He folded his arms on the prayer rest, conflict broiling in his eyes. His lips quirked a little when he felt Venom rest its head on his shoulder, arm circling his shoulders. Funny how an alien acted more human than most.

“It won’t be an easy road, Ven. We make nice now, maybe we’ll know more than before. We’ve gotta lotta shit in shore for us. You sure you wanna put up with all’a that?” He felt Venom’s smile span wolfishly.

“Always did like a good challenge. You’ll trust us, we’ll prove ourselves.”

Eddie nodded, still feeling muddy and heavy. Sometimes, he tried pretending like Maria wasn’t really gone. That he’d wake up on a sunny morning with Anne’s petite form next to him, warm and gold swimming in her hair. That everything would be back to normal, even the cracked and broken parts of it.

“I jus’ hope you’re right, Ven. I really do.”