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#I wouldn't have started TRT
pastafossa · 1 year
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I read your response to the vampire message in your inbox and then proceeded to continue on with my current reread of TRT
AND THEN
AND THEN
I CAME ACROSS THIS PART OF CHAPTER 54 AND NEARLY CHOKED WITH LAUGHTER
"'Look,' Foggy slurred, taking on the pose of a professor about to dispense true enlightenment, one arm behind his back and the other shoved up so he could stab a finger in the air. ''M not saying Matt doesn’t—sure, he punches bad people and gets all bloody, and that’s not super romantic. Not unless you’re kinky, or a vampire.'
Shit. I’d happily kiss the fuck out of Matt when he’s all feral and bloody. 
Were you… were you a vampire?"
Anyway that line just tied in so nicely with the whole vampire thing and I thought I'd mention it.
P.S. I'm so so so happy for you that you got to meet Charlie and also you are SO pretty omg, ALSO I love your story recounting what he said to you at the autograph table, that must have meant the world to you <3
I FORGOT ABOUT THAT LINE! 😂 I mean, if you add in that I would, much like Jane, totally kiss Matt when he's feral and bloody, welp, pasta vampire status confirmed.
And thank you so much! 😭 It really did mean the absolute world to me. Matt's arc on the show helped me heal and process so much, and season 3 was especially meaningful to me (including the... really really dark moments, which, without getting too specific for TWs, I really related to). I don't know that I've ever seen a character that I felt mirrored what I'd gone through like he did. I'd managed to claw my way into a better headspace by the time DD came out, but there was still a lot of emotional/mental scarring and trauma I was dealing with in addition to the ongoing management of my health issues/chronic pain/disability. And watching Matt deal with, process, and work through what felt like the exact same situation with the exact same reactions I'd had, just... it did so much for me. It felt validating, because my mind works in story, processes as story, and now, here was a story like mine, a character who knew exactly what I was feeling. There's something healing about watching Matt struggling with the same questions, the same pain, the same anger, the same grief, before finding his way through it. I still watch it when my mood dips.
Charlie's performance, the work he put in, the respectful way he treated it, did so, so much for me, more than I could ever say. I really, really wanted to tell him that, and finally, I was able to! And he seemed to recognize it for what it was, and how much it meant to me. That moment of genuine connection, that respect, that chance he gave me to tell him what his performance meant and how it helped me, is something I'll treasure, and I hope if he ever feels down about something, he remembers how much what he does means to all of us in return. ❤️
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exsqueezememacaroni · 8 months
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Why Mike stopped taking his shirt off after 1991? ;-) It's a shame, really. They are two shows from 1995 when he did it, but unfortunately they're crappy quality.
Anon, are you ready for pure unfounded speculation? Are you prepared for armchair psychology at the expert level? Ok? Here we go!
I will be the first to admit that I haven't read/seen a lot of Mike articles/interviews from the 90s, and especially not from the early 90s, so he or a journalist may have covered this question in even a roundabout way and I wouldn't know...but....my guess is that it has a lot to do with both the shot to stardom Mike experienced with the release of TRT and the changes in his body from AD onward. I really don't think Mike knew what was coming when they started touring for TRT. I think the dude gets hot and sweaty easily and knows he looks pretty good with his shirt off, so he takes it off. And then he was 'hunk of the month,' and then the groupies showed up, and then really obsessive groupies show up, and then he sees what the guys in the other bands on tour are doing with those groupies, and he thinks to himself...'no...I don't want that.' And through all that, the TRT tour slogs on for like what...more than 2 fucking years??? By 1991 even, as far as I remember, he doesn't take off his shirt too often? With the Bungle tour, there weren't nearly the massive stadium crowds, and Mike was with his childhood buds, so he probably felt more comfortable to be his zany, sweaty, different levels of undressed self. By the time Day on the Green rolls around, Mike's in gas station attendant mode and he doesn't look back, for the most part. He still gets hot and sweaty though, and whenever you see him with like, an open shirt, or in a tank top, or maybe even shirtless from then on...it's probably like 100 degrees on stage and he'll die of heat exhaustion otherwise (or...he's fucking pissed off and needs to get back at RHCP).
So that's the big thing....the other thing is that I do think Mike is a little self conscious of his appearance (yes, even in his crazier getups), and, honestly probably from the stress of fame and touring, and just...not being in his early 20s anymore, his physique changes a lot at the end of the TRT tour through like...1998...maybe even early 1999? He loses a lot of muscle mass and gets really, really thin by 1996. So even if he might be feeling comfortable, say on the DV tour, he's got t-shirt on. After that...it's a little hit or miss, like I think he's a little more comfortable in his body, but I also think he's still carrying the memory of his big fame days and has to temper showing it off with little cute crop tops, or being at a Zorn performance.
So there you have it...we all think Mike is just gorgeous and that....kinda freaks him out....
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bellaxgiornata · 9 months
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13, 18, 20! You don’t have to answer all three at once though ❤️
Ahh thank you for the asks!! 💕 I appreciate the distraction! It's at least still got me thinking about fics! Though I might answer 18 in another post since I saw it asked by someone else! And also, these are long-winded replies. Which is why my answers are below the cut because this one got long real fast 😅 Wouldn't be me if I didn't over-explain though!
13. What are some must-read fanfics in your fandoms? Why do you admire these, and how have they impacted your works?
So there are a TON of fics that I would highly recommend from so many incredible authors in the Daredevil fandom that it would take me a bit to assemble a list right now. I honestly need to make a new Matt Murdock fic rec list and sit my ass down and catch up on reading for it. I know there's a ton of newer Matt Murdock fic authors and I'm dying to read y'all's stuff, too. Like I have a massive TBR list. Obviously anything y'all see me reblog I always highly recommend, though sadly I haven't read many fics this whole year because I kid you not, I'm almost always writing and editing in my free time. Which is how I constantly have so much to update every week.
Most of the fics I've read are over on AO3 as well, but the main Daredevil story that comes to mind when I think of one having an impact on my writing is The Red Thread by @pastafossa. I know, I know. It's like classic Daredevil literature at this point and everyone in the fandom has most likely read it or heard of it, but in all honesty, without that fic I'd never have started writing for Matt at all (and sadly I actually am SUPER behind on it because, as I've said, I haven't read much this year 😅). I remember first stumbling on it last fall and being like HOLY SHIT THAT WORD COUNT! And then being SO CONFUSED why it was written in second person as I read it, but everything was so goddamn good--the plot, the characters, the relationships--that honestly I stopped noticing the POV. It took me MONTHS later to discover that was what a Reader insert fic was (because it truly is such a beautiful blend of OC/Reader that I could only ever hope to aspire to). That was the first Reader fic I read and I didn't realize it until I stumbled further into the Matt/Reader section way later on AO3. But honestly, once I caught up on that fic, I was desperate for more Matt Murdock content and was just like, what the hell, I'll try my hand at writing a Daredevil story, too. Thus Life Worth Living came about and every Matt series I've written after that. So TRT honestly had a massive impact on me ever stepping foot into this fandom, especially with the way Pasta writes Matt (and smut, if we're being honest cause 🔥).
20. What’s your favorite work you’ve ever written?
Y'all are probably expecting me to say FFTD or ATY but it's actually Life Worth Living. Admittedly I cringe a bit at the writing in the beginning chapters compared to what I write now because I started it last November, though it has progressively matured a little more as I continued on writing it (and I stopped overusing ellipses which I am desperately trying to edit through as I re-post that fic over on tumblr). But that was the first fic I'd written where I really had come up with so much of my own plot and such a fleshed out OC. It was the first fic I really got excited about writing, and it was the first fic that really drew me back into writing fanfiction after a couple of years away from it. It's also the fic that helped me fall in love with Matt even more as I explored his character when I first started writing him, and it is the first fic where I'd ever written smut. I also spent so much time crafting so many plot twists along with so many little bread crumb clues of things that were coming down the line in that story. Like, I spent a lot of time and put a lot of love into that series--more than I had for anything else before. Though sadly when I re-entered fanfic after a few years away, I learned that OCs are not as popular as they once were, so that fic has been set aside for a bit while I've been working on all these Reader insert fics. Though someday I'd like to come back to it. I've had the next two chapters sitting as rough drafts since April now...
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pastafossa · 1 year
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how long did it take for your fanfiction to start getting some recognition? did you "advertise" it or "promote" it in any way?
i know that people say this doesn't matter, but i feel like even if you love writing the feeling that you're just talking to yourself gets pretty exhausting at some point. so i'm not talking about having thousands of readers but rather like. what's your advice to have readers at least?
- someone who hasn't even started writing their ideas yet...
LONG POST INCOMING.
First I want you (and everyone else reading who may be struggling with this) to know I'm absolutely with you and generally think 'it doesn't matter' is a horseshit answer. It's this weird thing we do in fanfic that we generally don't apply to other artforms that I've seen. If you're a painter, a playwriter, a novel writer, and you say, 'I want at least a few people to love my paintings, I want some people to come see my play, I want my novel to be published and do at least ok' we all support them, we nod, we agree, we talk about how they can do that successfully. It's considered normal to want some amount of success. But hold up fanfic instead and it becomes, 'how dare you want that praise, you're being egotistical, you should be writing only for yourself'. I'm not saying you can't do that - there are some who do - but it's definitely this bizarre switchup to say there's this single artform in which we can't want attention on our work and that there's something wrong with us if we do. That can be an absolute creativity killer depending on what kind of writer you are (hi, extrovert writer here who only gets writy writy juice from social interaction - aka comments and discussion. So I totally get it being exhausting just doing this on your own).
So let me say this categorically: you're allowed to want things. You're allowed to want kudos, comments, and hits. You're allowed to want messages and asks. You're allowed to want some readers you can talk with about your story.
You. Are. Allowed.
Ok, now that that's out of the way.
Edit: more below the cut cause I didn't realize the length of this on mobile
TRT definitely didn't get popular overnight. The first four chapters were sporadic, and then I took a hiatus due to life things for a couple years. During that time, it kept slowly ticking up bit by bit on AO3, with occasional comments. Iirc it was hovering somewhere around 700 kudos by the time I came back in Jan 2021 - and that's a awesome! It's big! But it's also a number that was gained over a few years, to put it in perspective. It absolutely took off after I came back though, and over the past 2 years both TRT's popularity and the stats of my one-shots in the fandom have grown. Part of that's just the time frame (TRT's been up about 6 years), but it's also due to a couple things that I think built up TRT's popularity.
Building a tumblr presence was huge. Ironically I didn't really intend to do it for advertising; I just wanted a place readers could ask questions or we could all freak out about Matt or I could post some drabbles or updates on the fic. But considering the fact that AO3 and tumblr are the top fic sites online, I wound up promoting my fics unintentionally just by being a friendly, happy tumblr user and fandom goer. All I did was follow the courtesy rules I knew - post stuff regularly, reblog, comment, make friends with other writers, just be friendly in your neighborhood because you love the lady with the gif flower shop on the corner or the wise old pizza maker who serves hot fandom takes all day long. I built familiarity with my writing and name by posting short fics, and by taking part in challenges and prompt lists and short requests for drabbles if I saw them, though that's something that's hard to do if you don't have time (I've got less time now, but I started this blog in the early pandemic so I had aaaaall the time in the world to write and was using it to stay sane). I tagged religiously because I LOVE tags, but that helped, too. Tumblr's search system is half broken but the half that works means people CAN find your writing even if they aren't following. Doing all this over here got me a huge boost over on AO3.
I will say that if you can have a fandom tiktok presence, there's a lot of fic reviewers, edits, and good stuff that can get your fic some readers (I've had some people do this on tiktok for TRT and it sent a surge over). I personally haven't done anything there yet, in part because while I'm on tiktok I try to keep my actual, real person accounts separate from my fic/fandom accounts and i haven't bothered to make a second account solely dedicated to the Pasta name yet.
Longfics on AO3 have the advantage in fic stats in the sense that every time you add a chapter, it gets bumped to the top of the front page and you get seen again. Eventually a lot of people will click out of curiosity. They may not, however, give you a lot of user subs or add to your other fic stats at first, whereas if you do a bunch of oneshots you're more likely to get user subs but less hits on each fic. This is a decision you'll have to make, and I know folks in both camps who built their followings using different methods on each. Either way, it helps if you're posting regularly, either in a long fic or one-shots. I call this the Stephen King method, who said he just writes a ton and throws it all at the wall, and eventually you get enough good despite the bad that you start building a following.
Learn learn learn. This is standard fic advice I always give, but it's still relevant. I think one of the reasons imo TRT has done so well is that I've spent a lot of time over the years learning how to write and edit - I read a ton of books (sometimes just to figure out HOW good authors structure their stories), I took a lot of English classes, I've taken some creative writing courses in my spare time. That two year hiatus was heavily spent doing a lot of research and practice around an original novel I want published one day. And I used ALL of that in TRT, just to see what it was like to put it all together. Be hungry for knowledge, be hungry to learn. The more you learn, the better your fic will be, and the more people that will click.
That learning also includes a looooong string of fanfics that started at a very novice level (hello 12 year old me), to fics that were ok and did moderately well but weren't anything huge. Hell, I had a tumblr account for my previous fandoms before I wandered over to Pastafossa, and while those fics did decently, I never had the huge reaction I've gotten here. But I used each and every one of those fics to learn and grow and adapt. Treat your own fics the same way. If it doesn't get hits, try to learn from it before moving on to the next idea a little wiser and a slightly better writer than before. There will always be people who start to follow you along the way.
A small one, but important: I swear to god, do not shit-talk yourself. Not in the summary, not in the tags, not in the A/Ns. I'm not talking, 'this is my first fic!' That's fine. I mean trashing your own work. Shit like, 'ha ha this sucks, it's terrible but oh well' will absolutely lower your stats, because people will believe you and will ditch your fic. On top of that, it's just mean to yourself, and as I said above, you want to be a good person in the fandom neighborhood. That means not breaking the windows of your own house.
People generally think of summaries as a side note, but a shitty summary can absolutely tank your stats. Treat it like the rest of your fic - this is the trailer before the movie, and it's a huge element of what gets people interested in the first place.
Lastly, like I said at the top, the biggest factor is time. There are people who post one fic and explode in popularity, absolutely. But far, far more little followings are built on the bones of time, of abandoned fics, of muttering and highlighting phrases in books in the middle of the night, of trying and trying and trying until we have at last have a breakthrough and then drag that breakthrough forward with us to the next fic. TRT is absolutely one part lightning in a bottle - the biggest success I've ever had anywhere with my writing, a confluence of fandom factors and world events that gave people (and me!) time to write and read. But it's also standing on the back of whole lot of fics I wrote that look like everyone else's: ones with no comments, low interaction, insults; ones where I had precisely zero idea of what I was doing, but wanted to try anyway. And the way I got through that, as a writer who needs interaction in order to create, was by building friendships in fandom so that even when a fic didn't do all that well, I still had friends I could talk to about the characters, the world, the fandom itself. I asked friends to look them over and give advice. I had friends being my cheerleaders. And if you're an extrovert like me, or just a writer who needs that to create, then those connections are vital as you build up a following.
That's a lot of what I've done. I know there are other ways to build a following, but this is generally what I've done, what I've learned to do, and it seems to have worked. Just remember that there are no bad fics - just learning opportunities. Learn something, and that fic's a success, and work as hard as you can to make those fandom connections to carry you through the process.
I absolutely hope to see your work around one day, so that I can be on of those followers!
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pastafossa · 3 months
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Right ok many things have happened in a short amount of time which is where I've been, and most of it is GOOD for once, which is wild when I'm still feeling out of it after being beaten by the Emotional Trauma bat for a few months and I think my body + brain has just kinda short-circuited.
I've been offered a booth spot for my wood carvings at a local witchy market event in April, and I've said yes! If this goes well, it will seriously help my bills and really start getting my name out beyond my normal sellers online. This is huge. I've never done an event before, and my anxiety's through the roof, but mom's agreed to help man the table so that makes me feel a bit better. This is an artsy city and there's tons of tourist traffic in Summer, so establishing myself to the point where I can get into their view would be amazing (tourism is where my teacher sells 75% of his carvings and makes a living).
Additionally, I am now in talks to do a brief, 10-20 minute class on wood this summer at another witchy event run by the same group. If there's enough interest, I might be able to run regular classes (which means more $ as a bonus). This has sort of always been one of my end goals with carving - it's a dying artform, and I LOVE teaching and showing people how easy it is to get into! This is also what my own carving teacher always told me he thought I'd wind up doing eventually: essentially taking his place and continuing to teach others like he taught me.
A couple folks in the community who are published have said they think if I wrote a guide on the various carving woods, their associations, and how to work with them, it would sell, and they're happy to help me. It wouldn't have to be long and it wouldn't be too hard, since most of it is stuff I already have written down for my own notes, but I'm also wondering if this isn't a good way to dip my toe into publishing and see how it goes, especially since I want to publish an AU of TRT one day when it's done. It's not the door into the publishing world I expected to open, but damned if I'm not inclined to take advantage.
I have no idea what to expect going forward. I'm still having some issues after what I went through, but damn, even I can feel this this is a potential path ahead that might do a lot for me.
Anyway, I've got some stuff I've started writing, the promised little one shots, that I'll do before slowly transitioning back into TRT. Ironically, I've used the time to go back over my outline and streamline a few arcs, and had some epiphanies that I think will improve the plot even further. So that was nice, and I think when TRT starts back up, you're going to love what's coming!
Lastly, to the person who dropped that cash into my ko-fi: thank you. You have no idea how much that's helped.
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pastafossa · 3 months
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Hey Pasta! i was so glad to read that things have been starting to look up for you recently & i hope it only gets better ♡
have you heard about the fic binding legal scandals happening bc of etsy sellers binding & selling hard copies of fics? i saw some authors are reccomending putting disclaimers on their fics to hopefully avoid legal action being taken against them & was wondering if you were planning to do something like that? id hate to see your works being taken down/deleted bc of peoples ignorance
art like yours deserves a place in the world
Thank you so much anon! Things are definitely looking up a little, and I've got my fingers crossed that my mood will continue to follow it. 😅 Honestly if I could just have a six month period or so where things were chill I'd be SUPER relieved.
And I have seen it yeah, and I've been watching it fairly closely since this has the potential to alter the fanfic legal landscape that we writers post in regardless of whether or not one of our own fics were being sold. I'm well aware TRT isn't as big as some of the fics at the center of the current legal/ethical scuffle over it, but TRT is popular enough in the fandom that I've kept an eye out on etsy for bound copies just in case. I'm still supportive of people binding TRT for personal, non-commercial use only where no money changes hands, I have no issue with that. That being said, I am considering slapping a general, 'please don't do this commercially' on the fic. I honestly have no idea whether it would actually protect the fic or not, and whether or not that would protect me from legal blowback (my life for a lawyer matt boyfriend to explain this shit). But it wouldn't hurt to remind people that this sort of thing is how you get fics taken down. 99.999% of fic authors do not have the funds to fight someone like the Mouse even if they'd eventually win. So, as much as I joke about wanting Feige to notice TRT and hire me to write Jane into Daredevil, if allllll of us want TRT finished, we need to all play by the rules, especially as Born Again will likely give the fandom (and potentially TRT) a boost in popularity.
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pastafossa · 1 year
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Do you see Jane as yourself or a separate person because when I read x reader fics I feel like I always make up characters that I think would fit more but idk
Me personally, I see Jane as a different person, just one with a few attributes I share! And that's kind of on purpose. I've essentially tried to make her a mixture of all of us, of the fandom, of the love we—me included—have for Matt and that world. That's why she's never physically described, why her original family is kind of murky and lost. She's both herself—her own character with a shaped personality and flaws and strengths—but also all of the readers, including me, and she looks like what each of us wants or needs to see, comes from where we need her to come from. Which is how I think of a lot of great Reader characters when I'm reading, or characters I style after me in RPGs! They're me but they're me in another world with another life story, which makes them different in their own way, in the way any alternate universe version of yourself might be different.
Because of Plot Reasons (TM), you can never really make a reader fully everyone, it's true. There are always choices the plot requires a Reader to make, which is one reason I've set Jane up with the backstory she has, and why we're exploring questions of identity through her that I want readers to consider - wouldn't we be the same as her, make a lot of the same decisions, feel the same loneliness and wariness and trauma, if we'd all gone through what she has? And if you spend all your time being someone else, how long until you start changing? How much of you is created and how much of you is born? How much of you would change if you went through what she did? And what if you did go through what she did? This could be you, what if? In that way, she's potentially (since some see her as entirely separate, which is fine!) a sort of a variant of us, an AU, a what-if, in which our lives and selves were morphed by circumstances beyond our control. This is how I see the CYOA books I read as a kid, and there was a great article I read a few months ago that sums up the You in CYOA, Reader fics, RPGs, and TRT pretty well (it's the highlighted bits I found most accurate, the part about not having 'relatability' I think was a misunderstanding of what You POV/Reader/the best CYOA books were about if done right since it CAN be relatable, though the rest of it after that still feels accurate).
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So I don't think your stance is unusual at all! I've got a whole range of readers—some who see Jane (and other reader characters) as fully them, some who see her as wholly separate, and some who land somewhere in the middle. All of those for x Reader are valid, and I work REALLY hard to keep her as relatable as possible for that reason, so that even if someone does see her as someone else, you can still understand and appreciate her choices when the plot forces her hand. But that's the thing: where you stand on whether a Reader character is you or someone else or even a pre-established canon character is fluid. Everyone sees them differently, pulls on that costume, slides into that skin in their own way. And I think that's really awesome tbh, since it means we get a million different flavors of a character who's still essentially the same.
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pastafossa · 1 year
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SQUEEEEE!!!!! MY TWO FAVORITE HEROS MIGHT TEAM UP IN MY FAVORITE DD FIC!!! IM FEELING FERAL!!! But, seriously, I probably wouldn't love DD as much as I do now if it wasn't for all the mentor matt fics that came out after NWH that got me to watch the show so the idea that spidy/peter might show up soon has me fucking ecstatic
Wouldn't be a long DD fic without Spidey showing up! 🥰🥰🥰 I've honestly been so excited to bring him in, biding my time until the timeline matched. He was one of the first superheroes I latched onto via cartoons as a kid and then the movies started and I just - I fucking love Spiderman, I've loved all of his movies, loved the different takes on him with Tobey and Andrew and now Tom and all the Spideys in Into the Spider-Verse, too, so I knew I couldn't do TRT without having him show up - and especially since NWH and the ensuing fic was a LOT of peoples' introduction to Charlie!Daredevil, and that makes me so, SO happy cause it gives me more people to talk about Daredevil with, and it means Charlie gets more love, which I'm all for obviously. 😂
It's basically an open secret now so I may as well just confirm he's going to be our next cameo when we hit Queens, and it's not going to be the 'two people removed' cameo like Tony Stark. This will be actual Peter and he'll be popping in and out going forward, as will some other characters. Cause at this point, we're not only approaching Sokovia Accords: Population All Enhanced, but we're also reaching the tipping point at which Jane is going to be known enough for other heroes to come knocking.
ding dong who's that oh it's steve who could he be looking for
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pastafossa · 3 years
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So I got tumblr just so I could interact with your blog! I am the worst at leaving comments on AO3, as I am in general, but know that a lot of that is because I always read new chapters in the morning in one hand while mindlessly running reports for work in the other so I can have it read before the deluge of morning meetings because otherwise I'd have to wait until the afternoon and that's no bueno ^.^
True story: one Tuesday I was in a terrible mood all day. Mad at everything. No clue why. Until the next morning when a new chapter of TRT was posted late and I was like ohh I understand now hahaha. My subconscious was having Matt withdrawals! Lol
Another true story: it's hard to imagine myself as reader because if I was reader I would have been pregnant with Matt's babies like 20 chapters ago hehehe
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Thank you SO MUCH for coming over to tumblr to say hi! 😭 Funnily enough, I only just started back up on tumblr recently, too, after a long period away! Figured my PastaFossa pseud needed a blog since my old fic account and blog were for COMPLETELY different fandoms and ships LOL. I love hearing how people read TRT, and I'm glad my chapters could help start off your Tuesday mornings! 💖💖💖 I can also understand the Matt withdrawal, I have been theeeeere I have not recovered from the show ending please Disney put Charlie in the MCU I BEG YOU
I prob wouldn't have waited anywhere near as long to jump Matt's bones either. I am a weak woman. 😂
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