Let me set the scene.
It’s fall 2021. I’m still active on a certain Discord. Things are still going fine, no real drama or arguments to speak of, at least not ones that are making me question my sanity. Whumptober has passed, Advent is looming, but there’s time in the middle to breathe.
I’m browsing the prompt channel. I didn’t go in there often, as I usually didn’t like writing prompts given by someone. They were too conflicting or too rigid or too “Buddie-centric,” enough that I just didn’t care anymore. So imagine my surprise when I came across one that caught my eye enough to warrant a second glance.
The prompt was hilarious almost word for word the basic premise of a fic I had just began plotting out. I immediately tried to claim it, but someone swooped in and said that they already had a piece that was in the works and this prompt matched. I tried to be the bigger person, so I let it go and put the fic in mothballs in my Google Drive, never to be seen again.
Months passed. Spring came, and with it drama. By May, I was leaving that Discord, done with being made to feel like trash for having a difference of opinion. I figured, however naively, that I’d still be in the fandom, I didn’t need the backing of the discord.
Then June 20th happened.
I won’t rehash the details of that dark week. It’s not worth it, but it does bare mentioning. That day and the week or so that followed was a dark time in my life, full of baseless accusations and me scrambling to put a damn wall between my professional life and my online life, one that was already there but one that had been torn down by the same people I had once considered close.
Six days later, I decided to repost everything. It took a long eleven days of editing and retagging and posting, all the while I was in training with my job and just trying to keep my head above water mentally.
(But what exactly does all this have to do with a story? I’m almost there, I swear.)
As soon as the last fic was posted, I revisited a work that I’d been working on literally up until the moment everything came crashing down. That would be my “Buck on BookTok” fic, which I’ll discuss another day, I think. That ended up getting posted about two weeks after the fallout. It was a safe fic to post, as it mostly just featured Buck after the bombing, without touching on the tsunami or the lawsuit or anything else. The response was amazing.
The moment I had hit post on that fic, I went back into Google docs. I had a few fics that I’d been playing with at the same time, though nothing stood out. It just felt like more of the same.
Until.
I saw it.
And I grabbed it.
I spent two days scouring two different Fandom Wikis to make sure I had my details right. I created a timeline and lists and literally debated between two different locations for what seemed like years, but was probably an hour and a half (the length of a standard lecture during work training, because priorities). I rewrote my author note regarding the origins of the fic, before deciding that I didn’t want that connection at all.
Instead, I went vague, I handed it off to be quickly edited by the most begrudged editor in the known universe (aka my mother), and posted my 9-1-1 / 9-1-1 Lone Star / MCU Fusion fic.
Yes, this was the fic I wasn’t supposed to post, because someone had claimed the prompt. The problem was, it had been nine months at this point and there wasn’t any movement. I also clearly wasn’t part of that discord anymore (and I have in the past been slightly vocal about it). I had waited this entire time, thinking I would post it around now if they actually had posted the fic.
But they didn’t, so I did. To great damn success.
The next month I wrote the first sequel that I had thought of but never thought I’d get to actually write. And then, last night, I finished off the trilogy.
Am I sad to see that I have it marked as complete? Absolutely. It was a fun little world to play in. But I also wanted to put a pin in it. I left it well enough that if I wanted to, I could return to it at any time. For now, at least, it’s complete.
As for that other fic? It’s still never been posted. I assume it’s gone the way of most prompt fics off of that discord, into a dark pit of nothingness and despair that fuels their bullshit. (Or I missed it, but I’m being vivid today.)
Should I talk about a few of my other fics that I’m wrapping up this week? Hmm… Decisions, decisions.
Until next time!
