🐄 - what trope do you feel like you're milking in this particular fic?

⏳ - spend some time on the fic, this could be editing, or writing, or making a mood board (or social media post 🫣)

HIIIII thank you so much for asking about the SPN AU <3 I have been really enjoying this one, honest. I needed the reminder.

WIP Wednesday game here, come play with me!

Snippet:

Outside, streetlights flickered behind the paper-thin blinds drawn across the motel room’s solitary window. Bradley watched the sky lighten behind them with bleary eyes, breathing slow as the light shifted from a dull, washed-out orange to the icy blue of dawn. Another day gone. Jake breathed deeply beside him, his head twisted away from Bradley’s in the sheets pooling around his waist. At the first notes of early bird song, Bradley swung his eyes from the window to the side of Jake’s face, sweeping down and lingering on the methodic rise and fall of his chest. Predictable. Strong. Bradley sighed under the weight of what he knew he had to do next.

🐄 - what trope do you feel like you're milking in this particular fic?

I said in another response "running out of time" but another trope this fic uses a lot of is what I would call "it's for your own good." Totally unrelated to the above snippet.

⏳ - spend some time on the fic, this could be editing, or writing, or making a mood board (or social media post 🫣)

Hello dear Hale!

🔎 What detail(s) in the story are you particularly captivated with? Is there any behind the scenes info or backstory? Honestly, for you make my motor run, I'm honestly so chuffed with all the cars I picked out for everyone. I really tried to match their personalities (perceived) to their cars and like, Javy's orange Bronco! Mickey's 1970 Ford Escort that matches one from the Fast 6! Fun fact about that: the Ford Escort was introduced in Mexico in 1970 so I like to think it used to belong to Mickey's abeulo. Also did you know different countries had different Ford makes that were available? Like what Ford's were made and sold in the USA are different to the UK or Australia ect, so the fact that the Escort was available in Mexico but not the US and there is a famous one in the Fast and Furious Saga, I just knew Fanboy had to have it and it felt like serendipity. I love the little polaroid of his parents Bradley keeps stuck to the dash, and the idea that he swaps them out with a few different ones and the goose bumper sticker!

Some backstory: I never really hammered out how Jake and Bradley got together... there was a vague idea of a prequel I would never write where I think Jake is Ron/Slider's son who lived with his Mom half the time and Ron took Bradley in after his mom died, and Jake and Bradley butted heads immediately. Definitely tolerated each other's company for a long while until they started up some kind of friends-with-benefits kind of thing. Until Bradley tried to make it more serious but Jake didn't want to hear it. They "break up" or rather Bradley tells him to call him when he's ready for something real. Cue one night Bradley is working at his garage, the sun is setting outside and it's one of those real vibrant sunsets and he hears the rumble of a car pulling up, music blasting from it's speakers. Bradley walks outside and Jake is there, leaning against the side of his Mustang, windows down playing I Wanna Know What Love Is by Foreigner, and he's just standing there, arms crossed and watching Bradley and letting the music speak for him and Bradley looks in his eyes and he knows he means it. Bradley just stalks up to him and pulls him in for a deep kiss, cue them making love on the couch in Bradley's office. (Ok, so I had some ideas, mainly that scene haha).

🥇 What scene were you most excited to write? Did it end up being the one you enjoyed writing the most? I think I was most excited to write all the details I had done so much research for, so the first scene where Jake is assessing the Bronco. As well as the reveal, as I thought that was fun and I was so excited and hoped I could pull it off. The scene I think I enjoyed writing the most though was the one where they were all sitting around shooting the shit, and Jake and Bradley's thinly veiled flirting. I had a lot of fun with the dialogue, and I loved the way they teased, the familiarity between them all, sitting in their camping chairs and throwing each other cans ect. Just, I love when the daggers just hang out <3

🧭 What was the key choice or decision you had to make for this story? If you had chosen differently, what would the story have turned into?

📖 Could the story have been a different length? What would you have included/removed?

ohooooo. i think the key choice for this was HOW Bradley found out. i wanted it to echo new moon in a way, so jake having to phase in the way jacob did in front of bella to protect her. i think that, if it went the way jake wanted, he would’ve kept familiarizing bradley with the wolf, until they became friends, before revealing his secret!

hmmmm for 📖, i think it would’ve been easy to add their younger selves into many flashbacks! i think their first kisses would’ve been fun, or them falling together and apart for the first time may have been cute, but that would’ve lengthened it quite a bit, and it’s already so long!!!

hi haleeeee! did some editing for 🪡!!

as for💡💡 forks is obviously heavily inspired by twilight/new moon/etc. but just the setting of the olympic peninsula in general is suchhhh a huge inspiration. the fog and the forests and the rain are characters in and of themselves. just look!!!!!! it's soooo beautiful

hi Hale!! 4. share your favorite line of dialogue from a wip

I can't share my favorite line of dialogue, but this is a fun one "Nice shirt, Bradshaw." (it's Jake's shirt :D)

8. who is your favorite character in one of your wips and why do you like them in that story?

🎲 - spend some time on this fic (writing)

👾 - what's bugging you about this fic?

hi hale!! late to the game this week, finally had some more time to write

🎲 - spend some time on this fic (writing)

jotted down a sweet few hundred words of Bradley crashing out for irrational reasons and Jake messing with him, as is the way

👾 - what's bugging you about this fic?

ooh ok! i'll do the snowflake: ❄️ - talk about what is freezing you about this project (slippery parts or just frozen with indecision?)

i'm trying to make this very sincere in bradley's confusion and sadness, which is stalling me a bit. it's a lot of trying to understand what happened in the gap in his memories that made hangman his most trusted companion, his emergency contact, the first person to be by his bedside when he'd been hurt. who is jake to him now, and how has that changed so much?

Haleee my friend, it's one of my favorite movies – the ensemble cast, the young Matt Damon, the shenanigans!

I really just want to rip off the iconic dialogue of "Does he make you laugh / He doesn't make me cry" because I think it fits Hangster inherently in their grey area separated phase. But then the fun of any AU is to make it their own story, so maybe starting from there and seeing where it goes!

I'm also a Bostonian at heart and intrigued by the Isabella Stewart Gardner musuem heist so a part of me wants to make it an art heist instead of a casino heist

opening snippet!

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Natasha doesn't wave when Bradley exits the facility, but she does grin, white and bright against the dull autumn sky. She takes a loud slurp of her 7-11 Big Gulp, sound of the ice rattling echoing through the empty parking lot. She's tan in the way an end of summer jaunt over to the Mediterranean suggests; Bradley wonders who she'd set her sights on there.

"I'm honored you took the Mustang out just for me," Bradley greets her.