Sorry I haven't really been making any posts on here - haven't really had anything of importance to say. Just floatin' right along.
@Cinderpaw11: Although I love questions, my literal favorite is reader reactions. When you're writing, it's really easy to doubt whether or not you're handling the scene correctly - if your readers are gonna get what you're trying to imply, if they're going to feel the way you want them to feel, etc. etc. Writing is kinda like floundering around in a vacuum, for that reason, since you have nothing but your own reactions to go off of. Serially written stories like this one are pretty dependent on reader feedback for that reason - so I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts/reactions!
Holly/Trick is kinda a weird thing - back when I first starting writing their interactions, I kept getting vague urges from Trick to respond to Holly in ways that were seemingly out of character - more openly, more warmly. And I kept ignoring them, because Trick's kinda a weird character to write anyway (she's finicky) - but they didn't go away, and eventually I realized that she potentially had some buried feelings for her buddy. That, of course, wasn't going to work out, since Holly's 100% interested in Grint - so because it had no place in the story, I continued to downplay it. By the time I hit Partnerships, though, I just kinda threw my hands in the air and let Trick have at it, because even if her feelings aren't essential to the story (& will never be discussed, in-universe), they're still a part of her and it felt dishonest to keep shoving them out of the way. So, yes, Trick definitely has some romantic feelings for Holly, but she'll never act on them, because Holly wouldn't ever reciprocate them.
As for the time-skip, I think my original plan was a few big leaps (because it was going to be 12 chapters) but it ended up being more like little hops (because I expanded it to 16). Regardless, major events will never happen during timeskips, because I really dislike important things happening offscreen (unless it's kinda unavoidable; the set-up of the first trial is going to be so chaotic that it'd be impossible for us to see every death, just saying). That obviously doesn't bar any mates/death/Riven stuff happening in the future, haha.
Finally, if I could get away with writing 100k of nothing but cuddling, I totally would.
That's all for this week. See you guys next time (hopefully; I really need to set an alert for Mondays, or something).
