And the sky is fucking blue

Okay, first off, HI!!! How have you been? It's been a minute since we last talked to each other - for which you have an almost unreasonably amount of apologies for me, so sorry.

It's been over five years since I started And The Sky Is Fucking Blue after falling into the rabbit hole of Teen Wolf X Avengers crossovers one night and realizing that, while this very specific corner of the internet was certainly carved out specifically for me to set up shop in, it was missing something that I needed to scratch the perfect angsty itch in my brain. Hence, this godforsaken story was born. Five years, and this story is still not complete…my bad :(

But never fear! This is the very long-awaited update to tell you that this story IS going to be completed by the end of this year. Hopefully by the end of the summer – she says as we just start on fucking January. I want to thank you all so much for the continued love and support I have received not just throughout this journey, but especially in the last two years since I have been neglecting this story. If it wasn’t for you guys, I would never have had it in me to make it this far, and this would just be yet another undeveloped idea in the graveyard that is my computer.

So much has changed since I started this story, myself included. I was seventeen when I started this little adventure. I was still in high school and trying desperately to cram 18 classes into the space of 12 in hopes of graduating on time, while stuck in my house 24 hours a day doing online school. This was just another of my many attempts at escapism that was mostly written in my more upsetting, sleep-deprived moments when I needed something positive to focus on. I could never have anticipated so many of you loving it as much as I did. BUT, as much as I love this story, I’m twenty-three now, and while me and my buddy escapism are still attached at the hip, I can’t ignore that, at its core, this story shows the age and maturity of the version of me that wrote it. So, in order for Present Baby to finish this without cringing myself into oblivion, some changes are in order.

And that, dear readers, is where you come in.

I’m already partially into a full rewrite of this story. I’m not trying to change the foundations or anything drastic, don’t worry, but the list of things on my overall list while short, is not insignificant. My main goal when I decided to go back and finish these last few chapters, was to try and meld my pervious and current writing styles in a way that wasn’t completely awkward and clunky, and so a reread was in order. Said reread called to my attention many things that I will lay out in a very clear list for us to ponder together. They are as follows:

1) This fic is significantly shorter and feels much more rushed than I would prefer

I’m happy to report that I’m only three chapters into my rewrite and I’m already at 15,000 words, so you will be getting the full length, flushed out fic that you deserve after sticking around for so long. Yay! Go team! The pacing and timeline of this story needs some pretty significant TLC, but I’m getting there slowly but surely.

2) This sounds like something I wrote as a teenager.

Shocking, I know, but still not desirable. This fic started out serious-adjacent, and then got a little crack-y, and then serious again and while I don’t want to gut the humor, as I feel it’s very integral to not just the enjoyment of it, but also to the characters themselves and often the way they process trauma and angst, we have to correct that. It doesn’t need to disappear, but it does need to be more seamless, and in general less juvenile at times.

3) I started this fic with a few issues that I was aware of from the very beginning but was intentionally ignoring, and they have come back to bite me in the ass. Surprise surprise.

          a) I have not actually finished Teen Wolf, nor do I read Avengers fanfiction very often

I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I watched Teen Wolf, and to be so perfectly real with you, I finished season 3, saw one singular clip of Kate Argent resurrected and decided – for the sake of my sanity and impending migraine – to nope right out of there and never looked back. This has left some holes in my general knowledge of the source material, as one might expect, and has the effect of giving me an incomplete understanding of some of these characters, or rather their relationships with each other. When you have a fic with a lot of characters, it’s always hard to keep track of everyone, but this was definitely the first time I had ever attempted this many all at once and I feel like I bit off a little much for 17-year-old Baby. That needs some work, and I’d love to hear if you have any opinions on characters or relationships I’m not doing the due justice to. Which leads me into the next half of the problem:

          b) I honestly don’t like half of these characters, and I feel like that translates into my writing sometimes, and making them main characters in this story was a mistake that greatly impacted my motivation to work on it as time went on.

I’m heavily debating some characters taking more background roles in the rewrite and I want your opinion. Top of the list of characters that aren’t my favorite and I definitely don’t feel like I’ve done justice to is Lydia, unfortunately.

I think Lydia has wonderful potential to be an awesome character if written well, but I could never manage to capture her voice in my writing, nor do I think this story in general gives me the opportunity to do so, as even when she’s there, she doesn’t feel integral to the story. Most of her lines are things I originally planned for the other members of the Erica-Boyd-Isaac-Lydia group, but on my proofreading, I realized time and time again, that I had completely forgotten about her and had to do some last-minute editing. I feel like that ended up making everyone a little flatter than I wanted them to be and I’m not super happy about that. So, would you be overwhelmingly heartbroken if I shifted her to more of a cameo, or would you just be bummed but ultimately forgive me?

A minor change that has been bugging me is Stiles’s Dad’s name. John is just not it. At first I was very team John, but I’ve been converted. It’s Noah, it’s getting changed, sorry if you don’t like it. He’ll still be there, nothing else is changing except that we’re going to be seeing more of the complicated, post-possession dynamic between Stiles and Noah, but quite frankly, John sounds crusty.

So, in summary: things are changing, but I want your input. I want to know your honest opinions on the story as it stands. Where is it a little awkward or choppy? Who got steam rolled in certain scenes? Who is not that important to this story and maybe doesn’t need to be there all the time? What do you think Lydia’s fate should be? Do you feel like I infantilized Isaac, because on the re-read, it kind of seems like I did? Will you miss the clunky humor, or are you looking forward to a more balanced attempt? I don’t know if you caught it originally, but I did intend for this to be a Stiles/James fic, however I’ve grown as a person and this probably isn’t going to have any romantic relationship for Stiles whatsoever. Thoughts?

I want to thank you all again for your support and encouragement on this story, it has meant so much to me and made so much of a difference to me and my life in times that I really needed it. I’m very excited to finally be finishing this story and doing it justice, while trying to stay true to the idea it started as and the journey we’ve all been on with it. When I finish the initial re-write I will update again to post the date I will be re-rereleasing the entire, completed fic in one go, after some touchups of course. I can’t wait to hear from you all again and I hope you will be as excited as I am. Let's chat in the comments like old times :P

XOXO babes