"it's cozy"

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric “Bitty” Bittle/Jack Zimmermann Characters: Eric “Bitty” Bittle, Jack Zimmermann, Shitty Knight (Check Please!), Larissa “Lardo” Duan, Bob Zimmermann, Alicia Zimmermann, Chris “Chowder” Chow, Alexei “Tater” Mashkov, Original Characters, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Meeting, Divorce, Parenthood, Past Infidelity (by other partners), Starting Over, Friends to Lovers, Some angst, Post-Breakup Bad Decisions Summary:

Eric Bittle had it all: a fairy-tale marriage to his college sweetheart, two great kids, a thriving career. Until the day his cheating husband up and left him for a younger man. Now a single parent, Eric’s just trying to get through each day as best as he can.

Professional hockey player Jack Zimmermann also had it all, up until the day his pop star wife left him for his linemate. In need of a fresh start, Jack finds himself on the other side of the country to finish out his NHL career with a new team, the Providence Falconers.

When their paths keep crossing, Eric and Jack form an unlikely friendship. Neither is looking for romance. But that just might happen, anyway.

Jack seems like the kind of person that would get lost in a resort town and while everyone’s looking for him he’s just hanging out at the candle shop thoroughly enjoying watching the employees dip and carve wax. 

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric “Bitty” Bittle/Jack Zimmermann Characters: Eric “Bitty” Bittle, Jack Zimmermann, Shitty Knight (Check Please!), Larissa “Lardo” Duan, Bob Zimmermann, Alicia Zimmermann, Chris “Chowder” Chow, Alexei “Tater” Mashkov, Original Characters, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Meeting, Divorce, Parenthood, Past Infidelity (by other partners), Starting Over, Friends to Lovers, Some angst, Post-Breakup Bad Decisions Summary:

Eric Bittle had it all: a fairy-tale marriage to his college sweetheart, two great kids, a thriving career. Until the day his cheating husband up and left him for a younger man. Now a single parent, Eric’s just trying to get through each day as best as he can.

Professional hockey player Jack Zimmermann also had it all, up until the day his pop star wife left him for his linemate. In need of a fresh start, Jack finds himself on the other side of the country to finish out his NHL career with a new team, the Providence Falconers.

When their paths keep crossing, Eric and Jack form an unlikely friendship. Neither is looking for romance. But that just might happen, anyway.

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann Characters: Eric "Bitty" Bittle, Jack Zimmermann, Shitty Knight (Check Please!), Larissa "Lardo" Duan, Bob Zimmermann, Alicia Zimmermann, Chris "Chowder" Chow, Alexei "Tater" Mashkov, Original Characters, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Meeting, Divorce, Parenthood, Past Infidelity (by other partners), Starting Over, Friends to Lovers, Some angst, Post-Breakup Bad Decisions Summary:

Eric Bittle had it all: a fairy-tale marriage to his college sweetheart, two great kids, a thriving career. Until the day his cheating husband up and left him for a younger man. Now a single parent, Eric’s just trying to get through each day as best as he can.

Professional hockey player Jack Zimmermann also had it all, up until the day his pop star wife left him for his linemate. In need of a fresh start, Jack finds himself on the other side of the country to finish out his NHL career with a new team, the Providence Falconers.

When their paths keep crossing, Eric and Jack form an unlikely friendship. Neither is looking for romance. But that just might happen, anyway.

The 'write for yourself uwu' culture shift has done real damage to fic writers imo. I recently had a post on the importance of strategic commenting break containment and I'm surprised by how many strangers who rb it in agreement feel the need to reassure in the tags that they do write for themselves, but...

There is a kernel of truth in the heart of this sentiment--if you only chase stats, you are unlikely to find joy in your writing. At the same time, I think we've veered too far in the other direction.

It is only natural to want engagement and the write for yourself crowd often overlooks how communal an effort fic writing usually is. So many story ideas are born from casual discussions about h/c's and favourite scenes and what ifs and the comment box is a cornerstone of this process. Not only can the discussions in the comment box be a hub for idea generation on their own, but even when the said idea generation takes place in DMs or Discord chats, commenting is often the first/easiest way into befriending authors; it's where community building starts.

Further, the write for yourself crowd similarly overlooks that the things a writer can write for themselves are often vast and many at any given time, and relative engagement levels across fandoms/ships can play a large part in which of those ideas a writer chooses to pursue--or whether they choose to publish their finished work at all.

In sum, I don't think we need to be this apologetic as writers for wanting feedback and engagement for what we post -- writing is hard work and it's only human that we want something external out of it in turn, however rewarding the process might intrinsically be.

So this fic basically blindsided me with cute, and then bonus! they wrote an R/H spin off :D

-: Patreon :-

Summary:  Eric Bittle’s a hopeless romantic! Not exactly a great trait for someone who is perpetually lonely. His only hope at romance is his crush on the mystery man he serves at the While You Were Sleeping Cafe. His crush takes an unexpected turn when he saves him while being mugged and gets mistaken for the man’s fiance. Could this finally be a chance at romance for Bitty? Not if Mystery Man’s brother, Jack, has something to say about it.

A Zimbits AU based on the movie, While You Were Sleeping.

Chapter 1: Mystery Man and Life's Plan is up.

How many times do you think Bitty cited Beyoncé in his college papers? I know he must have at least once because I just cited Beyoncé in a paper.

Let's talk about this outfit:

This is right after early morning practice in August. Jack doesn't wear collared shirts on a day to day basis, and there's no way it's cold enough Jack needs layers. What gives?

Well, we see later how SMH is supposed to dress when they're trying to appear respectable while repping the team.

So it seems like Jack might need to go act somewhere in his official capacity as captain. I bet he's got his tie in his pocket. It's fun to imagine him getting wolf whistles after practice as he puts on a nice shirt and slacks but I don't know that the relationship is there for anyone but Shitty. We do know that they do get to the point where the team gets a big kick out of mocking him when he's got to act like a big deal.

Is it for an interview with the daily? I'm pretty sure it's noteworthy that they made it to the playoffs last year (Jack's first year as captain) so it makes sense that they might want to do a feature that's more serious than the examples we see of reporters just popping up to interview him in the extras.

(Shout-out to @doggernaut who chatted with me about this and pointing out Chowder violating the dress code with his sharks hoodie. Does he get a goalie pass? A Chowder pass? Does he just eat any fine levied against him and consider it worth the price? Much to consider.)

I can't believe Ngozi is reposting Check Please to Webtoons as weekly episodes. We're really gonna relive the entire comic run, revisit the complete spectrum of discourse. This is our Dracula Daily.

SUBSCRIBE TO CHECK PLEASE ON WEBTOONS

"Bittle. You need to eat more protein."

Redraw of the last panel of 1.2!

Tell me more about teenage Bitty's hopeless big-time crush. He could just be talking about a generally good policy not derived from any particular past first hand experience, or only minor mostly physical crushes that don't have anywhere near the emotional depth of what he's feeling even at this stage... but where's the fun in that?

(It doesn't come up in their discussion we see of their respective histories, but Bitty doesn't think of the dates he was on since coming to Samwell as worth mentioning - so any regrettable teenage crushes that didn't go anywhere almost certainly aren't being mentioned should they exist.)

It would be kind of delicious if it was with a hockey teammate so there's symmetry with both Bitty+Jack and Jack+Parse. It might honestly be a little too on the nose, and there are a lot of other interesting possibilities.

Also I want to shout out Ngozi for putting this right before shit really hits the fan at Epikegster. Flawless, no notes.

22 or 19 🥰

19. Share a snippet from a WIP without giving any context for it.

“Mozzarella sticks are basic. They don’t even taste good without sauce. Why does Jesse want mozzarella sticks? Look at me. I’m a whole damn meal!”

(From my current WIP that seems to be stalled due to my lack of focus.)

writer asks

5 and 20 ?

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

I've never considered not using a tag simply because I don't like it, and in fact I can't think of a tag that I'd be hesitant to use. The purpose of tags is to 1) make your story findable to readers who are interested in those things and 2) inform readers of the story's content. I want people to be able to find my fic, and I don't want to mislead them about its content, so I use as many tags that apply. (Sometimes I forget a tag and add it later.) (In my head I have a system for the order in which I use tags, but I literally don't care how others order their tags.)

*Note: I'm currently in library school, which may or may not inform my opinions on tagging. It's a real chicken and egg situation. Do I tag the way I do because I'm in library school, or am I in library school because I like order?

20. Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you?

I feel called out here. I always have multiple WIPs. Often, when I'm in the middle of a long, multi-chapter fic, I'll bang out a couple one shots simply because writing at a faster pace provides an endorphin hit that struggling with the same few paragraphs doesn't. Other times I just can't get momentum on anything and bounce around until something clicks. And then I'll get another idea and jot notes down so I don't forget.

Also, sometimes I'll have an idea and realize in the middle of writing that it's going nowhere so I'll move to something else until I can get a better grasp on it.

writing asks

Austin by ohyoufool

Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann

Bitty: a lesson in bitterness. “Say please,” Bitty breathes, something swelling inside his chest. Jack looks dazed, drunk at the sight of Bitty above him. “I’ll do anything you ask." He fills the space between them with his offer. “If you beg.”

E | Words: 18,830 | Chapters: 1/1

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