Charm & Charitability (ch 1-3)

(Note for $2 patrons: As soon as I totally finish this, I'll have a second post with access to the full story for you)

Okay, this is one that I started a bit ago and figured would be easy, but then the scope blew up and I got stuck on it for a bit. Stop me if you've heard _that_ one before... But eventually, after restructuring and rewriting the third chapter a few times, I've gotten around to something that I'm much happier with. I may further revise this draft, but I don't anticipate any huge plot-level changes. Hopefully, I'll soon have the fourth chapter and conclusion ready--the end is very much in sight.

So what is this all about? Well, I'm not sure exactly what the audience is for T4T Victorian England vaguely-Jane-Austen knockoffs, but if you fall into that narrow band, do I have a story for you! As a period piece, it's pretty thick on the stylistic affectations, but I've tried to capture the aesthetic while also balancing it out with my own style and keeping it readable. Pls forgive any historical inaccuracies (and let me know if something sticks out to you as egregious), because I'm 1000% writing this based off of vibes rather than any real research. But there's at least a few parts of it that I'm very proud of! And it's like... >28,000 words somehow, which is a lot!! I keep feeling disappointed in myself that I can't just wrap this thing up, but then I look back at it and say 'wait a sec, at this point this is longer than anything else you've written other than T&T or Teenage Dirtbag' lol. How??

My goals are to finish this asap, and then I have a hard deadline coming up v soon because I'm doing a Secret Santa story again, so I'll have a shorter story done by mid-December. That one I'll need to keep that one under wraps for a bit, as its recipient should be the first person to see it, but it'll hit at the end of December or early January. I've got a skeleton of an idea for it, and generally speaking, it's in a genre that I haven't worked in since a certain _very_ early story of mine, so I think some of you might enjoy it... :) And of course, as always, I'm very slowly thinking about and working on Teenage Dirtbag, moving ever closer to a conclusion... one day...

As always, thank you so much for your continued support! And for those who are doing Thanksgiving things, I hope that you all have a really nice holiday (and that any relevant family drama is minimal--I know all too well how that goes). <3