Okay, I'm just gonna give a quick disclaimer now: if I come off as salty, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be, because I really do appreciate the fact that people loved Lonely Hearts as much as they did (it's honestly my pride and joy and possibly my peak here on Wattpad) but I do need to acknowledge something.

The spin-offs and sequel.

If you've read the second to last chapter of Lonely Hearts, I talk about the initial spin-off of the story, but I feel as though there was a miscommunication. I call Past Lives a spin-off, but if anything, it's the sequel. It doesn't follow Diana and her story, which is why I call it a spin-off, but it very much has a lot of references to Lonely Hearts (the first book, if you will) going so far to as to include the main character of that book more than spin-offs normally do.

So when people ask me if there's going to be a sequel and I mention Past Lives, that's because it is the sequel. You see, there are the genuine spin-offs that barely touch on Lonely Hearts at all, like Art Deco, my Ned Leeds story, but then there's Past Lives and my upcoming Tony Stark fic.

The Tony Stark fic, to use it as an example, is the middle ground between a spin-off like Past Lives and a spin-off like Art Deco.

Art Deco briefly mentions Diana, but because the characters only have one really major overlap, this is the kind of spin-off that people are expecting Past Lives to be, which is why I think some are completely ignoring it. It's set in the universe, but rarely do you see the characters from the initial story.

For Past Lives, the story takes place right after the initial story, making references to it, jumping off right where it left off, especially since the main characters in it were so major in the initial story, ie. Rhett and Nicky. Because they had such a close connection to the main character, the overlap is basically that of a sequel.

My Tony Stark fic is going to have mentions to Lonely Hearts, as Tony had a part in it as well, but it's more of a standalone than Past Lives is. There will be cameos from Diana, say, but she won't play as big of a role as she will in Past Lives.

This is a spin-off that has a middle ground between almost completely ignoring the stepping stone of the universe and having to connect so tightly to the stepping stone.

I don't know if I'm even doing spin-offs correctly, if the way I'm writing this connected universe is even the right way to go about it. I know that a lot of great writers here that do this sort of thing (tinkertaydust, dubrevh starfragment, and latte-to-go all have intertwining narratives and they write them beautifully and I bow down to them all *insert gif of hela telling Loki and Thor to kneel*) but I just feel as though I'm going about mine all wrong.

I don't even know what this is, I feel like I'm just trying to explain that the Hero of Heroes might not go into Infinity War unless they really fit in and I can get my Sam fic out in time, but I feel like I'm also asking for advice and help?

Maybe both?

I feel like I should separate the stories a bit more, but it's hard when they all take place after Homecoming (except maybe a Thor or Loki one if I write it) and Lonely Hearts took place during Homecoming.

I don't know. Advice? Criticism? Help? I don't even know anymore, you guys, I don't know.

Does anyone even read the spin-off or am I just kidding myself for thinking that people might enjoy it?