#*me writing this to try and banish my writers block* so it's just going to be a short little drabble!

[singsweetmelodies]

Hello Katie 👋🏼👋🏼 :D

For the 50 romance prompts ask meme, I'll like to request for 44: soulmate AU: timers <3

but if possible... with a twist...? (you don't have to include a twist if it's too difficult to work it in!)

The twist being, for whatever reason, their countdown timers for each of them to the time they meet their soulmates doesn't match, so they think "we're not each other's soulmates. that's cool. (no it's not)" but it turns out that they're each other soulmates anyways. or they choose to be with each other in spite of not being each other's soulmates. idk. *nervous laughter*

hiiii charlotte 🥰 first off, i am SO sorry for the incredible delay with this answer!! i saw this prompt and i absolutely LOVED IT (and the twist!! 🙏 *chef's kiss*) but unfortunately i got struck with a horrible case of writer's block/work deadlines, and just couldn't get to it at all.

until yesterday: i decided to just open my inbox and see what came to me. no thinking, just following the vibe of a prompt and writing. and uh. this happened... not only did it get ridiculously long (oops?) but it also somehow became a mini "investigate montreal" fic?? so in that vein, i'm tagging @1016week and submitting a belated entry for Day 6 "Montreal"... ❤️

i love this one. hope you love it too!! 👀⌚

~

Charles' soulmate timer stops when he is seven years old, and he meets the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen.

He's been vibrating with excitement all weekend - not just because it's a karting cup, but because his soulmate timer has been ticking down to this day for months now. Well, not just months, not really. It's actually been his whole life, but Charles doesn't remember all of that. He only remembers the past few months, when the little numbers had been getting smaller and smaller, until there were only ten days left and Charles gasped when he realised that the day would fall on the same day as the Bridgestone Cup.

"Of course the girl I marry is going to like racing, too," he'd told Maman and Papa, confidingly. Not a lot about soulmates made much sense to him, but this did.

His Maman had tried to smile, and Charles had hugged her tight to let her know it was going to be okay. He would find his soulmate, and then everyone would be smiling, because that's what people do when you meet your soulmate.

(Later that night, when Charles had been too excited to sleep and he'd gone to the bathroom quickly, Charles had heard his parents having an argument in their room. The door was closed, so their voices were muffled, but Charles could still make out his Maman saying "I just don't think it's a good sign, to meet your soulmate so young!" But Papa had countered, "Many people do, and they have beautiful stories. You have to trust that our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow." And then there had been an icky noise, like kissing, and Charles had flushed the loo quickly and ran back to his room.)

Now, with the beautiful blue eyed boy standing in front of him, Charles thinks of Papa's words again. Our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow.

Charles thought it would be a girl who really liked karting, but this is even better. This is a boy who wins at karting, because he's holding a trophy in both hands and grinning like he couldn't be happier.

Of course Charles' perfect match would be someone who wins at karting. It's only right, because Charles also wins at karting.

Charles clears his throat. "Hi," he says shyly, and the blue-eyed boy jumps.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," he says apologetically, and then he laughs. He has a nice laugh, Charles thinks - like he knows how to have fun. "You are a bit short," the blue-eyed boy adds, and hey.

"Hey," Charles protests. "I'm tall for my age. I'm seven."

"Well, I'm nine," the blue-eyed boy says, like that's the most impressive age in the world.

It is a bit impressive, but not very, because Lorenzo is much older than that. Still, it is a little scary - Charles is only seven. What if this blue-eyed boy doesn't like him because he's only seven? Older kids can be mean like that.

No, he is your perfect match, Charles reminds himself. This blue-eyed boy won't be mean to him, because that's not how perfect matches work.

Charles takes a deep breath, then he sticks out his hand. "I'm Charles," he says.

The blue-eyed boy takes his hand, and it feels... weird. A little bit like when you get shocked by static electricity.

Charles giggles, unable to stop himself, and the blue-eyed boy smiles, as though he likes that.

"Hello, Charles. I'm Pierre," he says, squeezing Charles' hand. His eyes widen a moment later. "Oh! You've met your soulmate?!"

Charles doesn't understand what he means. "Well, yeah," he says. "It's y-"

And then he notices it.

Pierre's soulmate timer, right there on his wrist, right above where Charles is gripping his hand - it's still ticking.

Now, Charles doesn't know a lot about soulmates yet, but he knows that that's not good. Not good at all.

"I, um," Charles stammers, and then he does the one thing Maman and Papa said you should never do to your soulmate. Charles lies.

"I met so many new people today. I don't remember who it was."

Pierre's face falls. "Oh," he says, and he sounds unbearably sad for Charles. "But..." He chews his lip, shaking his head with a deep frown.

Then, mid-shake, Pierre's expression changes to one of determination. "I will help you find them," he says, with the kind of confidence Charles can only dream of when he's not on the racetrack.

He tugs on Charles' hand - which he still hasn't let go of - and Charles is helpless to do anything but follow.

~

They don't find Charles' soulmate anywhere, of course, and then Charles has to go win his race - but Pierre makes him promise that they will find each other at the next French karting event, and Charles will tell him all about his soulmate.

Charles promises, even though the idea makes his stomach feel all funny. I shouldn't be lying to my soulmate, he thinks, guiltily.

But Pierre's soulmate timer didn't stop ticking, and... that's not how soulmates are supposed to work.

The moment he's in the car with his father after the race, heading back home, Charles asks him about it.

Papa is quiet for a long moment, then: "Are you sure there wasn't someone behind Pierre, Charles?" he asks, in his careful, kind way. "Someone who's timer stopped at the same time as yours?"

Charles thinks about it for a moment, but even the idea of that feels - wrong, somehow. Like going into a corner and knowing you braked too hard, and you're going to flip the kart.

He shakes his head decisively. "No," he says. "It's Pierre."

He hears rather than sees his father blow out a soft sigh. Charles catches his eye in the rearview mirror, feeling confused and a little shaky inside.

When Papa sighs like that, it's never good news - it's usually something about sponsorship, which is a word Charles is already coming to dread.

It doesn't make sense how this could be about sponsorship, though. It probably isn't.

Charles waits for his father to gather his thoughts, like he needs to do sometimes to make sure he says exactly what he means. (It's something Maman keeps telling him he should try doing as well, but he's not so good at that yet.)

"You know how even the greatest racing drivers make mistakes sometimes?" Papa asks.

Charles frowns, but he nods. "Yes?"

"Sometimes the universe is like that, too. Sometimes the universe makes a mistake, and stops the timers too soon," Papa explains.

Charles frowns. He hasn't heard about that before, but he guesses it makes sense. It's true what Papa said - not even Senna was a perfect driver who never made mistakes. It makes sense that the universe is the same.

"But this doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate, okay, Charles?" Papa says before Charles can spend too much time thinking about the whole thing. His voice is firmer than Charles was expecting, and he reaches up to tilt the rearview mirror to see Charles better.

"It doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate," he repeats, like he doesn't want Charles to ever doubt that. "It just means it's going to be a little harder to find them."

Charles frowns, and he can't help but be a little annoyed. Isn't the whole point of soulmate timers to make it easier to find your perfect match?

It's just his luck that his soulmate timer doesn't work properly.

"I understand," Charles says, though, because he can tell it's important to his father.

Papa nods, but he keeps watching Charles in the rearview mirror for the rest of the drive, like he sometimes does after a race where Charles crashed the kart badly and he needs to keep making sure that Charles is fine.

Of course Charles is fine. He doesn't think this is comparable to a bad race at all! It's a little annoying, yes, but it's not that bad. It's just a bit of extra work, isn't it?

Charles shrugs his shoulders, glancing quickly down at the stopped soulmate timer at his wrist.

Whatever. Racing is more important than soulmates, anyway.

~

Almost twenty years later, Charles still says that to himself almost every day, even if he doesn't believe it with nearly the same careless seven-year-old confidence anymore: racing is more important than soulmates.

It is, because it has to be.

The thing is this: his father's explanation to Charles' seven-year-old self had been true - if a little oversimplified, and painted with an overt layer of kindness.

The truth Charles knows now is that there are two reasons, two categories, for people whose timers stop when the other person's keeps running.

One is, like Papa had said all those years ago, a simple case of mistaken timing - cases where the universe or fate or whatever controls it all stopped one person's timer a little too soon, or the other's a little too late.

It's harder to find each other in those cases, but it's still quite possible.

And then there's the second category. The unrequiteds. People whose timers stopped at the right time - when they met the person who would be their perfect match - except that they are not that person's perfect match in return. It only goes one way.

It's rare, but it happens sometimes. No system is perfect, after all - not even a system of soulmates.

For years and years, Charles tried to convince himself that he fell into the first category. His soulmate timer simply stopped too early, by some cosmic accident - but it's okay, Charles insists to everyone who asks and to himself as well, because what it's done is given Charles more time to focus on his racing instead. He's not constantly glancing down at his wrist and wondering when his timer is going to stop ticking - he can just get on with the racing.

He'll find his soulmate eventually, but on his own terms. There's nothing bad about that, surely.

Charles believes that. Really he does.

Except.

Except, if it's true and Charles falls into the first category - the mistaken timing category - then it would mean Pierre isn't his soulmate.

Pierre, who kept the promise he'd made to a seven-year-old who wasn't even his soulmate (because, yes, he had found Charles at the very next French karting cup, and he'd asked to meet Charles' soulmate - and when Charles had to admit that he still hadn't found them, Pierre had hugged him and told him not to give up and that he would find his soulmate someday. Pierre had held Charles' hand and explained that his parents almost didn't find each other, but they did. So it might take Charles some time, but that was okay, because it had taken Pierre's parents some time too, but now they were happier than ever. He'd been so convincing, firm but kind and absolutely sure of himself, and he'd made Charles believe it. He also made Charles smile, genuinely and truly, when he promised he'd stick by Charles' side no matter what anyone else said or whispered about his stopped soulmate timer.)

Pierre, who kept that promise about sticking with Charles, too. Pierre who never stopped being kind, and loyal, and the best friend Charles could ask for, whether he was seven or thirteen or nineteen or twenty-six.

Honestly, how was Charles supposed to not fall hopelessly in love with him?

He tried to deny it. For years and years, Charles tried to deny it - I will find my soulmate someday and it will all make sense, he'd tried to convince himself - but the thing was, what made more sense than Pierre being his soulmate?

It was roundabout the time of Pierre's first win (when Charles was standing under the podium in Monza with an aching back but a heart soaring with joy for his best friend despite the disaster of his own race) that Charles resigned himself to the truth: Pierre is his soulmate.

He has to be. Isn't a soulmate meant to be your perfect match; the person who understands you better than anyone and makes you happier than any other person in the world?

There's nobody else who could make Charles as happy as Pierre does. Nobody, nobody. There's no point in even trying to deny it anymore.

Pierre is his soulmate. But he is not Pierre's.

And that's okay. It's okay.

It has to be.

~

It isn't okay, not really, but that's true of a lot of things in Charles' life, and he's learned how to deal with them. He can deal with this, too.

On the whole, Charles thinks he does a pretty good job of dealing with it. He gets to be Pierre's best friend, after all - isn't that just a different kind of soulmate? True, Charles might want more, but it isn't like he has nothing. He has Pierre, and he will have Pierre for the rest of their lives.

Not in the way he wants, but - at least he will have Pierre.

The one thing he tries never to think about is Pierre's actual soulmate. Because Pierre has one, he knows, and he will meet them at some point.

Charles doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to look at some soulmate of Pierre's, and smile at her, and not be hopelessly, heartbreakingly jealous.

(He will do it, though. He will learn to smile at Pierre's soulmate - for Pierre's sake. He'll do it for Pierre.)

But that's a bridge he will cross when they get there. He doesn't have to worry about it yet (or at least, that's what Charles keeps telling himself even as the months tick by, and he knows there aren't year figures left on Pierre's soulmate timer anymore. Just months now, and then... weeks.)

Charles isn't thinking about it. He's put it out of his mind completely - which is easy enough to do, thankfully, given everything that's been happening on-track this season.

That's probably why he accepts Pierre's invitation to dinner in Montreal without thinking twice about it. (Even if he had realised, though, Charles doesn't think he would have been able to say no, either. He would give Pierre everything, if he only asked.)

So they go to dinner in Montreal, and it's perfect, and wonderful, and laughter-filled, and all in all exactly what Charles needed to distract himself from the fact that he has yet another engine penalty, and the sinking feeling that the championship is beginning to slip out of his reach.

Pierre seems to realise it, because he's in even finer form than usual - teasing Charles and tickling his ribs playfully and making him laugh at every possible opportunity.

Even on the drive back to the hotel: they stop at a red light, and Pierre steals Charles' cap, and Charles is giggling and filming it while Pierre is giggling back, and he's pretty sure neither of them are thinking about it at all, until-

Until Pierre's face changes from laughter to something almost ashen. "Charles," he says, and for all the years Charles has known him, he's never once heard Pierre's voice like that. "My soulmate timer just stopped."

For a few seconds, the words don't even register in Charles' mind.

Then they do, and Charles can feel his heart drop. "What?" he breathes.

His hands shake, and he doesn't even register the fact that the light has gone green as he glances all around them, craning his neck to see if there's anyone behind the white Ferrari, or around to the side.

Just a few minutes ago, their car had been surrounded by fans on all sides, all jostling to try and get pictures of them. But now, somehow, they're all alone in the Montreal night.

(The irony of it all is not lost on him - is this how Pierre felt all those years ago, when he was trying to look for Charles' soulmate at a karting cup, but not finding anybody it could be?)

"Are you sure it stopped just now? And not earlier?" Charles asks, willing his voice not to shake.

"Yeah," Pierre whispers. He sounds... devastated.

"But," Charles says, and then he has to take a deep breath. "But there's no-one else here, Pierrot."

"I know," Pierre says, somehow even softer.

Charles' fingers clench reflexively around the steering wheel, and he's moving in blank autopilot as he puts the car into gear and starts driving forward again.

He doesn't even realise he's shaking his head until Pierre says softly, "Charles." There's something wounded about it.

Charles stops shaking his head and slams on the brakes instead, jerking the car into something he hopes is a parking space at the side of the road.

"I don't understand," he says, far more calmly than he feels. "You can't - I can't be your soulmate."

Okay, maybe he's not so calm after all. But he doesn't think... he doesn't think anyone would be calm, in this situation.

Pierre makes a sound that could almost be a laugh, except that it sounds too strangled. "Do you know," he says, "that I have spent half my life wondering if the soulmate system got something wrong in my case? Because if you're not my soulmate, then who is? Who could possibly..."

Pierre does laugh this time, shaking his head. "You know, I asked to go out with you tonight for a reason. I knew - I knew it would happen tonight, so I needed to..." He swallows. "I needed to see you, one last time. Before I wouldn't be allowed to love you anymore."

It jolts through Charles then, what Pierre is trying to say. "Pierre," he breathes, and now it's his turn to say his best friend's name in a way he doesn't think he's ever said it before.

But Pierre's not finished yet. "I thought I could have one last night with you," he says. "One last night, before I had to say goodbye to my feelings, and try to love someone else."

My feelings. Try to love someone else.

Charles Leclerc is a lot of things, but an idiot is not one of them. He knows what Pierre is saying. He's...

Pierre loves him too. All along, Pierre has loved him too.

Only, he never had the option of thinking we're soulmates, Charles realised, and his heart twists in his chest.

Because Charles, for all that he accepted his soulbond toward Pierre was unrequited - at least he'd had the option of them being soulmates. Yes, it was in a twisted way, but at least he'd had that.

Pierre didn't. And he still fell in love with Charles.

The thought hits him like a shell-shock, and it's enough that Charles can only sit there for a moment, staring blankly, as Pierre continues talking beside him.

"I meant for tonight to just be a quick dinner together, something fun but normal for us," Pierre is saying, wringing his hands. "But I lost track of time. I always lose time when I'm talking to you, Charlito, I could talk to you forever - but the point is, I forgot to tell you I need to go back. I forgot that I was meant to meet my fucking soulmate tonight, because I was spending time with you, and - "

He takes a deep breath, and then he laughs again, leaning forward to drop his head into his hands. "I felt it happen, you know? I knew exactly when my soulmate timer stopped, because I could feel it, and it's - it was when I put that fucking cap on my head, Charles."

The cap that he's still wearing. Charles' 16 Ferrari cap.

Charles' hands shake as he reaches out to touch it, just the brim. "Your soulmate timer stopped when you put my cap on," he says, because a part of him still can't believe that this is real, that he's not living in some kind of heartbreakingly wonderful dream.

Pierre straightens up so fast that Charles is left with his fingers dangling awkwardly in mid-air. "Yes," he says, suddenly looking wild, "but this doesn't have to change anything, Charlito, I promise. I will still help you find your soulmate, and I will - I'll learn how to live with an unrequited bond, it's -"

"No!" Charles interrupts, half-throwing himself across the car to catch hold of Pierre's hands. "No, no, no, no. No more unrequited bonds, Pierrot."

Pierre starts to shake his head, but then he stops in the middle of the movement. "What do you mean," he asks, very carefully, "no more?"

And suddenly, Charles feels giddy, of all things. "I mean, your timer didn't stop when mine did. So for years, I have thought that we can't be soulmates, or at least that you couldn't be my soulmate. But now your timer stopped when you put on my cap, so -"

"Stop, stop, stop," Pierre says, squeezing Charles' hands tightly. "What do you mean, my timer didn't stop when yours did?"

"Oh," Charles says, and then he winces, the weight of the only real lie he's ever told his best friend (the only real lie he's ever told his soulmate) settling onto his shoulders with uncomfortable heaviness. "Um. Well. Do you remember when we met, and you thought I already met my soulmate?"

"No," Pierre breathes, but it's not the kind of no that says "no I don't remember." This no is more like "no way."

"Yeah," Charles says, and he can't help but look down at his own wrist, where the soulmate timer has been stopped for years and years. "My timer stopped the moment I met you, Pierrot."

"You..."

Pierre doesn't look like he knows how to finish that sentence, but Charles understands him anyway. "How was I supposed to tell you? I was seven, Pierre, and your timer didn't stop. I thought it was a mistake for years."

"But?" Pierre asks, like he can tell there was a but.

Charles beams at him. "But, I realised that there was nobody else who could be my perfect match. So I thought you were my soulmate after all, but it was unrequited."

"Never," Pierre says with a fierceness Charles doesn't expect. "Charles, never. If I knew... if I thought I had even half a chance, I would have been with you anyway."

Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out all breathless. "No you wouldn't."

"Yes, I would," Pierre argues, and his voice is heartbreakingly sincere. "I don't care. I would have chosen you."

Charles hears a punched-out noise, and it takes him a moment to realise it came from him. The next moment, he's unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing awkwardly over to sit on Pierre's lap.

It's not quite comfortable, because for all its luxury, the white Ferrari does not have a lot of leg space - but Charles doesn't think either of them give a single fuck, in this moment.

"I love you," he tells Pierre, reaching up to cup his cheek. "I've always loved you, but I never would have stood between you and your soulmate."

"Funny," Pierre says, his hands coming up to grip Charles' hips, "because that's exactly what stopped me from kissing you senseless."

"Well," Charles says, and if he grinds down just a little on Pierre's lap, he'll swear to everyone who asks that it was accidental. "It doesn't have to stop us anymore."

"Never again," Pierre agrees, tightening his grip on Charles' hips. "Never."

"So kiss me senseless, please," Charles whispers, and then he adds "soulmate," and that's what does it. Pierre surges up and kisses him, wild and desperate and more than a little clumsy, but without question the best kiss Charles has ever had. His own cap digs into his forehead a little, but Charles can't even bring himself to care about that - they owe too much to this cap now, honestly.

Maybe the universe does know what it's doing after all, Charles thinks. Maybe the universe just wanted to write a good story for them. A story that goes like this:

Charles' soulmate timer stopped when he was seven years old, and he met the boy with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

Almost twenty years later, Pierre's soulmate timer stopped in a white Ferrari in Montreal, and Charles finally got to kiss the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen, the man who is his best friend and his soulmate.

The odds of it working out this way have to be... a million to one, probably, or maybe even less.

But then again, what are the odds that two boys who met at a French karting cup and became friends with a shared dream would both make it to Formula 1?

Maybe the answer is just that Pierre and Charles have always liked beating the odds.

~

(50 Romance Prompts Ask Meme) <- not currently taking more prompts, sorry!

[nhstadler]

3 9 7  P A G E S

Hey everyone! I realised it's been forever since I posted anything and since I'm not quite finished with the chapter, I thought I'd at least post a story snippet to let you know that I haven't fogotten about you and about HNTBAW. It's just been a little much lately and I've been struggling with writer's block (as always).

But anyway, this is a random scene from the post Hogwarts series (which I might title A Catalogue of Us). It's kind of a flashback memory sort of thing and maybe it's a little confusing and sad, but maybe some of you enjoy it. I hope you had wonderful holidays / Christmas if you celebrate it and I promise I'm still writing.

Let me know what you think if you feel like it... hearing from you guys always helps my motivation, honestly :)

When James fell, the world stood still. I stood still. 

Sometimes I still dream about it. His muddled form falling through the sky, the burst of levitation spells in the pouring rain, like perverse fireworks, missing him again and again and again. There was nothing anyone could have done and yet… 

And yet.

I take a sip of my coffee, trying to banish the scraps of the nightmare that still cling to my mind as I wrap the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The air is crisp, laced with salt and the subtle sweetness of the heather that grows along the cliffside, trembling in the breeze. I’ve been staring at the horizon for almost an hour, watching the darkness fade into that bluish glow that only exists in these few minutes before sunrise, when the world is in-between. Like the sky holds its breath for just a moment.

Like I held my breath when I was an ocean away, unpacking my old life into my new flat, barely paying attention to Ludo Bagman’s tinny commentary in the background. I didn’t even know why I had turned on the match in the first place. I should have stayed away, taken advantage of the physical distance, but there was comfort in the familiarity of it. In hearing his name chanted by thousands of voices. I missed him and I hated him a little for it. And then I heard the screams. 

I thought I had lost him before, but this was so much worse.

***

The room is bright, made of sun-drenched walls and filled with flowers and too many people. But I barely notice. James isn’t moving. There is a tangle of tubes, pumping healing potion from the IV bags into his system, mending his broken bones and his cuts and gashes as much as it can. But even magic can only do so much. 

Ginny sees me first. I’m lingering in the doorway like an intruder, not sure if I have a right to be here. I couldn’t not come. I don’t know what to say, though. My throat closes off when our gaze meets over the hospital bed. She’s clutching James’s hand in both of hers like she’s holding on for dear life, her eyes brimming with tears, and I’m crying too, biting my bottom lip to keep myself from sobbing.

“Seth!” Lily calls out, making both Harry and Al look up, but I still don’t know if I’m welcome. Not until Ginny lets go of her son and extends her hand towards me, the faintest of smiles curving her mouth as she summons me to his bedside.

I want to touch him, to feel that he is still here, warm and real and alive, but I don’t dare. There are too many IV lines and bandages and I’m afraid I might hurt him. “How - how is he?”

It’s a useless question, I know it, but there’s still the naive hope that the answer might have changed. That he’ll open his eyes and give me that infuriating half-smile, calling me Woodley and telling me that everything will be alright.

“I’m sorry,” someone says behind me and I turn around to look at the healer that has come into the room. “Only family is allowed in here.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” 

I make to get up, wiping away the tears with shaky fingers, but Ginny’s hand circles my wrist, her bloodshot gaze firmly on the woman in the lime green coat. “She is.”

***

I wanted to buy him some magazines, but half of the stock in the small St. Mungo’s kiosk is about brooms and Quidditch and the other half are gaudy newspapers that still seem to be in a competition over who can print the most disturbing pictures of James plummeting through the air. I was ready to give up and settle on the Kneazle Lover’s Digest when I saw the flashy book pyramid by the checkout. 

“I got you something.” I’m barely in the room when I hold up the shiny hardback with the gaudy cover and James raises an eyebrow at the shirtless guy that takes up most of the front.

“Holy Morgan, what is that, Woodley?” He lets his head fall to the side, smiling at me, even though he is too weak to move. Bruises and scratches still paint brutal patterns across his skin, covering his face and neck, his shoulders, his ribs, but they’re healing. 

Unlike his legs. 

“They had it in the hospital bookshop!” I can barely contain my excitement as I sit down in the chair next to his bed, thumbing through the pages, because this feels like a sign. A very dumb sign, but a sign nonetheless, and I’ll take anything I can get. “No way!” I press the open page against my mouth, my eyebrows arching at James over the edge of the book.

“What?” He’s frowning, amusement still tugging on the corners of his mouth. 

“It’s set in the 1800s.” 

He groans, though the grin on his face definitely dampens the effort. Rain is lashing against the windows, drowning out the steady drip of the IVs and, for a moment, it feels like it used to. Like Sunday mornings at his and Freddie’s flat, when he would refuse to get up and pull me back into bed with him.

“I’m so excited.”

“I bet.” He’s laughing, properly now, and my heart flutters behind my chest. It should know better. Especially because I saw her name flash across his phone screen last night before I left. “How long is that damn thing?”

I flip to the very back of the book, catching a few of the final words even though I try to not read them. “397 pages.”

***

“How many pages?”

He used to ask how many chapters. Then it turned to pages. Because he knows it too - that we only exist like the words on paper, between the pages. Until we reach the last one. The last sentence. 

“191.”

When the story ends, so do we. But ours is a tragedy. Maybe it was always meant to be.

I come back every day. I sit next to his bed and read A Witch’s Guide to Rakes and Romance, blushing fiercely at the spicy scenes but reading it all. James covers Lily’s ears when she’s cuddled up next to him and she complains loudly while Al and Freddie laugh and Harry and Ginny exchange soft, tired smiles.

Sometimes, the room is crowded. Sometimes, it’s just us - James and me and the steady whirring of the machines - and I read to him until he falls asleep. I read to him until twilight creeps into the room and we have to turn on the neon hospital lights. 

I read to him until he can feel his legs again. 

Until the IV lines become less.

Until he can sit up by himself.

“How many?” He says and I don’t look at him.

“16.”

It’s the last chapter. And, though I know that it’s time to go, that this semi-real version of us has an expiration date, I dread every page I turn.

“What if you stayed?” James says, quietly, and I feel like I might choke. I can barely breathe.

What if I stayed?

“I - I can’t.” My fingers are clenching the book in my lap, digging into the cover for something to hold on to. This feels awful, like a second break-up, and I wish I could just fold myself into his arms. 

But I can’t and he doesn’t argue. Because he knows me too well.

His lips are pressed together as he nods, a tear sliding down the side of his face into his pillow and I’m crying too. When he reaches out, I take his hand and weave my fingers through his, careful to not dislodge the catheter in the back of his hand.

“Do you want to hear the ending now?” I ask, wiping the tears from my cheeks, and his gaze slides from my face to the book in my lap, to our intertwined fingers.

“No.” I feel his hold on me loosen, his hand slipping out of my grasp a little. “I don’t want to know how it ends.”

[dr-lizortecho]

Thanks for the tag @crepuscularqueens! This was a whole lot of fun (I might love talking about writing- but reading is so much more fun to discuss)

Rules: generate ten tags (here) and rate them according to how likely you are to read them

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don’t care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged

1) Vaginal Sex: +10, if I’m looking at something with explicit sexual content there’s nothin not to like about this particular tag, though ngl it tells me almost nothing about the content itself

2) Robots: -8, unless robots are like super crucial imma not walk through the door- cause they’re just not my thing

3) Overstimulation: +10, it’s sexy and that’s all

4) Banishment: +5, as long as it’s got a happy ending for the character(s). Cause thematically it’s so much fun- like where do they go when they’re removed from home? Who do they go to? Who do they become untethered by duty and loyalty and obligation???

5) Bittersweet Ending: -10, my friends would have to have wrote it, I’m a hardcore happy ending girlie

6) Royalty: 0, depends on the story focus/set-up

7) Pegging: +5, soooo this is difficult cause sexy wise it’s very high, except if it’s m/f there’s a good chance some sort of misogyny or misandry at play

8) Exhaustion: 0, idk truly, my brain would just skip over it probably

9) (Character) is an Idiot: +10, so long as said character fits that within canon, like truly this describes one part of my of my ships

10) Implied/Referenced Child Abuse: 0, okay, so I’m very very particular and sensitive about this topic, and fan fic is so bad about it tbh, everyone was beat by their dad and emotionally tortured when it comes to fanon and even more so if they actually suffered abuse in canon. So I’m kinda weary about anything tagged as such even though I find it an important conversation to be broached by fiction. All in all it depends on the amount of nuance by the writer, if they even subconsciously try to apply levels to abuse and attempt to create apologies and excuses for anything not physical, the writers overall understanding of the affects of said abuse on the psyche and that it’s not just 🥺 “I have trust/daddy issues, fix me” 🥺 because time in and time out that is the narrative, that abuse doesn’t wire a child’s brain- that they’ll just get fucked perfect by some guy™️ and their trauma responses (which they’ve usually depicted as evil and gross) will just melt away, and then there’s the whole ptsd cropping up during bdsm but that really like makes me want claw my eyes out (sorry- I have FEELINGS about this subject as it pertains to fanfic/fandom)

No pressure tags @shipperqueen6 @13shadesofanni @ajna-eye-cogitations and anyone who wants to!!!

[writeblrcafe]

Digital interview with @legiomiam

The doorbell announces the next interview guest entering Writeblrcafé. It's writer J. Lynnell, who orders a chai latte. They write poetry, fanfiction and a book. Their favourite genres include fiction, fantasy, romance, crime, poetry, mystery, science fiction, historical fiction and paranormal.

What got you into writing?

It started when I was about 14 and I started writing Twilight and LoZ fanfiction in a notebook. Then I moved on to anime with Naruto and Inuyasha once I found FanFic (dot) net. For poetry I had my 10th grade English teacher who made us all submit poems into this contest and she told me that I had potential and that my imagery was vivid for poems.

What inspires you to write?

I'd love to say spite. Spite inspires me but so does my over active imagination. I usually write based off emotions and writing got me through some dark times my last two years of high school and the following years, so now I feel that writing is a safe way for my to sort through my emotions and process everything I have going on. I did not actually start writing full on original novels until about ten years ago with an idea that really didn't have an fruition for another five years, taking the leap from fanfiction to original novels came during a bad depressive episode and a bad relationship divorce where I hadn't read in a year and hadn't written for even longer, I just needed something comfortable and familiar. I had already devoured the ACOTAR series and the year after the novella had come out I needed more and read it over while reading ToG. I had read Heir of Fire and reread ACOMAF at the same time, and found myself crying from some of the scenes because it's refreshing to see characters work through their depression. It was at that point I decided that I wanted someone to read my work and think the same thing. That they picked up my book during an emotional time and it became the thing they latched on to. So I sat down and reintroduced myself to characters I hadn't thought of writing about for years.

Which are recurring themes in your writing?

I don't preset any themes but a lot of them show up as I write. Life and death are a big one along with found family. Loyalty and betrayal, good vs evil. Fate vs free will slash destiny are another big ones that I love to incorporate into most of my works. Loneliness was one but as I got older it switched from needing to find someone to now understanding the difference between being alone vs loneliness.

How would you describe your writing style?

I'd like to say it's very descriptive and heavy on narration. I try to evoke the senses to the best of my abilities and make readers feel along with my characters.

How do you deal with writer's block?

I am bad with writer's block, I usually take walks or showers when it impacts me in all areas of creativity. Though when it's just with one project I move to a different WIP that I have floating around. My way of dealing with writer's block is more than likely why I have so many projects.

Have you already published your writing?

I have I have three poems published in a horror zine.

Do you have a wip? Tell us about it:

I have five projects that I am actively working on, one has two parts which go together: This Dark And Divine Place and Children of Ruin. TDADP is about the underlying tension of war between the Fae born Hunters and Vampyres. (read more under the cut)

Rashka who's the younger sister of the empress of the last Vampyre empire and Bahram a merc hired to protect her as all the Vampyre clans are called to gather after the murder of an entire clan. On the way to the summit she is kidnapped and Bahram has to go after her, for his own reasons he would be inclined to leave the Vampyre but with his life tied to her own if harm befalls her then he's doomed too. What was supposed to be an easy mission for the banished Fae ends up a life or death situation between them both. CoR is the sequel series, where as TDADP isn't supposed to be a will they or won't them because Rashka and Bahram's relationship is by design of the Gods. CoR follows their five children who have to deal with the aftermath of not only the Gods cursing their parents but also the oncoming end of the world. CoR was started as the project I had for many years but then along the way I decided that I wanted to tell the parents' story first. Both are Dark Fantasy. Project "Two" is From Ashes and Dust it centers around Alexia a super soldier in hiding who gets mixed up in the investigation of a grisly string of murders from former soldiers, her plans to stay on the downlow and just work for hire as a black market merc are ruined when Leon and his partner Jade catch her breaking into a suppressant bank and question her. FAAD is a wonderful mix of dystopian and cyberpunk. Project "Three" is Laws Of The Songbirds where Savina Starling the sole surviving member of the Starling family forces the 6 other families to gather so she can find why her family was slaughtered. What the other families come to find out is that her family was sacrificed to summon a devil and that devil has grown very attached to the young woman who bound herself to him. LotS is a dark urban fantasy. "Four" is The Vanity Of Ghosts it centers around three characters Evelynn, Reyes, and Hector as a historical paranormal romance thriller. Evie is a clairvoyant detective employed by the local police and she has to investigate a murder at the opera, her new partner Reyes is back from bereavement leave after the death of his younger brother. Both only have Hector as their lead, the costar and on stage love interest of the murdered woman. This work does have a poly relationship (as will CoR). The "fifth" and final project is Wicker Hearts which is an Anastasia inspired retelling with monsters where Brooke Rivers, after living in banishment for a few years when his uncle exiled him after the death of his family, decided that instead of taking over the throne when his uncle dies he's going to convince the heir of the family his own parents overthrew to rule. In order to find this family he employs a little rag tag crew and runs into a young woman, Julian, who has lived all her life outside the city in the forest of the old gods and their monsters. This project is leaning more towards Dark Fantasy too.

You can tell us more interesting stuff about you here:

I am a queer nonbinary writer of color who lives in the middle of nowhere Midwest where we are known for having the largest rail yard in the world. I was a miracle baby born at 27 weeks and spite has kept me going for nearly 3 decades now. I cook and bake in some of my off time but mainly work on digital art, perform one person musicals in my bedroom, and collect pins, pressed leaves, special edition books, and tarot decks. I have a morkie named Feyre who has adopted my mom and her dog Addy. Along with being an Aries and working an ungodly amount of customer service jobs.

Get interviewed by Writeblr Café!

Any writer can participate. Just fill in this form by clicking on the link below. Maybe we will host interviews in an audio format if you are more interested in listening to an interview than reading it.

[lesbospackagetour]

so I started this blog mainly to do writing updates, back when my crops were thriving and I was feeling prolific. you may have noticed I’ve been on a bit of a sabbatical from my story…

I’ve refrained from posting updates about my fic without updates to my fic because I felt a little self-indulgent. But what’s truly so bad about self-indulgence? (It was the whole reason I posted it on AO3 anyway…)

So - I know I don’t owe anyone updates. But I felt a little weird dropping off without an explanation given how active I was. I am not done with my fic and I am not done with writing. I simply have the mother of all writer’s block at the moment.

Life has been a tad hectic and burnout, it turns out, isn’t super conducive to creativity. I’m working on finding ways to get my groove back, because rediscovering writing has been fucking great for me. I had some one-shots planned, which I’ve drafted and scrapped… I’ve drafted and scrapped my latest chapter about ten times...

In a wonderful twist of fate, my fic blew up much more than I thought it would, and I now feel the terror of having an audience - and perfectionism is an absolute fucker. And I know it’s not War and Peace - it’s some very self-indulgent vampire smut (and hey, it’s mine) - but telling myself that isn’t quite enough to banish the inner critic.

So - I will get there, eventually. I probably bit off a little bit more than I could chew, but I have plot points I want to feel out. I’ve also thought that it might be nice to take prompts to try and get my creative juices flowing so, by all means, if you’d like to give me a prompt for something, please just send me an ask. NSFW, SFW, obviously I would write Lady D, but I would very happily have a go at writing for any of our Baldur’s Gate wives too (as you can see from my current relentless brainrot).

The last thing is - when I feel despondent about my story (or lack thereof), I go back through my comments. And you, my readers, are awesome. I feel soooo much gratitude for your comments, and they’re really fuel for me to keep going and recognise that I wrote something.

[mrstsung]

Rules:

Plz read before interacting

💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚

I am well above being a minor. I am also not your babysitter. If you are not of age nor comfortable looking at content that is intended for 18+ audiences. You need to either leave,block me,or find another blog. Course this is a mortal kombat fanblog and self ship blog. YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

Psa: I am not a babysitter. If you don't feel comfy looking at certain content. Plz do not look. I try to tag ass much as i can that my nsfw writing is for mature audiences and try to inform others that if you are not comfortable with said content, are not allowed to view said content,etc. Plz do not consume said content. You can't blame bloggers and content creators for responsibly tagging and you still consume it and then complain to them about said content when you looked when they gave you warning. But if you still insist on consuming the content. This is in your responsibility. Im not discouraging anyone fron reading smut. (We've all done it,don't lie) but you should know about safety and the consequences of going into nsfw spaces or spaces that have that available. Dont complain the rain is wet because you were stupid to go out into that storm knowing full well you'd get wet without your umbrella. Same goes with nsfw writers,content creators,and artists. Tho tumblr is hella oof when it comes to this stuff anyways. But i want y'all to know this upfront. I tag my posts accordingly to the best of my ability. And give a fair amount of warning. The rest is up to you.

I am a huuuuuuge mortal kombat fangirl. Been a fan of the games since i was but a baby gamer,been a fan of the 95 movie too. So expect me to oogle at this. I have very little people to properly talk to. Also im hella awkward but friendly.

I have my own au and mixed bag of nuts timeline. Because the main timeline is so messed up and all over the place. It feels like a rip off of the mcu. No offense. I'm oldschool with mk,so this is a way of me keeping it simple. If thats not your cup of tea thats fine too. But that's what i go by.

Plz no slander,rude comments,or creepy shit in my askbox. I will leave it open till further notice. Anons will be turned off tho. As i dont trust like that. If there is any whiff of disrespect,hate,etc. I will turn off the askbox.

I am a shang tsung simp and mostly post about him. But a few of my other faves will have honorable mentions. But this is a shang type thang goin on here.

💚heart and soul🐍 : self ship tag with shang tsung

Everything else will be tagged as normal and accordingly. I have other self ship tags as well.

I mostly write for myself,i don't really take requests. I used to in the past but it got so overwhelming. So i mostly just do stuff for me. I apologize if that sounds a tad selfish of me in this small fandom we have here. But i really feel more comfortable just doing content stuff for myself. But i will share and reblog as much as i am able to.

I have adhd,anxiety,and i get overwhelmed easy. So plz be gentle with me. This is important for you to know.

Added on. I actually do have a irl significant other. (I'm adding this just because ive had weirdos in the past be creepy to me,i forgot to mention this. My apologies. My significant other follows me on this blog too. Plus he likes some of my content as well and wants to support me too)

If you wanna see my content you will have to follow me. Tumblr has either wrongfully banished me to the void or the app is absolutely garbage. Either way. You will have to follow. I will try to get back with you asap.

That's all for now. Just the basics and important things. If you wanna know anything else just ask. Enjoy your stay 💚

[ffwriteradvisor]

I've never really commented on controversies in the fanfiction writing community. Part of it was that I didn't want to feel that anyone visiting this blog was being pressured to adjust their beliefs either way, but part of it was that I didn't want to apply that pressure to myself here - I wanted to avoid arguments.

But, I can't in good faith continue to pursue that neutrality. Because it has come to a point where it's just allowing ignorance to fester.

I'm not a... proper fandom old, in my mind. I was never on any mailing list, I wasn't online at the time of Strikethrough and I was never personally impacted by the 2012 purges on FFnet - probably because I wasn't popular and because the (short lived) smut I put there simply was too tame to consider banishing. Same with the Tumblr porn purge for the most part.

But I at least tried to stay aware of the history. To know the rules and outlines to being a 'good' member of fandom. Formatting fics well, tagging properly, putting up content warnings where applicable when it came to common triggers and squicks while looking out for those that I didn't care for myself, and not getting into fights over who's fictional characters were better suited for each other.

It was never complicated. If you don't like it, you don't read it. If the writer places a warning sign up for a certain thing, you go in with the expectation that thing will be there. Leave a nice comment when you leave, if that's at all possible.

But that's apparently too difficult for some people.

So let me put it simply; the minute you decide that you're going to use someone's fandom creation or opinions as an excuse to attack them, be it through false reports or physical assault or nasty messages, you have become the bad guy.

I don't care if the person you're attacking was shipping two fictional teenagers. I don't care if their favorite ship is 'toxic'. I don't care if they were writing RPF. I don't care if they drew horny art. I don't care if the character they like is 'problematic' or 'glorifies bad behavior'.

It is all based in fiction. The characters are not real. The things those characters do have no impact on reality. The situations are not real. A picture of a fictional character in a sexual situation is not equivalent to a real person.

The only real people who are being potentially harmed are the artists you choose to abuse because of something that isn't real and those that have entered a space without doing their own due diligence beforehand. And I only have sympathy for the former.

Yes, I know that you can accidentally run into something you wish that you hadn't seen in fandom spaces. It has happened to me many times. And do you know what I've done in response? I learned to tag my things appropriately, put warnings in so that people know what they're walking into. I also made an effort to be better at curating my own experience; if someone I follow has begun posting things I don't care for - I unfollow and leave it at that. If that fails, I block.

I do not pretend to exist on some kind of flawless moral pedestal - I know my failings and I work to improve on them every day of my life. But I also know for a fact that the behavior far too many people are exhibiting in fandom spaces is unacceptable and that every precedent for it ever seen before has only ended in tragedy and tears.

I'm sure that there's plenty of people who can find a bad faith argument in my post - I'm not going to spend the time going back over it to find every potential hole and patch it over before release, because regardless of how 'perfectly' I try to word these feelings, it won't matter to someone who really wants to start a fight.

Because that's all this is about for these fandom Puritanicals - finding a fight wherever they can find one and using it to drag whoever disagrees with them through the mud so they can come out looking spotless in comparison.

It doesn't matter to them if the warning tag on a fic is covering discussion of war crimes. It doesn't matter if a writer puts a warning about suicide on their story so that way people who are triggered by that know not to go in. It's all about being able to point at someone and say 'this person thinks about terrible things and is a terrible person for it'.

They want to be able to point their finger at someone they don't like and say 'I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil', except it's about Goody Proctor even thinking about the Devil existing outside of a narrow 'acceptable' context.

[banapsha]

Plotting like a Pro: The Only Guide You Need to Outline Your Next Novel

So, you've got this brilliant idea for a novel swirling around in your big monster brain, but you're not quite sure how to wrangle it into shape. *read this next line dramatically* Fear not, soldier, for I am here to guide you through the tumultuous journey of outlining your masterpiece. *you can stop now* But do get ready to dive into the wild world of outlining – where chaos meets creativity, and brainy think-think meets handy write-write.

What Exactly is an Outline?

An outline is basically like the blueprint for your novel – it's your roadmap to success, your guiding light through the abyss (too much?) It breaks down the events of your story in sequential order, ensuring that you stay on track and don't accidentally veer off into the land of plot holes and confusion. Think of it as your comic relief best friend (minus the comic relief), always there to keep you in check as you navigate the treacherous waters of writing. 

What Does an Outline Look Like?

Now, technically speaking, there are rules for outlining. But hey, as long as whatever you decide to do works for you, you need no rules. Some fancy folks swear by fancy formats like the skeletal outline or the flashlight outline (let me know if you need details on said fancy formats), but honestly, as long as it works for you, you do you, boo-bear (that’s definitely not my thing). Whether you prefer bullet points, numbers, or hieroglyphics (AKA code), the format doesn't matter as long as it's easy for you to understand. After all, the point is to simplify the process, not complicate it further.

Benefits of Outlining:

Oh boy, where do I even begin with this one? Let me count the ways outlining will change your writing game (maybe even your life. Okay, that was too much.): (TIP: read the headings dramatically for a better experience)

It’s Your Beakon Through the Murky Waters: Ever feel like you're navigating through a dense fog with no compass in sight? Fear not, my friend, because outlining is exactly that for when you enter the said forest to write your book; your guiding light. It's like having a trusty co-pilot by your side, whispering sweet plot pointers in your ear as you navigate the treacherous waters of storytelling. No more aimless wandering – with outlining, you'll always know which way to steer your literary ship.

Plot Holes? Not on My Watch: Say goodbye to those pesky plot holes that seem to pop up out of nowhere like weeds in a garden. Outlining is like a preemptive strike against narrative inconsistencies, ensuring that your story is as tight as corsets from start to finish. With each plot point neatly mapped out, you can rest easy knowing that your readers won't be left scratching their heads wondering what the heck just happened.

It Helps You Defy the Abyss: Picture this: your story is like a runaway train hurtling down the tracks at breakneck speed. Without proper guidance, it's all too easy for it to veer off course and crash and burn in a fiery wreck (That would be an awesome scene but not what we’re looking for.) Outlining is like the conductor that keeps that train chugging along on the right track. No detours, no distractions – just a straight shot to narrative greatness.

Crafting a Killer Climax: Ah, the climax – the moment we've all been waiting for. With outlining in your team, crafting a jaw-dropping climax is as easy as pie. No more floundering around trying to figure out how to tie up loose ends – your outline has already done the heavy lifting for you. So go ahead, crank up the tension, unleash those plot twists, and watch as your readers' jaws hit the floor.

Also, Adios, Writer's Block: Writer's block – the nemesis of every living writer. But not anymore, because outlining is like a magical antidote that banishes writer's block to the furthest corners of the earth. With each plot point neatly laid out before you, there's no room for procrastination or self-doubt. So grab that pen, flex those creative muscles, and get ready to slay the blank page like never before.

Less Revision, More Celebration: Let's face it – nobody likes revising their work. It's like trying to untangle a knot of Christmas lights – frustrating, time-consuming, and guaranteed to give you a headache. But with outlining, you can kiss those revision woes goodbye. By nailing down your story's structure from the get-go, you'll save yourself countless hours of agony down the line. So go ahead, pat yourself on the back – you've earned it, champ.

Stuck While Outlining?

Feeling like you're trapped in a maze with no way out? (Lucky for you, you're not Newt. Get it?) Don't sweat it, my friend. Because Mama’s about to drop some bombs! 

Work Backwards Like a Boss: Ever heard the phrase "it's easier to navigate a maze when you see the finish line"? Well, tiny, it's time to put that theory to work. When you find yourself stuck in the tangled web of outlining, start with the climax – the grand finale, the pièce de résistance. Then, work backward, asking yourself how the f*ck you got there in the first place. It's like retracing your steps through a labyrinth, armed with the knowledge of where you're headed. Suddenly, those tangled plot threads start to unravel, and you're on your way to outlining glory.

Outlining Ain't Easy, But Neither is Writing: Let's be real for a minute – outlining is hard. Like, really hard. But here's the thing: so is writing. You're basically creating something out of nothing, conjuring entire worlds and characters out of thin air (or neurons). But when you tackle outlining head-on, you're tackling that frustration right at the source. Instead of letting it simmer beneath the surface throughout the entire writing process, you're ripping it off like a band-aid and getting it out of the way upfront. Sure, it might be tough, but trust me – it's a heck of a lot easier than dealing with it later down the line.

Don't Skip Outlining, You'll Regret It: Now, I get it – outlining can be a pain in the @$$. It's tempting to skip this step altogether and dive headfirst into the writing process. But trust me when I say this: if you’re new and want to make your life easier in the long run, outlining is non-negotiable. Think of it like laying the foundation for a house – sure, it takes time and effort, but without it, your literary masterpiece is destined to crumble (with all the people still inside). So don't shoot yourself in the foot by skipping outlining just because it's difficult. (You shoot your foot now, something is gonna come bite you in your backside later.)

Does Outlining Ruin the Creative Process?

Ah, the age-old question. Does outlining zap all the creativity out of writing? Short answer: absolutely not. In fact, outlining is like flexing your creative muscles on steroids (or any other choice of d*ug). It's your chance to invent an entire world, complete with characters, conflicts, and plot twists in like a jiffy! Think of it as storytelling in shorthand – compact, efficient, and oh-so-satisfying. Outlining isn't the enemy of creativity – it's the ultimate wingman. It's like playing god in your own little literary universe, and let me tell you, it's a heck of a rush. 

Forget what you've heard about outlining being dry and boring – it's anything but. (This is your GOD era) Trust me, there's nothing more satisfying than seeing your world completely mapped out in full.

Embrace it, harness it, and watch as your dream narrative becomes a reality.

With an Outline, You Know What's Coming Next...But Does That Lessen the Excitement?

With an outline in hand, you're always in the know about what's coming next. But that doesn't take away from the thrill of writing the novel. Honestly, it's quite the opposite for me. I find myself even more excited to dive into my story because I have a roadmap of where it's headed. Knowing the next scene waiting to unfold keeps me on the edge of my seat, eager to see how it all plays out (I like to know that I am heading towards that one gut-wrenching bit that will make my audiences wish I was dead. It's really fun; sometimes waiting for deaths and stuff.) Plus, there's no room for boredom when you're constantly propelled forward by the anticipation of what's to come. Unless, of course, you've outlined a snooze-fest of a story – but let's be real, who wants to write that?

What if I Need to Deviate from My Outline?

Ah, the age-old dilemma of sticking to the script versus going off-book. Here's the deal – your book, your choice. The outline you wrote is not carved in stone. It's more like a rough sketch, a guideline to keep you on track.

So what if you hit a snag and need to deviate from your outline? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes while writing you realize that you have something more interesting than what you’ve written in your outline. Do it. We’re all not perfect.

Now, a common gripe among writers is when their characters seem to have a mind of their own and they veer off script. But let's get one thing straight – your characters are as fictional as a unicorn riding a rainbow. They don't have any authority; you do. 

So when you say your character "decided" to go rogue, what you really mean is that your outline didn't quite sync up with their psyche. 

The solution? Plan your characters alongside your outline, ensuring they're in harmony with the plot. Build characters that fit snugly into your story's framework, and vice versa. 

How Long Should My Outline Be?

F*ck, I  don't know, ah, your outline should be as long as it needs to be. *nailed it* 

Some writers prefer short, concise outlines that just cover the basics, while others go full-on novel mode with lengthy tomes that leave no stone unturned. There's no right or wrong answer here, folks – it's all about what works best for you.

Some Famous Authors Don't Outline, Why Should I?

Well, here's the deal – you're the captain of your own writing ship, and nobody's forcing you to walk on the wooden plank. 

Sure, there are legendary authors out there who craft masterpieces without ever touching an outline. But unless you're a seasoned pro, it might be wise to outline before beginning to stay away from C.H.A.O.S. (not me foreshadowing my next book) (Follow me on Instagram for updates!)

Remember the writers you are comparing yourself to have likely got years of experience under their belts, while you might still be finding your Nemo.

Let's say that outlining just isn't you. Maybe you thrive on spontaneity and the thrill of discovery. Or perhaps you're still figuring out your writing groove. That's cool – we're all on our own journey. 

But do not forget: for every famous author who shuns outlines, there are plenty more who swear by them like a sailor (get it? Coz a sailer swears a lot). So instead of trying to walk in someone else's boots, lace up your own and run on that race track like no one has ever baby.

It's your story – so tell it your way.

Do I Have to Outline?

Nyet. (And Da)

See, in the wild world of writing, there are two main camps: the planners and the pantsters. Think of them as the yin and yang of the literary universe.

Now, there's no denying that there are some writers out there who can weave an epic novel out of thin air with the grace of a ninja. But let's keep it real – those folks are like The Avengers of our world. Sure, they exist, but they're definitely the exception, not the rule.

For us mere mortals, outlining is like a trusty lifeboat in the stormy seas of storytelling. It's the secret sauce that turns a plate of pasta into a plate of pasta; if you catch my drift.

If you're finding yourself drowning in a sea of plot twists and character arcs, maybe it's time to give outlining a whirl. If you're one of the lucky few who can thrive without a roadmap, more power to ya (you nasty little b*tch. Yes, I am jealous of you!) 

Just remember – if you ever find yourself shipwrecked on the shores of writer's block, the outline lifeboat is always there to rescue you. There's no shame in admitting you need a little help along the way.

How to Outline:

Step #0: Brain Dump: You're struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration, and suddenly, your brain is buzzing with a million ideas. What do you do? Simple – grab a pen and paper, or your laptop (or your phone, you lazy @$$) and unleash the chaos onto the page. Let it all out – every random thought, half-baked concept, and outlandish idea. It's like a creative free-for-all, with no rules and no judgment. It doesn’t have to make sense, that’s the whole point. This messy brain dump is your starting point, your raw material to mold into something magical. 

Step #1: Making Sense of the Madness: Now that you've got a heaping pile of ideas to work with, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get down to business. Think of this step as your personal pitch meeting with yourself. You've got a mess of concepts, characters, and themes swirling around in your head – now it's time to wrangle them into submission. Start by sketching out the basics – the premise, the characters, the vibe, the themes, the subplots – all of it. Keep it loose, keep it flexible, and above all, keep it open to change. Play around with different ideas and see what sticks. Once you've got some ideas that make sense and that you're happy with, it's time to move on to the next step and bring your story to life. Buckle up, Buttercup. 

Step #2: The Rough Sketch: This is where the real magic happens– where you take that messy somewhat sensible pile of ideas and start sculpting them into the masterpiece they are going to be. First things first, dig deep into the heart of your story. What are the main conflicts your characters are going to face? What obstacles will they encounter along the way? This is your chance to map out the twists and turns that will keep your readers on the edge of their seats. Now, break it down into four key areas: Who, What, How, and Why. Who are your characters? What drives them, what haunts them, what makes them tick? What's the basic premise of your story – the very thing that'll hook your audience in 30 seconds flat? How will your characters go on both internal and external journeys, and what will they learn along the way? And most importantly, why are you passionate about this story's theme? What do you want to shout from the rooftops, and what big ideas do you want to explore through your character's journey? At its core, the rough sketch is all about finding the story in the mess. It's about distilling your ideas down to their purest essence and uncovering the beating heart of your narrative. So don't be afraid to explore and experiment. Dream big, think outside the box, and create something truly extraordinary.

Step #3: The Outline: Now, after what seems like decades of work, it's time to take that rough sketch of yours and start turning it into something truly spectacular. I usually use the Three-Act Structure. This bad boy is like the backbone of storytelling – it's what keeps the narrative strong and sturdy. If you have any other story structures you swear by, use one of those. Basically, you’re grabbing a story structure that you believe suits your rough sketch and breaking down your sketch into the key story beats of your structure. For the Three-Act Structure, it is usually like this: Act One: the setup, where you introduce your characters and set the stage for the adventure to come. Act Two: the confrontation, where the action heats up and your characters face their biggest challenges head-on. And Act Three: the resolution, where everything comes together in a satisfying conclusion. You can choose to go as in-depth here as you want. (Maybe write like a 20,000-word outline, I don't care.) Now, if you’re not a big fan of writing a 20,000-word outline, the bullet-point outline is here to save your day. It's like the shorthand version of outlining – short, sweet, and to the point. This outline gives you a sense of your character arcs, internal conflicts, and transformative journeys, all without bogging you down with unnecessary details. The beauty of it all? You get to choose your own adventure. If you're happy with your bullet-point outline and ready to dive into drafting, go for it. But if you're itching to go deeper, to explore every nook and cranny of your story, then by all means, keep doing more. The important thing is that you feel confident in your outline, knowing that it's the solid foundation upon which your masterpiece will be built.

Tips and Extras: (some juicy details)

Brainstorming the Centerpieces:

If your story is a jigsaw puzzle, the key scenes are the biggest, boldest pieces. These are the moments that make your heart race, that keep your readers glued to the page, and that make your story truly unforgettable. So start with laying out those major scenes or events. Think big – we're talking key turning points, epic locations, and jaw-dropping plot twists. Don't worry about the order or details just yet – this is about getting those main parts out of your head and onto the page.

What if you don't have all the pieces yet? Well, kitty-kitty, this is a quick, flexible way to brainstorm the centerpieces of your story. Don't stress about getting everything perfect on the first try – just let the ideas flow and see where they take you. 

Getting Specific:

Now that we've mapped out the key scenes, it's time to add some meat to these bones. Think of this step as adding color to a black-and-white photo – it's the step where your story starts to come alive. For each scene, jot down a sentence or a short paragraph that captures the essence of what's happening. No need to stress about getting every little detail perfect – just focus on what's being communicated in the scene, the location, and the characters involved.

As you add these high-level details, think about how each scene fits into the bigger picture of your story. How does it move the plot forward? What themes or motifs are being explored? And most importantly, how does it connect with the scenes that come before and after it? This is when you start weaving together the threads of your narrative, creating a tapestry that's rich with meaning and emotion.

Remember, there are no rules for how much detail to add – do what works best for you. Some scenes may only need a few words to capture their essence, while others may require a bit more fleshing out. Trust your instincts and let your creativity guide you. After all, this is your story – own it, embrace it, and let it shine.

Connecting the Dots:

Now that we've fleshed out those key scenes with high-level details, it's time to step back and take a bird's-eye view of your narrative landscape. This is where you can make connections between themes and concepts that you might otherwise miss if you dove straight into writing.

Grab your outline and give it a thorough re-read. Look for scenes that feel out of place, transitions that need a little extra love, or characters who make a sudden appearance without a proper introduction. These are the hiccups that can disrupt the flow of your story and leave your readers scratching their heads. Highlight these areas and make a note of any plot points or scenes that need to be moved around to get the sequence just right.

Think of this step like conducting an orchestra – every element needs to be in perfect harmony for the performance to truly shine. So don't be afraid to make some tweaks, to shift things around, to fine-tune your narrative until it sings. Listen to the rhythm of your story – it knows where it wants to go, you just have to follow its lead.

Unlocking New Ideas:

While it's true that imagery and videos won't make it into your novel, they can be incredibly powerful tools for sparking creativity and bringing your story to life. Think of it like adding fuel to the fire of your imagination – it's a surefire way to kick-start new ideas and breathe fresh life into your narrative.

Get experimental! Dive into Google Images, Pinterest, or anywhere you find a photo that might fit. Start saving images or movie clips that resonate with your scenes. Whether it's a striking landscape, a compelling character portrait, or a mood-setting photograph, let your imagination run wild and see where it takes you.

If you're the type of writer who loves to create mood boards, now's the perfect time to put those skills to good use. Take a look at your existing mood boards and see if any images could help evoke the feeling you're trying to capture in your scenes. Whether it's the warm glow of a sunset or the eerie silence of a deserted street, let these images serve as inspiration as you continue to shape your story.

The Importance of Feedback:

With any creative endeavor, whether it's writing a novel or painting a masterpiece, feedback is key. It's like having a fresh pair of eyes on your work – offering insights and perspectives that you might have missed on your own. So if you’re still not sure about the first version of your outline, it's time to seek out that invaluable feedback.

When asking for feedback, be specific about what you're looking for. Are you seeking input on the sequence of events? Plot points that need fine-tuning? Character development that feels a bit flat? Whatever it may be, make sure to communicate your needs clearly so that your reviewers can provide targeted feedback.

The important part is that you need to stay open to suggestions and improvements. It can be tough to hear criticism of your work but try not to take it personally. Remember, the goal here is to make your story the best it can be, and sometimes that means making tough decisions and embracing constructive criticism.

The Moment of Truth:

Now it's time to dive headfirst into the exhilarating world of drafting. This is where your story begins to unfold before your very eyes. Your outline and your drafts are perfect companions. They're like the dynamic duo of storytelling, working together in perfect harmony to guide you through the creative process. 

As you begin sketching out the details in your draft, remember to trust the process and let your creativity flow. Embrace the freedom of expression that comes with drafting – after all, this is your chance to bring your story to life in all its vivid detail. So don't hold back – let your imagination run wild and see where it takes you.

Comrades, now armed with the knowledge of outlining, you're ready for war. So go forth, brave souls, and let your imagination run wild as you craft worlds, weave characters, and spin tales that will captivate hearts and minds.

Remember, outlining is not just a tool – it's your secret weapon, your trusty guide through the wilderness of creativity. And if/when you find yourself lost in the midst of your writing, grappling with plot twists and character arcs, just remember these wise words originally said by yours truly: you've got this. 

Happy outlining, and may your pens never run dry!

(If all this helped you, please support me too; in the name of camaraderie. Follow me on Instagram by clicking here.

Comment what else you want to know?

And if you wish to buy my book click here!

That's all, see you later, soldier. 🫡)

[elleclairez]

The Starless one and his star - Darkling x reader

Alina didn’t know what to do exactly. She sat silently in an armchair of her chambers in the Little Palace, her gaze focused on the figure of her worst enemy who decided that it would be a marvellous idea to torment her a little by playing tricks with her mind. 

The Starkov girl knew that the Darkling wasn’t really there, but it certainly did not ease her worries in any way at all. The man on the other hand, silently stood, watching young Grisha train with Botkin through the window. No one could guess what was going on inside his head. Saints even he didn’t know why he chose to pay a visit to his enemy. 

The silence in the room was heavy, almost unbearable for the young woman. She wanted to cry, shout and hit the man all at once and yet her body couldn’t move even a little. She was petrified and she couldn’t understand why. Was is fear? Hatred? Anger? Or was it something else stopping her from crying out for help or banishing the man from her mind herself?

The silence didn’t stop until the beautiful, silky voice of the Darkling resonated through the walls of the room.

“Have you ever heard of a young woman by the name of Seren Heijman?” Confusion flashed through Alina’s eyes. Seeing that the Shadow Summoner sighed and added “You might know her as the Star Saint. A bloody ridiculous name if you ask me.” The last sentence was muttered and Alina could barely hear it to properly decipher all the words. But as the words left the man’s mouth, the young Grisha suddenly had old memories of childhood stories crossing her mind. Alina could still remember the tales that Ana Kuya would tell them back at Keramzin. There was one story that Alina always adored, it was about a young, beautiful and selfless woman who chose death to save her comrades and the now long dead king. 

“All I remember is that she died sacrificing herself to save the king and her friends. Let me guess she was Grisha too?” Asked Alina with her brows furrowed. Why would the Darkling talk about Saints with her? 

“I always told you that those tales were propaganda for peasants. Seren was indeed Grisha, a powerful Inferni actually. And no, she did not sacrifice herself as everyone chose to believe. She was killed. Stabbed and left to die alone. Without anyone to save her or to at least be by her side when she would let go of her last breath.” Spat the Darkling with anger. Hatred could be deciphered from his eyes quite easily. It wasn’t hard to understand that this story was quite a sensitive topic for him, but Alina didn’t care. She was too curious as to why the man who was as heartless as a volcra would care so much about a mere woman and her unfortunate fate.

“You knew her didn’t you?” Carefully asked Alina too afraid of his reaction. The last thing she wanted was to anger her enemy. The Darkling chuckled.

“I did not know the martyr that people made of her against her will. I knew a young Kerch Inferni who was too good for this world.” And with those words, the Darkling pulled out a chain out of his pocket, and attached to it were two rings.

Two wedding bands. 

While at court Alina was able to see many jewels but all of them paled in comparison to the beauty of those. It was no doubt Materialki work.

The first was a man’s ring, quite simple, black with silver engravings on it, but it was the second one that caught her eye. A silver ring with black engravings that were too small to be read but big enough to be visible. On top of it, three diamonds were placed. Two were small, white ones looking like stars and the third one in the middle seemed to represent a full black moon.

At the realization, the Sun Summoner gasped.

“You...” Words couldn’t form themselves. Never in a million years could she have guessed that the most heartless man could actually be married. But most importantly it seemed that the marriages was based on love, a feeling that Alina thought the Darkling could not feel.

“Yes, Alina. We were married and loved each other dearly. She was the only one for who I was ready to give the world to on my knees but even more, she was the only one for whom I was ready to give it up. The moment she would have said it, I would have given up everything. The Second army, Ravka, everything.” The Darkling paused to take a breath, eyes full of sadness and grief. “What people say is true. She was everything any person would want to be. Intelligent, beautiful, sarcastic, a real firecracker if you ask me.” At that the Darkling laughed a little, memories seemed to flash in his eyes. “Loving, brave and selfless and yet selfish enough to dream of a peaceful life with me, away from all the fighting. She was the only one that I needed, and yet she was still taken from me.” At those words the man’s fists clenched, knuckles white from tension, his eyes full of hatred and yet still held the same sadness as before. Alina could even feel herself pitying the man.

“What happened?” Almost shakily whispered the raven haired woman. She knew asking that would be dangerous, but she wanted to know what happened.

“The ancestor of our so lovely King Alexander desired her with all his body and could not bear the idea that she chose to marry me and decline his advances. So he did what many Lantsov men did as it seems, he tried to take her by force. But my Seren was powerful, something that the bastard forgot, she burned him but was kind enough to simply leave burns on his hands. She hoped that he wouldn’t approach her from then on but that man, if you can call him a man, was vengeful, so he sent her to Fjerda on a mission, as he said. I was away the day she was sent away, and I only found out a few days later. The moment I received the news I rushed to Fjerda as fast as I could but when I arrived at her camp, it was too late. All I found was dead Ravkan soldiers both otkasatsya and Grisha and when I found her tent I already knew something was wrong, I felt somehow felt it. And there she was in her tent, laying on the ground, eyes blank, a single dried tear on her cheek, the spark that I used to adore in her beautiful orbs, gone. She laid there, on the floor, in a pool of her own blood and all I could do was to stand there, paralysed with this raging urge to destroy the monster who did that to her.” A deathly silence succumbed the room, Alina did not know what to say, and she became even more speechless when she saw a tear run down the Darkling’s cheek. He didn’t look so terrifying anymore but more like the young man that Baghra so desperately tried to save. “From that day I promised myself that I would avenge her. That I would take over Ravka and destroy every person who would think of hurting my and her people, of hurting Grisha people.”

“Make me your villain, Alina Starkov. But even you should see right now that I am not the villain but only the victim. The one who lost too much by the hands of others.” Alina didn’t know what to say, how could she respond after such story? Was she even supposed to respond? Was he even saying the truth? It wouldn’t be a surprising for her that the Darkling was simply playing tricks on her, again.

As if reading her mind, the Shadow Summoner said. “If you don’t believe me, there is proof in a secret drawer of my desk, well your desk now should I say, in the war room, go see for yourself.” At that the Darkling’s figure started to disappear, but Alina had one more question.

“Wait!” The Darkling looked at her expectantly. “I know not all tales are true, but some said that... she was...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Because if those stories were indeed true then the Darkling would be even less of a monster.

A dark chuckle left his mouth, he knew what she was trying to say. “We were going to name them Elizaveta if it were a girl or Piotr if a boy.” And with those words the man disappeared.

Alina didn’t even notice how tears escaped her eyes but a few minutes later she found herself in the war room, opening the same drawer that the Darkling talked about. 

It was a portrait. An old, small and dusty but still very well-kept one.

On it was painted a young couple, dressed in wedding attires, those same rings on their fingers. Smiles and eyes full of love, so bright that even the painting couldn’t dull the sparkle that they had while looking at each other.

At the bottom of the portrait Alina was able to decipher the writing.

            “Seren and Aleksander Morozova. The Starless One and the Star”

Hope you liked this angsty Aleksander x reader one-shot. Had this idea since I saw the trailer (which is INCREDIBLE by the way) and gotta be honest I literally wrote all of this during my philosophy class because it was better than falling asleep...

If you have a request don’t hesitate to send me a message. You can find all the fandoms I write for in my bio, but I warn you that it may take a little while for me to write it because I’ve been a lot of writer’s block lately....

Ps: Hello! This is me again from the future or present (depends on how you see it). Just wanted to say that I edited the story a little. Again English is not my native language, so there may be some mistakes that I’ve missed, do not hesitate to comment if you see one. Again I hope you enjoyed this story and if you did go check my other ones 😉

[hypnobyl]

could you do some fic about swanqueen.. like where regina and emma are friends but secretly have feelings for each other and one of them confesses after having too much wine?

also wanna ask if you have any advice or starting to write fics? i’ve found that i just really like to rush when writing and find myself in writers block a lot because i always want to get to the point and the exciting stuff. also just suck at wording things and writing in general lol

I thought a lot about your question. What I did was just write a lot of little short things. Not everything has to be a novel. If you have a huge idea and get stuck on exciting moments, follow that passion and write those moments first. Build from whatever inspiration you have.

So, write a bunch of really short things, just little moments, to get the hang of your style and voice. It's a great way to practice wording. If you ever want prompts for these moments, hit me up!

And if any of those little pieces strike a chord with you, start asking how did the characters get there? Where are they going? And build the context from there.

---

“I would not have guessed you’d be into this sort of movie,” Emma said between bites of popcorn—the snack, too, was surprising: buttery, salty, and totally unhealthy. She couldn’t quite parse how the woman who limited Henry’s fast-food intake was so enthusiastically enjoying a microwaved bag of heart-attack fuel.

“I’m full of surprises, dear.”

Regina likely hadn’t meant that to sound flirty. Like, definitely hadn’t. Emma stared at the television screen, a piece of popcorn held in front of her lips for a moment too long. In the few short months that she’d been coming over on Friday nights for movies and drinks, she’d been forced to confront the fluttering of her emotions caused by Regina’s attention. But now, she realized her feelings were taking too much control. She was seeing and hearing what she wanted, not actual reality.

“Definitely,” she replied after tossing the popcorn into her mouth and crunching away. “You’re very mysterious.”

“Sarcasm?”

She glanced over and caught Regina’s wry smirk. “Oh, no, definitely not.”

They returned to the movie, and Emma gnawed on her lower lip as she tried to banish the enticing image of Regina being happy. She didn’t offer up genuine smiles often, although Emma was seeing more of them lately. Of course, Henry could evoke them at the drop of a hat, but Emma found various ways of provoking positive responses—like texting silly emojis during meetings and bringing a bag of Skittles on tough days.

An explosion flashed on the screen, and Emma attempted rather futilely to refocus on the plot. She reached for another handful of popcorn and brushed against Regina’s hand. The small touch jolted through her, and her mind dove back into reassessing each of their interactions.

She cleared her throat. “I think it’s time to break open the wine.”

Regina stood to fetch the bottle from the fridge, and Emma followed after to snag a few glasses from a cabinet. She knew her way around Regina’s kitchen by now, and they moved around each other with practiced ease. Regina shifted behind her, placing a hand just over her lower back to establish her position and presence, and Emma hated how much she felt at home.

She was too sober.

“You got the white I like,” Emma noted as she placed the glasses on the counter.

Regina huffed. “I thought a safe pick was better after the faces you made last week after each sip.”

While Emma hoped this was some sign that Regina paid attention to her wants and needs, she took Regina’s explanation at face value. It was more likely that Regina wanted to avoid her acting out. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for the kindness because she could all but chug her glass without wanting to scrape the taste from her tongue.

“Thirsty, hm?”

“That popcorn was super salty.” Emma could feel the warmth already spreading through her, and some of the tension bled away. “Super good, too, but that salt, y’know?”

“Perhaps some water would have been a better choice, then.”

“No, wine is good,” she said too quickly. “Super good.”

Regina gestured back to the living room. “Shall we?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

As the movie crept toward its climax, Emma downed another glass. Feeling bolder, she scooted a little closer on the pretext of easier access to the bowl of popcorn. Their thighs came into contact, and Emma tried to sit as still as possible to avoid drawing attention. She really didn’t want Regina to inch away.

The main character delivered a powerful line before enacting a magnificent feat of physical prowess, and Regina snorted. Emma echoed the noise, which sparked more of a real laugh. Despite the movie’s tension, they laughed, and Emma tossed a bit of popcorn across the centimeters between them. It landed in Regina’s cleavage, and the wine helped Emma decide to try and retrieve the food. By the time her brain caught up with her actions, she had her hand down Regina’s shirt.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.”

She jerked her hand away, leaving Regina’s blouse tugged low to reveal the edge of a lacy black bra. Stop staring, she commanded herself. Please, she amended a moment later when her eyes refused to travel back to Regina’s face. Everything felt very warm.

“Emma?”

“Yeah?”

Regina gingerly adjusted her blouse, and Emma finally looked up.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

Emma’s emotions tumbled around her stomach, sloshing through the alcohol and getting mired in past pain. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a burden. I’ll go.”

Regina’s hand settled on her knee, effectively holding her down with the barest of touches. “You’re not a burden.”

Lip trembling, Emma shrugged. “It’s okay. I’ll—It’s…”

“What’s upsetting you?” Regina paused the movie and turned to better look Emma in the eyes. “I may poke fun at the cricket, but his advice has… it’s helped a good deal. I need to better express myself, or so he says. I enjoy our evenings together, but I’ve noticed you’ve become jumpy as of late. Have I done something to cause you to drink more? Do you need to be drunk to bear my company?”

“No!” Emma shook her head too fast, causing the room to spin. “I just…”

“You just?”

“You’re so hot.” Her face flushed bright red, but she was too unsteady to get to her feet and flee the emotional moment, like she wanted to. Instead, she let her verbal vomit fly. “That’s like too rude, but it’s true. I like you. Like a lot. And I want you to want me, and my brain is like reading everything too much. Between the lines, or whatever. I don’t even really watch the movies anymore. I can’t. I’m just thinking and thinking about like oh god, our hands touched, and you did your make up so good and your lipstick is so red and I can’t stop looking at your lips and what if we kissed?”

To stop the flow, Regina answered the question by leaning in. Because she interrupted Emma’s tirade, the kiss was mostly teeth at first, but Emma was quick to shut up.

[supersickies]

Summary: "Steve absolutely wasn’t nervous. Compared to every intense and grueling Avengers mission he’s completed, taking care of a sick kid was a walk in the park right? Except when this sick kid was also one of the most precious things within Tony Stark’s life and if anything were to happen to this boy there’s no doubt in Steve’s mind that Tony would dump him in an instant.

So no, Steve was not nervous at all."

OR

Tony has meetings, Steve has anxiety, and poor Peter just has a fever.

A/N: It’s Sicktember 2021! Very excited for this month and to see all of the amazing works! Not to mention it gives me an excuse and the motivation to write as many sickfics as I can! And let's see if I do because writer's block is too real right now :) Anyway thank you @sicktember for coming up with this month of prompts and I hope you all like this little fic! Read it here or click the link to read on AO3! 

Steve absolutely wasn’t nervous. Compared to every intense and grueling Avengers mission he’s completed, taking care of a sick kid was a walk in the park right? Except when this sick kid was also one of the most precious things within Tony Stark’s life and if anything were to happen to this boy there’s no doubt in Steve’s mind that Tony would dump him in an instant.

So no, Steve was not nervous at all.

Tony, however, could see right through the false confidence.

“Relax, Stevie! Good lord, I can feel you panicking from over here.” Tony jokes as he enters the living room and gathers his briefcase and Stark gadgets for his day of meetings.

Steve jolts a bit as he looks up at Tony. “Huh? I-I’m not panicking.”

“You were just glaring daggers into Petey over there, hon.” Tony points out, to which Steve just shrugs with a blush. “There’s really no need to worry Cap, the kid is probably just gonna sleep and cough a bit until I’m back, alright? And if he wakes up and gets antsy or something just heat up some of the soup I made and throw on Adventure Time. Pete’s an easy kid, I swear.”

Steve stands from his chair with a deep breath and nods in understanding. Tony strides over to the super-soldier and takes his face in his hands. “There’s no one I trust more with Peter than you. Except maybe Pepper, but she can literally do everything.”

Steve laughs at that and bends down to give Tony a quick peck on the lips. They break apart so Tony can give Peter’s hair a quick ruffle. His hand pauses on the boy’s forehead as he gauges his fever. His lips quirk downward, he does not love the temperature the kids running at the moment.

With a sigh, he stands up and walks hand in hand with Steve to the elevator. “I think his fever went up, so just keep an eye on that. Friday is down for maintenance so you’ll probably want to wake him up in a bit to take his temperature manually.” The elevator doors open and the super couple shares one last peck before Tony steps in. “I’m just thirty floors down! You’re gonna do great! I love you both!” Tony calls as the doors close and suddenly Steve is alone. Well, save for the snoring spider-teen on the couch.

Steve wanders back to the living room, nervously glancing at Peter as he does. The poor kid is basically in the exact opposite of his regular state. On a normal day, Peter was a bright ball of action, seemingly unable to stop talking or moving at all. But that wasn’t the Peter he saw now.

Instead, this Peter was silent. Sick. There’s an eerie ambiance in the air and Steve hates it.

So, to quell the weird vibe, he turns the tv to TCM, (un-ironically his favorite channel as the rest of the team loved to tease him about) and sets it at a low volume so he doesn’t wake the kid.

He’s just about to the end of an old western film when he hears Peter groan and shuffle around on the couch. The sick teen sits up wearily, his hair a mess and his eyes unfocused. Not to mention his cheeks are deeply flushed with fever, which has clearly gotten worse in the last forty-five minutes.

“S’eve?” Peter slurs as he spots the super solider.

Steve’s focus quickly turns to the kid, who looks undoubtedly sicker. “Hey, Pete. How you feeling, pal?” Stupid question, Rogers. He thinks to himself.

Peter sniffs and shivers with sudden chills. “Mm, n-not v’ry good.” His voice cracks as tears fill to his eyes. His sleep-addled brain catching up to and feeling the full effect of his feverish achy body. He can’t stop his breath as it hitches and the tears spill over. It just hurts so much.

Steve’s up and at the boy’s side almost inhumanly fast, doing his best to comfort him. Unfortunately, he’s no expert on Peter care (i.e, he’s not Tony). If there’s one thing he does know, however, is that you can never go wrong playing with the kid’s hair, which Steve had quickly learned by watching his boyfriend. And while Tony was the “Peter scalp massage pro”, Peter definitely wasn’t picky about who or how. The kid simply just wanted his hair touched.

So Steve did just that. The larger man was relieved to find that the action had the desired effect—Peter had calmed almost instantly, curling up against Steve’s side— but the super soldier was quickly fulled with nerves again as he felt the nearly scalding heat coming from the kid.

When Peter had relaxed enough, Steve grabbed the thermometer Tony had left on the coffee table. Peter spots the machine in Steve’s hand and opens his mouth, accustomed to the routine after being sick all day yesterday as well.

With the thermometer under his tongue, Peter lets his eyes close as they wait for the reading to be done. When it is, Peter lightly jumps at the beep before burrowing back into Steve’s side as the blonde takes the thermometer back and reads its results.

And while Peter looks peaceful once again, Steve is panicking. 103.5. Steve’s not a scientist but he knows that’s not a good temperature for the body to be.

“Friday can you- ah.” Oh, right. Steve remembers that the AI was down for maintenance. Instead, he looks around for his phone, ready to research exactly what he should do for a kid with a near brain-melting fever.

Steve bites the inside of his cheek as he, again, remembers. He doesn’t have a phone right now, as he sat with his last one in his back pocket and it cracked in half. He and Tony had laughed themselves to tears when it happened.

Steve wasn’t laughing now.

He’s thrown back into the moment as Peter groans again, another intense chill running through the kid’s frame. Poor kid must be freezing, Steve thinks.

Freezing.

With that realization, Steve is taken back to his teen years. The years he spent consistently sick and feverish like Peter is now. The years his Ma used to keep him in bed for days, wrapped in every blanket they had in their house.

Blankets!

Steve suddenly remembers how to treat a high fever. You sweat it out, duh. With a tiny smile at the memory of his Ma, he stands from the couch carefully and heads to Tony’s linen closet. He spots a soft looking quilt beside a thick fluffy throw and grabs the two, knowing that when paired with the blanket the kid was already wrapped in they would make the perfect fever banishing covers.

Peter is almost back to sleep when Steve returns, but he hears the man's footsteps and his eyes open again. Steve makes quick work of unfolding the blankets and laying them over Peter. The kid hums, content with the warmth of the added blanked combating his chills, and falls swiftly to sleep. It makes Steve smile, pleased with his ability to care for the sick spidering.

Steve was feeling pretty confident that Tony was going to be just as pleased.

______

Tony Stark was far from pleased.

He had excused himself from his meeting after an hour, intent on checking Peter’s vitals on his phone through the watch the boy wore on his wrist.

What he saw was less than ideal. In fact, it was terrifying. 104.3 should be Peter’s physics grade after perfectly completing extra credit for fun, not his kid’s body temperature. The mechanic bolts to the nearest elevator, paying no mind to the white-collar assholes who awaited his return. They didn’t matter, not when his kid’s brain was melting thirty floors up.

“Steve!” He shouts when the elevator doors finally open to the penthouse. The blonde jumps when he hears his name and his eyes widen as he sees his panicked boyfriend sprinting towards him.

“Tony wha-?”

“Where’s Peter, Steve? Where is he— is he okay?”

Still a bit flustered, Steve just points to the sleeping boy on the couch, still wrapped in the thick blankets. When Tony sees him, his eyes only go wider.

“What, are you trying to fucking roast him?” Tony asks, exasperated. Before Steve can answer, Tony begins removing the blankets from his kid. Cringing at the heat that wafts out from them as they go.

“I-I- his fever got higher! I was trying to help him sweat it out!” Steve stumbles through his explanation.

“Sweat it out? Jesus fuck what are you from the thir- oh my god you’re from the thirties.” Tony halts with the realization. Steve Rogers was borderline a complete stranger to modern medicine and comes from an era of absolute batshit home remedies. The man smoked cigarettes for his asthma for fucks sake.

“Okay, alrighty then. Steve do me a favor and go start a lukewarm bath for me please.” Tony orders in about the most anxiously calm voice Steve had ever heard.

“Okay but Tony-“

“Now please, Steven.” Tony demands once more. Steve gets the memo, fast, and quickly heads to Tony’s bathroom.

Shit.

_____

After a quick dip in the tub and a quick anxiety attack from Tony, Peter’s temperature is back down to a less dangerous level. He’s sat back on the couch in the lightest t-shirt and boxers he owns, sipping ice water through a straw with a fever patch stuck to his forehead. Maybe it was overkill, but you couldn’t tell Tony that.

When the boy's eyes begin to droop Tony takes the water from his hands and helps him lay back down.

“Comfy, bubba?” He asked in a hushed tone. Peter just nods and yawns as he closes his eyes and quickly drifts back to sleep. “Get some more sleep bud.” He hums softly, laying a thin—thin—blanket over his kid.

Steve watches the pair from afar, afraid to step in or offer any more “help”. He doubts Tony will even want to look at him after what he’s done. Which is why when Tony stands and turns to him, he immediately tenses. He’s ready to be yelled at, cursed at, probably dumped.

“C’mere.” Tony says, opening his arms to Steve, inviting him into a hug. The blonde is shocked, sure, but he accepts the hug quickly, silently thinking it could be his last with the man he’s come to love so much.

“Again, Stevie, I can hear you overthinking.” Tony mumbles against his boyfriend's shoulder. He pulls away from the hug and takes the man's hands, looking up at him. “All things considered, you did nothing wrong, hon.”

“Tony I just-“

“You just did what you thought was right. You didn’t know any better Steve.” Tony rebuts before Steve can even finish.

“I’m just…I’m really sorry Tony. You trusted me with your most important person and— I fucked up bad.” Steve apologizes.

“Woah there big guy!” Tony’s brows shoot up at the apology. “First off, language mister.” Tony teases, it makes Steve blush and a hint of a smile ghosts his lips. Tony sees that as a win. “Second, yes, you’re correct. Peter is incredibly important to me. He’s my kid, but you are my Steve!” Tony emphasizes, shaking Steve’s shoulders a bit as if it will help get the point across. “You are incredibly important to me too! You made a mistake, and guess what Steve, that’s human— you’re human!”

Steve smiles sadly and nods before looking back at Peter’s sleeping form on the couch, just double-checking that the kid was truly fine.

Tony huffs lightly, using his fingers to softly move Steve’s head so he’s looking at him again. “Look at me, love. Peter’s fine, you’re fine, I’m fine, and we are fine. Okay?”

Steve takes a deep breath, closing his eyes with a smile. “Okay.” He confirms quietly. He can feel Tony’s hands move to cup the sides of his cheeks as he’s brought into a deep kiss. It quells all of his anxieties. Tony is here, with him, and he’s not going anywher-

“Eeugh, y-you guys ‘re cute and stuff, but the PDA ’s kinda makin’ me nauseous.” Peter’s voice breaks their kiss. Both Avengers turn to the kid, their faces about as red as his feverish cheeks after getting caught.

Tony snorts. “Oh come on kiddie!” Tony pulls Steve’s face closer to his again, this time just peppering kisses across his face. “A man can’t show his boyfriend some love?”

The older men laugh until they hear a legitimate gag from Peter. “N-no I’m serious Mr. Stark—“ Gag. “I’m really nauseous.”

“Steven grab a trash can.” Tony prompts, the same anxiously calm demeanor back in his voice as before.

Steve wastes no time, sprinting to the closest receptacle. “On it!”

[becca-e-barnes]

The "minors DNI" posts that I've been seeing crop up everywhere by fic writers are always so interesting to me.

First and foremost, I 100% support your decision to post a "minors DNI" for your safety and their safety. You're being responsible, doing your due diligence as a responsible adult, and trying to ensure that everyone enjoys what you put out there in a safe way.

And I know you specifically have not said this so this is not a slight on you by any means, but I think you'd be more open to the discourse of such an interesting topic like this—the problem I have with some fic writers is that is them saying they will block anyone who does not have their age posted in their blog.

This, I believe, is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set. On the one hand displaying your age if you are over 18 seems like a non-issue, right? Sure. But setting the precedent that people should display their age in their blog encourages minors to share their age on the internet which in turn can make them an easier target.

Personal preference for me—I'm a thirty-two year old lady (plz sing this appropriately) and do not share my age in my tumblr because, well I don't want to.

We're all technically violating TOS anyway, so it doesn't really matter if a minor interacts with your fic or not at this point—by interact I mean like/reblog/comment, not DMing you to talk about sexual stuff. That stuff you should absolutely block/delete for obvious legal and safety reasons.

And while I understand the legality thing, if you are not explicitly engaging with said minor, there's not a whole bunch that could hold up in court. How many lawsuits do you think E.L. James gets for 13 year olds waltzing into a bookstore or buying 50 shades of grey off amazon and reading it? There was actually an interesting article written about the "common sense" engagement with this book back in 2012.

Anywho, you are right to ask and set a boundary, and do what you feel is right to protect yourself and using the DNI minor blanket statement is ultimately a good thing, especially if it's a personal uncomfortableness with minors reading your work. However, even if a minor just decided to lie and say they were 21 and read your stuff anyway, unknowingly interacting with a minor is just as bad legally as knowingly doing so so at the end of the day, we're still just taking risks. The safest thing for all of us would probably be to not interact with anyone or ask everyone to use anon, but there's not fun or friendship in that. Your mutual who has stated they're 25 could still be 16 and you wouldn't know it.

My perspective may also just be entirely outdated as well because I grew up in the internet age of it being a lawless wasteland and everyone lied about everything, so I don't see the value in trying to police my work when people will just read it anyway and I don't have any control over that at the end of the day other than to tag appropriately and/or not post anything at all ever.

This was long and not necessary to answer, I'm just always fascinated by the rigor at which fanfic writers are so quick to banish people for not putting their age in their bios when I think it is inherently more dangerous for minors to do so because it puts a target on their back.

Before I start, I recognise that we’re of the same line of thought! I saw this long message and panicked thinking that someone had taken an issue with my stance on it and I’m glad that’s not the case 🙈 Anything I raise here is in the interest of discussion and I completely respect your point of view. 💗

This is really interesting actually and truth be told, I’ve avoided any discussion on this topic for a very long time for fear that I won’t adequately explain my stance on it. I feel like I’ve had a chance to do that and I hope it’s been taken up by everyone as I intended.

I will admit; as a minor, I read smut. Without going into detail, it entirely warped my perspective on how relationships should look. To provide a little context on my stance, at 14/15 (and younger), I had no business reading the things I was reading. Unfortunately, I was in a “relationship” at the time and I fully believed that I had to engage with my boyfriend in ways that mirrored what I was reading. I ended up in situations I didn’t want to be in. To me, it’s my responsibility as a writer and as someone who learned the hard way, to ensure that younger people don’t make the same mistakes I did.

I do fully agree, minors stating their real age on their blog raises all sorts of different issues, as you rightly said. You’re absolutely right, to a minor there are no advantages to displaying your real age on here. Fic writers will block you, creeps will be more likely to engage with you. So I fully understand that this might seem like a reason to lie or provide no age at all.

Leading on from that though, if a minor lies on their profile and claims to be over 18 and they interact with my smut, from a legal perspective, that is not going to have any repercussion on me. I have put my disclaimers up, I vet as many profiles as I can and I do everything I would be reasonably expected to do in the eyes of the law. (This isn’t an area of law I studied in significant depth but that standard of reasonable expectation would still apply). I do as much as I can to protect myself and them.

You brought up 50 Shades and I understand your point but the issue here is not just the fic itself. If anyone comments/ reblogs my fic, I like to send a little reply back! I love when people take the time to give me feedback and I want to thank them for it, as a lot of other writers do! The issue here being that if the blog commenting is a minor, the writer would be engaging in a conversation about sexual material with a minor. And that’s fucking messy. This is mainly where fics differ from a teenager buying a copy of 50 shades. In that situation, there’s no interaction there between the author and the underage fan so it loses that personal element.

On the issue of blogs with no age, I see where you’re coming from and I see that you both read and write fanfiction. But I also see it from the other perspective given that a lot of writers like to do as much as possible to protect themselves and potential minors.

I totally support that’s a boundary that you set and it’s your choice. In the same sense that it’s a fic writer’s choice to protect themselves by blocking you. It’s a matter of boundaries clashing at the end of the day. I really do see both sides here. I’m a really organised person so honestly, if anyone wanted to send me a private message just confirming they’re over 18, I’d put them all into a list to make sure I don’t accidentally block them for interacting. But of course, not every writer would be able to do that and I’m sure many readers would want to do that either! I just see it as the only way to compromise on that issue and keep everyone happy.

Thank you for sending me this! I hope I covered everything and if I haven’t been clear enough in some areas, feel free to come back to me! 🙈 And I really appreciate actually having a discussion on here! It’s so great to hear others’ points of view in a nice, respectful way. Tumblr loses that sometimes! Have a lovely evening 💗

[curioussubjects]

So I did a season 15 rewatch and wanted to do a thought experiment

I know I often mention that the meta the corner of fandom I’m in has multiple points of entry, but I don’t think I ever just dumped plain text as a thought experiment before. Obviously, the parts of the text I decided to dump here are picked through a specific meta lens as well as being only a facet of the SPN text itself, since I only have the words and none of the complex visual language the show employs from set dressing to editing to acting -- and that’s a ton of info I’m omitting, I know, but generally speaking all text gets reduced to the writing even in the mytharc of the show itself, so it feels appropriate to use words on a page to do this. That said, this is just a start, and any analysis of SPN needs to take into account the full scope of the text beyond the words (with the one exception of a soundtrack pick in 15.10 because it’s too good to pass up).

Anyway, I started writing this as a simple “here look at this selection of very cursed quotations let’s cry” sort of self-indulgent thing, but then I thought, well, what if we could all take a pause from fandom stuff and finale anxiety in order to sit a little with one of the textual building block? What if we could even put a pin, for just a second, to the greater nuances and more involved abstraction about the text and think in bare bone terms? 

Of course, I have a reading here, but through the quotations I picked notice the repetition of themes, of words themselves. What is there? What is it telling us? Regardless of our personal wants and wishlists, whatever our feelings about what is and what should or shouldn’t be. And if we pluck these words and put them back in their context, what is the story trying to tell us? On its face, without any editorializing about what we think could happen maybe because we’ve all been burned by tv shows before. Or even do we really think the text seems so clumsy and lost and incompetent as some seem to think it is? 

Again, this collection is just on facet of the text. Think of it as a spring board, rock number 1. 

15.01

We were just rats in a maze. Sure, we could go left. Sure, we could go right. But we were still in the damn maze. Just makes you think, if all of it... you know, everything that we've done... What did it even mean?

It meant a lot. We still saved people.

When we win this, God's gone. Hm. There's no one to screw with us. There's no more maze. It's just us. And we're free.

We got work to do.

15.02

Chuck is all-knowing. He knew the truth, he... he just kept it to himself.

Even if we didn't know that all of the challenges that we face were born of Chuck's machinations, how would we describe it all? We'd call it "life". Because that's precisely what life is. It's an obstacle course, and maybe Chuck designed the obstacles, but we ran our own race. We made our own moves.

I'll tell you what we do know. Nothing about our lives is real. Everything that we've lost, everything that we are is because of Chuck.

You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.

I'm done, Chuck. I've changed. I've adapted. I've... I've become the better me. And you? You are still the same... petulant, narcissistic. So... I'm leaving you here.

15.03

No, we’re gonna end this, Sam. Like you said. We’re gonna be free.

And I'm here, and you're here, and everything we need to end this right is in our hands.

But will you let the world die, let your brother die, just so I can live?

I've tried to talk to you, over and over, and you just don't want to hear it.  

Jack's dead. Chuck's gone. You and Sam have each other. I think it's time for me to move on.

15.04

Wow. So you’re still, um… [...]  Uh, obsessed with my work.

You mean my work.

So instead of reading your stories, I kept writing my own. [...]  Where the guys didn’t have to hunt monsters all the time. They just sit around and do laundry and talk, you know? I mean, that’s what people like the most, anyway.

… this is just an ending.

I can do anything. I’m a writer.

We are finally free to… move on, you know?

I don’t know. Uh… I-I don’t know if I can move on. You know, I-I-I… I can’t forget about any of them. Dean, I still think about Jessica. I… I can’t just let that go.

15.06

Yeah. If I stay, nothing changes. It's time for me to get back in the game.

15.07

What would I do without you? Hmm? What would I do without my best friend?!

Angela was raptured, and I was left behind.

but... but best friends don't just up and leave without saying goodbye.

Listen to yourself. "We're owed." "We deserve." Come on, man. You're not God. Hell, God's not even God.

Then you fix it. You don't walk away. You fight for it.

15.08

No one hands you anything, darlin'. I took it.

Then one day, you die, you go to hell, they make you queen, and you can't make it right. So fix it!

Doing what we do, we've had to get used to losing people. Probably too used to it. With Adam, we said goodbye because we thought we had to. We were wrong.

Since when do we get what we deserve?

15.09

You just refused to hear it.

Maybe if you didn't just up and leave us.

I left, but you didn't stop me.

No, the Dean I know... the Dean who raised me -- he'd never give up, no matter how bad things got.

Well, he does. He will. This is the truth, Sam. This is what comes next. 

I hope you can hear me... that wherever you are, it's not too late. I should've stopped you. You're my best friend, but I just let you go.

Okay, Cas, I need to say something.

You don't have to say it. I heard your prayer.

When we beat you, I will make it better!

But there's still so much about the fabric of the universe that you don't know... that you can't know. 'Cause you're only humans. But I'm God.

I wish you'd stay.

I wish I could. After what happened, I don't know what's real anymore.

I know that was real.

If we can't kill him or trap him...

... Well, then we find another way.

15.10

You know, go out young and pretty. But now I've got a great wife, great kids. I guess...sometimes things work out.

Yeah, sometimes. Good, man. You deserve it.

~Let's be outrageous  /  Let's misbehave~  

You know, I always thought I could be a good dancer if I wanted to be.

15.11

Beach read? Lady, I’m Tolstoy.

God created the world, but you know who created us gods? You did. You humans. Sort of.

How dare you not recognize his beneficence?

Our bad. Not his

I learned from my brother.

What is with you and these losers? They’re nothing! They don’t matter.

They matter to us.

Heroes. Like the old days. And, uh, she gave me a message. She said, “Don’t play his game. Make him play yours.”

Every day I wanted to come home, but… I couldn’t.

Billie kept him hidden in the Empty until Chuck went off world.

15.12

In the beginning, it was just me and sis. And it was fine. But I wasn’t satisfied. So I made more. I created the world.

So, I… I kept creating. I made… other worlds.

Those other toys, they don’t… they don’t… spark joy. But Sam and Dean… the real Sam and Dean… they do. They challenge me… they disappoint me… they surprise me. 

They’re… the ones.

You know, Kelly just had faith that Jack would be good for the world, and I felt it, too. I knew it. And then, when everything went wrong, and God took him from us… I was lost in a way I’ve never been before. Because I knew the story wasn’t over. I knew Jack wasn’t done. And I was right.

What sounds good to me is Jack fulfilling his destiny.

I thought I could leave her behind, but… she haunts me.

Her world looked peaceful. This place is… cold. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how to move through it. So, I just find empty spaces, and I hide. This world doesn’t want me. And I’m done with it.

We can fix this. You can help us. Please? Please.

Feels good. Disobeying cosmic entities, doing the, uh… dumb, right thing? Feels like we’re back.

I don’t belong in your world. You do. Go.

When I was a reaper, I believed in the rules. But then you killed me. And when I became Death, I inherited Death’s knowledge… and Death’s library. And in Death’s library, everyone has a book. Even God.

After God made the world, he couldn’t stop. He wanted more. But he needed to create a perfect harmony… a Swiss watch, so this world could keep tick, tick, ticking in his absence. He had no choice but to build himself into the framework. It’s his only weakness.

You and your brother have work to do. This is your destiny. You are the messengers of God’s destruction. 

15.13

Then there's no God, there's no Darkness. Nothing out of balance. World saved.

Okay, yeah, but then who takes over? Uh, Jack?

Probably not.

I used to feel things. In my bones. It was glorious, and sometimes unbearable. But I felt them. Now, I understand joy or sadness, but... I know those things aren't in me.

So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.

A place... a thing... Whatever you want to call it, it's powerful.

Why do they call this place the Empty? This place is full. It's full of sorrow and despair playing over and over again, of angels and demons dreaming about their regrets. Forever.

Funny thing about her plan, though... she didn't say anything about needing you.

Maybe it's a key. It's a passage in Enochian. It says, um, loosely translated, "In order to be in the Occultum, the Occultum must be in you."

This is the Garden. Man's beginning.

His prize creations, until he banished them and all of mankind from the perfection of the Garden. And he hid it away.

Who are you, really? Who are you meant to be?

That's the crossroads of divinity and humanity.

Please. Just please forgive me.

[maxiskindahere]

Truth or Dare - SIX

Angst october day 10

sorry for being MIA, i haven’t been feeling the happiest so i kinda just gave up

my writing is horrible and i’ve had so many ideas and no writers block but no matter what i write i hate it!

so even though i fucking hate this one, here we go. i’m sorry it’s short just, take it or whatever.

~

In which a truth or dare game goes horrible wrong when Catalina picks truth.

~

“Lina, truth or dare?” Anna of Cleves asks in a teasing tone, Lina lets out a long sigh “Truth.” She mumbles in annoyance, the queens have been playing for an hour so she was starting to get bored

“What was your opinion on Anne when you first met and when we came back to life?” Anna asks in curiosity, Catalina raises a brow “You want honest?” She questions as Anna nods the girl takes a breath, Lina began looking towards Anne

“I found you insufferable, you were another one of my ladies brought to me solely to please my husband, and then he wanted to send me off to a nunnery for you, so he could marry you. I hated every part of you, I wanted you dead, before Henry could annul our marriage once you planted the idea of the Church of England in his head, but you got your way in the end, I was banished and you became queen.” Catalina says, now no longer looking Anne in the eyes before continuing

“When we were resurrected, I found myself enjoying the fact that Henry got tired of you after 3 years, that I kept him satisfied for 11 years while you couldn’t. I found it entertaining that he beheaded you for your own cousin and how your own family betrayed you..” Catalina continues before taking a deep breath, not noticing how stiff Anne was and how the Queens were giving her a warning look

“I blamed you for everything, hell, I was even happy when Cathy came clean about Thomas’ actions, just because of how upset you were! But... that’s changed now.” She finishes before letting out a cough “But uh.. Anne truth or dare?” She asks, still keeping her eyes on the floor “Truth..” Anne whispers, trying to keep her voice steady

“Your opinions on me?” She asks the girl who takes a breath, “I admired you at the start..” Anne begins, taking a breath to calm her heart “You were the Queen, I was ecstatic to be able to work for you, it’s why I rejected Henry, for you. I didn’t want to marry him, for your sake, that’s why I refused until he was single, hoping that he would wait it out and get tired of me, but instead he divorced you.” She admits with a sad laugh

“I wore yellow in respect for you, when you died. But, after hearing what you just said? Maybe it’s for the best in the show I sing ‘Catherine was a massive-‘ because you’re a massive bitch, Catalina.” Anne says as she stands up and storms out of the room

“was it something I said?”

~

i’ll do another one tomorrow, a follow up

sorry for missing two days

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD commentaries: 5.15 - Power

5.15 Commentary with Adam Higgs and Speed Weed (writers for this episode and the next episode)

SW: By the time anyone’s listening to this, we’ll both be writing on different shows. But we can’t tell you which ones yet. Not the same show as each other sadly. AH: Yeah that was a shame. But we will one day in the future, I have a good feeling about that. However for Haven stuff, I think the thing here was, we were trying to reboot the show in a way. SW: That’s right. AH: 514 is the start of the season, or of season 5 part B, but these two episodes [515 and 516] really encompass the new world order. SE: That’s right, they define the world after the shroud is down. Did we call it the shroud in the show? AH: The shroud, yeah. That’s actually a good point because we spent a lot of time talking about what the shroud was going to be called. I can’t remember the other names we thought about, but we went back and forth for a long time. SW: And we talked about what we called it - because often there’s a handle that you use in the room for what you’re talking about, and then you have to remember, did you actually put the same term in an actor’s mouth so that the world inside the show knows what it’s called? AH: My favourite is when you don’t realise that. On another show I did that, it was in the edit that I was like; Oh have we ever mentioned that that’s what that’s called? And going through scripts we realised that no; no we did not - OK, let’s ADR some stuff in.

AH: So this was fun. We’re both fans of The Walking Dead, and we got to do a Haven kind of version of The Walking Dead, or of them just trying to survive. It’s not the Trouble of the Week things so much, it’s … SW: It’s Haven’s version of a post-apocalyptic world, it’s true. These episodes were directed by Rick Bota who also direct 9 and 10 that Adam and I also wrote, so it was good to work with him again.

[Dwight and Nathan talk outside the school] AH: So here we get to see that time has passed since we last saw everyone in 514 and we spent a lot of time making sure that everyone had their own intro so we could showcase how things have changed. And a lot of this episode is about putting strain on these episodes and just seeing how everyone reacts to this post-apocalyptic kind of situation they’re in

SW: There’s Tony, he becomes a bigger character in the next episode. AH: Yeah we spent a lot of time seeding a lot of things. And we shot these episodes in between our set move. So, for other other seasons we shot up until October, or earlier than that even? And everything was shot on our sound stages in Chester. And then this year, half way through the season everything got moved up to Halifax, because of hockey. SW: That’s right. We shot on a hockey rink in Chester. Really anything that has a lot of space and a tall ceiling can be a sound stage for a television show - if it’s quiet outside, if there’s no noise from the street coming in. *pause for the break*

[Duke driving to work in Halifax] AH: This is actually Halifax, this bridge here. SW: That’s right, and I think this is actually one of the first scenes we shot in Halifax. Oh no, we shot that later. AH: Yeah this was shot quite a bit after. And here we’ve got our wonderful mechanic here played by William MacDonald. I worked with William on an episode of Republic of Doyle, so I was happy when I saw him in the auditions for this, and he did a great job. He just has that look, that imposing feel.

SW: So anyway, the people in Chester wanted their hockey rink back, so when we got a 26 epsiode order (seasons 5A and 5B) we had to move sets at this point as we were shooting. And the reason these episodes take place almost entirely in the school (this storyline [Duke in Halifax] excepted) is because all of our standing sets were being taken down in one place and being put up in another. So you’ll see in later episodes those sets coming back AH: We slowly start to see the sets getting put back up. But these scenes with Duke in Halifax were shot after - well after - because we had to shoot everything in the school for this whole block.

[As Duke is leaving his voicemail to Monty talking about the kind of job he’s looking for] SW: What do you do when you’re responsible for having given Troubles to thousands of people? AH: Go to disneyland. But no, that is exactly what we were trying to figure out here - what happens to Duke? After the explosion how does everyone pick up the pieces and move on?

AH: And another goal for these episodes was trying to get the characters to an interesting place, or a place we can build off of. And the relationship between Audrey and Charlotte was an important one to build (over this and the next couple of episodes) to see if we could get them to a place where they can trust each other. Because it’s like Speed said, what do you do after you gave everyone Troubles? What do you do when you find out that this woman that you’ve been missing your whole life [your mother] has been an obstacle for you for the last couple episodes? How do you respond to that? And we do try really hard on this show to create some level of reality, maybe not in terms of the supernatural, but at least in the emotions characters have.

SW: The other thing that was a challeng early in the design of these episodes, and it was really cool talking through with Adam in the room, was how we got a super deadly - oh I should pause, people are psyched about this kiss [Nathan’s and Audrey’s ‘I like the view’ moment], enjoy the kiss. AH: This hasn’t aired yet, I just realised. And I’ve been waiting to see the Twitter response to these kisses, because we ramp up that lovefest, in these two episodses especially. And there’s some really powerful scenes in 516. SW: It’s true. Or I should say, I believe you. I’ve actually forgotten what happens in 516. You know we do have a portion of fans who are not on Team Naudrey. We have a portion of fans who are rapid Duke/Audrey lovers.

SW: So, we really worked hard to design a Trouble that was super-deadly, and really scary, and didn’t require any production budget. So we talked a long time about the darkness, like - when you were in the dark a monster would come and eat you, but then we thought you’d have to produce something for that. So it became just the darkness itself. AH: And we even talked later about whether there would be a sound cue or not a sound cue. SW: Sound is cheap. AH: Yes, but this was a good one. We went back and forth on what to make this look like. And you’ll see some of that production-friendly magic throughout these two episodes. But the darkness I think worked well in just keeping everyone scared. Because it’s kind of human nature to be afraid of the dark.

[Dwight giving his banishment speech to the assembled crowd in the school hall] AH: We got to give Adam Copeland some cool stuff to do, and just showing where Dwight would go if you pushed him to the edge. And I’ll admit, we went further with Dwight in the early drafts. Dwight was Ned Stark in the early drafts, and he was a little bit more complicit in some executions. But we looked at the character and had to pull back a bit on that, I was a little zealous there, I think it was good to pull back. SW: Well you had The Walking Dead in mind, you know. But the truth is ultimately, we’re not that show. We are more heartfelt and lighter, and we protect our characters.

[Nathan discussing his trip down Trouble Alley, and Audrey pointing out cell phones don’t work.] AH: Cell phones. SW: We talked a lot about cell phones. AH: We did, we talked about whether or not we wanted them to be able to use cell phones, or not to use cell phones, could cell phones work that way? SW: Could they get through the shroud? Well, we knew they couldn’t get through the shroud AH: How did the shroud work when it came to people outside? There were a lot of rules that we inside the room spent a lot of time discussing how things would work.

[As Nathan is telling Audrey who he’s taking with him to the power plant, and the camera cuts away to show those people, and Vince and Dave’s argument] AH: Speed, I have to give you big props for pushing with the intercut here, because it’s not something we usually do on this show. And you really encouraged me to push it further and I think it ended up working really well. SW: Well you did have the instincts to do that, and TV now can really jump all over the place and audiences follow it. Haven has typically followed a pretty standard way of story telling. But, for film students out there, this started (and we’re now back to) a conversation between Nathan and Audrey, that cuts forwards to a walking shot [of the group coming up to Trouble Alley], that cuts back to a flashback of Dave and Vince, and then comes back to the overarching narrative [Nathan and Audrey’s conversation]. You’re following that as you watch it, but it is - at least to the tastes of this show - a risky re-arrangement of time. AH: It looks good though. SW: And it’s very efficient story telling. You can get more story in in less time. AH: We did get very efficient on this show, I have to say.

[Vince and Dwight’s conversation in the office about the batteries] AH: This relationship was a lot of fun. And it was great to build it, and talking to Adam Copeland about it, he really thinks of the character, of Dwight, that Vince is his dad so to speak. When he’s thinking about how to play a scene really works in that kind of structure.

SW: To be clear, in case we got confusing before, Trouble Alley has no cell phones working. Cell phones work within the school, and around town inside the shroud, except for Trouble Alley where - did we explain it, I can’t remember, but there’s some kind of electromagnetic Trouble there. AH: Yeah and EMP kind of Trouble that’s knocking out a lot of the power.

AH: This episode moves a quite a clip. And again we’re back here in Halifax. SW: Actual Halifax. And here is Hailie. AH: Hailie, played by Tamara Duarte. SW: She just had a spot on audition. I think Shawn Pillar, our executive producer director, knew her, and she delivered a tape that was just perfect. We needed somebody who was broken and hard, and yet also vulnerable which is not easy to do. And she’s a young actress. AH: And she can sell stuff so well with expression, that’s one of the things she brought to this. And this character ends up growing. We originally only had her in these two episodes [515 and 516] but then she becomes integral to the story. And that was interesting because we hadn’t actually shot these scenes yet - as we were talking about earlier, the Duke scenes were shot much later than the rest of the episode - so we had to go back and change things a little bit to make sure it lined up with the mythology that we were putting in to the show to pay off in epsiodes like 21, 22, 23. It was interesting. SW: And we designed her Trouble before we thought how we were going to use her later (to phase through the shroud). But it was kind of cool, we essentially took a tool that we’d built off the shelf, instead of designing it specifically. SW: I love the story Matt McGuinness tells about when he was in Vegas with some of his friends from Franklin & Bash on a retreat there. And they were getting into a hotel van to go down town for dinner or something like that. So they’re this goupr of 50 year old men, and in climbs a group of good looking 50 year old women who were there for some sort of party. And they get to talking and flirting. So it’s like; What do you do? Oh we write for TV, Franklin & Bash. And that drops like a lead balloon; nobody cares. So Matt says; Well actually I write for Haven - and they all light up. And one woman says to Matt; You know what I love about Haven - it’s so complicated, but I know that you guys have everything absolutely planned out right from the beginning, so even though it feels confusing at times, I feel safe in your hands. AH: *laughing* What did Matt say to that? SW: He nodded and said; You’re right. And then he came back and told us that story. And, it’s just not true folks, I’m sorry. We are scrambling at every moment to figure it out. I think we do. AH: I think we do. That’s the thing, we make it work. Unlike other shows (nothing against them) we do take pains to make sure that if we set it up, we fix it, we make sure it works. We sometimes spend long days on getting that stuff to work.

[As Nathan is about to take the group into Trouble Alley] AH: I do enjoy this bunch of ragtag misfits working together. SW: Notice, another invisible Trouble. That’s a crew member with a wire in their hand; that’s cheap. AH: But if you’re wondering what I think it looks like, I’ve always thought of it as like Godzilla, a smaller version of Godzilla. SW: Cool! AH: Just invisible.

[As Charlotte gets her foot caught] AH: Oh, and again, talking about The Walking Dead transitions, Nathan in the original draft was super dark here where instead of saving Charlotte, Nathan basically blackmails her freedom in exchange for information. SW: Right, it was jumping up a wall originally, and he was only going to pull her up if she gave up the information about the aether. Whereas here now she offers it because she’s in trouble. AH: So I think it was a good note to pull back on that, but again it was just getting into that head space of Game of Thrones, Walking Dead.

[Duke on the phone to the bank who refuse to recognise the existence of Haven.] AH: And again here we are putting in some rules of the shroud, how does it work with memory, what do people of think of Haven, that are outside of the shroud. SW: Yeah, important for the rest of the season. AH: And are these - yes they are, the first episodes to really start Duke on this journey of him walking the earth. SW: Oh yeah for sure. Last episode he was in Haven. AH: And that plays out for quite a while. SW: Yeah he’s out of town for a while.

[Nathan and the others arriving at the smashed up Herald] AH: This scene I felt was important, just to show how the world has changed so much for everyone. You know, no one is safe. And it’s not just Troubles, there’s looters and stuff where the Troubles have set off a fuse, but at the end of it is just crime and everything. SW: And very poignant that it’s Dave here in the Teagues home, because for most of the series they were the keeper of the secrets. If everyone else was confused, they knew what was going on. And then a little bit in season 4 it started getting out of their hands , and then certainly in season give they are way out of their depth. And this their vault of secrets has been affected.

[As Charlotte is telling Nathan that aether might help her solve the Troubles AH: Here we had to be very specific about this receipe for success and how it would work.

[Dwight to Audrey; It’s easy making choices from the side lines] AH: This is the ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ aspect

[As we see the power plant] AH: This was actually a power plant SW: Yeah it’s so cool. Very unusual looking place. AH: So that was neat that we were able to get an actual power plant with the turbines and everything. I will say for myself, that I am not mechanically inclined at all. So there was a lot of help from the room in figuring out how electricity works. And this is Kira Fletcher, this is our third Fletcher that we’ve used on this show.

AH: It was nice to get everybody in the dirty clothes and everything too. And they wore it all well.

[As Nathan takes the wires from Kira] AH: That’s the other thing, in these episodes I really wanted to make Nathan as active as possible. He’s trying his best to put this genie back in the bottle. And just every time he tries to do something good it seems to backfire. SW: Well, it’s sort of the theme of the show; No good deed goes unpunished. AH: And we’re going to see that with Duke right here.

[As Hailie is asking Duke about her mom’s ‘superpower’ AH: And again, a lot of this story we had put in here, and we didn’t have to alter it when we came up with the fix or the solution or the mythology for 21, 22, 23. SW: Well and episode 20 as well. AH: Yeah, her mom is seeded in right there. SW: If you haven’t seen it yet, epsiode 20, Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn wrote a retro Haven episode that features Hailie’s mom. AH: And I remember there was talk about using Tamara to play Hailie’s mom. But I don’t think we did that in the end.

[As Duke and Hailie finish their conversation outside the garage] AH: Oh, somebody listening in. SW: 26B, is that what Matt calls it? AH: Yeah, 26B SW: Matt’s code for someone overhearing.

AH: This was fun with Charlotte as a character where she comes from another world that’s much more advanced, so she’s not a mechanic, she’s not an engineer by trade, but our technology is so simple to her. SW: It’s like playing with a paperclip to her. There’s a word that we use all the time in the room that isn’t actually in the show; Arcadians. Just to ourselves, Charlotte and Mara and her father are Arcadians. And William.

[As Audrey finds Vince with Rolf’s body, the latest victim of the No Marks Killer] AH: And this was some heavy mythology to drop as well. There is a lot going on in this episode! SW: Yeah it’s really the season premiere AH: It was nice to bring the Teagues back into the main cast. They’ve been out on an island almost, having their own plot and learning a lot of stuff that was very important. But it was nice to bring them back so that they’re interacting again with Audrey and Nathan, and Dwight. SW: And they do well when they’re holding secrets. They’re built for that.

AH: Eric Cayla, our Director of Photography, did some great work with darkness and shadows in this episode. [Audrey; Did they force you to do this? Because I can get you out.] AH: And there’s that Audrey compassion that’s going to play a big role in 17 SW: We like to, on this show to set up things, especially as it’s become more serialised. And with that litle line there, Audrey just sealed her fate for episode 17, or the end of 16. AH: Yeah, that was another one, like we talked about with 9 and 10, where the ending moved back and forth.

[Dave to Charlotte; Is there anything I can do to help? Back rub? Water?] SW: *laughing: Oh Adam. You have a way of getting humour in. That’s just terrific AH: *also laughing* I remember there was some debate though about that ‘back rub’ if he was coming on to her. And I was just like: No, no - he’s just in an awkward situation and doesn’t know what to do. Being an awkward person myself, that’s coming from real experience.

AH: And this was great work by the art department on these power schematics. It really helped tell the story.

[people in the school fighting over a flashlight] AH: Chaos! And this is again that post-apocalyptic landscape [Dwight; Alright everyone take a deep breath SW: That’s what I say to my kids when they throw tantrums AH: But not the rest of the speech. And this just shows how Dwight has elevated in the eyes of the town.He really is the leader. So interesting where you started with this character and where he ends.

[As Nathan and Kira find the mine shaft where the aether seems to be] AH: So we were talking this through, if this is where William’s stash of aether is held, our idea behind it is that he stashed it in a natural cave or underground area, geological formation of some kind SW: Like 500 years ago AH: And then things were built over it. It’s not that William went there when that building was built and buried it there. SW: Right, just to line up with the backstory that William and Mara were trapsing round New Engliand in the 1500s.

[Mechanic on screen; I looked you up Hailie Colton] AH: Oh I remember we didn’t have a last name for her initially. We had to go back and add that in.

[Duke runs the mechanic over and drives through Hailie] AH: Yes, Duke knew that was going to happen. He was not trying to kill Hailie. And props to Shawn and Rick for blocking this, it was not the easiest scene to block - a lot of moving pieces.

[As Audrey is packing a bag to go look for Nathan] AH: And here we were trying to have a nice mother/daughter moment SW: Yeah you did a great job. The slow arc of getting them together. AH: I think that’s the other thing we tried to do with these episodes is re-establish that anything could happen. That this is a new world order, bad stuff, people are dying. And it could be one of our characters. SW: Yeah we talked about where to end this episode and start the next one [The implication being they considered ending the episode before Nathan gets back, and so with the suggestion that he is actually dead] AH: I think a lot of these background extras here [as Nathan arrives in the hall full of people] were comped in. SW: They had 300 extras on the day AH: Was it 300? Maybe they weren’t then, maybe it was all practical.

AH: Thank you for listening SW: We’ll see you on 16

[theoriginalladya]

28: any scene/line you wrote that you didn’t expect to write/that surprised you once it was written?

Simple answer:  ALL OF IT!  

Longer answer/explanation:  No, seriously, I first started getting interested in writing when I was in high school.  I’d go to every writer’s workshop they had whenever I could get out of class, and I really enjoyed it.  But then college hit and any/all creative juice I had just .. vanished.  WRITER’S BLOCK.  That lasted through college and on through grad school and even through my teaching years.  That didn’t mean I didn’t read or do research for potential story ideas - I did, but nothing ever got written but the notes.

After ten years or so, after I left teaching and moved to where I live now, after I got away from academia and started my life ‘over’, the muses started to poke at me.  Slow at first, but it started trickling out.  (I look back now and shudder at those pieces - which I still have, some 25 years later)  I found encouragement in unexpected places (my now Ex, for starters; I sure wasn’t going to get it from my family, even if they knew I was trying to write), and it kept on going.

The biggest push was when my Ex got me Dragon Age for Christmas in 2009.  That changed my whole world!  Story ideas started to flow.  Mass Effect created a TIDAL WAVE, and it hasn’t stopped yet.  My fandoms are relatively limited (DA, ME, Horizon Zero Dawn (maybe), Werewolf: The Apocalypse), but I’ve now ventured back toward writing original fiction too, and so ... yeah.

ALL OF IT.  

But, if you want something more specific, hmm ...  *rolls d20 ....*

~~~~

(taken from my WIP, Mari’s Men; this is the initial draft and needs editing, but it’s a story I am incredibly invested in and will some day be satisfied with)

“Someone approaches.”

Little John’s whispered warning was just loud enoughto catch Marian’s ears.  Carefully, sheeased her way far enough out onto the tree branch to glimpse the figureapproaching them.  From this height andstill distant, all she could determine was that he was dressed in darkclothing.  It was several minutes beforeshe could narrow it down to the black robes of a priest.  He stood tall, broad shouldered, and had thegeneral shape of a man who might be a soldier, she thought.  

“Black canon,” Much mumbled from below.  The shrubs surrounding him showed only theslightest hint of movement as he altered his position, resembling that of abreeze blowing through.  

Her gaze turned again to the man approaching.  Much, as a hunter, had excellent eyesight andcould see more detail than she or even Little John from further away.  She quickly considered her options.  She had inherited Robyn today, so thedecision was hers to make.  There weredangers in approaching men of the cloth and incurring their wrath or the wrathof the good Lord above was not on Marian’s list of duties this day.  “I will speak to him,” she murmured beforescurrying backwards on the limb.  Shecarefully lowered herself to the ground behind the base of the tree andadjusted her hood.  Drawing her bow andnocking an arrow into place, she took a deep breath before stepping out ontothe path.

Robyn’s timing was, as always, excellent and thepriest, now near enough to recognize as a black canon as Much suggested, wasbrought up short.  “Why do you block myway?” he demanded irritably.

Robyn, bow still lowered, stood casually before him,hood drawn far enough forward to hide the upper half of his face fromonlookers.  “You travel through my landswithout permission,” he replied.  “Paythe tax and you shall be free to continue.”

The priest scowled, eyes narrowing as if trying topeer beneath the hood.  “These are theking’s lands.”

“And I am caretaker for good King Richard,” Robyncountered.  “Know this, you will pay oneway or another before we are through. Either the tax with coin, or with your life for trespassing on theking’s land.  What say you?”

The canon straightened, rising to his full heightwhich was substantially taller than Robyn. “And you expect to enforce this law of yours?” he scoffed.  He took a step forward towards Robyn.

Robyn, quicker than it took to blink, had his bowraised, aimed at the man’s heart, pulled the bowstring to its fullextension.  The canon wore no armor; thepiercing would go straight through.  “Ido,” Robyn replied, “and I should think you would see that.  I wish no quarrel with you, canon.”

“No,” the prior replied, “you wish only to rob me ofwhat I do not have.”

Robyn’s head tilted slightly to the side.  “The nearest priory is that of Thurgarton,”he decided.  “Do not tell me you aredestitute.  The conditions of the canonsthere are well known among the rest of the world.”

“I am a prior of Fiskerton,” he said.  Another scowl, darker this time, marked hisface.  “I was banished from Thurgartonbecause I opposed Prior Thomas.”

“Don’t believe him, Robyn!” shouted Little John fromthe left.

“Aye,” Much called out.  From the way his voice carried, he had workedhis way around the priest without notice. “They tax us as heavily as the king and his family!”

“We don’t!” the canon insisted.  Sighing, he pinched the bridge of hisnose.  “Or, rather, I don’t.  I was banished fromThurgarton was because I protested the deviation from the traditions of ourorder: poverty, chastity and obedience.”

“Banished?” Robyn challenged.  “I find that difficult to believe!”

“He lies!” Much shouted, now further to Robyn’s rightbut still behind the canon.  Robyn had nodoubt the man’s bow was aimed and ready.

“My disagreements with Prior Thomas run deep,” heinsisted.  “We both were in the runningfor the position.  Unfortunately for me,Thomas has a better relationship with Prince John.”

Betterrelationship.  They acerbic tone he used left no doubt thatthis prior was, like many others within the church, expecting to be brought upthrough the ranks along with the future king.

“And if you had succeeded instead of Prior Thomas?”Robyn asked.

His eyes were dark to begin with and the slits theynow became were enough to hint at anger, deep and profound.  “Thurgarton would be a better community,” hereplied, “and one not so closely tied to a spoiled prince.”

It was that last that caught Robyn’s attention and thepure hatred (??) in his tone that made the final decision.  Carefully relaxing hold on the bowstring andlowering the weapon, Robyn said, “If you are from Fiskerton, why are you notthere now?”

“Even that has now been denied me,” he replied.  “Prior Thomas, with Prince John’s support,has relieved me of my duties.”  Hesighed, eyes looking upward toward the tree-filled sky.  “I was heading north and considering myoptions.”

“Why north?”

“It is where the road leads?”  He shrugged, eyes falling to settle uponRobyn again.  “I have little but what Iwear,” he admitted.  “I have no coin forlodging or food.  Kill me if you must, butI leave nothing behind.”

Stepping forward, Robyn waved a hand so Little Johnand Much could see it.  “What if I wereto offer you a cathedral beneath the skies, canon?” Robyn asked.  “According to those in positions of power, weare nothing but a group of misguided souls. But we are more than that, and we could use spiritual guidance, if youare of a mind.”

He drew back a step or two and the startled expressionwas easy to identify.  “To what end?”

“Chastity. Poverty.  Obedience,” Robynreplied.  “The poverty we can provide,the chastity, well, I wouldn’t hold your breath on that count.”  Both Little John and Much chuckled.  They were nearer now, but still remained outof easy sight.  “The obedience would beup to you and your skills of persuasion. Do you search for a challenge?”

The canon blinked a few times, looked around them fora moment, then back at Robyn.  “Acathedral under the skies, you said?”

Robyn nodded. “Our camp is in the forest.  Yourcongregation among those most persecuted. This is the only home they have. They come to us willingly, each aiding according to their ownabilities.  We have bakers and tanners,blacksmiths, armorers, seamstresses and ….”

The prior nodded, cutting off Robyn’s speech.  “And outlaws,” he concluded in a voice loudenough for Much and Little John to hear, “in desperate need of Divineintervention.”  Taking a deep breath, hesaid, “I will gladly take on the duties of spiritual advisor, master outlaw,but with one stipulation.”

“That being?”

“I get to speak to you face to face and see you eye toeye.”

A moment of stunned silence rippled around the area,and Robyn heard sputtered protests rise from Much and Little John.  Raising a hand, they silenced.  “I am but a name, priest,” Robynreplied.  “A rumor, a legend among thelocal folk.  I am nothing but --”

“You are their leader, are you not?” hecountered.  “I will give my pledge toyou, and you alone, but I would do it face to face.”

Sighing, Robyn nodded. Shouldering the bow, gloved hands rose and carefully eased the hoodback, settling it around Marian’s neck. She looked up at the priest, green-grey eyes meeting stark brown for along moment and not flinching.  Offeringher hand, she told him, “Welcome to Sherwood, prior.  Have you a name we can call you?”

Unfazed by the appearance of a woman beneath thearcher’s clothing, he extended a hand and took hers.  “Tuck,” he replied.  “I am called Prior Tuck.”

Marian smiled, full recognition settling in.  “And you might have heard of me as LadyMarian FitzWalter,” she told him, “if you have been in these parts for anylength of time.  But these days I am LadyMarian of Loxley.”

His eyes widened in surprise.  “Lord William’s sister?”  She nodded. “I was sent to Fiskerton just after your brother’s return as lord,” heexplained.  “I heard that you came withhim to visit his lands.”

“It has been a long time, and things are certainlydifferent than I hoped,” she said.  

“I thought you were governing in your brother’sabsence?”

“I am,” she agreed, “but Providence has given me anotherpurpose as well.”  Little John and Muchjoined them then and Marian introduced them. “The legend of Robyn and his hoode has taken on new meaning these days,and we try to put it to good use.”

“The Lord has truly guided me then,” he murmured.  “In all honesty, once I was relieved of myduties at Fiskerton, I had no idea where to go. I thought perhaps to York or other points north, but I know no onethere.”

Smiling, Marian nodded towards the north andeast.  “Come with us, prior,” she encouraged.  “We have just what you need.”