#Well I finished writing 5000 words for my full-time job so it's time to write 1000 words for my freelancing

[slusheeduck]

Call me Alexander Hamilton for the way I'm writing like TOMORROW WON'T ARRIVE, WRITE DAY AND NIGHT LIKE YOU NEED IT TO SURVIVE, HOW DO YOU WRITE EVERY SECOND YOU'RE ALIVE EVERY SECOND YOU'RE ALIVE EVERY SECOND YOU'RE ALIVE

[etirabys]

Apologies if this is personal and you don't want to answer (or you don't want to answer for any other reason!); if that is the case no worries. But anyway by virtue of the fact that I am (sort of) a linguist I often get curious about people's language situation. You speak English obviously but spent your childhood in Korea, and often went to the English language book store while there? What is like, your personal linguistic history? Like, what language(s) did you grow up speaking, which ones did you learn later and when, etc? How fluent do you consider yourself in both English and Korean? If you don't mind my asking.

Haha, this is a dream scenario for me (someone asking about a situation I find fascinating about myself because I've never met anyone else with that background, but is probably boring to most people). Here's a longer story than you probably want:

My parents emigrated to the US before I was born, stayed for a decade, and moved back to Korea right after I was born. They're conversational in English, and my sister (12 years my elder) is fluent. Speaking English is valuable in Korea, so they raised me to be bilingual. They taught me the alphabet, bought me English language children's books, and sent me to an English language school run by Christian missionaries for preschool, kindergarten, and part of first grade.

My sister left the country when I was three to go to a boarding school in the US, but she came back every year for holidays, spoke exclusively in English to me, and refused to let the conversation move on if I mispronounced a word.

When I was six, my parents moved further away from the missionaries' school and switched me to a neighborhood public elementary school. At this point I was mildly more fluent in English than in Korean. Reading (English books) was a self-sustaining reaction I spent every free hour on. There were fewer interesting Korean books for children. Korea had industrialized ~30 years prior, and the hangeul writing system had only been in full use ~50 years at that point. As far as I knew, there was no CS Lewis of Korea, no Tolkien, no Diana Wynne Jones. In Korean bookstores, many of the prominent books on display were translated – The Little Prince was popular for children, and there was a children's fiction fad around another French author (who afaik never made a splash in the States) whose name I forget.

So I'm reading like 10 hours a day, at the dinner table, on the escalator when my mom takes me while she's shopping, sometimes under the desk at school flipping the pages with my toes, because the teachers don't care. (This is a huge W as far as I'm concerned for Korea – public school teaching is a somewhat competitive and standardized government job, it attracts people who lack great passion for either teaching or controlling children.) Meanwhile my peers don't like me much because my vibes are rancid: I have a compulsive laugh tic I haven't gotten under control, and I don't seem to understand their preferences very well or actively seek to understand them. Fair enough. I have one friend at any given time and she's usually on the fence about me.

When I'm old enough to take the train on my own, some weekends my mom gives me 5000 won for the train ticket + lunch, and I go into Seoul to visit one bookstore that has a 10-shelf English section. I pick a book, spend the day finishing it, and go home. Instead of my English language skills lapsing and being overtaken by the language I'm immersed in, I'm going deeper into English. Which increased the disconnect between me and my peers. I remember overhearing a conversation about an anime (The Black Cat) and eagerly asking if they'd also read the Edgar Allen Poe short story. I wanted to much to talk about shared interests, but it didn't occur to me to "invite myself into their interests" by picking up the manga they talked about.

...this all made my childhood weird in ways that have shaped me hugely but are difficult to describe. I was isolated and not, happy and not, stimulated and not, developing unevenly...

At eleven I discover fanfiction.net, probably one of the most impactful events of my life. I'm running out of physical books, I've read everything five or ten times, but then the computer! has made a deal with me! It contains INFINITE LITERATURE, although sometimes people seemed to misspell things on purpose and I didn't know why. (I had, approximately, never encountered misspellings in written material before.) In return the internet would take MY SOUL FOREVER although I didn't realize this at the time. I post a 100K Harry Potter epic over the next year where Harry is trained by a special assassin cult that lives under a mountain.

My parents have no idea what is on the internet. They're on a new temporal continent with no clue there's a parasite that can turn your daughter into a fujoshi. They do know that they have a worrying child. But! Her grades are really good, especially when she's testing in English. Good enough that although they originally intended not to send me to the US (my sister got depressed and burned out, and they attributed it to sending her to a different country for school), it made much more sense for me to go. I was on track to get a full ride at an Ivy, a carrot they were Not Immune to, and I obviously despised Korea and wanted to leave.

When I arrived in the States, I was terrified of speaking English to real native speakers. My language experience was "reading/writing: 95% English, speaking/listening: 90% Korean". I could perfectly pronounce any English sentence when I tried, but I'd occasionally and bizarrely mix up R and L, or the vowel sounds "ih" and "eeh" if I weren't paying attention. This went away after a year but I felt extra shy and didn't talk much. I'd guess 80% of my social cachet in freshman year came from writing funny Facebook posts.

I remember my time in Korea without feeling bothered by any single aspect, but overall I still have a big sense of "wow I didn't like that", have avoided non-Americanized Korean people since getting here (ten years ago), and now speak Korean haltingly. I'll try to teach it to my children so that they have the option of that cultural connection, but I don't think I can do a good job. It's feels 90% true thinking/speaking Korean is just a normal skill, a thing I do sometimes on the phone – and 10% true that the happier and more whole I become in the US, the more unsettling it feels to speak Korean at all.

[thestalwartheart]

I'm writing the saddest Bond fic in the world, and because it'll probably never get finished, I'm going to bullet point it here because I need people to cry with. It's 5000 words at the moment. I think I need it to be about 30,000.

After the events of NTTD, Q is grieving Bond. Privately, he is also grieving that Bond being the one who got away, or at least the one who would not stay. They slept together once, in the aftermath of Skyfall death, and as Q says in the fic, it was "the pinnacle of my years-long journey into vastly unrequited love."

After snapping at Mallory during a meeting, Mallory schedules Q some psychology appointments. There are snippets of these appointments throughout the fic.

Q throws out all his plants. Replaces them with sculptural bits and pieces from around the lab.

Over a year on from Bond's death, MI6 recruits a new 004. His name is Edward Jones. He's tall and lithe, with auburn hair, an excellent sense of humour, and no outwardly visible baggage. He takes an interest in Q.

But Q refuses -- categorically refuses -- to ever get involved with an agent again. That was an unspoken rule before Bond died, and now it's non-negotiable.

Except Q is no good at sticking to the rules. He's just as bad as Bond was, really. Edward is charming, and though he asks Q to dinner, he doesn't press after Q refuses him. Instead, perhaps having talked to Nomi or Moneypenny, he is simply there. All the time. He becomes a shoulder to lean on and a friend, despite all Q's attempts to distance himself.

But then...Mallory asks Q to help on a project that will reverse the effects of Heracles, and Q snaps. Already feeling a colossal amount of guilt for telling Bond it couldn't be fixed, Q cannot deal with the thought of coming up with a cure when he cannot administer it to the one person who deserved to be cured.

Distraught, stressed and full of fury at everything, he sleeps with Edward that night. And -- shock horror! -- sex works as an excellent temporary coping mechanism, so Q keeps sleeping with him. Against all his rules, he's given into his heart again.

“Who was he?” asks Edward, one day, as Q is making breakfast. / “Who was who?”/ “Whoever you’re trying to forget when you’re with me.”

“You’re a bastard,” snaps Q, another day, when Edward pushes too hard. / “Is that me you’re talking to, or him?”

After the above fight/angry sex/make up sex combo, Edward goes away on a mission and gets shot.

Q, reeling, doesn't visit him in hospital. Though he wants to, he thinks it's smarter to stay away. Best not get too attached (Oh, Q! we're crying, you're already attached!!!)

Edward, unsurprisingly does not take this well. “Enjoy living with your ghosts, Quartermaster,” he says, before going home to heal and get very drunk.

And maybe it's the getting shot bit, or maybe it's that they're making progress on a cure for Heracles, or maybe it's Moneypenny finally shaking Q until something comes loose, but Q cannot sleep. He feels sick about Edward. He feels awful. What kind of Quartermaster doesn't visit an injured agent? What kind of friend doesn't? What kind of lover, casual or not?

Plagued with guilt and realising he feels more for Edward than he ever intended to, Q turns up at arse-o-clock in the morning, in the rain to Edward's flat. Amongst other things, he says:

“He was an agent. Another Double-0." and

"I'm so sorry." and

“I spent nearly a decade of my life hiding that I loved him, from myself, him, and anyone else who might have wanted to hear. It’s the biggest regret I have. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”

Hot, passionate, intense, slow make up sex.

After a few more missions, Edward tells Q, "I'm finished. I enjoyed the job, but I only loved it because it led me to you."

They take a visit to Skyfall, where Q runs into Kincade and talks to Bond's grave where he says, among other things:

"Hello, James. I hope you’re getting some well-earned rest." and

“I love him. Eve told me you would want to hear that. I’m not so sure. You always were a bit of a possessive prick about the other agents having what was yours.” and

“I still love you. I think I will until the end of my days. It’ll be a privilege to carry you with me. Whatever small part of you I had.”

Q is in a daze most of that night. In the morning, he apologises to Edward for all the tears, and Edward replies:

“Never — and I do mean never — apologise for loving someone, especially not as well as you loved him."

Cue the I love yous and sex.

They return to London, where the Heracles cure has hit a roadblock. Q tells Mallory he wants nothing to do with the project anymore. However it turns out, it wasn't his burden to carry in the first place. He wants to be free of it.

The story ends in a quintessential English garden: Kendal in the spring. It's years later, and Edward brings Q a cup of tea in the garden, where Q is trying to read Les Misérables and failing. Instead, he's taking notes in the margins on hummingbirds.

They look up to see a red kite soaring through the air. Q things wistfully of Bond. It's a dull hurt, now, not the scraping raw thing that it was when he met Edward. Bond would probably enjoy Q remembering him in the wings of a bird of prey; always free.

Q still loves London, but he thinks he can imagine another life, a few years away yet, watching the birds in the Lake District and working in his shed, with Edward reading a book at his side.

FIN.

[magnus-sm-writes]

Short Story Update: End of 2023

Believe it or not, when I’m not writing novels, I’m typically working on short fiction. I know I talk a lot about my poetry—and believe me, I do write quite a few poems—, but I’ve been trying to work on my short fiction since October of last year. 

What really got me going was the realization that it had been a full year since my last (and only, as of writing this) short story was published. “The Ghost You Left Behind” was published in Coffin Bell’s October 2022 issue. I got a little panicky about that (I think I cried). I’d put off both writing and attempting to submit short stories for quite some time due to the hectic events of my 2023. In short, I needed to do something. I was getting antsy.

I realized I needed to challenge myself more. Constraints equal creativity for me. It’s about testing myself, pushing to see if I can still write to a prompt or not.

This update showcases two short stories of mine: “The Boy & the Hag Stone” and “Plastic Fangs”. 

Out of both of them, you might think that “Plastic Fangs” was written first. But I actually began “The Boy & the Hag Stone” in October, and didn’t begin writing “Plastic Fangs” until December. What can I say? I’m a spooky boy year-round, except when it’s spooky season. Then I’m just a regular boy.

For both of these stories, I was inspired by visuals. Honestly, for any story, I am inspired by visuals. I don’t think in words; I think in pictures.

For “Hag Stone”, I was thinking a lot about the stone in Coraline. That cool little guy is actually rooted in beliefs that hag stones protected you from evil, and that looking through one could reveal hidden evils. Not exactly how it’s used in the movie, but I’m willing to give it a pass because I’m a sucker for a good Laika movie. I was also inspired by how much I personally hate wearing shoes. (I work in an office, and my coworkers know that I am most focused without my shoes on.)

“Plastic Fangs” was fun because it was my Halloween piece. (Just two months late on that, as always.) I had this idea of a scene where a vampire went as himself for Halloween. Not a very original idea, I know, but I was so inspired that I drafted the story in less than two days, and wrote a second draft in just as much time. 

(This is why I thought I could easily finish 2 short stories in the month of February. Which I did not do.)

These stories flowed from me with an ease that felt almost surreal. It was truly incredible. Perhaps that was because I had just gotten my full-time job and was finally able to stick to a schedule. Writing around an hourly work schedule was difficult for me because it was so unpredictable. However, with my work hours set (and by virtue of that, my writing hours set as well), I can easily finish more writing now than I could before, when I had objectively more time to finish things.

Both of these stories were fun additions to my growing collections of stories with fantastical elements. 

“The Boy & the Hag Stone” is about Rishi, a man who’s a little directionless in life, and the strange man he meets called Banshee. Banshee is the biggest manic pixie dream boy I’ve ever written. Quite frankly, I want to write more for him, even though he’s a very difficult person to write dialogue for. 

It is a little over 5000 words, though it needs some serious revisions. Somewhere in the middle, the style completely changes. I was going for a vaguely fairytale-esque vibe, in honor of the professor who encouraged me to write fantasy once again. It didn’t exactly work the first time around. Hopefully, a second pass will allow me to salvage the idea, because I think it fits the tone quite well. Banshee is mysterious enough to be a small-town folk legend. Funnily enough, that is my ultimate goal in life. 

My quote for “Hag Stone” is from Coraline, of course: “I think most things are pretty magical, and that it’s less a matter of belief than it is one of just stopping to notice.” I think that describes Banshee’s outlook on life perfectly. It’s not only that he himself is magical: he believes the world is full of magic, and that he’s just more attuned to it than the average person. 

What I love most about “Hag Stone” is that Rishi is just as willing to go along with Banshee’s weirdness as I would be. He’s having a far more interesting early-twenties crisis than I did. Mine ended (I think) when I became an administrative assistant; Rishi’s ended when he met a man who could see the future. We are not the same. 

EXCERPTS

His mother had swallowed a hag stone when she was pregnant, they say. He blew through town for a wedding. Though his name was Ian, they called him Banshee. 

Banshee came into people’s lives just as they needed him and left like a ghost. He was wild and unkempt, save for the polished stone around his neck, and had blank, colorless eyes like asphodels. I was a fool to let him sieve through my fingers, but I know I’ll see him again.

For some reason, I thought he would taste earthy. Like a mouthful of dirt, or of sand. Rotting leaves. Or like a mouthful of sugar. Pure and sweet. Like home, turmeric and sweat and heat, or home, wood polish and vanilla perfume and fresh laundry, or home, dust and stale noodles and horse. Banshee tasted like none of that, but somehow made me think of all of it. He tasted like a new home I could slip into. 

Songs I listened to while writing “Hag Stone”:

Haunted House - Florence + the Machine

Nobody - Mitski

Almost (Sweet Music) - Hozier

I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons

The second short story, “Plastic Fangs”, is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Marcellus is a vampire on the hunt for a lover and a good meal all in one. He finds that in Abel. But all is not as it seems.

It’s a rather wordy short story at 5800 words. The ending is the shakiest part. That much is typical of how I write short stories. (That is: with no ending in mind, only what feels natural.) 

“Plastic Fangs” was one of those works I finished in two days at most. I actually began writing the second draft before I finished the first. Marcellus experienced such dramatic character development in the middle of the story that I just had to change the beginning because it didn’t fit anymore. Originally, he was just a run-of-the-mill, angst-filled vampire. Now he’s just a strange person that reads people’s diaries to learn their deepest secrets. For a dead guy, he’s full of life.

Abel is a good contrast for Marcellus. He’s a little angsty, pretty lost. Marcellus has had a lot of time to figure himself out; Abel hasn’t. That’s what makes their dynamic so interesting to me, I think. They have different life experiences. 

I’m certain that “Plastic Fangs” will take far less time to edit than “Hag Stone”. For one, it’s already had one round of edits. I also didn’t take any risks with the prose. It’s a pretty typical example of my style. I could see “Plastic Fangs” and “The Ghost You Left Behind” taking place in the same world. They have the same sort of vibe to them. 

The quote for this short story is from Rachelle Lefevre: “The thing I love about vampires that I find so fascinating is that, unlike other sci-fi creations, they aren't monsters from the get-go, they're human beings first... and so what kind of human you are would dictate what kind of vampire you would be.”

EXCERPTS

In October, Marcellus’ penchant for the dramatic—that which made him what he is today—gets to come center stage as he attends various costume parties, parades, festivals. He buys a set of flimsy plastic fangs that sit strangely in his mouth. Tacky in a charming way. An amateur stage adaptation of Dracula. 

Marcellus loved performing Doctor Faustus in the troupe. We understand Faustus better than nearly anyone, Julius said, because we’ve already sold our souls for profane power. He understands making selfish decisions; Faustus was only his favorite because Julius got to be affectionate as Mephistophilis. 

Abel has a small, blown-out tattoo that might have once been a smiley face right above his hip.

Songs I listened to while writing “Plastic Fangs”:

Howl - Florence + the Machine

Waltz of the Bone King - Peter Gundry

Ravenous - Autumn Orange

Haunted House - Florence + the Machine

These two stories really helped drag me out of a writing slump. Moving into my parents’ house did a number on me mentally and creatively, and I only managed to get out of that when I began working full-time and forcing myself to go out more instead of succumbing to my depression as I was. I think you can tell that I was still pretty depressed when I wrote “Hag Stone”, even if it is a story about hope. 

My husband actually suggested I try turning “Plastic Fangs” into a book. I think there’s potential with that. These characters interest me so much that I want to do way more with them than I can within the parameters of a short story. I have a few scenes written for a larger project with them, but I’m not quite sure where that will take me. 

Please ask to be added to the taglist! I'm tagging @bardicbeetle, because Larkspur is and always will be my inspiration for writing weird shit about vampires. <3

[thencitytales]

Essay writing - JHS

🌷 Pairing: Johnny Suh of NCT x gn!reader

🌷 wc: 1.5k

🌷 Fluffy Fluff

🌷Warnings: I think there are none, let me know if I'm wrong!

🌷Hello again my friends! Finally wrote something new! Reader I awfully late on assignments and Johnny is ready to help! Hope you enjoy! Likes and reblogs are always appreciated <3

(image found on Pinterest, creds to the rightful owners)

A blank slate.

It was 11.30 PM and you were staring at a blank document that had to be turned in, in half an hour. 

You fucked up. 

You fucked up bad this time. 

No cup of coffee could’ve helped you. 

In under half an hour you had to write at least 5000 words on a topic you had no idea about. An essay that was worth 50% of your grade. And your crush comfortably lying in your bed.

“It’s not going to write itself Y/N”

“Thanks for the insight, Johnny. I must’ve gotten the wrong model of computer, how silly of me!” You turned around and saw him sprawled out on your bed in all his majesty with his grey sweatpants and his favorite hoodie. He smiled and winked at you.

“Listen it’s not like you have to turn it in at exactly midnight, do you?” He said calmly.

“Are you an idiot or do you just ask stupid questions for a living?” He chuckled at your sarcasm, a thing he had come to like during the short period of your friendship.

“What I mean is, you can take your time and then say you had problems with the wi-fi or something. It’s going to be a matter of a couple of hours anyways.” He just stared at you after finishing his sentence, expectantly.

You pondered what he just said. 

Despite what everybody said, Mr. Yoon was not all that bad. You’re sure he would’ve let it slide. 

You looked back at Johnny.

“True,” You said.

“C’mon,” He said getting up and reaching for the stool at the side of your bed. He positioned himself next to you, at your desk. 

“I’ll help you.”

“Aren’t you here to see Jaehyun?” Johnny was one of your roommates’ best friends after all, so there wasn’t a single chance he was here for you. 

You basically only saw each other during lectures and at some of the parties that his frat organized. He was just your silly little crush. Nothing serious at all.

“Is he here?” Johnny knew Jaehyun wasn’t. He got stuck at his job at the grocery store when his boss asked him to revise the inventory that one of the new kids made. Which was, of course, full of errors and he had to redo it from scratch.

“Well, he should be here any minute now.” You answered back oblivious of how busy the boy actually was. A glint of sadness could be seen in your eyes, it was almost imperceptible, but it was there.

“Well, he can wait. I feel like this is more urgent.” You smiled, happy about his answer and about spending more time with him.

“Besides, you’re prettier. Spending time with you is more enjoyable, even just for that.” 

He knew what he did. He saw the natural blush creeping up your cheeks and he was having a blast. 

Not only because he liked having this effect on girls. 

He especially liked having this effect on you.

He liked you very much. Like very, very much. You were the only girl in a long time that didn’t bluntly try to flirt with him. You were just able to, somehow, be yourself.

The truth is that after a while you just gave up on trying to impress him because you saw how many prettier girls were flirting with him and lost the will to even try.

Johnny also liked your sense of humor. It wasn’t quite like his but they completed each other well. You laughed at most of his jokes (not all of them, that’s important for him). You laughed because you found them genuinely funny and not just because you wanted him to think you thought he was funny, like any other pick-me girl.

And last but not least, he found you so damn beautiful. 

The other girls really had nothing on you in his eyes. He couldn’t quite understand where it all came from. 

He just remembers that, at one of those infamous parties, you were both drunk, out on the lawn with Jaehyun and his girlfriend. Out of nowhere, fireworks started to explode in the distance giving you a free show. You were looking at them wide-eyed with the brightest smile on your face, almost stuck in a trance. Johnny turned to look at you and just couldn’t turn back to the pyrotechnic show.

You were the best show he could enjoy right at that moment.

“Thank you, you are prettier than Jaehyun too.” He stays silent for a moment, taken aback.

“That’s not what you usually tell me!” He nudged you with his elbow, a smirk forming on his lips.

“I’m trying to be nice, just like you. Besides, I am taking a risk by boosting your ego this much, it’s already pretty big, I might regret it later.” He chuckled. 

This is what he liked about your friendship. The fact that you could bicker with one another freely. 

Sadly, as previously stated, it was just a friendship.

He knew he had some sort of effect on you, but he thought it was just because you found him attractive. After all, he was undeniably handsome, whoever said the contrary would have been lying and everybody knew that.

So he would tease you, making you blush and whatnot and his heart told him that maybe that meant he had a chance at something serious with you, but his head told him it was just his overall appearance.

On the other side, there was you. Hopelessly in love. Extremely in denial.

You had your feelings hurt before. By frat guys. By J names. You mention it, somebody that fits the description probably broke your heart already.

So at this point, you’re pretty good at not getting your hopes up. Or at least your head is. Your heart still has to receive the message.

With both of your minds working at full capacity, about three cups of coffee each and a Red Bull for Johnny alone, that he chugged all in one big sip, In about an hour and a half the essay was done. It was not the best, but it was good enough. 

You quickly scribbled an email with a streak of excuses and sent everything to Mr. Yoon.

Johnny laid back down on your bed.

“You know, I might have to make you pay rent if you stay on my bed for another minute.” You said to him.

“Well, only if you agree to split it with me” He shot you a wink, his flirty side coming out every chance he got. 

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense” You said, thinking about his words.

“Just come here, will you?” He patted the free space next to him. 

Something in his tone was different. It wasn’t as flirty as before. It sounded like he meant it, like he wanted you right by his side.

You got up from your chair, after closing the laptop, and went to lay beside him. 

He welcomed you, trapping you in a warm hug. 

“What are you doing?” You chuckled trying to get out of his grip, but that only made him tighten his arms even more.

Suddenly, you both came to a still when you realized how close you two actually were. It’s not like you never hugged before, but this time it felt different. Something about the way you two were behaving right now felt so domestic.

So right.

He moved without thinking. His muscles were doing the work for him. Hands changing position, one sliding down to your waist and the other coming up to cup your face.

You were still, trying to process everything that was happening. What you were feeling, what he was feeling and what both of you wanted to happen next. 

And then, at the same time, you closed the space between you. Lips crashing in an awkward, but still romantic kiss. He tried to adjust the angle, to make it a bit more comfortable, but as soon as his lips were off of yours, you laughed.

“What?” He asked, not sure how to feel. Was it wrong? Did he make a mistake?

“I heard stories about how good a kisser you are, but that was awful, Suh.”

“Oh my God, I hate you so much” He started laughing as well and threw a pillow at you.

“No you don’t” You quickly moved closer to him once again.

“But you’re lucky, I don’t hate you either” You finished your sentence with a peck on his lips.

Right at that moment, the door to your room swung open.

“I HATE MY BOSS, I HATE THAT KID, WHERE THE HELL IS JOHNNY HE SAID HE WAS STILL HERE” Jaehyun started ranting about his day, but quickly came to a halt seeing the two of you.

“Really? My roommate? Johnny, I have no words left for you, now please, would you come to my aid? Really need to play some games or something.” He said exiting the door.

“That was a nice monologue.” Johnny looked at you.

“And I’m just so lucky there’s at least another hour of that for me” He said getting up and following his best friend.

“I’ll wait for you here!” You said smilig.

“I think I like the sound of that.

[piratewithvigor]

Stars

Chapter 1: 1971

Kane's steadiest relationship through his life was always to the stars

(This fic is 4 chapters, inspired by this fic by @old-no7, approximately 5000 words and written in a 24-hour binge. It'll eventually also be posted to AO3, but I'm sleepy rn, so not right now)

He’d been waiting for that night for two weeks. Marking the days off on a little scrap of paper his brother had written up for him. 14 little boxes to put an X through when he woke up every morning. His brother had been forbidden from partaking in their little ritual until after he finished writing his chemistry test and Kane knew better to stay outside alone. So he waited and he helped his brother study. In later years, when they recollected those weeks, his brother would admit that if anything, even less studying had been done when Kane was insisting to help. He tried to quiz his brother on vocabulary, which might have been helpful if Kane could read the terms or the definitions. Or knew what exactly chemistry was. But his brother appreciated the effort.

Kane had spent almost the entire day of the test in the window of the parlor, kneeling on the itchy red couch. It was a nice enough couch when they had funerals happening, since those were the days Kane had to wear long pants, but the rest of the time, when he was in shorts, the fabric itched his legs, so he didn’t like the couch much. But he put up with it that day. Mother wouldn’t let him move any of the furniture or sit on the windowsill, so he put up with the itch.

Mother said his brother would return when the old grandfather clock rang exactly four times. Kane considered himself a good counter. He could make it as far as twenty without any help, since that was how many fingers and toes he had, but he had trouble remembering what came after. It didn’t matter that day anyway. The grandfather clock never rang more than twelve times (that was all fingers and two toes) and was on eight rings by the time Kane was woken up and told to get ready for the day.

Making sure he counted each and every ring was hard work. By the time he’d counted four and not a single one more, he was almost too sleepy to figure out right away that it meant his brother would be walking up the lane any second. The only way he did figure it out was by seeing the long black coat of his brother blowing gently through the wind at the bottom of the hill. He was off the itchy red couch and out the front door before he even had time to yell to his mother where he was going.

His brother was far more focused on keeping his hat from blowing away in the wind to see Kane coming at him like a bat out of hell. He only just grabbed onto it as Kane captured him in a tight hug around his middle.

“You wrote your test today, right? So tonight we can sleep outside?” Kane asked, already knowing the answers, but just wanting finalised confirmation. His brother blew some curly red strands out of his eyes.

“Yes, Kane, I did do well on my test. Thank you for asking so politely,” he chuckled as he squirmed out of the hug. Kane huffed his annoyance quietly.

“Sorry. We’re still sleeping outside tonight, right?”

“We can head out as soon as we trade my bookbag for the tent inside.”

The next couple minutes were a battle of the brothers as Kane tried to drag his brother up the hill to the house as fast as possible and his brother trying to hold Kane back, just to wind him up for his own amusement. Eventually, even his brother couldn’t hide his excitement for the evening anymore.

It was the first year where their father was letting them go out by themselves. They’d each gotten training to defend themselves against some of the more common beasts of the Valley. Kane was trusted with a hunting knife after proving himself capable enough of getting a good shot in while also understanding the dangers the knife could possess. His brother, being older, had already been taken hunting twice. He didn’t like killing things, but their father was confident that if push came to shove, he could bring himself to kill pretty much anything in the name of keeping Kane safe.

After kissing their mother goodbye for the evening and receiving a final quick quiz on what to do and what not to do when faced with danger from their father, each boy picked up their packs and started on the trail into the woods. Kane had both the food and his sleeping bag slung over his shoulders, and if it had been any other night, he would have probably begun complaining from the weight. Sandwiches had never seemed so heavy before, or maybe his brother was just taking them to a place really far away. They did most of their exploring together, but Kane knew there were some places he’d never been before. Either because they were too far away for his little legs to walk to or because they involved crossing the river and his brother hadn’t been quite tall enough to lift Kane over the water yet. Wet feet was one of their first warnings: if they couldn’t cross the river with dry feet when safe, they wouldn’t be able to make it across if they ever faced danger.

“Are we going to the river?” Kane eventually piped up, hoping to disguise the ache in his shoulders and his feet.

“What?”

“The river. Are we crossing it?”

“Maybe when you’re bigger. Not today.”

“Then where are we going?”

“Somewhere special.”

“How special?”

“Kane, do you ever stop talking?”

By the time they stopped bickering, Kane realized they hadn’t been walking for likely a minute or more. They were in a small clearing of grass and a few rocks scattered around. Surrounded by trees on all sides, but there was still a patch of sky overhead.

“Do you know how to set up the tent by yourself?” His brother asked, shaking Kane from his admirings of their location.

“No, but I can put together the poles,” he offered. He was good at poles. Just wasn’t tall enough to put up the tent with them, but he’d never say so out loud.

“Do that. I want to gather some firewood while it’s still light out. Have your knife on you?” Kane pulled out the hunting knife from the leather case their mother had made and showed it off proudly. “Good. Don’t lose it. I’m not going far, but just in case-”

“Can’t I come with you? I wanna get some firewood too.”

“What for?”

“So I can have my own fire.”

“You can light the big one. We need the tent up before it gets dark. It’ll be faster if we each do one chore.”

Kane nodded and tried his best not to pout. He’d wanted his own fire to play with, but if his brother was letting him set the big one, that would be okay too. Besides, putting up the tent was an important job. Being trusted to assemble the poles properly was more than he usually did on these trips. But with only two of them going, there’d be lots more work for each of them. As his brother set out to find the firewood, Kane decided that not only would he assemble the poles, he’d even find the right place for each of them to slide into the tent fabric. Then all that would have to be done was push it up and stake it down. Easy-peasy.

He was sliding in the last pole when he heard the tell-tale dropping of firewood behind him and jumped up.

“Tent’s ready to be put up,” he explained proudly. His brother lifted an eyebrow uncertainly.

“You sure you’ve got them in the right spots?”

“Yup!”

“Positive?”

“Yes!”

“And if we try to put it up and they’re not?”

“They will be!”

To Kane’s credit, they were, surprisingly, all absolutely correct. The tent went up in no time at all. With an overexcited use of matches and dry wood, the fire was almost faster. By the time the sun was down over the Valley and the night air quietly screeched with the calls of bugs and other assorted beasts, both boys were picking at their ham sandwiches and lying back in the grass to look upwards.

“Tell me a story,” Kane quietly requested, as if he didn’t want to disturb the world around them.

“A story?”

“Yeah, like Father does every year. About the stars.”

“You mean the constellations?” He chuckled a little and pushed some hair out of his face. “Kane, my brain’s so full of chemistry right now, I hardly remembered the way here.”

“C’mon!” It was tradition. A story by the fireside. He wasn’t letting his brother get off that easy with such a lame excuse.

“Okay, okay, I’ll come up with something.” He went quiet for a few moments before lifting one of his arms to the heavens. “You see that star there?”

“Which one?”

“The big one.”

“They’re all big. Father says they’re as big as the sun.”

“Okay, the one that looks bigger because it's the closest.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That one’s me.”

“How come you get to be a star?”

“You’re a star too, Kane. See the reddish-looking one?”

“Right beside the big one?”

“Exactly. Stars are born and they die all the time.”

“Just like people.”

“Right, just like people. When we die, those stars are going to disappear.”

“Are they brothers too?”

“Of course. Stars can be brothers just like people.”

“Do they get along?”

“Most of the time. Sometimes they fight and they don’t look like they’re as close together, but they always make up. Always.”

[captainxsassafras]

Angel Voice

Ok, so this is really the first piece of writing I've actually finished since I graduated from college. Haha, yeah. I've been a bit of an unproductive writer the past lil bit, BUT I'm here today and I finished this. Not gonna lie, I am hella nervous for this. It's nothing emotionally involved or really intense (ok, there’s not angst, but I get real emotionally involved in fluff, so maybe I’m a liar), but I read the idea of Shinsou doing ASMR from secondhand-trash and the anon over there and, ya know, magic happened! Haha, I kid. Just cuteness, a few saucy phrases here and there! Please be kind to me!

(Also, I’m so sorry. I will figure out how to put stuff under the cut. Please be patient with my tech illiterate ass!)

@queensynderella

@secondhand-trash

Angel Voice

Shinsou x Reader

Warning: lots of fluff?, attempted assault (not Shinsou!), suggestive comments, a hot mess of a reader!

Word Count: Just over 5000... I think.

~~~*~~~

Fucking fuckity fuck fuck. You had not slept at all. Not a single wink.

Sorry, kind sir. I have no spare winks to give. No winks here.

This had been going on for months. Months!

It was starting to affect you.

Hahahah… That was a lie. It had been affecting you. You were just adaptable and great at lying so nothing was really wrong! 

…Ok, that was a lie too. Your sleep schedule was shot. Your brain was shot. Your work was… by some miracle still ok, but you weren’t about to keep betting on that.

So, here you were. Finally off work and almost falling asleep waiting for the train in the humid, afternoon heat. 

This is probably what Hell feels like. Sleep-deprived, foggy, humid, and full of sweaty humans.

You jolted fully awake from a doze as the train arrived and people began crowding against you.

Yippee. A crowded train with strangers pressing in close on absolutely zero sleep.

Nevermind. This was Hell. Waiting for the train was just the appetizer.

Your phone buzzed.

It was your best friend. She knew that you'd been having trouble sleeping and had been your solid rock. She'd been your support when it started and had helped you brainstorm remedies when it had continued. So it wasn't really a surprise when she sent you a link to an asmr video with the message, 'he has the voice of an angel! 😇 if this doesn't help you sleep, nothing will! luv ya boo! good luck!!! ❤❤❤❤❤' 

She was right. 

His voice was deep, but soothing. He spoke in a soft, calm cadence that immediately put you at ease.

The video in question was a request from a viewer. It was a description of a calm hike through the woods on a nice day. 

It was heaven.

You had your first night of decent sleep in months.

(And if you were being totally honest, you did actually cry a bit when you woke up feeling more rested and clear-headed than you could remember.)

From that point on, you fell asleep listening to 'Angel Voice' every night. 

And quickly discovered that you couldn't listen to the more...exciting rp videos before bed! They sent your poor, stupid heart wild and kept you wide awake plus some tasty adrenaline! Definitely not the desired effect! Not unpleasant. Just kinda detrimental to the whole helping-you-sleep thing.

But his calm, descriptive videos and dulcet voice sent you straight to dreamland. 

For a month straight you fell asleep to his tones and barely bothered to look at the voice artist's name.

Angel voice worked!

***

Ok, now you were tired. 

A frantic call to work this afternoon had you covering your sick coworker’s shift. This meant you were both awake way later than you had recently been staying up and you were working with a double shift's worth of leftover energy.

Ok, you were dead. Running on empty. There was no leftover energy.

You dumb, tired feet trudged along the stupid, dark street and your dumb, heavy purse cut into your stupid, aching shoulder.

But despite your exhaustion, you still held a canister of pepper spray--safety off, thank you--clutched tightly in your hand. 

The hackles on the back of your neck rose. The hair on your arms stood on end. Chills ran down your spine.  

You could feel eyes on your back.

Someone was watching you.  

It was a very unpleasant feeling this late at night all alone on a half lit street.  

Ugh, this street was so different after dark! 

You normally made your way home during rush hour when the street was busy with foot and vehicle traffic, well-lit by the sun, and full of chatter and life.

It was almost lifeless and eerily quiet now. 

Creepy. 

It needed more streetlamps. 

Humming very quietly to yourself, you tried to keep your mind off of the intense foreboding grabbing at your chest.

That same shivering chill ran through your body right before a harsh hand clawed at your arm, jerking you back. You cried out as your sore shoulder twisted and adrenaline-fueled panic surged through your entire nervous system.   

You whipped around, pepper spray at the ready and a fierce scowl on your face, to empty the canister straight into the guy's eyes.

You wrenched your aching shoulder out of his hand. Without conscious thought, your foot rose and met his groin in a beautifully placed front kick. 

Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner!

He fell.

A convenience store! There was a convenience store nearby! 

Heart pounding, you fled to the little 24 hour convenience store across the street and, from the safety of the front counter, called the police.

Your frantic eyes scoured the area near the man, waiting to see if he would rise and run. 

Although, you did get him pretty good. You hoped he wouldn't run away. That'd be a) frustrating because you didn't really have a way to identify him so he'd probably get away and b) scary because you kicked him in the nuts! Guys held grudges for things like that! 

Was that movement?

It… didn't seem like the attacker was moving… 

Oh! It was another guy and it looked like he was wearing a costume!

A hero?

Looked like it! He was tying the felled grabber up with… not sure, but it was incapacitating the guy who grabbed you, so yay!

You left the store and slowly approached the man. 

"Um, hi," you said with a hesitant wave. "This was me." You bashfully gestured to the man still lying (now tied up) on the ground.

"Hey, there. Thanks for doing my job for me," he replied with a bit of a smirk. He had a deep, slightly rough voice and up close you could see dark, wildy messy hair.

Uh-oh. You needed to explain. This was absolutely self defense!

"He, uh, grabbed me from behind and I kind of panicked and, well…"

"Don't worry. I saw what happened. He started following you a few blocks back, but I couldn't do anything because he hadn't done anything yet."

Oh.

Oh, damn.

You felt sick. He had… he had been following you?

Your knees trembled.

The hero noticed and stepped forward to you.

"Hey, hey. Come here." 

He led you to the curb and sat you down, a hand rubbing comforting circles on your upper back. "It's gonna be ok. You clearly know how to defend yourself, so I wouldn't worry about.."

His soothing voice soon began to pull you out of your fear and calm your racing brain. His hand continued rubbing your back in rhythmic motions and soon your shaking began to slow and finally stop. Your thoughts came back to the moment and you noticed something. Something very familiar...

"Holy shit. Angel voice!"

The hero stopped his rambling speech, one eyebrow raising in an amused arch. He didn't say anything else, just waited for you.

"Do you do asmr?"

"Uh… yeah?"

Boy, you wish you could've captured his face.

Befuddled?

Was that the right word?

Yeah. Pure befuddlement.

Then blushing. 

Holy hell! He was blushing! It was really hard to see, but the slightest bit of red colored his cheeks in the dim light.

"Thank you so much!" you cried, maybe a bit loudly. He flinched just a little, looking surprised. "Ah, sorry. But seriously! You're the reason I've been able to sleep for the past month! I've been having sleep issues for almost a year and a friend sent me one of your videos and, well, tada. Sleep happened!" It was your turn to blush. 

The look he was sending your way now was… hella cute. He looked delighted. Elated. Even in the dark, his eyes were shining and he had a goofy little half smile that lit his whole face with happiness. 

The smile highlighted the bags under his eyes and you briefly wondered if that had something to do with his decision to make asmr videos. The thought fled when he raised a self-conscious hand to rub the back of his neck and started speaking.

"I'm glad they've been helping you!" The very corners of his eyes crinkled just a bit. "It makes my night to hear that!" 

His deep voice wasn't loud or overtly excited, but it was warm and full of sincerity. 

Your stomach did a stupid flip.

Nope. Not happening. You refused to be a hero groupie. Too much drama. Too many fans picking each other apart. Too much shade. You needed sunshine and most groupies you knew threw shade like confetti.

Also, he was a professional at work. This was his job. You needed to respect that.

A deep internal breath had you back where you should be. Thanking a professional hero for helping apprehend a man who had attacked you and thanking him for his generous work that helped you sleep well. 

The two of you talked quietly for a few bit waiting for the police to arrive. It was nice. You asked about hero work. He asked about your job. You two chatted about a couple of random things and by the time the police arrived your chatter was comfortable and easy. 

Everything after was a whirl. You had to give a statement. They needed to take you to a hospital just in case. The hero gave his witness statement and then had to leave to help out with a robbery in a different neighborhood. 

You left for the hospital looking back and feeling little starbursts of melancholy disappointment needling your chest. 

You'd probably never see him again.

Ah, well. Guess he'd stay Angel Voice. 

***

Shit.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. 

This was stupid. 

You had barely talked to him for a half hour. And, yeah, he was sweet. Ok, he'd been crazy nice. And so fucking attractive. He'd been easy to talk to and the conversation between you two had been entertaining and full of wit. 

But you had no way of directly contacting him. You'd looked him up, but hadn't gotten much info on him. It looked like he was an underground hero, so that made a lot of sense. It, however, did not make it any less frustrating.

You didn't know what you'd do if you managed to get ahold of him anyway!

"Hi! You sorta bagged a guy who tried to assault me (but I took down first) a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since then even though we had like a half hour conversation, half of which was you coaxing me out of a panic attack. Want to go on a date?"

Of course, you could always comment on one of Utube videos, but that had about a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of working and felt a little too…. Stalker-fan.

There was also the raging guilt and embarrassment you felt over crushing on a hero who had just been helping you as part of his professional work. He had been at work! It was part of his job to comfort you! He was literally in the business of saving people and making sure they were ok. And that was exactly he had done. He didn't need to be harrassed because your dumb brain said, 'Oo, shiny!' when he smiled. He had been at work. You shouldn't read anything into his behavior, because there really wasn't anything other than a pro hero doing his duty.

Nope! You needed to get over this.

A notification buzzed and you checked your phone.

Mind_kitty has posted a new video! Watch now!

With a defeated sigh, you deferred the notification for later. You could listen and relax on your way home from work.

A movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention and you snapped your head up as a coworker hustled over with a look of panic on their face. 

Uh-oh.

***

And now, here you were, sitting wearily on the train and hurtling towards home.

Ugh, what a day.

After everything that could go wrong had miraculously (horrifically? Fiendishly? Miraculously seemed too positive…) gone up in flames at the same time, you had spent the rest of your work day running around like crazy putting out all the fires (only one of which was, in fact, a literal fire so not actually a terrible day).

Your feet were sore and a headache that had started with your coworker's news and grown from there threatened to overwhelm you.

There were still a few stops until yours, so you slipped your headphones out of your bag and opened your Utube app. 

Thank you unlimited data!

You found Angel Voice's latest video and began to play.

(Ok, you now had actually figured out his Utube username and finally bothered to remember it, but he'd started as Angel Voice to you and it just worked in your mind!)

Ahhhhhh…

Why does he have such a great voice? It was perfect! Deep and smooth and perfectly made to whisper sweet (or not so sweet) nothings in your ear while you gently played with his wild purple hair. Fuck, his hair was so pretty! You'd bet your left buttcheek it was soft as clouds…

Ugggghhhhh... Fine. 

You were crushing on a pro hero. 

Are you happy, universe? 

Your fated journey to become a groupie had begun. Might as well accept it and focus on more important things… like Angel Voice's hair.

Or, you know, his voice…

You fell into the sound of his speaking.

Hah, it was like an automatic reaction at this point. Your shoulders started to unknot and that stereotypical breath you didn't know you were holding in rushed out in a grateful sigh.

However, it didn't take you long to realize that he hadn't started into the asmr immediately as you were expecting. Paying more attention, you rewound the video to the beginning and actually listened to what he was saying.

"I'm not sure exactly how to do this." He let out a dry half chuckle. "I haven't completely convinced myself I should. But, um…"

He paused with a frustrated sigh, then seemed to take a deep breath. 

"Ok, to hell with it. I'm doing this. Dear, girl I met the other night who took a guy out by kicking him in the nuts."

Was he talking about you? Was there another girl who kicked a guy in the nuts on his patrol? Damn, he met a lot of kickass girls on patrol! Good for her! She was getting a personal shoutout from Angel Voice! 

"I know it might seem kind of weird to be doing this over Utube, but I missed my chance at first, then the police arrived and everything was crazy and I had to leave to help out another pro."

Wow, sounds intense. Bet that was stressful. Oh, wait. Hah. You knew it was stressful.

"So I blew my chance to ask for your number."

He wanted her number? Damn! Super lucky girl!

Wait, this wasn't an rp video was it?

You pulled out your phone to check, but the title and description didn't mention any kind of rp. Aww! This was real! And it was adorable!

A tiny piece of sad ripped itself free of the fuzzy feelings you were experiencing. He had been so kind and you'd had such a fun time conversing. It would have been really amazing if this were for you. You had really liked the piece of personality you'd been able to see.

"I'm really hoping you'll hear this video, and hear it in time, because I'd love to go get coffee with the girl who accidentally body-slammed her coworker on her birthday."

Holy.

Shit.

That…

THAT WAS YOU!

That had been you! Your stupid coworker had snuck up behind you at the end of the day in a semi-dark area of work and shouted in your ear to scare you.

It had worked. 

You'd been so scared that you'd grabbed him, flipped him over your shoulder, and body-slammed him into the floor.

And… and you'd told Angel Voice that night as you sat talking about some of your more notorious takedowns. 

This was for you.

This video was for you!

What the fuck?!

This video was for you!?

You had to rewind a hot second to hear what came next.

Then you had to pause and go back yet again, because your mind was in such a frenzy and your heart was beating so loudly in your ears you couldn’t concentrate on what was being said!

“So if you hear this and, um, you’re interested at all, girl who took down a fully grown man in five seconds, I’ll be waiting at the spot we first met at five pm today. I, uh, really hope I’ll see you there again.”

The video ended. 

Your heart was still aiming for professional drummer in your chest.

You could see him raising his hand to rub at the back of his neck with that last statement. He’d done it that night and you could picture it in your mind. 

Wait! What time was it?

4:50 pm.

No.

Nonononononono!

You were going to miss the meeting.

You were still six train stops away from yours and that alone would take you fifteen minutes! Not to mention the next fifteen minutes it’d take to get to the meeting place! 

Of course, that was walking speed. You could run.

Frantic eyes looked down at your shoes. Not exactly running shoes. 

Whatever, you’d make do.

You wanted to see him again.

You could just imagine the disappointment on his face if you didn’t show and that melancholy from earlier reared its weepy head and cried out in frustration because you didn’t want to hurt him!

And you really wanted to see him again!

The next fifteen minutes were the most agonizing you could remember enduring in recent history. This was worse than the time you spilled coffee on your favorite author and his manager had yelled at you for five minutes while they changed! I mean, that had been pretty bad, but the author had been incredibly nice about it after getting back and even mentioned it humorously in the book you had asked them to sign. It was still easily the most awful you'd ever felt and you’d really wanted nothing more than to run away.

This. Was. Worse.

So much worse because you couldn’t actively work towards your quickly approaching deadline and destination. You had to sit there… waiting.

Your leg was bouncing up and down and a few fellow train riders were giving you slightly concerned looks. You were too wound up to care.

Finally, finally!

You arrived at your stop, hurried off the train as quickly as you could without being the absolute worst human ever, and ran.

Your shoes remained on your feet until you almost killed yourself stumbling over them, then they were in your arms.

Decorum be damned!

This was a matter of life or date! (And preferably not death by shoe!)

You made it to the spot where you’d met him at exactly 5:12 pm.

You were sweaty. 

Hell, that was an understatement.

You were pretty sure you’d left a trail of sweat behind you and you could feel it running in rivulets down your back. There was probably a stain back there… And on your armpits… and on… everywhere.

You knew your hair was an absolute mess. 

But as bad as you knew you must look, you felt worse.

Your lungs were on fire. You had absolutely no breath left in your entire body. It felt like you had a knife in your side. In both sides actually. Your entire body was trying to imitate an oven with the level of heat radiating off your skin. Your legs were simultaneously wobbly and shaking and you weren’t sure you’d trust them taking another step at the moment.

And now you had sweat in your eye. Stinging.

But none of that even mattered. 

All of that was stupid and trivial and inconsequential because he wasn’t there.

You’d taken too long.

He was gone.

No vibrant purple hair and sleep-deprived eyes.

No stupid half-smile.

That melancholy came back and instead of quietly tugging at your heart, it hit you square in the chest with an emotional cast-iron frying pan. 

No.

No!

Damnit!

You’d really wanted this.

He was… he was so fucking witty and kind that night.

He’d been soft and understanding and hot. And fucking adorable.

And… and… he wasn’t there.

Fuck.

You slumped in place.

Every ounce of your physical exhaustion caught up to you in an instant and you felt the mortifying sting of tears trying to sneak their way out of your eyes. 

Talk about adding insult to injury.

It wasn’t that bad. This wasn’t that bad.

So, you didn’t get to meet up with a cute hero for coffee. Big deal. Poor unfortunate soul. It was nothing to cry about.

But you’d really wanted to see him again.

Guess it didn’t matter anymore.

You turned, ready to march across the street to that convenience store and buy half of their ice cream, but something tickled your brain.

Something out of the corner of your eye.

Your head whipped around.

There!

It was a flash of purple down the street.

Your eyes snapped to that portion of the sidewalk. 

It was purple hair.

Crazy, wild, tousled, purple hair!

You knew that hair!

But your stupid legs literally wouldn’t run anymore. And he was far enough away that you wouldn’t catch up if you could run.

You reacted without thinking.

You really acted without thinking.

“ANGEL VOICE!”

You shouted his name at the top of your lungs.

Sorry.

You shouted your own private, very personal nickname that you had only spoken out loud to your very best friend and, unfortunately, him.

In the middle of a crowded street.

During rush hour.

Your brain was an utter masterpiece of stupid.

You stood there, frozen with the realization of your own idiocy, as the head of purple hair stopped, looked to the side, looked to the other side, then tuuurrrnnned around.

Made eye contact with you through the busy crowd.

Then doubled over laughing.

You couldn’t hear him from where you stood, but you could feel him laughing.

You could see it in the way his bent shoulders shook and his torso convulsed, nearly spasming with the force of his laughter.

And there you stood, still stuck to your spot.

You’d called him Angel Voice out loud in a crowd out loud in front of a bunch of strangers out loud.

And as much as you wanted to run, you couldn’t even twitch.

Not as you watched him finally finish laughing and fully turn to face you. Not as you watched him begin to walk toward you through the throng of people (just beginning to turn back to their own business in the aftermath of your outburst). Not as he stopped directly in front of you, a delighted smile on his sleepy, stupidly attractive face and the corners of his eyes still just slightly crinkled with laughter.

“Hey there,” he said and it felt like the softest slap to the face you’d ever received.

Your frozen body finally remembered its fight or flight reflexes and, wouldn’t you know, you suddenly learned how to fly.

As you turned to bolt, Angel Voice reached out, calling to you.

“Hey, wait! You’re just gonna run after all of that?”

He didn’t grab you.

That detail broke through the panic.

Even though he reached out with his hand, he didn’t grab you.

You stopped.

“I wanna run because of all that!” you blurted.

His chuckles sent a wave of heat down your spine, both embarrassed and… otherwise. Ok, fine! He had a sexy voice! And it turned you on more than you liked to admit! 

Who let him have a voice like that?

It was not freaking fair!

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Fuck, he sounded sincere. 

You slowly turned around, face still burning.

You two stared at each other for a minute.

A smile crooked your lips.

“So, uh, what’s a place like you doing in a voice like this.”

Silence.

“Fuck.” 

Your hand came up to rub at your forehead as he began laughing again. A full, big laugh instead of a chuckle.

“I should probably just give up on the talking thing, shouldn't I?”

“I hope not. I could listen to you all day,” he said with a small grin.

And now your heart it was afluttering.

“I feel like that should be my line,” you mumbled, watching him catch his breath from all that big old laughing through the fingers splayed across your face.

There was a pause in the conversation. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it hadn’t really achieved comfortable silence.

“So, um.”

You looked up from your hand.

Good fuck, he was doing the rubbing the back of his neck thing again. Illegal. Freaking illegal is what that was. No man should possess that level of cute.

“I mentioned grabbing coffee in the video. I’d like to assume you being here means you’re interested?” The sentence ended with a slight upturn, indicating a question. He looked up at you, uncertainty in his gorgeous violet eyes.

Why the hell was he uncertain?

This mortherfucking hottie with a voice made for swooning (and spooning) was nervous about asking you to coffee (adateadateadateadate).

Without thinking, you voiced this exact thought out loud (sans the date portion... and the spooning. Spooning was for non-dumbasses). 

Angel Voice looked absolutely floored.

“I’m sorry, but do you own a mirror?” he asked. There was a tension in his voice that almost had you shrinking into yourself.

Ouch.

Damn.

Ouch.

Well, at least he was blunt.

“You’re fucking gorgeous.”

You met him on the floor.

Dead. Ass.

He just called you gorgeous.

There was a set to his jaw now and a sort of light in his eyes. He looked very… determined. Set, was what you’d call it. He seemed very set on a decision.

"It was great talking to you the other night. I can't get out of my head how funny and smart you were. And you're so fucking cute I want to wrap you up in my jacket and stay there forever."

His face was blazing red now. His ears too. Ok, that was hella adorable. You felt your own self flush with happy bashful feelings. I mean, he himself had just supplied you with the sappiest, schmoopiest mental image you’d really ever conceived.

“I’d really like to go get some coffee together.” He went quiet for a minute, seeming to mull something over in his head, and that stupid hand came up to rub at his neck again.

Ugh, he was gonna kill you with that! 

“Would you go on a date with me?”

If your heart was fluttering before, it was nearly palpitating now!

“Yes! Please! I mean, yes I want to go on a date with you!”

He smiled, a breathless, bewildered, almost (dare you think) dorky smile. It was fucking beautiful.

"Wow," he exhaled.

A snort escaped you. "Again, I feel like that should be my line."

But you smiled back.

And there you both stood, almost dazedly smiling, little happy thoughts buzzing through your minds. 

“We should probably head to a cafe if we’re going to get coffee,” Angel Voice finally murmured.

You started.

The both of you were standing like idiots in the middle of the sidewalk, just staring at each other.

“Coffee, right. Anywhere in mind, Angel Voice?” The nickname slipped out almost by accident.

He held out his hand to you and you took it gently. 

“Angel Voice, huh?” he laughed quietly. “I think I can go with that.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault! You still haven’t told me your name.” You sent a playful tug along the arm you held by the hand and felt a little thrill of joy when he returned it just as playfully. "You're officially Angel Voice until you enlighten me."

The two of you had started walking. He seemed to have a destination in mind. Man with a plan. Nice.

“I know a cafe nearby. Do you mind?” he asked, softly pulling you along in invitation while leaving enough slack for you to object if you wanted.

Man with a plan who asked nicely. Nice.

“Not at all, Angel Voice.” You had a point to make and a guy to tease!

He chuckled again.

“My name is Hitoshi. Hitoshi Shinsou.” That slightly devious grin crept back onto his face. “But Angel Voice works for me.” He snuggled in close to your cheek, the side of his body leaning comfortably into yours. Then he whispered in your ear and you nearly fell over. "Especially if you're screaming it as loud as you did earlier."

Good lord, your knees nearly collapsed. 

His voice, his stupid voice, saying such a frisky thing so close did such a number on you that you couldn't respond for a moment. It was all you could do to keep breathing.

His voice was going to be the death of you! You couldn’t think. Should you respond? What did you say to that? Something equally as frisky! But his voice!

He tensed a bit at your lack of response. 

"Was that too much? Did I cross a line?" he asked, still speaking low right in your ear.

"Son of a bitch, if you don't stop that right now, I'm gonna jump your fucking bones right in the middle of this street." Your voice was full of urgency, but if he didn't stop you really were liable to unleash every single ounce of wild attraction you felt towards him at that exact moment, street full of people be damned!

He stopped walking.

Oh, shit. You could hear the Cheshire grin.

"You mean, like this?"

You sagged against him, letting your knees tremble. Your hand, still tangled, clutched his tightly.

His chuckle this time was less… benevolent than before. "What? You called me Angel Voice." His thumb ran soothingly over your hand. "I had to see if I could tempt you."

You couldn't help it. You turned your face to bury it in his jacket. What a magnificent, teasing butthead you'd just gotten yourself tangled up with. It was amazing!

"That’s going to come back to bite me, isn't it?"

“All the time.”

A tiny little butterfly crept into your stomach. You didn’t want to read too much into it (although after his teasing, you didn't really feel like it was reading into things), but ‘all the time’ sounded like there was going to be, well, plenty of time. It was a very welcome, warm idea.

As soon as your legs de-noodled (Hitoshi making snarky comments like a brat the entire time), the two of you continued on in an easy silence, exchanging teases every so often. The sun was setting and the entire world was covered in golden tones. Rush hour was winding down and the foot traffic in the area was dissipating, leaving a much more comfortable number of people around.

Your brain focused on the soft, warm quality of the light, the muted shocks of excitement zipping through your lower back, and the soft weight of his calloused hand surrounding yours. 

You gave a little, light squeeze.

"I'm so happy I ran, Angel Voice.”

He just chuckled and squeezed back.

[blueluneacy]

So folks, a little bit of an announcement post. I’ve decided with my work being so god damn busy, I’m not opening up requests again until September. I’m so sorry for the disappointment, but I’m working 2 jobs and 10 hour work days with a 2 hour commute... Writing 4 hours a day is just not realistic for now. Luckily, my first job is seasonal, so while it’s full time, it ends by September 10th.

In the meantime, you may be wondering, well Lune, what the heck are we gonna do now. Fear not, because I have a plan. My current list of to do includes finishing the first place fic (I’m half way through it), writing another chapter of the Cioccolata fic, and then writing my sorlato solely for myself. If I work through all that, then I’m going to focus a bit on writing longer fics that I enjoy writing. I already have a small list of my own ideas of Major fics that I just haven’t gotten to, so I’m a bit excited.

We ARE almost at 2000, I will admit. If we reach it before my September date, I’ll be doing another poll, but rather than having 3 fics, I’ll have the winner be a large, 5000 word fic. I think it’s easier to have it like that than me working on three seperate things, and it’s still a lot of content. If we reach after that date... Well, we’ll have to see.

Thanks so much for supporting me through all this. Once school starts back up, ironically, I’m going to have a lot more free time. Hope to see you then, and hey, if we prefer the new way I’m doing things, who knows, maybe I’ll put out more longer fics. I’ll be seeing you all soon!

[spectralarchers]

What's you highest word per day during past Nanos? Mines about 5k but I figure yours is a bit higher lol

Well, I can give you the highest words per day per project:

NaNoWriMo 2013 (I didn’t finish it): 4777 words

NaNoWriMo 2014 (Remember, I Loved You): 8476 words

NaNoWriMo 2015 (Swallow Your Soul): 7369 words

NaNoWriMo 2016 (Destroyed Under Gods): 5000 words

NaNoWriMo 2017 (Nothing Burns like the Cold): 7600 words

NaNoWriMo 2018 (’til the skies bleeds ashes): 6044 words

So, highest amount of words I’ve spat out is almost 8,5k, but that was 5 years ago, lol. @purple-shade and I were discussing my writing, and we talked about how I was writing too much too fast, so I’ve taken it upon myself to challenge myself to beat that and write 10k in one day this year, lol. 

This year is the first year where I don’t have either University or word during November and am just job hunting full-time, so I should be able to get enough words out there to win. Hopefully, that’ll mean finishing a bunch of fic for you guys! :D

[thevirginman-blog]

Weed Idea, cool beans

Disease control is trying to slow down humanity Dude, if human has been involving, but also, diseases are involving, they go hand in hand unidirectional. But now that human is trying to slow down diaseas, diseases cannot go up, so human can not go up as well. Diaseas has to go up in strength, variety and deadly power. Human has to go up in smartiesness, human-deying power ( fly flying, breathing underwater, super smarterness ). Diaseases development ( the bad one you don't like ) is being stopped, so human is being stopped. 1. What is controlling us human, so we have the power to reach out stopping the diaseases ?  So in 5000 years, the more human development => the more dieases develop  Imagine graph  6 5 3 2 1 0.3  6 5 3 2 1 0.3  ^ first.        ^ current So at first, we developed our body well. But we were stupid. Now, we are at 0.3, our body seem to have not changed, we have not been able to breath water and fly and IMMORTAL yet. And we will keep decreasing body awesomeness. But, if we give in, we are going to make it Imagine graph  6 5 3 2 1 0.3 1 3 7 10  6 5 3 2 1 0.3 1 3 7 10  ^ first.                       ^ expected current, after 2019 by about 5000 years.  As can be seen here, we, by 7019, are now able to shoot lazer with pores, nuclear explotion by pimpple popping, make re producing 1000000 times better, and more or less babies manually configurable. 2. Who is the good side ? If human development and dieases are in a race for example, human plays dirty, tries to side kiss dieases on the right, pushing him off the ring. Because he's so strong and well oiled. Dieases is just minding his own business, getting to the goal, as any good senior racers normally do, right, Amstrong ? Then, human is a bad boy, he bad and punishable But, if Human and dieases are in the race But the finish line, when touched, human boddies will cease to exist. What if then, human development, is trying to stop đieases from touching the line, so that his population ( yeah, he's a man in my weed fantasy ) can exist s bit longer. Then, dieases is trying to kill human bodies, human is grabbing his leg, not letting him press the button. Then, human is the absolute good guy, he should be treasured, we should not give in to salmonella.   3. Why we should stop defending from diaseases ? As mentioned in the previous idea, if we give in to ecoli, we can absorb super power from giving in to it, live with it, sniff cocaine with it. Soon, we absorb powers, we may grow wings, or have big giantic internal bones and muscles and organs. 4. Why does dieases This make no sense: we get smarter and better, but that would allow us to stop the dieases. If we are developing enough, that means we body are getting utilized by tech nologies, at one point, we will make our asses modulizable, left ass from China, right as from Mexico. Penis, I think africa ?? ( Don't know, don't want to know ) We will make our body becomes a robot, strong enough to make human development stands up, grab desease development in the neck, smash his head in the ground, squease his balls on the walls. And throw him off the stage, make human have less components. Next bad guy: Death. But hey, it's deterioration, at least a lot less babies die, since there no deases. 6. Why this is an acceptable behavior, and w3hy this thought is useless Because I am starting to love that last fukjnf idea. It good, me lick. So we should try to do as much as we should do now, get the measles shot tommorow, please, Kien. Don't get red ashes on your bẹn ( Vietnamese ) Let's get back to that project Kien, dead line next week Don't lose this job, you need it and you need to finish school. Get that 3 things done, finish the node script now. Let's put this on some where, Tumble maybe ? That site, as I got words about, is full is 12 years old. Imgur, love that guy, shit Android app those. Addictive and my only friend. I Ken Poem like sheeieiieit 

Sorry for Vietnamese random words and letters, I’m not being fully consicous. 

I just read how measles is spreading in BC, somehow, I thought I would write something instead of coding and caring for my portfolio.

What do you guys think about this theasis ? Product ? debate material ? Cool ? No ? Eww ? 

[nalufever]

One of a Kind: Chapter 1 of Guarding Miss Shirayuki

Fandom: Snow White with the Red Hair

Summary: Obi didn't know when he accepted the job of protecting Miss Shirayuki that he'd become so entranced with his charge. Yuki was smarter and more intriguing than any other person he'd spent protecting - but how could he ever have guessed Shirayuki would become so important? A canonesque romp of a story - exploring the relationship that could have been.

Chapter One: One of a Kind: Guarding Miss Shirayuki ~ This is the first chapter of three - Dedicated to my good friend @hidetheremote . You da best! Thank you for talking, listening and joining my salty rants! There’s two more chapters, so I hope you enjoy as much this as much as I loved writing in a fandom you adore. This section is about 5000 words ~ ^^

Obi spat, the thin stream of saliva and blood mixing with the old stains underfoot. He blocked out the shouts - some encouragement, some invective, and all easy to ignore. He'd endured five years of training, working his way up in the mixed martial arts ranking. No way was he going to blow his chance at the championship on account of some foolish yelling. All he had to do was beat this guy and he'd be in the title fight next month.

Hungry for the win, Obi's opponent danced left in the giant metal cage they occupied. Rushing forward, the man delivered a flurry of punches in combination with side-kicks. Voice gruff, he sneered, "You look tired."

With a feral grin, Obi shook his head. "M'not, but you must be." He raised his hands to protect his face and moved closer into Staniel's reach, surprising the man.

Staniel faltered, his next punch extending into the air where Obi had been. His arm pulled back but Obi had already thrown his arm and used leverage to toss him. On his back, Staniel cursed as Obi took total control, pinning him to the mat.

The bell clanged and the referee stepped in, bellowing the count, slapping the mat with every number. "...nine, ten!"

Obi sprang up with the official, his arm raised high. The crowd cheered, chanting, hooting, whistling. It was almost perfect. He searched the stands, imagining in the far off faces the features of long-lost comrades. Forcing a smile, Obi bowed his head in thanks.

Walking slowly out of the cage, Obi ignored his aches and pains. A hot shower would soothe his body even if it also encouraged morbid introspection. The dead were going to stay dead even if they still had space in his mind.

Alone again in his apartment, Obi shrugged off his clothes, leaving them in a heap and stepped into the welcome confines of the shower. Stinging needles of hot water washed away some of his melancholy. Head bowed again, Obi thought back to happier times. He'd been so young and naive - but no longer. Life had a way of teaching a student - it was either learn or die when your job was being a bodyguard.

Hands flat against the tiled wall opposite the shower head, Obi closed his eyes and pretended his tears weren't mixing with the water. Sighing, he stood straight, soaped and rinsed his body - regret wouldn't do anything but drive him crazy.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Shirayuki shifted the collection of binders in her arms and pasted what she hoped was a pleasant smile on her face. "I'm actually close to a breakthrough on one of the problem area formulas."

"How many times do I have to insist you call me by name?" Zen sat back in his padded chair, crossing his legs. "We did attend the same college, no need to be so formal."

"I'll try to remember."

"Excellent, I've decided to give you some assistance with your project." Zen smiled, hand drifting to one knee and tapping. "Our company stands to make a fortune once it's complete. That means competing companies, like Daiichi Sankyo and Otsuka Holdings, will want to keep pace by whatever means necessary."

"My team is full, sir."

"I wasn't asking-" Zen continued, as if Shirayuki's interjection hadn't happened, "-I'm telling you, as of noon today, you'll have a specialist added to your team."

"With what kind of Ph.D?" Shirayuki set her binders on the corner of the vice-president's desk, sinking into a chair. "I formed this team myself, we've got all the major talent we need."

"He's a security specialist." Zen nodded in time with his still tapping fingers, his eyes locked onto Shirayuki's gaze. "This is non-negotiable. The amount of profit is astronomical - and you're our main asset."

"Let me understand, you're assigning me some sort of bodyguard?" Shirayuki pinched the bridge of her nose. "There's no way I need some beef-brained, thick-witted muscle bound moron underfoot in my lab or interfering with my team."

"I promise to spend most of my time improving my feeble brain and keeping out of your way."

Shirayuki whipped her head around, mouth dropping open. The man in the doorway wore dark dress pants and a crisp white shirt, fitted to show off a lithe figure - no bulky or ostentatious muscles - a fit and firm body. Blushing, she grit her teeth and ignored the jump of rocks in her stomach. "Adding a person at this late stage will upset my workers."

"Don't overestimate your role, Shirayuki." Zen chuckled and waved the newcomer to the other chair. "All management is on board with this decision - Obi here will become your personal assistant."

"With all due respect," Shirayuki fought to keep her voice level, "I have no need of an assistant. What I said earlier is still true. I -"

"If I may, sir?" Obi picked up the binders on the corner of Zen's desk. "We'll leave first." He stood with an impassive face, leading the way from the private office, through the maze of cubicles in the main part and down the corridor towards the area kept secured for members of the bioengineering team.

More than a bit pissed over following her unwanted 'assistant,' Shirayuki lengthened her stride, intending to pass. "I don't need you to carry my stuff. I'm capable of managing my own possessions."

Voice dry, Obi said, "Such big words from a smart science nerd. Are you sure this muscle-bound moron will understand?" Obi stopped and held out his burden to his new boss. "If you want your notes, please take them - but how else are you going to explain my presence to your team?"

Shirayuki reached to grab them - hands out, she hesitated, thinking. She huffed and jammed her hands into her lab coat. "I'll get rid of you somehow."

Amicably, like he hadn't challenged Shirayuki, Obi smiled. "Once this job finishes, I'll go away. You're not the only one displeased with this arrangement." Binders held against his chest once again, Obi inclined his head to the still fuming woman. "After you, boss."

Shirayuki hunched over her laptop and stared at the group designed molecule, comparing it to the previous incarnation and checking her notes for discrepancies. Imelda tapped her on the shoulder, making Shirayuki jump.

"Sorry boss, we're taking a lunch break."

"Cafeteria?" Shirayuki pulled up another diagram. "Bring me whatever." She focussed back into her work.

"We're going stir-crazy," Imelda waved her hand in front of the screen. "Raj is insisting on taking us to his cousin's place. We'll be back a bit late - you don't want to come, do you?"

"I'm two ideas away from solving the last problem." Belatedly Shirayuki remembered to smile and look at her second-in-command. "You guys go and have fun - you've been working really hard. You may as well come back even later. Go rest your brains." She made a shooing motion, and waved goodbye to her team.

The private powder room door opened and Obi exited, wiping his hands on his borrowed lab coat. "You sent them to lunch without you again. Don't they ever wonder why you stay on company premises? Normal people like taking time away from work."

"They'd be more surprised if I joined them." Shirayuki took off her glasses, absently cleaning them on the hem of her shirt. "It's more expedient for me to eat in the cafeteria. I hate losing time to food when I could be solving more important issues." She looked up in shock as Obi filched her glasses with dexterity any pickpocket would envy. Squinting, she frowned in confusion.

"You mean to tell me you're an antisocial nerd?" Obi blew a puff of air on Shirayuki's glasses. Pulling a proper lens cleaning cloth from his jacket, he polished and presented the cleaned glasses to Shirayuki. "You should let your personal assistant buy you lunch."

Skepticism warred with hunger - stomach rumbling, Shirayuki saved her progress and locked the laptop. "Might be the only thing you're good for."

Obi smiled and said nothing, allowing his boss to walk in front. For all her prickly attitude towards him and his assignment, Shirayuki treated her teammates well - and worked a damn sight harder than he'd expected. Not that he thought all beautiful women were lazy - no, he'd done his homework after taking the bodyguard job. Shirayuki came from a monied family. Wealth, status and impeccable breeding - she didn't need to work. This woman wanted to make the world a better place and had applied her smarts to learning something that would benefit everyone.

Maybe he shouldn't enjoy how her hips swayed as she walked. Her figure, even hidden as it was under a lab coat - it was curved in all the right places. Obi shoved down his appreciation into the box he'd labelled 'late night fun time.' She wasn't the spoiled rich princess he'd feared - but she was far out of his reach. His pedigree was muddy while hers was golden.

Halfway to the cafeteria, the Vice-President of Fujisawa Corporation stepped into their path. "Hello, Shirayuki and Obi!" Zen smiled warmly at Shirayuki and exchanged nods with Obi. "I have some business matters to discuss with you, Obi."

"We're going to grab lunch in the cafeteria right now, care to join us?" Shirayuki, still ruminating about polypeptides and molecular bonds, missed the serious undertones in Zen's words.

"Go save us a good seat, I'll join you soon." Obi waved off Shirayuki, keeping his inner glee hidden as her nostrils flared and she stomped away. Beautiful, smart, and prone to quick flare-ups of temper (as befitting her fiery red hair).

Zen wasted no time after shutting his office door. "I need you to provide twenty-four hour coverage." He strode to his desk, hand slightly trembling as he dug a key out of his pocket and unlocked the topmost drawer. "Here, take a look at this."

Face impassive, Obi read the threatening letter. He offered it back to Zen, "She's not going to take this well."

"She needs to be protected from knowing there's a death threat against her. You're getting paid well to shield her body, you can shield her mind too." Zen put the letter back. "She's not just a valuable employee, she's...she's special."

"I understand, sir." Obi took note of the light flush on Zen's cheeks, the man's starry eyes and wistful smile. "Shirayuki is a one-of-a-kind woman. Er, person."

"You were right the first time, she's a wonderful woman." Zen dropped into his chair and sighed, rubbing his forehead. "By any means necessary, keep her safe."

"Good work guys! Tomorrow is the weekend and that means I don't want to see anyone at work." Shirayuki laughed as several of her team parroted the same thing back to her, cautioning her against becoming a workaholic. "Fine, fine! I'll see you Monday." She waved them off, smiling.

"You going to take your own advice?" Obi smirked. Shirayuki had forgotten he was in the lab - or was he that good at staying silent? Either way, it was cute how she'd clutched her chest and glared at him.

This week of bodyguarding had been both heaven and hell. Miss Shirayuki was smart, personable and extremely capable - especially in regards to her work. Thinking about her, Obi had decided to keep a wall between them - needing the formal type of address to remind himself that the red-haired, smart, talented woman was above his reach.

Obi came to love watching her eyes light with passion as she wrote equations; the tip of her tongue making an appearance as she concentrated, how she'd push up her glasses and squint. It was hellish to be so close and be denied the physical contact he was dreaming of nightly.

"I know how to relax." Shirayuki lifted her chin. "See you Monday, unless you'd rather quit right now. Zen is blowing this product launch out of proportion. I don't need a babysitter."

"I'm sure you think that." Obi crossed his arms over his chest. "But you haven't ever tried my relaxation program."

"I'm good." Shirayuki's voice was flat and showed disinterest. "I have chores to do and no time to waste on you."

"Huh, didn't know you were a coward." Obi shrugged and waited - Shirayuki's nostrils flared. Oh, she was hooked. "For someone so smart, you're not willing to try other methods? Far be it for this muscle-bound moron to call you on your bullshit." Game. Set. Match. He made a show of checking his pockets for keys and tipped an imaginary hat. "See you Monday. Coward."

Shirayuki ground her teeth and seethed. What a high-handed, smug, sexy and rude bastard. "I'm not a coward."

"Good news, you're gonna love my relaxation program." Obi offered the woman under his care his arm. "Step this way."

Not exactly sure why she was going with Obi, Shirayuki decided she'd slip off once she got bored. A simple distraction and her unwanted personal assistant would never notice her leaving. Allowing him to take her somewhere was an anomaly. It had nothing to do with how cute the man looked. Nope! Nor his earnestness, or even how much she'd wondered about what he did on his own time. Uh-uh. This was her learning more about an opponent.

The sounds and smell of the underground gym hit Shirayuki hard. She'd been confused why it was several levels below the surface - and all Obi had said in answer to her questions was, 'no special reason.'

"Is there something wrong with the ventilation system?" Shirayuki did her best to breathe from her mouth. "I can recommend several new versions of air scrubbers - when's the last time this was serviced?"

Obi chuckled, ignoring Shirayuki's questions. The more he delayed answers, the more she'd be inclined to stay - or at least not want to escape at the first chance. He nodded to several competitors in greeting, making progress towards one of his oldest friends. "Beatrice! I'm glad to see you're still here at this hour."

"Well, ifn' it isn't our mysterious loner." Beatrice smirked, setting her weights onto the bar support. "What brings you here with a visitor? Not your usual Friday night type of date, now is it?"

"Date? No!" Obi flushed, his eyes widening as he looked back and forth between the two women. "This isn't a date - she's my current boss in need of some relaxation."

Shirayuki shifted her weight, lips pressed in a straight line. An uncomfortable minute passed. "Obi thinks I don't know how to relax." Her words were offered to Beatrice, but her savage look was given to Obi. "He's wrong."

"Yes," Beatrice nodded, "I can see that. Obi is so clueless when it comes to introductions though, wouldn't you say? Your name is?"

Face even redder, Obi rubbed his forehead. "Sorry Beatrice, may I introduce Miss Shirayuki of Fujisawa Corporation?"

Shirayuki thrust out her hand to the other woman, "Call me Yuki, pleased to meet you. No need to stand on outdated formalities."

"Agreed." Beatrice took note of Yuki's strong grip and enthusiastic shaking. "A pleasure for me as well. This gym could do with more females who know their own minds."

A bit chagrined, Obi looked like a deer caught in headlights. "I was wondering if you had a spare workout outfit to lend?"

"What's wrong with yours? Don't you keep extra spares?"

"Of course I do - but it's not really proper for me to offer man's clothes for a lady." Obi wished very hard for the floor to swallow him. "They're clean but not meant -"

"Clothes are just clothes." Shirayuki wasn't sure if she'd surprised herself more or Obi. "As long as they're clean - no big deal if they're men's or lady's." She smiled at Beatrice and dropped her expression down to borderline polite to look at Obi. "It's a bit more than rude to expect to borrow someone else's clothes without asking beforehand."

"I like her." Beatrice pinched Obi's cheek. "You should try to not fuck this up." She laid back on the bench and grasped her barbell, "I'm in the middle of my workout, so if you don't mind, I need my 'me' time." One smooth motion and Beatrice hoisted her weights. She winked at Obi. "Talk to ya later - maybe meet up when you and Miss Yuki have reconciled your differences?"

Obi met Beatrice's stare with a sinking stomach. "Yeah, that'll be soon, I'm sure."

Beatrice hummed noncommittally as she continued with her workout, dismissing Obi and Yuki from her mind - secure that sometime soon she'd be meeting up with them under vastly different circumstances. A more harmonious and happy sort - the kind you bring up in a toast to the bride and groom. She disguised a snort of laughter as effort and continued her bench presses.

Isolated in the empty changeroom, Shirayuki looked at the armful of clothes Obi had given her and smiled. Plain but serviceable t-shirt and shorts, dull blue in colour - but fashioned of moisture-wicking fabrics. She dropped them on the bench and took off her work clothes. Tonight was going to be interesting - and she'd never been so enthused to work-out before.

Obi hurried into his second set of gym clothes. Shirayuki had seemed interested in working out - but he'd be damned to take her acquiesce at face-value. If she was lying and ran out now, she might be captured by the scum threatening her life - and that would haunt him forever.

"I'm going to show you my usual work-out." Obi nodded, "Miss Yuki, this shouldn't be any harder than you can manage."

"How hard do you go at it on a regular day?" Shirayuki made sure to smile sweetly. "I'm sure I can keep up. Don't hold back on my account."

"Fine." Obi marched over to an unattended machine, adjusted the weights and changed the incline of the bench.

Shirayuki watched him, her smile losing its wattage as more people left the gym. "What's up with the mass exodus?"

"Friday nights aren't as busy - some people go out on dates instead of working around the clock like nerds." Shrugging, Obi pretended not to see Shirayuki frown. "Are you sure you should use such fancy words with a big dummy like me?"

"Don't distract me."

"Wouldn't dream of it." His dry delivery was at odds with Obi's smirk. He would dream of Yuki - and his imagination would spook her like nothing else. "This is a very simple machine, I would guess you've used something like this before."

"Obviously." Shirayuki tugged on the bottom of her borrowed shirt. "Who hasn't?" She gestured at her bodyguard to move aside. "All the time."

Obi hid his smile as Shirayuki sat backwards on the bench and did a very poor job of hiding her search for work instructions. She moved her feet further apart and made a show of rolling her shoulders and then tightening her shoelaces.

"All the time?"

"No. How long were you going to let me struggle?"

"I'll use it first - you watch and learn. Get up." Obi then sat facing forward and gripped the handles, admiring the attractive picture Shirayuki made. She stood with hands on hips, her little frown all the more adorable as she chewed her bottom lip. Obi demonstrated five reps. "Now you try."

Shirayuki nodded and sat, gripping the handles tight.

"Relax, no one's gonna try to take them from you!" Obi laid a hand on Shirayuki's shoulder, "Is this too much? There's lots of treadmills we could use instead."

"I've never enjoyed the more complicated gym machines." Shirayuki released her death grip, wiping her hands on her thighs. "I let my competitive nature get the best of me - but I don't mind if you get your workout in. I can get myself home from here." She made to rise, stopped by Obi moving closer - his face, normally so impassive, clearly chagrined.

"Hey, I was a little bit pushy too. But my offer stands - exercising makes for a great release of endorphins." In the back of his mind, Obi wondered how hard Shirayuki would slap him if he suggested the other (and better to his way of thinking) method to achieve peace. Damn, that would be glorious.

"It's been a long week, and I know I've had enough of your company." Shirayuki let a bitter smile twist her lips. "And I'm not in the mood to be babysat further."

"And here I thought we were connecting on a friendship level." Obi joked, forcing gaiety into his voice and actions. He shrugged, taking a big step backward. "Miss Ph.D. is a coward."

"Fine - I'll be running laps on a treadmill and you knock yourself out on that contraption." Shirayuki stood and raised her chin. "You'd better add more weights - after all, it isn't a good workout if you don't struggle."

"Pfft. Thanks for the words of wisdom." Obi watched Shirayuki secure a treadmill, pleased it was close - and began a light gym routine that switched him from machine to machine, all ringing Yuki's treadmill.

An hour of covert spying and exercise later, Obi, drenched in sweat (more from nerves than exhaustion) was dying for a shower. Shirayuki had cooled down from her run twenty minutes ago and was openly staring as Obi continued to use more equipment. Was he a bit of an exhibitionist, or was he pathetic? Why would someone so smart and talented care about him? If nothing else, Obi knew he wasn't that unattractive. Miss Yuki might at the very least decide to slum and sample his wares. Heh, Obi knew he was being ridiculous.

An itch between his shoulder blades made Obi wary. He inspected the perimeter of the gym for suspicious activity; only two men working together, one as a spotter and the other lifting. He'd lived long enough as a bodyguard not to ignore those sorts of sensations. Lived - that was the operative word. Taking a precaution that others deem unnecessary could be the difference between a big fat bonus cheque or riding in place of honour in a funeral procession.

"Babe!" Obi knew Shirayuki would respond - very possibly loudly - immediately.

"Sweetie-nugget," Shirayuki answered through gritted teeth. "Have you lost your mind?" She moved closer, arms crossed.

In for a penny, in for a pound. "Babe, you can yell at me later. Right now, you should listen to your man."

Obi stood and placed his hands on Shirayuki's shoulders, leaning within kissing distance. Praying it looked like he was fooling around, Obi whispered instructions. "We're leaving now - and whatever happens, follow my lead."

Her sweet breath tickled his ear, and Obi fought to control his libido. He was a battle-hardened assassin dammit - why did this woman derail him from his purpose?

"I noticed those two guys too - they're both big and bulky but only using half the weights you set for me."

Damn, Shirayuki was every inch a brilliant person. "We want to give them the slip without alerting them. Let's go and allow them to follow - but we'll cut and run once we move past the exit."

Shirayuki giggled, her lips dangerously close to Obi's ear for his peace of mind. Softly, she said, "You'll pay for this later."

"I can live with that." Obi prayed his luck would hold as he gave her a hug. "Might as well run the tab, huh? We'll act like lovers. Can you manage? You want your work badge, right?"

"You know you're dead, right? And yeah, I can't let that fall into the wrong hands. I could cancel it, but ..."

"Later. We'll discuss it later." Obi caught Shirayuki's hand and laced his fingers with hers. Making sure to take slow and easy strides, he lead her to the women's locker room. Taking care to seem oblivious to the two threats, Obi kept his back to them - as if he was totally unconcerned. He fished out his phone and began browsing.

Holding her street clothes and personal possessions to her chest, Shirayuki came out of the locker room. "I'm ready."

Obi kept hold of his phone, pretending to pay attention to that more than where they were going. "My keys are on me - there's nothing else I need to retrieve. Take my arm and play girlfriend, okay?"

Sensing Yuki wanted to argue but knew it wasn't workable now, Obi gave himself a personal bonus. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and placed his hand over where Shirayuki had attached herself to his upper arm. "You're a nasty girl! Can't believe you like knockin' boots before getting clean!"

They were mere steps away from the exit. The two burly men appeared to be discussing which machine to use next - as they ambled closer and closer to the exit as well.

"Takes one to know one!" Shirayuki felt flustered. She knew her reply didn't quite make sense, but it was the best she could currently manage.

In the gym's foyer, Obi hustled his charge down the corridor leading to the front entrance. "Hurry, they'll most likely split to cover both the front and back. If we can get out of sight sooner, so much the better."

Hands on the door, they both heard heavy footfalls pounding closer.

"Shit!" Obi thrust Shirayuki out first and clicked his car remote. Halfway down the block his vehicle chirped and unlocked. "Run faster!"

Obi looked over his shoulder - the larger of the two thugs was fumbling with some kind of sidearm. Together they pelted towards the car, Obi rolling over the hood to take the driver's side and Shirayuki collapsing into the passenger seat.

Two soft 'thwups' made the car shake. "Get down, more!" Obi jammed the key into the ignition and peeled away from the curb, laying smoke and rubber. Three more 'thwups' - dinging the bumper and breaking a tail light.

"I'm gonna have to assume they know where you live - I can't bring you to your home until they're neutralized." Obi glanced at Shirayuki. She was hugging her clothes like her life depended on it. Reaching over slowly, Obi patted her shoulder. "Lucky you, we're besties until this is solved."

"Did they change the definition of lucky? If not my place, then yours? There's got to be a better choice."

Obi was relieved to hear a bit of Shirayuki's attitude make a return. If she could make jokes it meant that she was rebounding from the horror of the two goons shooting at them. "You haven't seen my place, so don't diss my digs."

"Either I make snarky comments or I start freaking out. Your choice, sweetie-nugget." Shirayuki giggled, high-pitched and going higher.

"Call me darling." Obi glanced at his charge - she was caught off-guard by his comment. Now for some more foolishness. "My love, honey, or even dear would be acceptable. But don't call me late to dinner."

Shirayuki realized she was digging her fingernails into her street clothes, ruining them. She released her grip and let them slide down her legs. Only turning her head, she stared at her bodyguard. "You must be joking."

"Not joking." Obi took the next left and zipped down a small street - more of a lane, actually. "Well, a bit. Feeling better?"

"Yeah...I am." Her nerves were still jangling, but more from imagining herself using those endearments on Obi. More exactly, from imagining an intimate encounter with him...bare limbs twisted together...satiated...heated bodies and a climax scream torn from her throat after an hour of foreplay. Was this her body's reaction after encountering danger?

"I've got a defendable safe house - perfect for this situation." Obi let his tone grow jocular as he tested Shirayuki's resilience. "Unless you'd rather run away with me to some decadent top-flight hotel?" He gunned the engine and took a corner with more zip than needed. "Thanks for the silent vote of hell-to-the-no."

Shirayuki shook her head and slumped in her seat. "Take me wherever you need. I'm not going to be thinking and using logic until my heart makes its way back into my ribcage."

"Deal."

To be continued....

[chessala]

Hello everyone!

I’m not happy to do this but due to life being a bitch, I have to open emergency commissions right now.

Short story short, 4 years ago I took out a loan to finance my Dad’s funeral and have been paying it diligently. Now the bank is trying to screw me over by suspending 400€ of my pay every month starting this month. I should be able to stop this but there isn’t enough time left until payroll for this month. So basically, I’ll be 400€ short when me and my partner already struggle to make ends meet.

So right now, I’m trying to fill this gap urgently as I also use part of my wage to support my mother due to low retirement income.

Without much ado, please see the pricing below. A big thank you to @omgkatsudonplease for letting me use her pricing model. I have also added Euro prices for clarity.

If you are not familiar with my writing, you can find it on AO3 and on tumblr.

pricing (sfw)

100 words minimum / 5000 words maximum

1 USD/ 1 EURO for 100 words

5 USD/ 4.50 EURO for 500 words

10 USD/ 9 EURO for 1000 words

5 USD/ 4.50 EURO for every 1000 words past 1k, up to 5k

 special offers

update a wip:

flat rate of 40 USD/ 34 EURO for WIPs with chapters averaging 8k words in length (I can still keep loving you-fic)

flat rate of 20 USD/ 17 EURO for WIPs with chapters averaging 2k-3k words in length (Through a Mirror Darkly- series, Little Mermaid AU-ficlets)

Start a new AU

flat rate of 50 USD/ 42 EURO to start a new AU series with chapters averaging 5k from the list below (this only includes chapter 1, for chapters 2 and beyond, the update a wip pricing applies):

Kyoukai no Kanata AU (Viktuuri)

Ex Machina AU

Timeloop AU

Koi to Uso AU

The 100 AU

Love Boat-trip AU (Viktuuri)

Flat rate of 75 USD/ 64 EURO to start a new AU series with your specification (2 chapters with 5 k, any further see wip updated). Please make sure to specify the following when requesting an AU:

Pairing

Rating

Detailed description of the setting

If available, media the AU is based on

will write

pairing for yoi fandom (Viktuuri, Yuyuu, Phichuuri, otayuri etc, for others, please ask beforehand)

Any rating up to M

fluff, angst, major character death, comedy, domestic etc. Just ask!

won't write

explicit nsfw content of any kind

graphic violence

absolute crack fics

omegaverse/mpreg

fandoms I’m not active in, sorry :(

I do have a full-time job so while I will try to finish any commission asap, I might need a bit of time depending on the length of the requested piece. I’ll make sure to keep you updated, though!

I can be reached via message here or on discord (please send me a PM to get my name)

If you can’t/don’t want to commission me but still help out, you can do so via my ko-fi or paypal.me. Alternatively, I’d be grateful for any signal boost as well! Thank you so, so much for your support!

[misscrawfords]

Writing meme

I was tagged by: @lucymonster - thank you so much! :)

What is your total word count on AO3?

396,126 (good LORD)

How often do you write?

When I have the mental energy and am inspired. So, er, depends.

Do you have a routine for writing?

No, and that’s why I never write anything lol. I know that if I’m going to get anywhere with my writing then I would need to actually, you know, write regularly in a routine. The only way I finished Consolation Prize was because I promised readers updates on Mondays and dammit, they got them even though that usually meant staying up till 2am on Monday morning writing all through Sunday. But I was doing my MLitt then and I could do that.

The good thing about having an absorbing job with long hours is that I am mentally engaged by my work and that makes me very lucky. But it also means that I get back from school in the evening and I have been dealing with people and issues and making decisions all day and pretty much all I can cope with is sitting vacantly in front of Netflix. When I had a boring admin job I wrote so much more because even though it was tiring, it wasn’t mentally engaging in the way teaching is. It’s a real problem - I have a challenging and interesting job that stimulates me intellectually and creatively, but that also means I have so much less ability to write. I find the whole pressure on wannabe writers that they “have to have a routine” and “if you’re not writing 2000 words a day on top of your day job you’re a failure” to be so dispiriting. You’ve got to prioritise and my priorities at the moment are my job. Having said that, I’m writing more this year in my new school than I have for the past three years in my old school so I reckon there’s hope as I get settled in here. I’m much less stressed.

What’s your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

kinks: I’m not sure I really have any. I’m not a big fan of smut. Is that a kink? If I read it, then I want it to be well-written and in-character, not just 5000 words of p0rn for interchangeable characters that pull you out of the pacing of an otherwise well-developed story. So that’s my kink. (Okay, sometimes 5000 words of E-rated smut is what you’re in the mood of, but generally it isn’t.)

tropes: All of them. I’m really into social media AUs atm. IDEK where it came from - I love fics where half of it is written in texts or discord chats or tumblr posts, where supporting characters are in a fandom, where the relationship plays out on twitter/youtube/forums. Whatever. Internet fics. They’re my absolute favourite at the moment. Otherwise, fake engagement/relationship is a big one. Forced to work together. Arranged marriage. Enemies to friends to lovers. I mean, there are no big surprises here. 

pairing: Reylo is currently ticking all my boxes. Other than that, the kind of pairings I go for... I have a real thing for pairings where one character is really flighty and mercurial and temperamental and the other is solid and responsible and apparently dull. But underneath the flightiness the mercurial character is loyal and devoted and underneath the staidness the respectable character longs for adventure and a touch of wildness. I mean, this is basically Jack/Phryne and possibly Matthew/Mary but it’s a dynamic I really go for. Also power couples. Couples who take down their enemies together, stay together and look fabulous while they’re doing it. The Mary/Richards and Chuck/Blairs of this world. Couples who fit both dynamics are the absolute best though.  

Do you have a favourite fic of yours?

Consolation Prize, always and forever. I worry that I’m never going to write anything that well-structured, emotional, symbolic or personally meaningful ever again.

Your fic with the most kudos?

University Challenge has 172. Most of the Downton fandom took place on FFNet though, so my AO3 stats for it aren’t very impressive. (She says defensively.)

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

Honestly, I don’t like much about it atm. I think I used to be a much better writer than I am now. A lot of the time when I write, I feel that basics like my sentence structure is just really clumsy somehow. *shrugs* I’m trying to get back into it with my new Reylo fic. I have hopes for it!

I also wish I could write smut. I wish I could write searingly hot smut that nevertheless fulfilled an important function to advance character development and plot. Or even just something mindless because I feel certain I would get more readers that way and, end of the day, I’m in it for the attention and getting positive feedback and I hate that I can’t tag it as “eventual smut” because I know that’s what most people are in it for. I mean, I probably could write something E rated but I’d feel so awkward and it wouldn’t fit the kind of stories I want to write. I mean, probably. Maybe the story will turn out differently to how I expect and I’ll feel moved to have everyone rip off their clothes and have some graphic, kinky sex. You never know! But it still feels so depressing, the way people talk about smut and judge stories by how “hot” they are and how the most popular stories all contain it. Anyway, I will (try to) rise above this personal bugbear!

Now something you do like?

I think I write good dialogue and can be quite witty. I think I manage to convey a sufficient amount about character or setting or plot without using too much description - I aim to be quite a concise author anyway. I like the fact that I try and root my characters in a world full of culture; whatever universe it’s in, there is music and literature and language and people take part in that. I like to play with symbolic and archetypal themes and literary nods and intertextual references though the amount to which you can do that depends on the kind of story you’re writing. I mean, I like playing with these things - whether any readers like it either is another matter, but some things you’ve got to do for yourself!

I shall tag: any fic writers who fancy doing it because, honestly, this was really interesting and everyone should have a go!

[emptymanuscript]

@whenshiphitsthefan​ Asked me a question:

Dumb and perhaps unanswerable question but what's it like writing 3k+ words in a day? Even on my most productive days I can sit for 8 hours and do nothing but write obsessively without even stopping to eat but I only have like 1-2k words down when I finish. Obviously there's no wrong way to write blah blah blah but I don't get how even when the words are flowing for me they come at a fraction of my typing speed.

My aggressively worded, long ass OPINION is below the cut.

Ok, first, this is a Perceptive question. Your spotting a big and poorly communicated issue. It’s just embarrassing because everyone who gives advice games the system. We all end up looking like we do 10k an hour 10 hours a day 10 days a week. It’s not a good system. Most of us have actually figured that out. But we’re also not sure how to then get people to keep listening to us here when there is an infinitely nicer sounding lie over there. So we just kinda keep misrepresenting ourselves. It’s the social media effect.

Is it an unanswerable question though… mmm… halvsies. I was reminded recently of one of my more personally influential writing teachers, Eileen Workman, a wonderful, magnificently giving woman, who I have sadly not seen in forever. One of the best tidbits of wisdom I got from her was, while there are no 'right' answers, there are always a multitude of wrong ones. Now it’s easy because we writers are often a pretty negative lot, to focus on that last part. There are a huge number of wrong answers to any writing question. Oh, dear, how can you find what you need in that swamp. A little harder is to look at the first part and have that negative voice pop up in your head again, ‘There’s no right answer? So there’s no answer?” And no, that’s not what it means. It means there is no single, one and only, answer. But that’s very different. There are answers, there are answers that are right for YOU, and you get to pick and choose which answer or answers best fit your needs at this time. There is such a multitude of wrong answers precisely because the absolutely right answer for someone else can still be the absolutely wrong answer for you. I don’t know you or your work better than you do. So I can’t actually tell you what to do. Though I’m full of myself so I will try. All I can actually do is say this is what I know and this what I experience, and I hope they help you think about your similar problem.

Believe it or not, putting in my score of 4380 words that provoked this question in the nanowrimo website, I put that wobbly mouthed frowny face as my attitude toward it. For two reasons. The reason I wrote 4380 words is because I was behind, and I have now not completed that nano on time. And I am already a day behind on the official one. Which embarrasses me considering how many nanos I have “won”, it’s like being a marathon runner, signing up for the iron man, and not being able to clear the first mile. I not only should be able to do the work, I KNOW I can because I have done it many times before. And yet, I am having lots of trouble. Because I’m writing in this bang-bust cycle of nothing and then alot right now, my aim with the hope of hitting 5000 words.

And that’s the real answer for me. What does it feel like to write 3K+ words a day: an annoyance that I write so little and strong desire that I wrote 10K+ words a day instead. It’s not about how many words you write. I used to feel the same way about 5K. I used to feel the same way about 3K. Used to be 1K. It’s about how happy you are with your fulfillment of your own expectations.

Back in 2006, in graduate school on an entirely different continent from my birth for the purposes of a degree in the teaching and practice of creative writing, I was firm in what I thought was my reasonable expectation that I would shortly be a published author, that I would launch in a career in that, and could leverage that writing career into a teaching job at my alma mater, so I could teach all the little college brats like myself who wanted to become authors AND do it better than I felt I was taught myself. That was my expectation. And at low levels it still is my expectation.

Now, in 2020, with chronic pain, medicated for mental health issues that have landed me in the mental hospital twice, living 15 minutes from my alma mater where the one and only creative writing teacher is now one of my first teachers, who I have been holding a grudge against since 1992 because of how disgusted I am by the way he teaches, I am a little dissatisfied. He’s got the job I want and I’m not going to get it. And I hear about him teaching it all the time because I’m connected to the writing community here, and he is all there is. While I am teaching nobody. And have one short story and one self published novel to my name. I wrote the first draft of the sequel to my first novel, now more than six years ago and I’m pretty much giving up on it.

From the point of view of 2006, every time I produce something as pathetic as ONLY 3k+ words, it’s a slap in the face reminder of how little I have accomplished and how much I have failed in my life goals.

Which I don’t say to say, ‘Hey, feel sorry for me.’ That’s not the point. I say it because I suspect that this is an exaggeration of the same basic emotional tug of war that a tragic number of writers are going through. It is worth questioning do you have an equivalent of my 2006 expectations. It may not be as a big or dramatic. It may be as simple as ‘real writers write a novel every x amount of time by writing y amount of words every single day.’ And then what’s your reality? What are you actually living with? Was that part of your expectation? Can the number of words you are producing live up to that expectation? Will a higher number of words live up? How much higher? Are you sure it’s only that high?

Because my 2006 judgements and expectations, 10k an hour or whatever won’t cut it. Because the daily word count is what I am judging by. It is my measure. But what I’m trying to judge is only tangentially related to word count. My 2006 expectations are of a life I don’t have.

If I wrote a million words a day, it would just drive me nuts that I still wasn’t writing enough to make a difference. How much do I have to write? And I know that answer for myself, even if I usually look away. It is an impossible numer. It’s when you add every positive integer together and get -12. Because that’s what the impulse is really about, trying to get the life I expected of myself in 2006 when it’s 2020.

Is it the same for you? It may not be. We’re all different. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some expectation of being a “better” writer than you are already. Of being more “productive” than you are. Of already being an author. All those things are things you can’t ever write enough to fix. Because the word count is the wrong measure.

So, let’s take a step back. Farther back. In my aggressively held opinion, one of the best books on Creative Writing has nothing to do with Creative Writing. It’s called Start With Why by Simon Sinek. He’s got a Ted Talk that is essentially the same content, just less examples. His method is very simple. He calls it the golden circle. Three concentric rings. In the center circle is WHY. Why are you doing what you’re doing? In the middle circle around the why is HOW. How are you doing what you’re doing? In the outer ring is WHAT. What are you doing?

What you’re doing is writing. How you’re doing it is trying to hit a certain word count. Which may or may not be the way to go. Why you’re doing it… that’s usually real complicated. Took me years to figure out. Sinek’s critique is that most everything goes from the outermost ring inward. While in contrast, the most successful companies, which is his area of focus, go from the inside out.

You want to write a story. Cool. You’ll do that by writing to the point that you don’t eat and you don’t take any breaks and that will get you the biggest word count which will be the most amount of work in the time available. Because… You want to write a story. Which is cool. But it’s also a tautology.

Instead of that, I’d like to give you an example. Let’s take imaginary writer Bela. Bela hasn’t had a great life.

Bela believes that sharing her life story will help others who have suffered the same trials and tribulations but have no voice to speak it. She wants to speak in defense of those who can’t defend themselves. She wants to be the voice for the voiceless. That’s WHY she wants to writer her life story.

Ok, so HOW is Bela going to do that? Is she just going to scribble down her life story and then run down to the photocopy joint and spend her life savings on copies and then just jet around town tossing the manuscript copies out her window. We all know the answer is no. But WHY is it no?

Because, that doesn’t meet the goals of her WHY. What are her goals?

Sharing

Showing her trials

Talking to people who have suffered

Giving others a voice

Defending the defenseless

Speaking about things that others won’t or can’t

That’s six goals and none of them are necessarily writing. Writing is how she is choosing to ACHIEVE her goals. It is one choice out of many ways of HOW she can fulfill her WHY. AND they are exactly what she’s going to look into to figure out HOW to do that AS THE PROCESS of achievement.

How can she share? Well, that might be about tone. She might focus on writing in a style that shows we’re all in this together. Or it might be about pursuing a particular outlet for publication or/and partnership. Such as working together with NAMI to be able to speak to the numbers and types of mental issues that come from her types of previous trials. Doing that is not taking time away from her writing, it is acting in concert with it. Her word count would be less of a measure than her ability to express those words in the way she wants.

I’m just going to skip ahead to the last one because I suspect you get it. And the last one is best for the next topic:

How does she speak about things others can’t? That’s hard. That means she has to talk about things that she doesn’t want to talk about. That means she has to relive traumas she would rather shove down and ignore enough that she can bring people into the experience with her. Maybe even because of that.

Is she going to write that 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, without taking breaks, without eating? Plunging ahead just to get it out and done and over with?

No. For several reasons.

First, she can’t. If she’s digging that deep into trauma, that schedule is going to giver her a mental lapse. Part of her self care will need to be figuring out a sustainable schedule. Because she’s not in a sprinting race. Look back at what she wants to do. You see a WHY like that and you know it’s not about one day of writing. It’s not even one book. This is a lifetime endeavor. So it’s a lifetime that has to be figured out so she won’t burn out. Each bit of writing is just HOW she is dealing with these issues this time. So her health, for the purposes of all the times to come, is more important.

Two, even if she’s writing a happy scene in her story, she’s not a brain in a vat. There’s no friendly scientist helpfully pumping constant nutrients into her tub. If you don’t take care of your body’s needs, your capabilities, of any and all kinds, deteriorate. When you’re tired, you don’t think as fast. When you’re hungry you don’t think as clearly. When you’re engaged in long monotonous tasks, you don’t pay as close attention.

For you, it might be interesting to measure your word count per time period. If you aren’t on a sudden jag of inspiration, you might very well do more words per .5 hours when it is earlier in the day than at the end, when you are tired and hungry. Looking at the total word count is only looking at the average of your total output. So if you do very well at some points and very poorly at others, it looks exactly the same as if you just did an even string all the way along, which isn’t necessarily true at all.

Most people have specific times when they write more and better than other times. Most people also don’t figure out when that is. Myself, I’ve got the easiest version up. I can figure out on a monthly basis which day of the week I do the most writing and which day I do the best. It does not shock me at all that my busiest day of the week, Wednesday, is my least productive day. I have plenty of hours still to write on Wednesdays but my stress and other difficulties eat into the time I have and I can’t write as much or as fast because my mind is always half on the other stuff I have to do that day. I hate Wednesdays. Even though I technically could write as much, I won’t. Because all that cuts into my capabilities.

But this extends deeper than a day. It extends to hours of the day. Sometimes even minutes. It extends to what you have going on. It extends to how long it has been since you have taken a break. It extends to if you are hungry and definitely to if you have low blood sugar. It extends to you being tired. All of that contributes to lower word count numbers.

That’s not saying don’t work at the bad times. Work whenever you like, however you like. It does mean that the more you have going against you in a given writing period, the lower you have to set your word count expectations.

If you have been writing all day without a break and without food, you have to expect that your word count per minute will be significantly lower than at the opposite end of the day. That will bring your average down. So it’s either: don’t measure them equally, or do everything you can to mitigate the slow down.

This is relatively minor when it’s just this one time, to make up. But for most writers, that’s actually when most of their writing is happening: that “one” time to “make up.” And if that is the case, then it’s just a lie. It’s not a bad one but that is what it is. And what really has to be done is to treat that as the norm, and take care of yourself accordingly.

The first words out of Orson Scott Card to us going to his Uncle Orson’s Writer’s bootcamp were: “Exercise or Die.” Because it’s the same thing. Not metaphorically, just is. We don’t take care of ourselves because we don’t want to. We don’t have time. We can take care of ourselves when we’re caught up. It’s just this once. Nope. Because it’s not catching up. It’s that people choose “I want to be a writer,” as their WHY and the only way to fulfill that is to write, which is real trouble if you need to sustain your body while writing.

I know for my body, I’ve been in physical therapy for some years now. That’s not normal. But what my therapist keeps trying to hammer into my head is. What we, as writers, do with our bodies is not natural to our bodies and it does real damage. My physical therapist pretty much does say to me every other time that I have to get up. I can’t sit there for hours at a stretch. At least every 40 minutes you have to take a break, otherwise there will be physical repercussions.

That’s one of the reasons that the Pomodoro method is so popular and effective. Because it forces the body to move every thirty minutes. Not as convenient for the brain but the brain is part of the body, not the other way around.

The brain, as much as the rest of the body, needs food, exercise, and rest. Just to survive, let alone thrive. And we would say that to anybody except ourselves. Somehow we, as writers are exempt from self care. Yeah, right.  

Look back at Bela’s list. Writing isn’t the most important necessity, only the final one. You must write to have written. But you must sustain your capabilities in order to write. If you want to produce the most that you are capable of writing, the body must be maintained and cared for. You must be maintained and cared for. The more your body decays, the harder it is for your brain to work at peak efficiency. So if nothing else will get you to do it, do it for your word count. The healthier you are the closer you’ll be to your best. The less healthier you are, the more you will struggle to get those words down. And this is a cumulative effect.

Finally… Bella won’t go on that writing tear because she just doesn’t have to.

To be completely hypocritical given how much time I spend writing, nobody has to write like that. And it’s actually not the best way to write according to SCIENCE! Though to be a bit Republican about it, fuck the scientific establishment, you do you. And YOU can do your own science.

There are a lot of ways to write. There is no right answer to which is best. There are a lot of wrong answers to which is best for you. But you can figure those out. And among the possible right answers you can pull together and invent any number of strategies.

For myself, the most I have ever written in a single day was staying up all night in high school once to finish a short “novella” for the annual high school literary magazine. I wrote about 20 pages. So that was good. And then I didn’t write for three months. So that clearly wasn’t sustainable.

I did write for about seven years with the maxim of EVERY day. Better one sentence than nothing. And the longer it went, the more and more often it was just one sentence. Until I started talking to my therapist about it and she suggested I go into the mental hospital and not write anything for a while.

The most effective method in terms of word count per time for me, I honestly hate. It’s that same pomodoro method. Write for a short sprint, usually about 30 minutes, and when the alarm goes off, you stop. Period. No ifs. No ands. No buts. In the middle of ultimate inspiration you get your butt up and go take a break for a dead minimum of ten minutes.

Doing about six of those a day can pretty reliably bump up my numbers. But again, I hate it. It requires more self discipline than I usually have. It just has the advantage that I can’t get overused to what I’m doing or get as tired.

The other advantage it has is limits. Tasks expand to fill the time you have. You can give yourself too little time to write. You will not be able to meet your goals. For writing, you cannot give yourself too much time. You will just write and write and write until your time is up unless you’re already at the end. The Pomodoro method short cuts that. It teaches your brain that you don’t have all day. You have 30 minutes. That’s it. And your brain starts to respond to that and shove out more words at a time in an attempt to stretch the content instead.

But that’s timing, and honestly, that’s not what I usually find drives out the words. Timing and timers are great but it does come back to that WHY. Just adjusted for the moment. When I write, on the days I do well, I know why I am writing the particular section I am writing, I know how I want it to come out, and I know what general actions I want to happen. That combined with forcing myself to consider myself first and other things, like my word count, second are what really pushes me occasionally into the 5k+ realm in a day.

So how much are you pantsing and how much are you plotting? Would plotting more before you write help you to say more because you’d have goal posts?  Experiment. Be your own guinea pig. It might be the opposite. You might be plotting too much and you need to worry less about hitting these abstract goal points and more about just letting the words roll and feeling the emotion of the moment.

If I know that part of WHY I am writing Ashla & Bogan is that I want to actually demonstrate a friendship between Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi, so Obi Wan is being honest that Anakin was a good friend. Then HOW I want to do that today is to write about Anakin Skywalker trying to save Obi Wan Kenobi’s life by stealing him out of a medbay and racing him around the hospital just ahead of Count Dooku. It’s not a random chase. The necessary events have to be based around my central WHY, which confines me and points me the same as the Pomodoro. I know a lot about the basic structure of WHAT beats I actually want to write and what their goal is before I ever start typing. And as I type, the beats that need to flow in next generally come to me because I know, at the core, what I’m up to.

The less I have to come up with on the fly, the faster I go. When writing papers for school, which went faster? Having the research done and selected materials ready for access before starting the paper? Or writing the paper and then grabbing for materials for research in progress?

Fiction is not that different. You’re inventing the materials but if you are inventing in the middle of writing, you are devoting a lot of energy to that instead of just on how to communicate what you’re inventing. And that will slow you down. That’s why people’s speed usually improves moving towards more plotting instead of towards more pantsing.

Everyone’s mileage varies but you only have one pool of energy for the whole you. So two tasks concurrently usually slows people down, exactly the same as a computer. If I have to imagine up on the fly what Count Dooku is going to say, even in principle, when he catches up, then I have to pause and figure that all out in the moment. Even if I can keep writing, it’s not going to be as fast as if I just typed up the speech I already imagined. So, something to think about.

Also Improv skills can also help. I am really good with rolling with it. One of my favorite tools is, “Yes…”. Can Anakin outrun Count Dooku? Yes… and… Count Dooku can cheat and cut through the wall to catch up. Can Anakin beat Count Dooku? Yes… but… he can’t do it with a lightsaber. So can he draw on the Force to do it? Yes… the dark side. It cuts off about half of my possible decisions and makes me think faster with the added advantage that it naturally presents itself as point - counterpoint which works well in written fiction. So that might help you out as well.

And finally… the really terrible classist item that I can’t make fit anywhere else and is unfortunately 100% true. You have to spend money for a high word count if you want one. Not necessarily a lot but some is necessary.

There is just no way around this, you only have a choice of how you spend the money. And the hope that you have already spent it in some way. The people who venerate Kerouac and his ream of butcher paper and typewriter or that all you need are a pencil and paper are fooling themselves and fucking lying to you. The world has moved on. Not from the typewriter but from all the other people whose name doesn’t get on their name on the cover who made up for that style of production. Those people have all lost their jobs and consequently, we have lost the ability to rely on them to make up for our own troubles.

The barrier to entry for just starting writing is nearly non existent. That far, and no farther, they are right.

The barrier to regular continuation of writing is fairly high because we’re still not evolved to do it. Story yes. Writing no. We are not designed for this activity. And you have to compensate for the fact that you are destroying your body if you want to keep it up.

If you want to write and you want to write a lot, your body is going to suffer. We do a very different exercise but it’s the same thing in principle as athletics as a career. Thankfully, we can cheat in some ways that athletes can’t. Relatively modest increases in pricing can result in significant gains. And relative increases help us on similar levels to all or nothing investments. Which isn’t true for athletes so much.

The more you invest, the better off you are AND that doesn’t mean you have to invest a yacht’s worth. It can be that one sentence sort of thought. Just one sentence, just one way of taking care of yourself, is good enough to start with. Just keep doing it as you can and build what you have to build.

Myself, I have Scrivener, Word, Textedit and several other writing programs that I don’t use anywhere near as much as those three. Luckily, no one has to have Scrivener, and you can write in anything you like as long as it works for you. Doesn’t matter as long as it makes you comfortable. Luckily you can also put off Word until you are done with a story and actually feel like submitting it.

But if you are going to submit in any professional way, you MUST have Word. Period. Not an option.

Luckily, Word also has the advantage that it is one of the best programs for holding large document files. It knows how to work with novel sized data in ways that pretty much everything else doesn’t. That’s a perk. Take those where you can get them. Until you need Word, find the program that you love and stick with that. If it’s free, great. If it’s not… consider it a work related expense. Because it is. You need to spend that money to make your work quality. Because discomfort in your access to the document will slow you down. Always. Think of it like glasses. You need glasses in order to read, if you need glasses. You need a program you like in order to write to keep it all clear in front of you. This isn’t an option this is a need. Treat it that way. If you have any issues with your current program, take time to see if another program works better. That will let you go faster.

You also need something for hands, wrists, arms, back, etc.

I have a Herman Miller Aeron Chair. It was a gift. They are good. I don’t know that they are so much better than lower priced competitors that it is worth paying more than 1K for. It’s a chair. A good chair. A 1K+ chair… that I don’t know. I suspect you can spend a quarter of that and get something perfectly adequate in exactly the same ways. But you do need something. If I’m sitting on my bed instead, about 3 hours into the writing sprint, the ache in my back starts taking precedence over the ache in my soul to write. So, you need to find a way to stop that. It’s especially good to stop it before you notice it. Because you will start to slow down before you are consciously aware of the discomfort. Absolute best is to make yourself comfortable years before it rises to the level of consciousness. Because all this stuff has cumulative effect. One day of aches is bad, but sitting the way that will give you aches once your body gets older has a much greater and more painful effect. It’s what the teachers have always said, sit up straight or it’s going to stick that way. To which my response was ‘Fuck you,’ and now it’s stuck that way.

I have a Kinesis Advantage keyboard. Not the Kinesis Advantage 2, the first one. Because that’s how long they last. I’ve heard people say that they have had their Maltrons, (which the Kinesis is the cheap American knockoff of) for multiple decades. I’ve had mine right around a decade. It was and remains the best $350 I have ever spent - or the best $3 a month I’ve spent, paid up front, for the last decade. The reason I physically CAN type as fast as I do is the Kinesis. Because most of the little aches and pains of typing are gone. I can type thousands of words a day, every day, for months, without pain. But once you get carpal, your days are numbered. Every tiny little strain eats away at your body and makes you slower. It starts fast and it accelerates. It takes me longer to redevelop symptoms than it does to cure them with my good keyboard but there’s no point really. Much better is to never develop any symptoms in the first place. Because I cannot recommend hunting and pecking while wearing a wrist brace while it all still hurts.

Thankfully, from what I hear, there is a great spectrum of effectiveness for keyboards. You can spend less and still be in good shape. But if there is one bit of money that is going to help your typing speed, it’s forking over for a good ergonomic keyboard. You just CAN go faster on an ergonomic keyboard once you adjust than you can on a regular keyboard. And it keeps that wrist brace off.

Also, not necessarily monetary, usually more about time, look into how you type. I mostly touch type. Mostly. But I do better if I also look. There are also alternate layouts. Colmak actually has studies showing that it is faster. I have a keyboard overlay for Colmak but I never use it because I can’t adjust to it so far. So, it’s always looking for what works for you. The Qwerty touch type experience may not actually be best for you.

OR there’s 10K an hour’s essential tip: buy a microphone and Dragon Naturally Speaking. Because almost no one can type 10k an hour, no matter how prepared you are, or how good your keyboard, but a lot of people can talk at 10k an hour with some aggressive practice. I’ve done that. My results are middling at best. I think in tandem with my typing enough that I feel like I pause too much to make it worth it. But your mileage may vary. I’ve also been able to just use what came with my Mac almost as well. So it’s definitely not zero money but you might be able to get away with money you’ve already spent. Or not, as it pleases you. I guess it more likely that most people will not reach 10k an hour. Most will not reach 10k a day. Just ever. And holding yourself to something you can’t do, just because someone else can do it, is an unfair comparison between the two of you and an unfair expectation of your body. Find your maximum and build around it.

But also, most people have no reason to hit 10k or whatever. We’re not writing business proposals for the meeting on monday. We’re mostly taking time out of our lives to create something that has not existed before we tried to cram it into existence onto a page. That takes time. Same way making the lightbulb took time. You can’t go as fast if you are doing more or are having to loop back around again and again. Or as is most common: both. Writers are doing too much work to go at their top speed in other endeavors.

For instance, I wrote the first 4k of this in noticeably less time than it takes me to do half that word count in a piece of fiction. Because I don’t have to make any of it up. I don’t have to imagine it. This is just what’s already in my head. So it’s easier. Faster. Because it is a different activity. I can’t judge the two by the same standard.

Because this is transcription, really. I’m just putting down what I already think, more or less. Trying to create at the same time is another activity which takes from the same pool of energy and also takes time. So I have to go slower. Inevitably. And then there’s the reason I love Nanowrimo. While we’re trying to do two tasks that slow us down, we try to add a third one in there, elegance. We want to make sure that it doesn’t just go but that it also looks good doing it. Leave that for editing and you will go faster. I am a deep fan of the double parenthesis. “She ((however you move the stick shift to make it go faster)) and sped off into the night.” Or “He ((did something cool with his hair)) and winked.” Because the double parenthesis never occurs in regular writing and I can just search for it, and anything I put in it is an editorial note that means I never have to get a word right or interupt my flow to look up a detail. And if it’s a first draft, especially a Nano, I don’t need the right word, I need just whatever I need to know to figure it out later. If I even do that much work. When I’m being good ;) my shifting the time costs away from the moment of writing, creating before and editing after, I can do more writing in a given moment.

And yeah, that’s about what I currently know about it. Though I am always learning if I can. It comes down to:

Making sure you are measuring what you want to measure. And, if you are not. reconsidering your measure and measurements.

Have in your head specifically WHY you are doing what you’re doing.

Take care of your body.

Try not to write at the expense of your body, even at select times.

Try different schedules. Keep track of which schedules produce the best results.

Adjust your ratio of Pantsing to Plotting, even in specific scenes and sprints.

Spend some money to take better care of your body and your writing than you can yourself.

Treat creation, transcription, and elegance as three separate tasks. If you have to do all three at once, it’s going to take you longer than any of them on their own.

AND: Remember to not beat yourself up over any of this because all of it is hard. Treating it as easy is another way to delay yourself by devoting some of your limited energy to conflict with your own psyche. What you do is what you do. When it is done, it is done. If you decide you want to do better or more, work out a plan for experimentation going forward instead of focusing on how the last time wasn’t good enough.

I hope something in here helps ups how you are feeling about your productivity. It’s all opinion. And everyone is different, as you say. Experiment and see what works.

[surveysonfleek]

543.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 31

2901. have you ever written a letter to: a friend: yes. a lover: yes. a celebrity: yes, but i never sent it. congress/house/reps: only to the mayor, it was a task in elementary lol. the president/leader of your country: no. 2902. Why are cigarette companies allowed to manufacture and sell cigarettes when they are so unhealthy and dangerous? it’s basically the same as why do mcdonalds sell food? people will always buy things that are bad for them. 2903. Do you chat with people in an elevator? only at work because i know them lol. 2904. What's your favorite Jack Nicholson movie? i don’t have one.

2905. Who should play the part of Superman? never been a fan, so idk. 2906. Do you like when your friends and your mate's friends hang out? we have the same group of friends. 2907. Doritos or Cheetos? cheetos!!!! 2910. Do you brush your teeth three times a day? no, more like 1-2 lol. 2911. Should I stop making questions with multiple parts and just count each actual question as a question? yes. 2912. What gives your ego a boost? genuine unexpected compliments. 2913. What knocks your ego down? genuine unexpected critiques. 2914. Live and let live or live and let die? either or. 2915. What do you think of Damien Hirst's art piece Mother and Child, which is half a cow in formaldedhyde? i don’t know it. 2916. Why is it that 70 percent of americans Do Not want to go to war with Iraq and yet we are going to war with Iraq anyway? eh, not knowledgeable on this subject. Is this democracy? - 2917. Imagine you have two choices of what life you can live: One: You are provided with meals, medicine, clothes and shelter. You are always with your family. You can lie in the sun and smoke, drink, play, cook, etc.. There will be certain rules you must follow such as no killing, no hurting others, no leaving the commune you were born in, no stealing, no tv, no newspapers and no books. OR Two: You are turned loose in the world with nothing. You start out cold and hungry. You may stay cold and hungry forever but you also have the opportunity to try and make a life for yourself. This will take a lot of hard work and there is no guarantee you will ever live comfortably. Which life do you choose? it depends how much knowledge and street smarts i have, but i’d probably choose the second option. WHY? because i know the world has so much to offer. if i worked hard enough i could basically get all the benefits of option one and even more. 2918. Why is there no 'Mr. America' pageant? isn’t there? there’s a mr. universe right? Should there be? i’m not that fussy. What qualities would YOU look for in a Mr. America if such a contest were to exist (like miss america he would have to be a role model)? same qualities as miss america i guess. 2919. If something offends you do you feel that it has no right to exist? in a perfect world, yes. but life doesn’t work that way. 2920. Why do advertisers seem to believe that guys will buy any product that a hot girl in a bikini is sitting next too? well, sex sells. 2921. What would you do if your mom had a fight with a male aquantance and you heard an answering machine message he left her cursing at her, calling her names and being very disrespectful? i’d ask her wtf is going on and take actions into my own hands. i can’t handle the idea of people being rude to my family. 2922. What do you represent? myself? lol. 2923. What message does ___ send when given as a birthday present?flowers: a kind gesture i guess. i’m not a flowers kinda gal though. slippers: a possible regift? i’d use it anyway. candles: everyone likes candles so it’s a universal gift i guess. diamond necklace: a grand gesture coming from someone with money obviously lol. gift certificate: didn’t know what to get you, but here’s a gift card! cash: unthoughtful but very useful. books: tbh i gift books a lot i think it’s good for kids and stuff. 2924. Have you ever completed a paint by number? yeah most likely. If yes of what?/ i had a lot of these books as a kid, so i don’t remember a particular one lol. 2925. How long has it been since you colored in a coloring book? i’ve done it sometime this year. 2926. What have you been caught doing? smoking haha. 2927. Does temptation make you do what you love? hmm not really? 2928. Do you have an gadgets in the house that you don't know how to use? What? the washing machine lol. it’s all a guessing game. 2929. Do you read the instructions to things or skip them? i skim through them. 2930. Will you ever reach your full potential? i sure hope so. 2931. Who is your biggest fan? my family and boyfriend. 2932. Who do you take care of? my family and boyfriend. Who takes care of you? same ^ 2933. Do you think that lawyers should only argue cases when they feel like the client is in the right? i guess so but money is the motivation i guess. representing someone they wouldn’t necessarily support could also help their arguing skills idk. If you were a lawyer would you argue cases when you felt like your client was completely wrong? not sure... 2934. Is it sexy in here or is it just me? it’s just you. 2935. You are giving out your phone number to a HOTTIE by writing it on a napkin. Do you write a little note or draw a picture too? If yes, what? i would never do this. 2936. Can you fold paper into anything (a hat, a swan, a boat, etc)? What? yes, i can make little 3d stars haha. 2937. How can a girl get a guy-she-is-dating's mom to like her better? just be yourself. mothers of sons are always harder to please, just like fathers of daughters. 2938. What is one theory about life or anything that you came up with that no one else has? nothing haha. 2939. Do you like answering questions about: (bold) your life? your taste? tv? music? art? politics? life? religion? issues? sex? loved ones? favorites? objects? math? philosophy? hypothetical situations? things that require lots of thought? 2940. The mortuary science department is having a bake sale. Does this strike you as funny? pretty random. 2941. What would you think of a new reality tv game show where real life criminals on death row competed in life threatening tasks for the prize of a reduced sentence? pretty sadistic if you ask me. Did you know that they are considering making this a show? no idea. Would you watch it? probably not. 2942. What was the last song you looked up the words to? curve. 2943. What Saturday morning cartoons do you like? the only one i remember watching was saturday disney. 2944. If anything's possible, then is it possible that nothing's possible? no. 2944. What does the T in T-Shirt really mean? the shape of a tee? idk. 2945. Would you alter your routine if there was a sniper in your area? haha i guess so. If so how? head straight to my door as fast as i can, draw the curtains to all windows. 2946. Is castration a good punishment for extreme or repeat sexual offenders? eh... why not. idk. 2947. If you are a girl have you ever experienced penis envy? nope. If you are a guy would you still want to live if you had to be castrated? 2948. Imagine you are teaching a class of sixth graders. A the start of the year you tell them, "If you come away with class and have learned only ONE THING, I hope that you learned....(finish the sentence) idk. 2949. If you were being interviewed for a job in a clothing store how would you sell yourself to the prospective employers? obviously wear clothes that they sell at the store, research the brand a little and keep up to date with their seasons, promos etc. 2950. How do you stop pop up ads? adblock. 2951. You are alone. You take a bus to the mall. The stop is right in the mall parking lot. You window-shop. You don't buy anything. You want to get back on the bus to go home when you realize you have lost all your money. You have no cell phone. All the payphones are jammed with gum. You can not get it out. How do you get the $1.50 you need to get on the bus and get home??? i’d go to the mall, visit each store and ask them if i can contact someone to pick me up. 2952. How long would it take you to organize your bedroom? probably an entire day. 2953. Make up a nickname for your bedroom: no. 2954. What comes after: I've got a love-a-lee bunch of coconuts (diddly dee) There they are a-standing in a row. <--- this Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head... 2955. Where ARE the wild things? in our dreams. 2956. You get a six cd changer for the car, only problem is that you know that once you put in six cd's you can NEVER take them out. Which 6 cd's do you put in? i wouldn’t bother. as long as my car had an aux in, i’m all good. 2957. Let's play Jeapordy. (Do-Do-Do-Do-Do-Do-Dooooo-) I'll give some answers..you give the questions. Ready? Begin. The answer is: Purple what colour is barney the dinosaur? Yellow what colour is a banana? Candle what’s something you can light up during a romantic dinner? Pepsi who’s coke’s biggest competitor? Peace what does a dove symbolize? Lisa what’s the name of the eldest simpsons daughter? Cotton what type of fabric are most t-shirts made out of? Flag haha idk. 42 idk. 2958. Pick a letter. d. List some great words starting with that letter: no. 2959. Is eight days a week enough to show you care? no haha. 2960. Have you told your parents you love them today? no. 2961. What is the difference between a number two pencil and any other kind of pencil? its tone, thickness idk. 2962. Have you ever cross-dressed? no. 2963. Are we living in a world without end? probably not. 2964. What do you think of that couple that was just on the news who kidnapped a 16 year old girl for a week and forced her to be their sex slave? that’s terrifying and disgusting. it sucks to think there must be so many more undocumented cases like this. 2965. Wanna watch a movie about a cheerleading competition? only if it’s bring it on. 2966. Are you singing in the rain? no. 2967. Should the sopranos actors have been allowed to march in the St Patrick's Day parade? idk? 2968. Is oral sex, anal sex or regular sex more intimate? regular. 2969. Is it time to switch to Decaf? i do drink decaf from time to time. 2970. Why is it that the truth hurts? because some people can’t handle it. 2971. How do you feel about: ticketmaster? laggy. scalpers? it depends. we bought tickets from a scalper at an ice hockey game once for a fair price and they were the best seats in the house. i don’t think i’d ever do that again though. 2972. What are you guilty of? being lazy. 2973. Have you ever done any of the following in order to catch a buzz or get high? sniffed glue: i did this as a kid coz i liked the smell, not to get high. sniffed magic markers: nope. ate paste: no. drank Nyquil, rRobitussen or any other Over-the-counter drug: no. 'huffed' (inhaled or sniffed) any kind of fabric softner, cooking spray or other household product: no. whip-its: no. 2974. What gives you inner stregnth? inspiration. 2975. ::eyes you suspiciously::Where have all the COOKIES gone? idk. i don’t eat cookies. 2976. What is a good gift for someone you don't like so that it SEEMS to be nice but really 'gets' them somehow? haha no thanks. 2977. If you don't like the service at a restaurant would you skip the tip? yes. Why or why not? because tipping in australia isn’t mandatory. 2978. Apples or peaches or pumpkin pie? apple. 2979. What Race/nationality was Jesus? israeli?  2980. What was one evening you'll never forget? every night of coachella. 2981. Name 13 ways to look at a blackbird: no. 2982. Trick or Treat? treat. 2983. If you had money to burn, what 'toy' would you spend your money on (think monopoly game with real money, luxory boat, a train layout that takes up a house, etc.)? a tesla. 2984. Are you having trouble with aol 8.0? lol this is so old. Or if you don't have aol...have you ever been to a podiatrist? nope. 2985. If you could write your own ten commandments, what would they be? 1 no thanks. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2986. When people lose weight, where does it go? it’s been burnt. 2987. Your mate/partner/wife or husband/longterm boy or girlfriend/etc. has SOMEHOW gotten his or her FAVORITE celebrity's attention. Your sweetie has always thought this celeb was so sexy and now the celeb kinda fancies your sweety as well(although the celeb is not interested enough to stick around for more than one night). Your sweetie wants to have a one night stand with the celeb. Knowing that this is your sweeties one and only chance to bang (or even hang out with) a celebrity (ESPECIALLY their FAVORITE celebrity) you would say: lmao. i’ve had this convo with my boyfriend before. i’d let them hang, whatever. 2988. Have you ever seen an Ed Wood film? no. if yes, what one(s) and what did you think? If no, aren't you curious to see a movie by the person known as the worst director of all time? 2989. What kind of bread do you like to eat (white, rye, potatoe, grain, whole wheat, etc)? white. 2990. Are you emotionaly articulate? yes. 2991. Does everything happen for a reason? i’d like to think so. 2992. Do you take a piece of those you have loved and carry it around forever? eh, not really. If yes, than aren't they still with you even when you are gone? 2993. Is it true that the child is worth ten of the parent? never heard of that. 2994. Can you think of a door that has closed in your life? yes. Can you think of a window that has opened? yes. 2995. What does this mean to you: 'Necessity is the mother of invention'? Do you believe that necessity is also the mother of: courage? survival skills? independence? idkkkk. 2996. What helps you to get over a Major heartache? time. and things to distract yourself with. 2997. Can you depend completely upon yourself? yes. have you ever tried? yes. 2998. How can you tell the difference between the end of one part of your life and the beautiful beginning of the next part? i can’t. 2999. Have you ever read an stories by Kate Chopin? no. If not, I suggest that you do. 3000. Do you often make the best discoveries when you really weren't looking for anything (or anyone)? yes.

[trentteti]

In Defense of Logic Games

First, to be clear: I will not be arguing that test takers who are blind or visually impaired — like Angelo Binno, whose settlement with the Law School Admissions Council may eventually force LSAC to change or remove the Logic Games section altogether — should have to take the Logic Games section on the LSAT. I am neither a medical expert nor a psychometrician, but after working with an untold number of students I feel confident saying that visual aids like set-ups and scenarios make these games more manageable for basically everyone. It seems manifestly unfair that test takers who cannot use such visual aids should be forced to take the section, and I applaud Binno’s fight to level the LSAT’s playing field. I’ve also worked with some test takers who could use such aids but could not, for instance, write their own set-ups or scenarios. I’m not going to argue that those test takers should have to take the Logic Games section, either; even with their granted accommodations, it seemed to me like they were put at a disadvantage on this section. In my (again, decidedly non-expert) opinion, it’s high time that a viable alternative to the Logic Games section was offered to these test takers.

But for everyone else? For everyone else, I think the Logic Games section performs a valuable function. For everyone else, I’m going to try to don Atticus Finch cosplay and muster a defense for Logic Games. I think it would be a shame if the Logic Games section was removed entirely from the test, or changed into some unrecognizable new kind of “Analytical Reasoning” section (which is, technically, the official name of the Logic Games section, as well as the broad skill set the section purportedly tests). If the Logic Games section is going to be changed at all — and as we discussed Wednesday, it’s not yet clear that it will change, and if it does change, those changes will most likely take place years down the line — the very last thing I want is for the new section to more closely resemble the other sections of the exam. Because then, the types of people the LSAT will reward might be narrowed, not broadened, in the long run.

Now, I could write encomia to the elegant puzzles these Logic Games sections present, or argue that the skills developed in Logic Games relate in surprising ways to the skills required in law school. I think these things are true, and maybe those arguments would be convincing to you. But I’m probably I’m too deep into the LSAT — you know, full disclosure, both my employer and I have an obvious financial interest in this test not changing too dramatically — to make these arguments compellingly. Instead, I think it might be useful to get an outsider’s perspective on this test.

In a two-episode podcast series on the LSAT, Malcom Gladwell argues that the LSAT is a test that lavishly rewards “hares” — those who are able to quickly process information without pausing to fully understand or interrogate said information — while putting the more careful and methodical tortoise-like test takers at a significant disadvantage. The LSAT may be correlated to first year law school success, Gladwell and Indiana Law prof William D. Henderson argue, but only because law schools also arbitrarily construct their examinations to reward the hares in the classroom. But the legal profession, according to Gladwell, requires both hares and tortoises. The profession requires both rapid processing of information and slow, deliberate, and digressive processing of information; or, to put it even more reductively, the job requires both fast and slow readers. By tilting the scales in favor of the hares, Gladwell argues that the LSAT is excluding some potentially valuable testudinates from the top law schools, creating an inefficiency in the legal profession. As a self-described tortoise, Gladwell takes considerable umbrage with this fact.*

*On this point, I must quibble with Gladwelll. Gladwell describes himself as a tortoise after taking an LSAT without much preparation. He claims that he finishes both the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections with time to spare, but he comes nowhere near finishing the Logic Games section in time. Because of this, he claims to be a tortoise. He later claims — in a contentious interview with actual test writers at LSAC that should be cathartic to anyone bashing their heads in as they try to make sense out of this test — that he finished the Reading Comprehension section with ten minutes to spare. In my experience, that would put Gladwell on the extreme leporine end of the spectrum. As far as I can tell, most test takers are at first simply unable to finish a Reading Comprehension section in the thirty-five minutes provided. I would argue that Gladwell didn’t finish the Logic Games section simply because he had never tried to do a logic game before — a fate that befalls nearly every first-timer. But I do agree with Gladwell’s general point: this test, especially the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections, is a test for the hares.

So, what does Gladwell’s thesis have to do with the Logic Games section, specifically? The LSAT’s preference for hares is plainly evident in the other two sections of the exam — the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections. These two sections require a lot of reading — each section will generally have between 4000 and 5000 words. An average adult’s reading speed is somewhere between 200 and 250 words per minute. To just read one of these sections — straight through, once — could take the average adult as many as twenty-five minutes of the allotted thirty-five minutes. Given that these sections also require time to, you know, ponder the answers to the questions — to say nothing of the fact that these sections are often written in a deliberately difficult-to-understand way that can really hamper that average WPM and force people to re-read large swaths of the section — the average adult is working on a razor’s edge, time-wise. These sections naturally benefit the fleet-footed hare, who is racing through the word count much more quickly than the more deliberate tortoises. And given that Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension typically account for 78 out of the 101 questions on the exam, the hare has quite the long-limbed leg up on the competition.

We’ve discussed many times before strategies the more deliberate readers among us can utilize to make the most of these sections; but the LSAT itself has a balancing mechanism for the tortoises: the (you guessed it) Logic Games section. With much less to read, the Logic Games section minimizes the advantage the hare possesses on other sections. This section is less about the rapid processing of information — the hare’s game — and more about the careful and methodical consideration of how various pieces of information interact — the tortoise’s game. In fact, the Logic Games section tends to punish those who move too quickly through the questions without the proper set of deductions and scenarios, and reward those who took the time to figure things out before reaching the questions. So the Logic Games section is — all else being equal — a place in the test in which the tortoises can gain ground on the hares.

If LSAC is indeed removing logic games from the exam and replacing it with some other form of analytical reasoning — one that is less reliant on the type of visual aids that make the current section more manageable — I imagine we’ll see more words start to appear in the Analytical Reasoning section. And as the word count of this section goes up, the more the hares may be privileged. And given that the current version exam appears to privilege the hares, such changes to the section may exacerbate this phenomenon.

It bears repeating at this point that we have no idea if or when changes to the Logic Games section will occur. The statements that have been released from Angelo Binno’s attorney and from LSAC offer less clarity on the matter than one would hope. The key phrase from the press release the law firm representing Binno trades on the ambiguity of the word “enable”: “Consistent with the parties’ agreement, LSAC will complete this work within the next four years, which will enable all prospective law school students to take an exam administered by LSAC that does not have the current AR section but continues to assess analytical reasoning abilities” (emphasis mine). Does that mean there will be some mechanism that will let test takers opt in to a sans-Logic-Games version of the test, enabling them to do the exam without that section? Or will the test itself be changed for everyone, enabling all test takers to take the exam without Logic Games? It says “all prospective law students,” which would suggest that it’s changing for everyone. But current testing accommodations are technically available to “all prospective law students” as well, they just have prove to LSAC that they qualify for such accommodations. An email LSAC sent out suggests they promised only research alternative ways to test analytical reasoning, and never states that logic games will definitely be removed from the test.

Hopefully there’s a solution that can satisfy — if such a word can be used in the context of the LSAT — all parties and make the test a fair assessment of all future law students. But, to throw out the Logic Games section entirely, for all test takers seems to me to be, ahem, a hairy decision.

Whether or not the LG section goes away entirely, LSAC will no doubt come up with something equally as trying to replace it—and best believe Blueprint will crack it. But in the meantime, (and by “meantime” we mean “the next for four years”) Logic Games aren’t going anywhere. Our instructors have mastered the art of the games and are ready to teach you, be it in class or during private tutoring. If you need help deciding what works best for you, schedule a free LSAT consultation with an Academic Manager. 

In Defense of Logic Games was originally published on Blueprint LSAT Blog