#which is probably how i managed to write 120k of it in one month

[erinwantstowrite]

Aaaah, Erin!! Your tiktok got me excited about drawing again, the first thing I drew in at least 8 months was a small drawing of Peter with his jacket because I thought it was insanely cool, and now your tumblr is getting me excited about writing again, so thanks for getting me back to my hobbies i guess lol

I struggle with writing long stories (i can't remember when I last wrote something longer than 3k,,,) but honestly you inspire me to keep trying! When I first found LoF, you were only 4 chapters in but already 120k words, all that in barely a month worth of update, which was both impressive and terrifying, but now i hope one day I'll also be so passionate about a fic i manage to write 120k words in a month!

Aaahhhh!!! That's amazing!!! It's weird to think that my own art can inspire people, cause it feels like just yesterday I was the one following my fav artists and trying to be more like them? This makes me really happy to see :))

Yyyyyeahhh I'm a little bit insane. When it comes to word count, I used to really struggle to get over 500 words, which is hard to imagine now. I think it was because I had a hard time envisioning it in my head, and I also didn't understand some fundamentals of writing. The more I practiced, the easier it was to get out more words.

That, and I figured out my average writing time. I set up a "40 minute" timer 3 times, and then I did some math to see how much I wrote in those periods. The 1st 40 minutes I'd write 700 words(ish), the 2nd period I wrote 900, and the 3rd one was 1000.

So now I do a writing warm up to get my brain going (like doing art warmups or stretches before you run), then I write for LoF/whatever I'm working on that day doing a "write for 40, break for 10-20 (depends on the day), write for 40"

I set up a word count goal like "I'd like to get to 10,000 words today." I look and see that the day before, I had written to 6,000. That means I'd have to write 4,000 words. If my average time is 1,000 per 40 minutes and I take plenty of breaks, I could probably do it within a couple hours. But at the end of the day, I listen more to my brain and sometimes it's a 2,000 word day or even a 400 word. Sometimes, nothing at all. I find that listening to the time is more important than listening to my word count goal itself.

Keep in mind that this is just my average time. Always plan around for what works for you. At the end of the day, it's more important that you're having fun while you write!

[tenspontaneite]

Beyond the Moon Gardens - Extracts (1)

For lack of anything else to post today, I’m releasing some extracts from one of my non-public fanfictions – Beyond the Moon Gardens – as my participation in the @raayllum valentine’s event.

Information on and context of the story itself is below the cut. The 10k of snippets are also below the cut.

(General overview of the content of the snippets: established rayllum, fluff, domesticity, horn care, silliness, cuddling.)

-

Story information:

‘Beyond the Moon Gardens’ is a successor to ‘In the Moon Gardens’. The former was written in a month in late 2020, and has been worked on sporadically since. The latter was written in approximately three weeks between December 2019 and January 2020. Both are currently incomplete. I do not intend to publish either to the public in full, but may well post further extracts in time.

‘In the Moon Gardens’ is a story about Callum and Rayla getting married; however, the circumstances are deeply unpleasant and the experience is traumatic. ‘Beyond the Moon Gardens’ is considerably longer, and is focused on trauma recovery, hurt/comfort, relationship development, and fluff. The story is structured around a plotline involving rescue and disaster relief efforts in a Sunfire elf city called Lux Marea.

All snippets presented below take place on day 7 of the story’s timeline. They have been carefully curated for fluffiness for the purposes of Valentine’s day, and do not contain any of the hurt/comfort or post-traumatic scenes prevalent in the story at large. Some extracts have been edited to slot together and minimise empty space.

I may potentially post further snippets throughout the week if people are interested.

-

The extracts:

(Snippet 1: domesticity, fluff, city descriptions. Context: Callum and Rayla are staying in fancy diplomatic quarters in the city, where they arrived somewhat earlier in the day.)

Rayla turned away from her reflection and went for the door.

She glanced around, and found Callum in his own robe sat at the sofa in front of the window. Surprisingly, he wasn’t drawing. He was just staring out across the city, looking pensive.

“Not drawing?” She asked, and he startled, looking up at her in surprise.

He blinked. “Oh. I didn’t hear you.” He said sheepishly as she approached.

She snorted, and moved around the sofa’s edge to plant herself down beside him. “So I noticed.”

Callum smiled at her, looking for all the world like the best thing that had happened to him today was her sitting down next to him, eyes settling on her like he’d be perfectly happy to do nothing but look at her forever. She withstood that expression for only a single second before she had to lean in and kiss him. He made a pleased sound, reaching out to rest a hand on her back, fingers stroking reflexively over the thick wool of the robe. “You smell nice.” He said happily, turning his face sideways to tuck his nose behind her ear. He was undoubtedly getting a face full of wet hair that way, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Fruity, sort of.”

“They’ve got a lot of soaps in there.” She said, and her voice came out more soft than amused. Stars, but she loved him. “It’s nice. There’s all these soaps, and towels, and I think bath oils too.”

“You think?” He inquired, curious, still with his face in her neck. He pressed a kiss to her damp skin.

“Didn’t check them out properly or anything, but there was a drawer full of some fancy stuff. Bottles and the like. Looked like it might be bath oils.”

With a final kiss to the edge of her jaw, he pulled back to resume staring at her contentedly. “We’ll have to have a look later.” He said, and paused to give her an appreciative once-over. “That dressing gown looks nice on you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You say that about literally everything I wear.”

“That’s because you look good in everything.” He claimed staunchly, and honestly, he wasn’t looking half-bad in his dressing-gown either. The colour was familiar on him, but the casual comfortableness of it was weirdly pleasing to look at. Made him look cosy and cuddlable.

Rayla shook her head, then leaned in to kiss briefly along his jaw. It prickled a little. “You might want to see if they’ve got razors in there.” She said dryly. “You’re starting to prickle.”

He blinked, startled, and raised a hand to his jaw, feeling along it. Mercifully, he grew facial hair extremely slowly, making it less of an issue on the move, but it did still grow. He’d last made an attempt at shaving some two weeks ago, and that had sufficed up to now. “Elves don’t grow beards, though.” He said, after a moment. “I’d probably better just stick with mine.”

Once or twice, they’d made an attempt at shaving his bristles with Rayla’s swords, which had been kind of nerve-wracking, and plenty memorable. For lack of proper razors to be found in Xadia, they’d eventually ended up getting him a small knife that he claimed was alike enough to a ‘straight razor’ to work, though it periodically needed to be sharpened to an absurd degree. It was all very strange to her, even after a good half year of living with him. “Maybe.” She agreed at last, and gave him a sniff. Fresh from bathing, his state of uncleanliness was far more obvious to her nose than it had been before. “You should be getting washed up first though. You’ll make your dressing gown stink.”

He snickered. “Bet I reek to you now that you’re clean.”

“Just a tad.” She prodded him in the side until he started moving. “Off with you. Wash up.”

Evading her hands, he leaned in and planted a final kiss on her forehead before leaving, disappearing into the bathroom while she shook her head at him. She heard the water start up quite soon after, and eventually ended up staring out of the window like he had.

The city was still bright, both with sunlight and with the ongoing glory of the temple’s radiance. Settling into a sort of quiet lassitude, she watched it with eyes half-lidded, following the patterns of steaming light as though the smoke from a fire.

It was a striking city. Unlike Lux Aurea, which was so much gold it hurt to look at, Lux Marea was a thing of contrasts. The buildings were all built from the same dark stone as the bathroom had been done in, a grey that cast deep black shadows behind the gaze of the sun. And yet – every building was lined with gold. Accents on the corners, or moulding between the bricks, or running in thick channels up the walls…it gleamed, rich and distinct against the stone. Some of the largest, richest buildings had elaborate golden murals on their sides, luridly metallic and shining in the sun. All of that gold was glowing with magic now.

Rayla wasn’t much for aesthetics. But even she could appreciate the beauty in that view. She watched it for a while longer, lulled a little by the twisting patterns of glowing haze rising from the buildings, then stood and went to find something to do.

 -

 (Snippet 2: Calum and Rayla investigate the supplies their fancy bathroom is stocked with, discover bath bombs and are confused, Rayla points out various horn-care items, and Callum makes her very flustered by offering to use said items)

  After that, they went through and classified each of the mysterious drawer goodies a little faster. They found more varieties of lotion, some weird nearly liquid soaps, and a pot of some mysterious mini chalky spheres whose purpose neither of them managed to guess until Callum’s hair dripped on one and it sizzled. “Is it supposed to go in water?” Rayla wondered, befuddled.

“No idea. Try it.” He suggested, and they took the rinsing pot, filled it with water, and dropped the thing in. It fizzed and foamed magnificently, releasing pleasant odours and bits of dried flower as it dissolved, and both of them stared at it with fascinated consternation.

“Is that for baths?” She asked him, befuddled. “What’s the point?”

“…Fun, maybe?” He offered, reaching out to swirl a finger in the foam. “It looked pretty cool, after all. Maybe you’re supposed to throw them in the bath for the fun of it?”

“Fun foam and nice smells?” With a huff, she put that pot aside as something to maybe experiment with if she felt like it. “Well, maybe.” She snorted, and in the last unexplored corner, found something highly important. “Oh thank god.” She said, in that way she’d absolutely picked up from Callum, and he looked over with interest.

“What did you find?”

She brandished it triumphantly. “Toothbrushes.”

“Oh thank god.” He echoed instantly, peering over. “My teeth feel disgusting.”

“You’re not the only one.” She withdrew both toothbrushes from the drawer and set them aside. “Well, at least we know what everything in there is now. Mystery solved.” She went to close it, but was stopped with a hand on her wrist.

“Wait, but what about those?” he asked, indicating the small collection of things she’d already set to one side of the drawer with the horn-scrub.

“Oh.” She’d forgotten he wouldn’t know those on sight. “Right. Well, this thing here-“ She plucked up a narrow, vaguely curved implement with a soft-smooth coating. “-is a horn buffer. For making horns smoother once you’ve already scrubbed all the rough bits out with a proper scrub.” She planted it in his hands, since he seemed fascinated by it, and withdrew a sort of soft spongey thing with a texture like felt. “Horn polisher. Same thing, kind of.” He took that as well, and she pulled out a pot of thick paste that turned out to be exactly what she thought it was when she uncapped it. This one had obviously attempted to smell as pleasant as possible, but it still had a very strong and distinctive edge to it. She wrinkled her nose. “Horn polish.” She said, closing it up again. “To be applied and used with the polisher. And lastly-“ She picked up one of the remaining bottles, “horn oil.”

He looked weirdly interested. “What’s the oil for?” He asked, leaning in. “I mean, I guess the rest of it’s to make your horns smooth and shiny, right? So what about this?”

“It’s kind of fancy and unnecessary, and expensive, so not everyone uses it, but usually you put it on after scrubbing or polishing.” She explained, withdrawing the bottles one at a time. “They smell nice, which is good after the polish, and letting it sink into the horns is supposed to make them healthier and glossier-looking. You can technically put it on multiple times a day if you’re really into your horn presentation, but pretty much no one bothers.”

“Because it’s expensive?” Callum guessed, and she made a so-so noise.

“Well, there’s that.” She said dryly. “But it’s just kind of a lot of hassle, you know? If you’re already washing and doing your hair and keeping your horns not-gross, it’s just extra fuss you don’t really need.” She shook her head. “It’s less effort than full on polishing, I suppose, but I’ve never been bothered about polishing my horns except on special occasions anyway. It’s a lot of work.”

“Huh.” He said, in a sort of weird tone of voice. Rayla turned to him, and found his expression similarly strange. Thoughtful, interested, and a little bit furtive.

She eyed him suspiciously, picked up an armful of the supplies they’d set aside, and stood up with them. “What’s that look for?” She asked archly, setting things onto the broad side of the bath. He followed her lead, picking up the rest of it and standing, looking a little shifty.

“What’s what look for?” he asked innocently, putting it all out in neat rows.

“I know that face.” She told him, unimpressed. “I’ve told you so many times I know that face. That’s your dumb idea face. So out with it.”

For a moment, Callum looked sheepish. Then he cleared his throat, and looked at her, and she reflexively fell silent. “I…was wondering if you’d let me do your horns.” He said at last, and she made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.

“What?”

  -

 (Snippet 3: tail end of the horn-care discussion, domesticity, Rayla bemused by the concept of room service, Callum pestering Rayla for details on how horn care works, and discussion of one of Rayla’s newer hobbies)

 “That’ll be nice, then.” He said, sounding very at peace with the idea. “I can wash and comb out your hair, maybe. Give you some hornrubs.”

Her cheeks heated. “Callum.” She complained. “That’s so sappy.”

He pressed his face close alongside hers, and she could feel his smile against her cheek. “Treat you real good.” He said, very contentedly. “I’m gonna spoil you rotten.”

Rayla managed a strangled, deeply embarrassed sound in the back of her throat. A little indignant, she protested “You can’t just say things like that.”

“I can, and I did.” Callum grinned against her skin, and leaned in further to kiss her near the corner of her lips. “Love you.” He lifted a hand from around her waist, fingers settling at her jaw with a gentle suggestion of movement. Feeling near to bursting with mortification and adoration, she grumbled wordlessly but followed his hand, allowing him to lead her face around so he could kiss her on the mouth.

“You,” she muttered, into his lips, “need to get dressed.”

He paused, then huffed a surprised breath over her skin. “That’s right, I’m still just wearing a towel.” He remembered, ruefully. “At least I’m drier now.”

“It’s been ages, of course you’re drier.” Rayla shook her head at him, then nudged at his arms until he let her go, extricating herself from his embrace. She had difficulty looking him in the eye when she turned, after all of that. “…Get dressed.” She repeated, softer, and shoved the dressing gown he’d hung nearby into his arms. She leaned in, kissed him once on the lips, and then turned away to leave the bathroom.

She settled on the sofa, ensconcing herself beneath the soft blanket she’d found, and stared out at the city while her heart recovered. Sometimes, she loved Callum enough that it was a little hard to cope with, like she was afraid that the emotion in her would rupture if it built too far. He was used to her retreating a little at times like that, just long enough to breathe and feel slightly less overwhelmed.

He took long enough in the bathroom that, eventually, she guessed that he was shaving. That disappointed her, a little. She liked to watch him when he shaved. It was always so strange to her, something quintessentially human; a bizarre banal grooming ritual that reminded her again and again that he wasn’t an elf, he really was a whole different kind of being to her, and his humanity was made of so many little things. He never failed to chuckle at her for how she watched him shaving, but had grown very used to her keeping him company for it.

She sighed, and looked out on the city under the sun, and regained her emotional footing. By the time he emerged, clad once again in the dark red dressing gown, she had her equilibrium back and looked up gladly at his return.

“Where’d this blanket come from?” He asked, bemused, coming over to join her. She held one end up so he could sit down under it with her.

“One of the drawers. There’s a bunch of stuff in here.” She informed, and once he was seated she didn’t waste any time in reaching out to run her fingers along his still-damp jaw. It was so smooth. She murmured, pleased, cupping his face between both hands.

He coloured a little, looking across at her with soft eyes. “You’re so weird.” He told her, sounding utterly besotted, and she leaned in to kiss him lightly along that jawline.

“Love you.” Rayla said contentedly, and drew back just enough to nestle firmly against his side. He wove an arm around her back and turned his head to kiss her at the brow.

“Love you too.”

After a good bit of cuddling and watching the city together, Callum admitted to wanting a drink and Rayla to not knowing whether their waterskins were still filled. They were, as it happened, but-

“You know, if you wanted fresher water, or moonberry juice, we could just ask for it.” He pointed out. “All we’d have to do is open the door and ring a bell and someone would come up, and we’d ask for a drink, and they’d have it up for us just like that.”

She shook her head, utterly exasperated at the idea. “That’s so weird.” She said, and then actually considered it. “…Let’s do it.”

He laughed, and obligingly got up and went to the receiving room to fetch the bell. He mostly-closed the intervening door for her sake, so that when a servant responded to the ring she didn’t feel particularly on edge about it. They couldn’t see her. It was fine.

After a short conversation with the servant, they were off, and Callum shut the outer door before returning. “Five minutes.” He said, and true to his words, there was a knock at the door not too much later. He went to answer it and brought back an actual platter, balancing an entire jug of moonberry juice, an entire jug of water, and two glasses.

“Did you ask for a whole jug?” She asked, disbelievingly, as he set it down on the low table ahead of the sofa. “Or the water?”

“Nope. Actually, they passed along their apologies for not leaving a jug of water in here in the first place. Apparently that’s their usual thing to do, but since they were hurrying for us it got forgot.” He poured her a glass of juice, and then some for himself, and sat back.

She snorted. “What a terrible standard of service.” She said, mockingly. “I mean really, forgetting to leave us wee little glasses and chilled water, what is this place coming to?”

He snickered at an inopportune moment, very nearly making a mess with the glass he’d been in the process of drinking from. “Don’t say that around Vervain, I think she’d actually explode.”

“Right there on the spot.” Rayla agreed. “It’d make a terrible mess.”

They traded a few light-hearted quips on the subject of the accommodations while they had a drink, then they set it all aside for later. Callum, who was clearly angling for it, managed to get her onto the topic of how exactly a proper horn care-and-polish was supposed to go, and she spent pretty much the entirety of that torn between being increasingly embarrassed and increasingly amused. He was so interested, like she was sharing arcane magical knowledge instead of stupid basic grooming tips.

“I mean, I’ve seen you using your horn-scrub on the road sometimes, to file away rough or flaky bits, right?” He was saying, while she leaned over to lay against his chest. He reflexively put an arm around her even while gesturing with the other one. “You kind of go…with the sort of curvy lines in your horns? Like one at a time?”

“They’re called ridges, Callum.” She informed him, incredibly amused. “And yes. You need to file along them all one by one, and be careful to keep the shape too. If you do it badly you’ll flatten out the tops of the ridges and it looks really stupid.”

He stared down at her horns with fascination, and lowered his gesturing hand to trace the shape of – she presumed – one of her horn-ridges in detail. She made a flustered sort of murmur at him, but he seemed too busy to notice. “Right, so, hm.” He almost seemed to be speaking to himself. “Yeah, if you just file it from the top it’d all flatten out. So you have to sort of work around each one? Following the curve?”

“That’s why Moonshadow horn-scrubs are so much more complicated.” She informed him. “We need the wee fiddly parts to get between all the ridges and file it right without losing the shapes. Takes forever. Our horns are more of a pain than almost any other kind of elf’s.” She grinned up at him. “Unlucky for you.”

“Are you kidding?” He asked, incredulously. “This is great. Means I get so much longer to spend on you. You never let me spoil you enough.”

She processed that, and groaned, burrowing her face into the wool gown over his chest. “You’ll change your tune soon enough.” She muttered, but wasn’t entirely convinced. Callum really was an incredible sap when it came to doing things for her. “It takes so stupidly long.”

“I’m counting on it.” He declared happily, and she huffed.

“You’re ridiculous.” She informed him, and after nearly ten more minutes of him trying to wrangle intricately detailed horn-polishing knowledge out of her, just rolled her eyes and said with exasperation “It’s like polishing armour, Callum. Or boots. You just buff it up, then go at it with polish on the polisher for ages. There’s not much of a trick to it.” She paused, but did add “Gets kind of messy though. The filing stage puts horn dust and bits everywhere, and once you start polishing you get like…murky polish liquid all over your hands. Better put a towel down.”

Eventually, after enough sitting around that the cuddling alone wasn’t engrossing enough anymore, Callum did go and get his sketchbook and immediately sat down to begin producing what Rayla was certain would be the first of many, many drawings of the city. He drew it as seen from above first, and Rayla settled in to watch with half-lidded eyes.

She’d grown very used to spending time watching Callum draw. In large part, this was because he tended to spend a lot of his free time doing it, and she was often around when that happened. It was quite satisfying, to sit there and observe as the shapes on the page took form. But even so…

There was only so much of watching him draw that she could do before she started getting bored. Throughout their journeying, it had rarely got to that point. What with the time constraints of camp-craft and travelling, there’d been little enough spare time that Rayla hadn’t felt compelled to find anything else to do. Now, though, she found with surprise that her fingers were itching for her knives.

“Huh.” She said to herself, with interest, and Callum turned his head to peer at her.

“Hm?”

“My knives.” She said, and then realised this wasn’t especially helpful. “My carving knives. Just realised I’m hankering for them a bit. That’s never really happened before.”

“Oh.” He thought, then looked pleased. “Looks like you’re starting to make a habit of it after all. That’s really nice.”

“Less nice when I don’t actually have the knives.” She snorted, and considered her empty hands.

Rayla, on the whole, tended towards active ways of passing the time. She liked to train, and she liked to exercise, and if Callum was free she always liked to go flying with him. But inevitably, after half a year spent together, there had been plenty of afternoons and evenings in their off-time when she was too tired to go out for training, or Callum was spending time drawing and she wanted to be around him, and she ended up with nothing to do.

He’d been the one to gently pester her into taking up some sort of hobby. At first she’d just grumpily sharpened her weapons over and over again, but with enough work he’d got her to try other things. He’d suggested either knitting or whittling, on the basis that both involved the use of stabby implements, and she was a fan of those. Knitting she hadn’t taken to. But whittling…

At first, she’d just done it because he’d prodded her into it, and she didn’t hate it, and there was nothing better to do, so she might as well. But now, considering her empty hands with consternation, Rayla realised for the first time that she actually kind of wanted to be doing it. When had that happened?

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Pick up some things in the city tomorrow, maybe.” He suggested, and turned back to his drawing.

“Bit of a waste, when I’ve got a plenty good enough set of knives at home.”

“You don’t need to get a full set. But it could be nice to have a couple of the main ones around, for travelling with.” He shrugged. “You can practice on any random bits of wood, right? So it’s mainly the knives you need.”

She snorted. She’d learned enough to know that the type of wood one chose was, in fact, very important. But…yeah, for messing around like she did, random wood was usually fine. If splintery. “Maybe.” She said in the end, already thinking of the knife she used most. “It’s not a bad idea. Clothes and supplies are the priority, though. So maybe if there’s anything left after that.”

“We’ll need cold-weather gear, if we’re going through the Shiverthorns in winter.” He remarked, and huddled into the blanket like the mere thought was making him cold. “Thick cloaks and stuff.”

“Which are expensive.” She reminded. “And also heavy. It’ll slow you down.”

He shrugged. “I figure that’s okay. We won’t be in a huge hurry to get back, after all.”

  -

 (Snippet 4: Callum and Rayla discuss dinner options, watch the sunset, and investigate the light fixtures. Context: in this story, I worldbuild Sunfire elves as some weird blend of French and Roman.)

  He hummed by way of agreement, and pulled her tighter in to his side. “For now, let’s try not to worry about that.” He said, determinedly. “Today our job is to relax and rest up, and that’s it.”

Rayla sighed, and shifted around to lay part-way across his front, face half into the red wool at his chest. “I can probably do that.”

They cuddled for what actually didn’t end up being that long, because there was a knock at the door. It echoed sharply through the polished wood, even with the intervening door closed. Rayla, who’d heard no footsteps of any kind due to the ostensible soundproofing, stiffened immediately.

Callum blinked, then carefully extricated himself from her. “I’ll go get it.” He said, and she didn’t object. She didn’t relish the thought of being seen by strangers when she was in her bathrobe. That was private.

He unlocked and opened the receiving room door, closed it behind him, and then unlocked and opened the outer door. There was actually a decent degree of sound loss between there and Rayla’s current spot, so she couldn’t hear what was being said beyond stray words. After a while, Callum said something in a distinctly goodbye-ish sort of voice and the encounter ended. He considerately locked both doors for her on his way in.

Over his arm, he was holding a neat stack of clothing and armour. “Already?” She asked, startled, and watched as he set it all down on the bed.

“Already.” He agreed, seemingly pleased. “I guess their drying spells really are useful. Look, they’ve cleaned your armour. And our boots.”

Rayla lifted herself from beneath the blanket to go over and look. All of their things looked fresh and new, bereft of the dull beige hues imbued by travel and sleeping in dust and dirt. It half looked like they’d re-dyed some of it, honestly, to get the clean colours back. She lifted Callum’s scarf from the pile, sniffed it, and hummed at it.

“Laundry smell?” He asked, amused, and she shrugged.

“Unsurprisingly.” She considered putting it on him, but in the end decided she was enjoying the look of him in the bathrobe, all cosy and comfy-looking. “What else were you talking about?”

“Hm?”

“With the servant.”

“Oh.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Dinner stuff. He wanted to tell me the options they’ve got, so we can order ahead of time.”

Rayla made a thoughtful noise, and drew him by the wrist back over to the sofa again. “And?”

“You want me to list it all off?” She nodded, and obligingly he went off listing the various items on the menu, many of which were evidently examples of bizarre Sunfire ideas about cooking. Snails, really? Frog legs? Her nose wrinkled at that one, and Callum’s lips quirked. “They serve glow toad too.” He admitted ruefully. “I mean, I guess I heard they were delicious, but it’s one thing to hear it and another thing to have it on the menu, you know?”

She made a face. “Ez would never forgive us.”

“Bait would never forgive us.” He agreed, snickering.

“And besides – ew.” Rayla shook her head, and waved her hand. “What else?”

He went through all of the selections, drinks and desserts included, and then finished up by saying “He left a sort of booklet thing behind with it all written down, if you want to look over it.”

She stared at him with exasperation. “Callum. You really just stood there and said it all when you could have just handed me the bloody menu?”

“Well, you did ask.” He said, like this was reasonable, and she sighed fondly at him.

“You dumb prince.” She told him, affectionate, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek before going to look for the menu.

By this point, it was around four in the afternoon, and the sun seemed to be making a very definite bid for descent. She retrieved the Booklet of Food Options and retreated to the sofa with it, where Callum had already planted himself to watch the city. There was a hint of yellow-green in the bright clear sky, and the angle of light from the sinking sun was casting some particularly dramatic shadows. The temple was still gleaming with light off to the side, and the golden circuitry through the city still exhaling. She stared at it for a moment, certain that tonight’s sunset really was going to be spectacular, and then opened the menu to start looking.

It had been long enough since lunch that the sight of so many food options was plenty enough to make her start considering the idea of an early dinner. In an hour or two, maybe. Some of it was too weird or too exotic to consider, but there was a lot that wasn’t.

She passed the booklet over when she was done making selections, but Callum seemed too occupied with the burgeoning sunset to want to look at it. She snorted, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and then leaned comfortably into his side to watch the city.

The sun fell over a period of around half an hour, sinking lower and lower, until the sky filled with such intense yellows and deep reds that it seemed almost to have caught fire. The grey slate of the city turned bloody red in the light, every golden trace lit up and shining in the growing dark. The few wispy clouds left in the sky were shining too, until the sun began to pass beneath the lip of the sea on the horizon, and the blue-green edges of the dusk glittered with stars.

“That,” He said, very softly, when dusk was ebbing into twilight, “was a really incredible view.”

Rayla had little artistry in her heart, but she’d appreciated that sunset. She knew that by contrast it must have touched Callum deeply. She looked at him, taking in his expression, finding it every bit as amazed and awed and happy as she could have hoped for. Her heart fluttered, happy for that he was happy, and in the warmth of that contentment she reached over to cup his cheek with her hand.

He looked at her, leaning into the hand, and offered her a small and very soft smile. Her thumb smoothed over his cheek as he lifted his hand to settle atop hers. Wordless, she leaned in to kiss him, warm and brief, and lingered there close by his face for a long while after their lips parted. He sighed very quietly, entirely happy and entirely at ease. It was peaceful in a way she’d dearly missed.

Feeling utterly suffused with warmth, Rayla nestled in beside him, fingers hooking lightly in the soft red wool of his robe. His arm came around her, and both of them sighed, and both of them settled, and it was quiet.

Neither of them felt the inclination to move or speak for quite a while. The sky was dark and full of stars by the time she shifted, and the city’s golden circuitry shining boldly through the shadow. The Moon, ascendant in the sky, was very nearly full.

“Might not be so bad after all, staying here a while.” She said, finally, and pressed her lips to his neck. “Comfy, nice bathroom, nice views…and the food options look kind of incredible, honestly.”

He chuckled, soft and fond. “Bit of a weird honeymoon.” He murmured into her hair. “But I’ll take it.”

She huffed. “Honeymoon.” She repeated, shaking her head.

Well. She supposed if they’d had to go through that whole forced marriage ordeal, they did at least deserve to get a nice holiday out of it. Even if most of that holiday was going to be spent working, the not-working parts of the day looked to be a lot fancier and more luxurious than they were back home.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Was her conclusion, in the end. “Did you decide what you’ll be eating?”

“Pretty much.” He kissed her brow. “You ready to order? It’s still kind of early.”

“Eh. It’ll do.” She shrugged, and listed off her selections. He kissed her again, then gently untangled himself from her limbs to go off and summon a servant.

The room had gone darker while the sun set, and the soft yellow glow of the fireless light fixtures along the walls had grown more prominent. Now a little curious, Rayla took the opportunity to investigate one, and on closer inspection found it to be some sort of…weird bioluminescent plant. Or maybe animal? It had long rigid tube-like structures that had plainly been cultivated into ornamental shapes, that looked almost like some sort of stone, though it had obviously been painted or dyed the usual deep red. It exuded a number of softly glowing yellow-orange tendrils from the openings at the end of the tubes, short and blunt but weirdly pretty.

She reached out cautiously to touch one, and at once the tendrils retracted inside the tube, the light dimming. Startled, she drew back to watch it, but the tendrils didn’t start to tentatively reappear again for another minute, during which she heard the light murmurs of Callum conversing with whatever servant he’d summoned.

When Moonshadow elves wanted light after dark, they just used enchantments, or glowstone, like normal people. Fancy Sunfire elves, however, apparently favoured plants. Or animals. She honestly wasn’t sure which this one was. Some sort of land-coral?

“I ordered the food.” Callum said, when he returned. “They said it’ll be about half an hour. And they’ll bring it all up at the same time so we don’t get disturbed twice.”

“Perfect.” She pronounced, with satisfaction, and then dragged him over to meet the light fixtures. Predictably, he spent a good ten fascinated minutes investigating the weird glowing polyps, and then a while longer sketching one out, and was half-way through that when the food arrived.

 -

(Snippet 5: after dinner, Callum and Rayla engage in some silliness, then cuddle. Domesticity.)

 “I’m so full I’m not going to move for a week.” Rayla announced, after staggering her way back through to their sofa, followed by an amused Callum. “It’s going to take at least that long to digest all of that.”

“That might make it tricky to get supplies.” He said, pretend-thoughtful. “But I’m sure we can work something out.”

She snorted, patted him on the shoulder, and then promptly pulled him into her side when he started looking at her in the imminent-cuddles sort of way. He hummed contentedly, turning his face into her shoulder, breath warming the wool over her collarbone.

“This bathrobe is so comfy.” He said happily, words muffled by wool. “It’s so nice.”

Having had very similar sentiments about his bathrobe earlier, she quite agreed. “Shame they didn’t include wool pyjamas, really.”

He didn’t offer any response for that, just snuggled, putting an arm around her waist. It was almost a little uncomfortable, really, what with how full she was, but she didn’t protest. She just held him close, smoothed her free hand over his hair, and looked out over the city. In the dark, watching the vaporous light rise felt very much like watching fire. It was very entrancing.

Some time later, Callum started to show signs of beginning to fall asleep on her. She looked down at him, snorted, and then nudged him until he stirred. “If you fall asleep now you’ll be up too late.” She informed him as he made plaintive noises at her. “I’m not having you exhausted and useless for your magic channelling nonsense tomorrow.”

“But you’re too comfy.” He complained, and she smirked.

“That sounds like an invitation to be less comfy.”

He opened an eye to peer at her suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘that sounds’ – hrk!” His words cut off as, unceremoniously, she swept him up with an arm under his back and another under his knees, on her feet with a quick shift of her weight and his. She grinned down at him, finding him instantly and distinctly awake. “….Honestly this is still pretty comfy.” He said, weakly, when he’d spent enough time staring wide-eyed at her to recover his words.

Rayla pretended at thoughtfulness. “That sounds like a challenge.” She said, and he looked alarmed.

“It wasn’t! It wasn’t!” He protested, to no avail; she stepped around the sofa, judged her angle, and tossed Callum at the bed.

He wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, but her aim had been good enough anyway; he sailed neatly between the posts at the corners and impacted decadent Sunfire quilting with a muffled oof. She was laughing at him outright when he turned, staring at her with a sort of red-faced stupefaction that told her exactly what he thought of the whole experience. “Your face right now,” she managed, doubling over to snicker in his direction. Hilarious.

“You know, there’s a saying,” he began, a little dazed. “About trusting someone as far as you could throw them.” He pushed himself up on his elbows. “You could probably trust someone a lot, is what I’m getting at.”

“…I actually do sort of know how far I could throw you, now that I think about it.” Rayla said, thinking back. “It comes up in assassin training sometimes. Throwing teammates at walls and the like, to give them a leg up. I lobbed someone about your size around six, seven metres once.” She paused, and added “Lengthways, I mean. Throwing someone upwards is a lot harder.”

This did not make him any less wide-eyed. “That’s like, over twenty feet,” he marvelled, looking at her with plain admiration. “You’re amazing.”

She huffed, reflexively bashful at the praise, and shook her head. “Amazing at throwing people, at least.” She said dryly, and went over to stare down at him from the foot of the bed. “How’s the bed?”

“…Very nice, actually.” He said, after a pause for consideration. “You’re pretty bad at making things less comfy.”

“You’re definitely awake now though.” She pointed out smugly. “So my work here is done.”

He snorted, sitting up fully to beckon to her. Obligingly, she bent forwards to meet him with a brief kiss. “Hard not to wake up when someone throws you half-way across the room.”

She rolled her eyes. “It was not that far.” She said, and after a moment made the executive decision to fall forwards onto the bed, face impacting the plush duvet and sinking in. Her feet hung from the edge, and Callum giggled.

“Hehehe toes.” He said, and reached out to poke one. He found her four-toed feet amusingly charming every time he was reminded of them, which would have been funnier, except her feet were pretty ticklish and she twitched every time he prodded like this.

“I will kick you.” She warned, and he subsided with another snicker. Instead of messing with her any further, he shuffled over and started playing with her hair. “Mm. Better.” With a sigh, she closed her eyes and tipped her head forwards, face smooshing deeper into the bed. His fingers carded through her hair, nails trailing lightly at her scalp.

“You didn’t brush it.” He noted, carefully working out a couple of tangles, and she shrugged.

“Couldn’t be bothered. ‘Sides, it only tangles again when we cuddle, anyway.”

He hummed, and went through it again more purposefully, parting it carefully around her horns as he looked for and eliminated a few knots. He brushed around her hornbeds and she shivered. Apparently noticing the reaction, he did it again, more deliberately, chuckling at the way she murmured and pushed her head into his hand. “You look like a shadowpaw when you do that.” He said, affectionately, scritching gently around her horns. “Headbutting people’s hands when they pet you.”

“Anyone else and I’d be cutting off their hands, trust me.” She mumbled at him, already a little indistinct and fuzzy around the edges of her thoughts. Hornbed-scritches did that. “…Suppose the shadowpaw’d do that too. Except they’d bite the hand off instead, if they didn’t like you.”

“What I’m hearing is that if you were an animal you’d probably be a shadowpaw.” He sounded very fond.

“Mm. Guess so.” What would he be? Something doggish, probably. Friendly and playful and loyal, and then all teeth and fierceness when threatened. That sounded about right…

She drifted, a little. It was hard not to, when collapsed onto a comfy surface with one’s hornbeds being rubbed. He stopped after a while though, evidently noticing her drowsiness, and stroked a hand over her head between the horns as he chuckled. “Now who’s falling asleep?” He teased, and she made a half-hearted rude noise at him.

“’s your fault.” She muttered at him, indistinct around the duvet in her face.

“Uhuh.” He sounded amused, and stroked the back of her head again.

 -

(Snippet 6: very detailed depiction of horn care, which in-setting is considered intimate)

 She was suddenly very glad he’d interrogated her so persistently on the procedure earlier, because she wasn’t at all certain she’d have been able to tell him anything more sophisticated than ‘um’ when he was literally about to do her horns for her.

“You’re so cute.” He told her affectionately, obviously very aware of her current emotional state, and then finally set soapy hands onto her horns.

“Oh my god.” She muttered, cheeks flaming, feeling the weight of his hands, the subtle pull at the rest of her skull. She had never been quite so aware of her horns as when he started soaping them up and washing them, and it didn’t take long at all for the warmth of his skin to soak far enough through the keratin so that she could feel it in the living horn. A little while later, he applied the coarse-bristled-brush-side of the horn-scrub to her left horn, and she made a tiny embarrassed sound at the ceiling. “You should scrub them harder than that.” She managed after a moment, since he really was being too gentle about it. “Horns are tough, you know.”

He hummed with interest, and obliged, scrubbing hard enough that it pulled at her head a little. The towel-pillow had been a very good idea of his, really. “How much horn care do you normally do?” He asked, curious, getting the washcloth to rinse her horn before scrubbing again. “I’ve seen you file them, but…”

“…Usually just this. A good scrub to make sure they’re clean, and then filing down the rough bits.” Rayla offered a mortified noise. “But it’s been weeks and I’ve not even done that. They’re probably so dirty…”

“Shush, they’re fine.” He huffed at her, and kept on at her left horn until he was satisfied with it, moving over to the other one. Rayla regarded the ceiling with a persistently red face the whole while, cheeks feeling nearly as warm as the half of her body that was still in bathwater. “I wonder if your face is going to be this red the whole time.” He remarked, when he’d apparently finished with the washing.

“Probably.” She muttered, self-consciously, and felt her gut squirm when she felt the first experimental scrape of the fine filing parts on her horn.

Callum laughed softly, and started setting to work with the file. “If you say so.”

For all that he’d never done this before, the muted sensory feedback Rayla gleaned from her inner-horns and her ears suggested that he seemed to be doing fine with it. He readjusted the file enough that she could be relatively sure he was respecting the curve of the ridges, and worked slowly along the shape of each one, from the hornbed to the pointed tip, over and over again.

As she’d told him, it was a long process. It took a long time. Long enough that, contrary to her words, her embarrassment did start to burn out a bit, the red of her cheeks easing until she only felt a little flushed, a little flustered.

“I see why you thought the cloak would be a good idea.” Callum said ruefully, a while in. She could only imagine how much horn-dust and flaky bits of keratin must be littering it. “This does get kind of messy.”

“Told you.”

“For now this is just making your horns go sort of…pale, and scratched-looking.” He commented, working the file around one of the ridges on the underside. “I guess it goes dark again once you start buffing it?”

She made a small despairing noise, but agreed “Yeah, basically. Honestly all you really need to do is wipe it over with a wet cloth and it’ll stop looking like that. But…”

“But I’m not stopping there.” He said, with evident satisfaction, and a little more heat rose in her cheeks.

He was slow and meticulous about the filing, but got through it a lot more quickly than she could have if she’d done it herself. It was hard to work on your own horns – the angle was bad, you couldn’t see what you were doing, and adjusting to get the undersides was a huge pain in the arms. By contrast, doing it for someone else was just…a lot easier.

Finally, he set the scrub down and went for the washcloth again, soaping up and rubbing her horns clear of dust, poring over them for any spots he’d missed. When he was finally satisfied, he said “and now I buff them?”

“Mmhm.” She confirmed, bringing her hands up to hide her face for a moment. So, at her confirmation, he started on that part next. He evidently hadn’t expected how vigorous the buffing and polishing stages of horns were, because she kept telling him to press the buffer harder, and he kept making worried noises about it, and she had to keep assuring him that no that’s how it’s supposed to be, and eventually she start started laughing helplessly at him.

“I feel like I’m going to hurt your neck,” he complained at her, when the strength of the requisite motions pulled at her head. “Or like, hurt your hornbeds, or something.”

“I’ll be fine, Callum.” She assured him, still laughing, mirth and embarrassment squirming in her chest. “This is just how it goes, you know.”

“At least I brought you a pillow.” He sighed, and obligingly kept on. A fair while later, when he was done with the buffing and had washed her horns again, he leaned back a bit to admire his work. “That really is looking a lot smoother and shinier.”

“And you’ve not even done the polishing yet.” Rayla felt very weird then, laying back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. She’d been through embarrassment, and then amusement, and now…now, there was something else. She felt almost calm. Almost settled, like she’d finally started to grow used to this. Like the novelty of his hands on her horns had worn through.

Now, she felt kind of comfortable. At ease, in a way. Her mind was drifting in the way it did when Ethari or Runaan had helped her with her horns before, like this was just a normal thing. A normal thing that took ages, and that one had to daydream through to pass the time.

“I’m actually really looking forward to seeing what they look like when I’m done.” He was saying, as he put the buffing things down and went to get the bottle of polish and the polishing tool. “I’ve never seen your horns all done up before.”

“Maybe now you’ll finally understand what I mean when I say my horns have gone gross.” She pondered, and he laughed. “Finally you’ll know what well-kept horns are supposed to look like.”

“I have seen other Moonshadow elves’ horns, you know.” He informed her, obviously amused, and she heard the cap of the polish opening. A moment later, she smelled it, because there was really no mistaking that smell. “Yours still look nice no matter how long it’s been since you scrubbed them.”

Rayla made a disagreeable noise at him, and he snickered back, and then finally set about the polishing.

She’d told him, earlier, that horn-polish was pretty potent stuff, and that’s why you applied it to a sort of spongy cloth attached to a handle, rather than scrubbing with it by hand. At full strength, it actually melted the outer surface of the horn – just a little, just enough to meld it all down into a smooth, gleaming, perfect surface. Diluted polish was fine if you did it regularly, but with how long it had been for her…she’d told him to keep it undiluted. And it stank.

Her nose wrinkled, even with all the pleasant soap smells competing, and held her neck lax as Callum worked on her horns vigorously enough to pull her head back with every other movement. That was just how it went, so she wasn’t bothered. The towel was enough padding that it didn’t hurt, so she just laid there and let him work.

“Think I might actually nearly be done.” He pronounced at last, sounding genuinely a little out of breath. She’d told him it was hard work, and evidently he’d found that out for himself. He sounded very pleased, though. Like he’d done a good job and knew it, and was plenty proud about it. “Just got to wash all this polish muck off, right? Soap your horns up again.”

“That is the last stage.” She agreed, trying to glance up at him, but all she could really see was the top of his head. “Aside from oiling, I suppose.”

 -

 (Snippet 7: aftermath of horn care, domesticity)

 It was then, by the sink, that Rayla finally removed the towel from her head, and Callum made a loud noise of pure joy at her. She stared at him, alarmed, and then noticed where he was actually looking. Oh.

“Shiny!” He exclaimed, gleeful, and reached out to stroke her horns. “Oh my god.”

“Callum!” She complained, but she was already laughing, because honestly she should have predicted this reaction. He practically groped at her horns, bright-faced and beaming, and she flushed all the while she stood still and let him. “Are you going to let me see them any time soon?” She asked him, dry. “Or are you just going to stand there groping them?” He subsided at that with a very high-pitched giggle.

“Hehehe,” he offered, and then “yes, go look! You need to tell me how well I did.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her to the mirror, his face lingering by her shoulder in her reflection with the enormous grin still very much in residence there. He was such a dork, honestly.

Finally, Rayla tipped her head forwards and inspected her horns. They were…shiny. Very shiny. Every ridge had been filed and buffed and polished to a gleam, and when she turned her head, the light glimmered off of them like they’d been waxed. Her eyebrows went up, and she lifted her own hand to feel along one. It was smooth. Entirely dry, but as she ran her finger along one ridge, it felt so smooth. Their dark colour was actually glossy. “…Wow.” She said, a little admiringly, and tilted her head to watch the light move. “That is shiny.”

He looked absolutely delighted by that response, as if he’d needed her go-ahead to be certain that, yes, that was definitely impressively shiny. She smiled, helpless to stop it, and turned her head to kiss him on the cheek; her reflection mirrored her.

“You did a great job, Callum.” She told him fondly, her cheeks pink at having seen exactly how great a job he’d done. Stars, but the second anyone saw her they’d know exactly who was responsible for those horns. “My horns haven’t been this shiny in years.”

Callum looked at her like she’d hung the Moon, like this praise was enough to render him utterly overjoyed. He tugged her around enough to kiss her, deep and excited and full of energy, so much so that she made a muffled noise of surprise into his lips. It caught her off-guard, and she was feeling a little breathless and a little dazed when he drew away a few moments later. “You have to let me do this again.” He told her, beaming. “I’m going to keep your horns this shiny, just you wait.”

Her cheeks flamed, and she ducked her head, suddenly flustered. “You can’t just say things like that.” She complained at him, and of course he looked utterly unrepentant. He leaned in and kissed her, then moved and kissed her on one cheek, and then on the other cheek, and his hands were already up and stroking along the wide bases of her horns again.

“Smooth,” he commented, gleefully, fingers warm around her horns. His face was very, very close to hers. “They’re so nice.”

The heat in her face decidedly didn’t abate. “Oh my god, Callum.” She mumbled, shaking her head, and he just kissed her again. Feeling increasingly dazed, she said into his lips “you know, it’s a lot faster if you’re doing it regularly. You can skip the filing and just buff and polish instead.”

He considered this excellent news, if the way he kissed her was any indication.

Finally, she summoned the force of will to reach up and peel his hands from her horns, stepping away. It was not easy, because – because when he looked like that, so elated and alive and full of delight, when he kissed her so enthusiastically, it was hard to think of pretty much anything. She looked across at him, incredibly flustered, and couldn’t see anything except how beautiful he was. “You, calm down.” She ordered him, gruffly, and led him by the shoulder to the basin. “We came in here to brush our teeth, you numpty. Not fondle Rayla’s horns.”

“But Rayla’s horns are really really pretty.” Callum pointed out cheerfully, and she made an involuntary noise half-way between embarrassment and pleasure.

“Be that as it may, Rayla and her horns want you to brush your teeth now so we can go to bed.” She said, and she shuffled over to the basin to make good on her words.

 -

 (Snippet 8: Callum and Rayla go to bed finally. Cuddling, fluff.)

 It proved as magnificently soft and comfy as she might have expected, when she peeled back the covers and climbed in. Callum meanwhile was perusing the canopy with consideration.

“Curtains or no curtains?” He asked her, and she considered it.

“Curtains.” She decided, and watched with satisfaction as he reached out and unhooked the bed’s attendant drapery. She reached to the one closest to her, and he got the rest; it all fell into place, a rich dark red that blocked out the light from the room around them and cast their bed into soothing shadow. Something settled in her then, that hadn’t quite been at ease in the unfamiliar surroundings, or the openness of the room. She sighed, and burrowed down under the duvet, laying her head back on the pillows.

He joined her, lifting the covers and slipping in, closing his eyes for a second in obvious profound enjoyment. “This is so much better than hard cold floor.” He murmured happily, and she smiled, tugging him to her with a hand at his shoulder. He went gladly, and within moments they were pressed close, legs tangling, the warmth of his skin comforting against her own.

“Been a long few weeks.” She sighed, resting her forehead against his, and he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.

“Kind of an understatement.” He murmured back. “I’m glad we’ve got a chance to rest now.” A pause. “Sort of, anyway. Aside from the work.”

She understood his meaning, though. There was something strangely safe about the idea of the time they’d spend here, whether it would be a week or longer than that. This wasn’t home, where there’d be people to explain things to, or where they’d have to adapt their old life to fit around what had happened. This was a new place – unfamiliar, but easier to cope with for that unfamiliarity, in its own way.

Here, she thought, they’d be able to find their footing a little. Settle a little more into their new normal, before the vagaries of travel and normal life needed intrude again.

“Me too.” She agreed, at last, and reached a hand across to press lightly around the back of his neck. He made a soft, pleased sound, then shuffled to give her better access, face smooshed into the pillow. She kissed him on the cheek, and he peered at her with one green eye, a smile fluttering on his lips.

“…Thanks for letting me do your horns.” He mumbled back, eventually. “I liked it.”

Her heart fluttered. “I’ll repay you sometime.” She promised, and moved her hand to smooth down along his upper back, enjoying the warmth of his skin. “Tomorrow, maybe. Give you a nice backrub or something.”

“Sounds great.” He shifted closer, tucking his face against her shoulder with a sigh. She kissed him at the top of his forehead, stroking him gently from the nape of his neck to his shoulders and back. He made quiet contented noises at her, drowsier and drowsier, and steadily began to drift off.

She lingered there, holding him, trailing fingertips over his neck as he settled into sleep. It really had been a long day for him, for all that they’d spent the latter half of it indoors and resting. Now, finally, he’d be able to sleep properly, in a bed comfortable enough to ease the ache of his overworn muscles. Now, finally, without the city’s doom hanging over them, they could rest a little.

Rayla smiled into his hair, nestled against him, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t aware of falling asleep, but it took her anyway; almost between one moment and the next, she was gone.

[comradesalazar]

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

I will admit I got a lil Emotional that I got tagged in this but I’m so excited to go through it because this year has been SO PRODUCTIVE for me when it comes to writing. Thank you to the legend @that0negayslytherin​ for tagging me and the other legends, you the real MVP (and also thanks again for setting up the LV fic discord bc that place... really b Wild and really b a wonderful place to motivate each other to be our best.) Legends only!!

Anyhway! Onto this thing... I’m excited.

[rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!]

So. Most of my works from this year have been Venji related because I’m still in the deep pit of Love, Victor obsession and idk when that’ll go away. Hopefully not anytime soon because I’m having a great time and fic was an amazing way for me to improve my craft. I do have one piece of original work on this list, but the rest is fic. It’s difficult to choose favorites so I think I’ll go chronologically. A couple of these have graphics but not all of them. Anyway... let’s get into this, shall we.

Arakhne of the Floating Mountain

So this the first work I completed this year. It’s an original novella I wrote for Wattpad’s Open Novella Contest and it’s a very fun, character-centric story that reimagines Arakhne/Arachne (the one from the legend who gets turned into a spider after challenging Athena) as a lonely lesbian who lives alone on, you guessed it, a palace on a mountain in the sky, until three sisters drop by asking for her to create their coronation dresses for when they become the queens of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. The sisters (Soledad, Luna and Estelle) basically try to court her and it’s a good time. Obviously, I didn’t win the competition but it was still a really fun story for me to write and part of my journey of realizing I can create a writing habit and work on something over the course of a long time, since the only other completed long work I had was for NaNo, which was just binge-writing over 30 days before I had the chance to get bored. If you’re into magical lesbians, check it out!

The stars will love me even if you don’t

I have so much to say about this work. I started it just on a whim in August after I watched Love, Victor in July and began wanting to actually contribute to the works of fandom. Little did I know that I would be embarking on a journey of 120k words and counting, with 33 chapters. This story deals with a whole random of issues -- from long-distance relationships, substance abuse, mental health problems especially around anxiety and depression/suicidality, toxic relationships, codependency, self-harm, the project of becoming oneself and being able to manage life and navigate the world in a healthy way, all the things. In a lot of ways, it is a personal project. But also in a lot of ways I wanted to correct a lot of ideas we have about what constitutes a healthy relationship and what love should look like. There were many times when I wanted to give up on this project due to frustration and exhaustion, but I continued to work at it. I learned so much about my own capabilities, about developing a writing habit, and about what it’s like to write a behemoth of a story. It isn’t perfect by any means but I appreciate the people who have reached out to me and told me that they learned some things about themselves from reading. This is truly a labor of love and I can see that it already accomplished the goal I set for myself which was to help people. It’s lit. And thank you so much to @callmevenji​ for the lovely cover!! She’s a legend!! 

The Thousand-Eyed Wraith (TTEW)

This was a little one-shot I wrote for the Halloween Venji Fic Fest and it takes place in the world of my original work, The Thousand-Eyed Crow. Basically, it’s about what would happen if Venji ended up in that world and had to deal with some spooky nonsense and eventually ended up joining a cult. It was fun for me because it was more stream of consciousness and post-modernist, which is very different to how I normally write but it was a really fun experiment tbh. 

You Only Live Forever (YOLF)

This was another one-shot I wrote for the Fic Fest, but this one was much smuttier and mature than TTEW. I was really inspired by Beyonce’s “Partition” (the song and the video lmao) and thought it would be interesting to put Venji in a world similar to Greendale in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina but with s*x magic, so it was essentially a Love, Victor and CAOS cross-over for grownups lol. Apparently it worked out well, though, and they ended up trying to summon Satan which went... questionably. But I had a lot of fun writing this, as well, especially when it came to sorta balancing the old-timey setting with the modern day and the smutty scenes with the softer, fluffier ones. 

Part of Your World

So one day I had an idea to write a Little Mermaid-inspired Venji story that would be so sweet and romantic... And so I did. I took a lot of inspiration from several sources -- one, of course, was the Disney version of the Little Mermaid, as well as the original version which is a lot darker and more sinister, as well as mythology around sirens and selkies and just, I guess like, class warfare. So I ended up with a sorta more adult-version of the Little Mermaid where Benji gets attacked by humans and is distrustful of them until he meets Victor who is “not like other humans” and helps patch him up, and they embark on a bit of a whirlwind romance. This has been a treat to work on even though it’s probably one of my least popular fics because I imagine people are coming for something a bit more light-hearted but I’m incapable of writing something that is 100% fun and not chock full of imagery and meaning. I think this has also been the work that showcased and tested my imagery-writing and dialogue-writing abilities the most and brought out my inner poet. And once again a huge thank you to @callmevenji​ for the fanart, if you haven’t already followed her you should bc she’s a legend.

Dead Men Feed the Fish

Finally, my last and most recent work is also the story I worked on for NaNoWriMo this year. 63,000 words completed in less than a month, depicting the initial meeting of Venji and the way their romance develops and deepens over time. It’s just (chef’s kiss). I had originally had the idea for pirate!Venji and really wanted to write it because I was inspired by That One Scene in Pirates of the Caribbean, which is probably one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen and between the only het pairing I stan. So I just had to write a story that included this scene and that allowed me to write my dream scenario of Venji out on the open seas being gay and having a good time and going on adventures and having homoerotic sword fights. This story has basically everything -- romance, action, adventure, magic/fantasy, a lil bit of spice/kink, good communication, tension, cute animals, everyone is gay, what’s not to love. I’m also looking to edit and publish traditionally so I’m in the process of fixing all that up now. And once again, thank you to @callmevenji​ for the brilliant fanart!

Anyway, that was that, and I hope that if you have the time and you get the chance, that you give some of my works a shot because I would be very grateful and I think you will have fun. 

I’ll tag @kateis-cakeis​, @g531​, and I guess anyone else who wants to do this! 

[prorevenge]

A social media marketing agency fires me while being sick without any notice or explanation.

I worked for a social media marketing company. I'd been there almost a year and hadn't used any of my 14 paid days off. I was the only contract worker, but I didn't complain. The money was ok, paid the bills, and my degree was not in business.

It's Saturday. I got from a whole day of running errands, it was raining and nasty, I was wet and cold, I felt sick. I emailed to my team and HR that I'm feeling sick and will be updating them. I felt it's important because there was a big pitch the whole agency was bending over. On Sunday, I felt it in my bones. I wrote another email. I didn't want anyone else to get sick before the pitch. Monday morning I was pouring gallons of shit water from my ass. I threw up twice, couldn't eat, couldn't swallow even water, couldn't sleep, couldn't move, no health insurance. I sent another email on Monday saying I feel worse, sent what I was able to finish to my manager and the team and wished luck with the pitch.

It was strange that this time I didn't get any, "get better," "sorry to hear that," etc. I was so sick I wasn't thinking too deeply about it though and decided to mindlessly binge on Netflix. Tuesday morning, I'm asking if all looks bueno. No response. I'm texting to my manager because this wasn't normal. No response. Then, I couldn't log in to my email. I got locked out from my work email. Doesn't take a genius to notice that something wacky has been going on. I got all my shit from Dropbox and whatever accounts I had on an external hard drive. I started making peace with the thought that I'm being fired. I just didn't know what for.

The next morning I see an email from HR with the subject "Effective Immediately" and saying, "Due to your repeated absences and your abuse of the paid time off, it was decided to terminate your employment." That's it. No further instructions, nothing. I tried to call my manager, but he didn't answer. He texted me later that day to give the address where my belongings should be delivered. I was still sick on Thursday. On Monday I got an email asking to sign it and send back. No instruction if I should do it by mail or email, just a lot of words reminding me what was in my contract: confidentiality blah blah blah, non-compete clauses blah blah blah, company's intellectual property blah blah blah. It looked like it was copied from an online template. I asked HR to send me a copy of my contract as everything was on my company's laptop. The contract was worded the way that working or even contacting with their clients could put me in legal trouble.

I got another job almost 2 months later. With maxed out credit cards and a $3K loan, I felt little helpless. They treated me like a piece of trash. After winning the pitch the agency has been bragging on social media about how amazing and millennial they are. On the company's social accounts they were trying hard to turn every little thing into a huge win. For me, every day was harder because the new job sucked, I felt excluded and didn't feel I'm the part of the culture. So, I've been checking the old agency's social media like a maniac. It got so bad I had to delete the Facebook app from my phone and install some chrome extensions to prevent me from visiting their social media. I stopped going to the gym, was eating unhealthy, broke up with a girl who actually liked me over a stupid argument, was stressed, and felt like a loser.

One day they posted a blog with so much praise for themselves... I cringed. While scrolling through everything people were saying, I realized that their pride blinded them to anything but positive feedback.

After 3 months since I got fired, my bank offered me skip a pay or something like that for 2 next months and I used the $700 to buy as many fake likes, follows, views, etc., as it was possible. From 2K they went to almost 50K followers on Facebook. They were getting 300-500 likes on their Instagram posts, their Twitter also jumped high from only 200 followers. After a week the $700 got me, I decided to go full in for another week and added $500 to the revenge budget. I was more selective, knew more, had better sites for cheaper, I was posting comments everywhere praising the agency, I even created a fake site which was "featuring" the best social media campaigns and ads. I created fake 2 months worth of content in the form of "awards," "special features," and fake polls, and then featured this agency on the front page. Every comment was retweeted, shared, commented back, thanked. It seemed they enjoy the ride a lot. From 1-2 post a week before I got fired they jumped to 2-3 posts a day on every platform. They were so full of themselves they thought they got all of this with their hard work.

2014-2015 was the golden era of Facebook and social media for this type of activities. After over 2 weeks of the hype, suddenly, one of their most cocky posts of theirs got 0 likes. Null. These fools were so caught up in the chase of their 'hard-earned' success, they didn't even check who likes their shit, who follows them. Those were bot accounts, all of them probably in India, cheap as hell, from some scammy sites you don't want to associate your business or name with, or even your IP. The agency had almost 120K followers on Facebook at some point. Going from less than 2K followers to 120K, imagine how the engagement went down. All their organic posts were non-existent. The whole agency looked like idiots because it was apparent from the outside it's all weird and that the hype's fake.

They were trying to get that hype back they started writing useless blogs like more pointless and worthless content would fix anything. Their headlines were screaming "clickbait," their posts and the volume of images they were posting looked desperate. One day... Oops, their FB is "not available." They got blocked! Since there were hundreds of thousands of the same cases in review (blocked accounts for similar schemes, etc.) and they had $0 ad spend on that page, they would wait months to get their account back. They had to create a new FB page, a new Instagram account, and after they shared again the link with their "we're honored to be featured..." I replaced the URL to link to another business in San Francisco lol and removed their entry from the front page. I wasn't even aware at the time, but after these 2 weeks of imverybadass behaviour they lost a few crucial employees. I heard a rumor they left the agency in the mid-project and someone inexperienced, with no fucking clue and their own projects had to finish it. It had to be a shit show. The client refused to pay and eventually they lost every single client they had on a regular yearly contract. From 25 employees, in less than 1 year, they went to 9! I don't think they realize even now the ratios of likes to comments was suspicious. 2K likes on a photo post with only a single comment saying "Amazing!", posted by Rakesh Johnson from nowhere, with the profile pic of an anime character...? You need to be a true-born idiot to buy that, and they were "an agency."

They still have fewer FB followers than they started with before firing me. They gave up on Twitter. Instagram is also bad, no engagement, no regular posts. Overall, $1,200 bought me back my self-esteem, which I consider money wisely spent.

As of today, I've been talking to that girl I screwed up with and things are looking promising. I'm making more than my previous manager (according to Glassdoor), and he is still with the same company, not having any client on any sort of retainer fee. Only small projects, zero social media activity, almost a dead company, with no talent wanting to work there, and a bad reputation in the area Imagine, a social media marketing company gets kick out from Facebook... laughable. Bunch of egocentric people who got the taste of their own bitter piss. Sometimes I really want to add another nail in the coffin, but I'm a better man now. I moved on and don't consider them worthy of my time. This post is my final goodbye to this issue.

TL/DR: A social media marketing agency fired me for being sick. Got their ass kicked by their own ego and have been recovering ever since.

(source) (story by PierceJames)

[coldtomyflash]

Weird question, and it's perfectly okay if "I don't know" is your answer: How did you manage to do grad school AND finish writing so many good fics? I'm writing the lit review for my dissertation right now, and I want to finish several WIPs I have (if nothing else, just to prove to myself that I can), but it just feels like I can barely do either, much less both. Any advice at all?

Ah, no worries! It’s not that odd a question. Actually, someone’s asked me before ^^;  My reply to them at the time was here. No need to read it, but it’s some context? 

My reply now that my head is in a healthier place is... long and winding and not actually full of that much advice but eh, I rambled as I do. If you just want the advice, scroll all the way down and it’s there. 

For starters, I’m not a normal comparison point. This isn’t to pat myself on the back, but for a variety of reasons, writing is something that comes really naturally to me. I’ll detail those reasons, but before I get into that, the point I’m illustrating here is that... sometimes I think people compare themselves to how much I wrote and what else I accomplished in that time and think “hey cool - that is a function human! Why can’t I do that?” And the answer is short answer is that my brain is programmed for pretty much one thing, and that thing is writing writing, and holy crap I was the opposite of a functional human when writing that much and that quickly.

The long answer is - 

I’ve been making up stories literally as long as I can remember. I spent my childhood consuming stories. I taught myself to read and was during school I was consistently reading about 8 grade levels above my reading level, and loved learning about narrative structure. I annoyed the shit out of my older brother by reading the same book series as he read, but guessing plot points that were going to happen either in that book or else 2-3 books out. he didn’t get how I would just know and I’d be like “it’s obvious - that’s where the story has to go!” Because I was imagining it in my head - what i would do with it, where it would go, where it had to go. Closing the page mid0chapter and imagining the next-scene, and then picking back up to see how right or wrong I was.

And I had a best friend for most of my childhood through to early adulthood with whom I made stories. Every weekend, creating narratives together, not writing them down but basically roleplaying them by talking them out (voices and all, it was a heck of a lot of fun, as much as it made me pretty much the nerdiest teen in existence). We tried to write a novel when we were 12, got about 7 chapters in. We had a lot of starts and stops on other stories too.

Which isn’t said to stroke my own ego, it’s said to highlight that I have a metric fuckton of explicit and implicit practice at storytelling. It was and sort of is my “whole life”. I also had teachers that helped me develop storytelling skills, and was really freaking lucky to go to a school with an AP program for English that seriously stretched my ability to write fast. We had to write an essay every single class, during class, and have it finished by the end of class (or in less time if we had lecture stuff to go over too) in my last year of high school. The essays could be creative response (i.e., short stories). I wrote a short story almost every week in the space of an hour when I was 17. By the time I got to the end of year final and actually got to use a computer and type that shit instead of hand-cramping halfway through, I somehow managed to write the two-essay final in the allotted 3 hours and, i shit you not, had a wordcount of 6000 words. 

That’s still my record. It was probably a dumpster fire but I got 100% probably for sheer volume.

Anyway that was over a decade ago, but the whole reason this life story is pertinent is because - 

I have practice. The only way to improve at anything, to get faster at it, for it to ease, is to practice. Practice at storytelling, practice at having to set a scene using just words sitting in my BFF’s room and trying to describe the image I had in my head for how I wanted her to see the scene as it was playing out. Practice at writing fast and getting feedback on how to write. Practice implicitly at trying to imagine what routes stories can take. Practice taking stories apart and piecing them back together, in my head, all the time.

So that’s part of it. 

The other part, and this is what I said in my previous post, was depression. I was seriously fucking burnt out and depressed when I started writing coldflash fic, and grad school took a huge toll on my mental health. It’s easier to write when you’re doing it to procrastinate working on your dissertation, and easier to keep writing when you get positive feedback and it feeds those lovely dopamine gremlins in your brain who aren’t getting any positive validation from grad school because holy damn that shit is hard.

I had no balance in my life for a long time. It wasn’t good. I went to counselling. I got more balance. Fic slowed down. Still finished, but not 120k words in 3 months (that was the pace when I started fic writing...jfc I don’t know how I managed.) Life got harder. Fic was now harder to write. I got more counselling. Fic was easier to write. I moved around the world. Fic got harder to write. I started anti-depressants. Narratives now seem to be flowing again. 

Regardless of the state of my mental health though, I’ve never written as much as quickly as I did during the middle of grad school. And I think that’s because I was very narratively pent up when I started writing fic. I had been so busy and pushing myself so damn hard in grad school that I didn’t make almost any time for stories, for fic, for imagining my own stories. I was suppressing that side of myself in the service of Focus. So when I burnt out, my narrative side rebounded and said “fuck that noise, I still exist, and we’re making space for me”. It took over. I came literally a hair’s breadth from quitting my PhD post candidacy. Idk what type of program you’re in, but business schools in North America? It’s a 5 year PhD typically, and I was at the end of year 3 and eyeing the door.

Anyway - I say all that because - 

I am not a good example and you should not do what I did. Finishing that many long WIPs that quickly wasn’t healthy, and was only possible because I didn’t do much else at the time, and had a lifetime of practice and a narrative rebound to make it even possible. 

But - 

My actual advice?

1) Practice. Practice. Practice. 

Not all at once, but everything counts. Daydreaming counts. Watching shows and thinking of how they could be improved counts. Talking out story ideas with friends counts. Just make it fun. Practice is something we think of as arduous and annoying. Learning new words is practice. Meeting new people and considering their traits is practice. Everything can be practice for writing. All the research you do can be practice for writing. (Random note: a childhood coping mechanism for anxiety that I had was to narrate what I was doing to myself in my head in the 3rd person. Like telling a story of myself walking to gym class in my own head. That was also practice.)

2) Have fun with it! 

Don’t making writing an obligation. Then it’s another thing on the list of things you avoid. Finishing stories often feels like an obligation. I’m going through this right now with Needs Must. It can be hard to complete a WIP because you start to have internal anxieties about disappointing readers, not living up to expectations, exhaustion from that narrative, distraction / temporary loss of interest (which is normal! and not actually a bad thing!). All of that then makes you feel guilty, which makes it impossible to get into a creative space to write. You can’t work on the thing you’re avoiding.

3) It’s okay to give your WIPs breathing space. 

When you hit a wall, you may need to set it aside and read it again in a month with fresh eyes. You may need to treat your story like someone else’s story. That’s, again, literally where I’m at right now with Needs Must. I just reread a bunch of it and hadn’t really forgotten the details but once they’re on the page they’re out of my head, and so taking some time before going back to reread it made it easier for me to think of like I think of every other story: “what would I do next with this? Oh that’s a twist, that needs to come back later. There’s a theme here, we’ve seen that three times. What’s the best ending I, as a reader now, can imagine for this?”

If avoidance, guilt, and/or writer’s block aren’t your issue, and it’s literally just down to time management - 

4) Your graduate degree is more important than your WIPs. 

Your WIPs aren’t going anywhere, they don’t have a deadline, and your readers will wait for you, and new ones will find you. Time management is an essential, awful, part of being an academic. 

I get more done, both at work and creatively on fic, when I’m just a bit too busy, but that’s me. Figure out what is optimal for you, and do it. When do you get the most writing done? When you’re relieved? When you’re anxious? Late at night? First thing in the morning? When does it flow? When won’t it ruin your graduate career?

(Seriously I was writing fic at work last week and was kicking myself. I don’t have time for that shit! Set boundaries on your time!)

But full serious here, graduate school is exhausting, and almost inherently de-motivating, and even the best damn students eye the door a lot of the time, even if they do finish. It’s stressful and you feel constantly powerless. It’s a lot to need to cope with. I found writing to be a way to cope. That lit review you’re working on? Yeah, it’s zapping your time and energy. That’s normal (unfortunately). And it’s good to give yourself breaks from that to write. Don’t feel guilty for taking time here and there for yourself - to write, or to not write. To relax, unplug, unwind. To close your eyes and daydream (if you’re me) or have a bubble bath (if you’re my sister), or do whatever helps you honestly, genuinely destress. The best thing you can do for both writing and for graduate school is to take breaks and take time for yourself. There is actual science on the importance of breaks, and academics are fucking notorious for putting too much pressure on themselves to actually relax.

5) If you’re burnt out and/or depressed - seek help! 

Most universities have resources for mental health! Talk to a doctor! Don’t put too much stress and pressure on yourself! Almost half of grad students are mentally ill at some point!

6) Talk out your stories with friends! 

I know I already said this under “practice” but having a fandom friend to bounce ideas with and cheer you on is amazing and essentially. I was in constant contact with Bealeciphers when I started writing, and now I have a different friend who’s helped me the past couple years with writing and developing my stories. Mostly they cheer me on, and when I’m stuck, I tell them where the story is going and what I need help with. But honestly, writing doesn’t need to happen in a vacuum and doesn’t need to be you hunched over a laptop in the dark all alone and staring blankly at a screen (I’m definitely not projecting here, no siree). It’s amazing how motivating it is and how much it can help you stay on track to check in regularly with other writing friends!

7) Pick your battles.

You say you have a... couple(?) of WIPs? How many are you juggling? Is it too many? Do you need to set one (or two??) aside? When my steam was slowly and AATJS and Tumbling Together started to feel like a chore, I set TT aside and took a month break from AATJS then dived right back into AATJS (with the help of the friend mentioned above, cheering me on) because I knew it would be the harder one to finish, and the one that I feared I’d never finish if I put it aside too long. I tackled the biggest hurdle first. If that’s the type of thing for you, I recommend it. Pick the story that’s either the most or least likely to get finished, and focus your energy there.

Another battle-picking thing here? It’s okay to outsource. I’m terrible for not using a proofreader beta. It’s a weird control thing, despite the fact that I love people pointing out typos in my works so I can freaking fix them. The point here is: don’t be like me. If you suck at finding your own typos, use a beta or proofreader. My writer friend who helps me helps when I get stuck. I help them when they need feedback on specific scenes and tones, and I’ve recently discovered they hate editing (I love editing) so this entertains me to no end. Just - you don’t have to do it all yourself. If you feel like you do, see points 5 and 6 again.

Aaaannnddd that’s that. Whew. I just spent... wow, too long on this. I spent as much time on this as I did on my own grad student’s lit review I was providing feedback on today ^^; #whoops 

[motherofmymotherreclist]

Forced Bonding

·       The Tie That Binds by leonidaslion (Supernatural, Explicit, 3K, 2011)

o   No one asks Sam what he wants.

o   [Wincest, incest, non-con elements, forced bonding, angst, John is a shitty parent, minimal smut]

o   This is the angsty fucked up version of a forced bonding fic. But I’m trash, so I love it.

·       Necessity by notboldly (Star Trek, Mature, 14K, 2010)

o   When Jim is attacked by a telepathic species, Spock bonds with him to save his life.

o   [slow build, romance, minimal smut, telepathy, empathy, bonding]

o   A classic forced bonding to save your life fic. Focuses on the discomfort of the sudden intimacy and how that brings them together.

·       ♥ ♥ Then You Think Again by leah k (blinkiesays) (Teen Wolf, Mature, 22K, 2012)

o   "You had no idea that it was going to work!" Stiles throws his hands up. Why is Derek the most frustrating werewolf in the history of ever, why is Stiles even helping him, why is this his life?  "Why did they even believe you in the first place?" Derek says, "You reeked of me," which is unfair.  Stiles only smelled because he'd gotten covered in Derek's bodily fluids trying to staunch the bleeding.

o   [bond or die, hags made them do it, bonding, forced intimacy, empathy, useyourwords!Derek, humor, sarcastic!Stiles, UST, pining, werewolf instincts, scent!kink, minimal smut]

o   Another one where Stiles’ voice is on point. Funny and tense with the UST. Forced bonding for the win. Their relationship builds really nice and organically.

·       Here Comes Your Man by hannahrhen (Avengers, Teen-Explicit, 25K, 2013)

o   (Reluctant!Soulmate AU) An unexpected bond forms between Tony Stark and one of his greatest enemies. But not everything before is forgotten, or forgiven.

o   [Tony/Loki, forced intimacy, dub-con, angst, bickering, denial of feelings]

o   This relishes in the awkwardness of forced intimacy as Tony has no understanding or patience for the bond. It’s laid out as a series, but really this should have been chapters of one fic.

·       ♥ ♥ Choices by Kethrua (Dresden Files, Mature, 28K, 2011)

o   In an AU to Changes, Harry sold himself to John Marcone instead of Mab. They both take a while to adjust to this. Written for the Kinkmeme, for a prompt requesting both serious treatment of the issues and smut. Contains non-explicit reference to past child abuse and rape.

o   [bonding, dubcon, magic, power imbalance, healing, hurt comfort, smut, trust issues]

o   I love this fic so much. It has perfect pacing and character development. The love and growing trust between the characters is so obvious and yet understated.

·       A Shove Towards Love  by General_Button (Voltron, Teen, 31K, 2016)

o   A simple rescue mission turns into chaos when the species on the planet Novaria take an interest in the lives of two of its paladins.

o   [Klance, meddling aliens, aliens made them do it, but there’s no smut, bickering, pining, mind meld, forced proximity, soul bond]

o   This is great example of the trope. Keith and Lance are somehow both pining and acting like they can’t stand each other at the same time, and you just want to smack them, until you don’t.

·       ♥  Debt of Honor by Brianna Falken (Star Trek, NC-17, 33K, 2009)

o   Six months after being taken prisoner and raped by a Vulcan captain, Kirk finds that same Vulcan is now being assigned as his first officer when peace between Vulcan and Earth is declared. Originally published in the print fanzine Beyond Dreams 7 (2004)

o   [Non-con, non-reform Vulcan, super angst, rape recovery, healing, bonding, slow build]

o   This starts with a pretty graphic rape scene so please take care of yourself, but if that isn't your trigger or you can get past the non-con, this is a lovely story about forgiveness and healing. It’s actually one of my favorite star trek fics, something about the characterization both breaks my heart and gives me all the feelz. Literally the definition of a fandom classic since it came out of a fanzine.

·       Defendere by Lomonaaeren (Harry Potter, Mature, 37K, 2012)

o   When Harry stumbles into a magical ritual meant to enslave Draco, he manages to create a bond that leaves Draco with some free will. And the ability to irritate Harry in the name of "guarding" him.

o   [Drarry, forced soul bond, dub con, lots of consent issues, free will issues, slow build, pining, UST, angst, forced intimacy]

o   This one felt weird because of all the consent issues, but it does deep dive into the forced bonding and intimacy, and it’s well written. I’m just not sure I think this relationship is actually healthy, but it’s fanfic so, ehhh. The author does address the consent issues, don’t get me wrong, I just couldn’t 100% believe that they were solved.

·       Unexpected Consequences by lauren3210 (Harry Potter, Explicit, 39K, 2015)

o   Harry was going back to school. He was going to play Quidditch, sleep in lessons, hang out with his friends, and generally just enjoy being a kid for a change. And he was also going to do it while being bonded with Malfoy, because apparently life was just going to continue throwing curveballs at him. Harry didn't know why he expected anything different.

o   [Drarry, slavery sort of, consent issues, slow build, healing, enemies to friends to lovers, trust issues, magic, bullying]

o   Draco is completely in Harry’s power and must learn to trust his jailor. It’s very good. One of those classic Drarry fics IMO. It’s what Defendere could have been.

·       ♥ Present  by reillyblack (Teen Wolf, Explicit, 112K, 2018)

o   When Stiles's best friend Scott presented as a werewolf, it was just the worst. Worst by far was that it meant Scott had to leave immediately to live with the werewolf pack in the mountains -- which no one knew anything about. Stiles couldn't even visit, so he only got to see Scott once a month when he came back to visit his mom. It sucked. A year later, he presents too.

o   [world building, ABO dynamics, werewolf dynamics, scent kink, inventive werewolf world, like—super inventive, soul mates, Oblivious!Derek, plot, smut, UST, pack dynamics, pack bonding, BAMF!Stiles, Stiles doesn’t take shit from anyone]

o   As you can tell from my tags, this fic has precious and wonderful world building. I absolutely adored it. It’s everything you could want from werewolves. It’s also well plotted and fun as hell.

·       Rare Merchandise by CateAdams (Star Trek, Explicit, 120K, 2015)

o   Jim and Spock are kidnapped by Orion slavers during a diplomatic mission, transported to a location outside of Federation space and sold to a mysterious woman who commands an entire world. Once there, they are forced to participate in her terrifying agenda: their friendship used against them and their strength brutally tested. Can they survive and escape, or will they be used to bring down the Federation itself?

o   [For want of a nail, angst, action, Non-con elements, character torture, forced bonding, mind meld shenanigans.]

o   This is a very action oriented fic that will keep you reading late just make sure everyone lives through it. It has some mind rape elements though, so be careful there.

·       ♥♥  other things the road to hell is paved with by LuciaZephyr (Dresden Files, Explicit, 138K, 2011)

o   Book One of the Matter of Chicago series. Diverges from the canon plotline from Fool Moon, chapter 23, running on the idea of Marcone not holding the Idiot Ball and thus getting Harry to sign his contract. Very slow burn romance. Essentially an AU take of the entire series.

o   [slow burn, deliciously slow burn, magic, power imbalance, magical contract, Oblivious!Harry, manipulative!Marcone, trust issues, plot]

o   This is one of those perfect fics. I don’t know what else to say; look up a summary of the Dresden Files and then read this if you haven’t read the books. It’s better than the source material. The bond is more an oath of fealty/obedience than the more traditional telepathy or empathy version.

·       Human is Just a Word by lady emebalia (emebalia) (Teen Wolf, Explicit, 173K, 2017)

o   Getting claimed by a werewolf has so not been on Stiles' agenda for the night. But at least he can choose whose human pet he's going to be. That's a plus, right?

o   [fuck or die, forced bonding, so much angst, slow build, pack dynamics, werewolves are known, BAMF!Stiles, scent kink, forced intimacy]

o   This has a lot of similar qualities to Present, so if you liked that, then you’ll probably like this too. It has a different concept of the intimacy of wolves and enough drama/tension to burst a blood vessel.

·       Bond by Anna Fugazzi (Harry Potter, Mature, 204K, 2006)

o   Yet another one of those Harry and Draco Are Forced To Be Together By Something Beyond Their Control And Then Stuff Happens Leading To Twoo Wuv stories.

o   [Drarry, fandom classic, fuck or die, UST, pining, smut, they eventually fuck like rabbits, magic compulsion, bonding, mystery, angst, loss of virginity]

o   This is the OG best of the best of Drarry bonding fics. If you haven’t read it and you like either Drarry or the bonding trope, then what even are you?

·       ♥♥ The Saffron Soul by BeautifulFiction_FMA (Fullmetal Alchemist, Explicit, 267K, 2010)

o   When a serial killer blurs the lines of alchemy in an effort to seal two souls together, Ed finds himself under suspicion from the police. Can he prove he is innocent, or are he & Roy doomed to suffer the consequences of the killer's ideals?

o   [RoyEd, BAMF!Edward, BAMF!Roy, murder mystery, action, adventure, dream sharing, empathy, plot, smut, slow burn]

o   This is one of my favorite fics of all time. I’ve reread it countless times. The characterization is amazing, the plot engaging, and the writing wonderful. All of her FMA works are great but this is the masterpiece.

[ronaldmrashid]

Who Makes A Million Dollars A Year? Exploring The Top 0.1% Income Earners

If you want to get rich, you might as well focus on joining industries that pay very well. But there’s more to just joining a well-paying industry to get you to a million dollar income. You’ve also got to perform at a high level, survive cutthroat competition, and receive lots of luck along the way.

Corporate politics can be brutal on your climb to the top of the pyramid. Oftentimes, it’s those who’ve been able to successfully sell themselves internally who achieve the greatest rewards.

During my career in investment banking, I was too defiant. Despite getting promoted quickly in my 20s, I stalled in my 30s because I didn’t want to relocate to grind cities like New York or Hong Kong. Nor could I pretend to like enough people who could push me forward. In the end, I decided to see what I could do entirely with my own fingers.

We know that an American top 1% income starts at around $450,000 today. We also know that a top 1% income varies by age as well. For those interested in making a top 0.1% income, let’s take a look at some career profiles. 

The People Who Make $1 Million A Year Or More

Managing Director, Investment Banking – Achieving the title of Managing Director has always meant that you’d finally break seven figures a year, at least when I worked in the industry between 1999 – 2012. The typical MD base is around $400,000 – $500,000, and they would often earn a bonus of $500,000 or more.

But the bonus is often paid in deferred stock and cash. For example, out of the $500,000 bonus, only $200,000 might be paid in upfront cash. The remaining $300,000 is deferred over four years. If you quit before the four years is up, you lose your deferred compensation, which is why negotiating a severance is huge in any industry with deferred compensation.

General Partner, Private Equity – Private equity is one of the most coveted next step careers for investment bankers. The hours are much better, while the pay also tends to be higher as well. These folks earn salary, bonuses, and carried interest, which can often lead to huge bucks.

Some of the top private equity firms include: Blackstone Group, KKR, Warburg Pincus, TPG, and various sovereign wealth funds like Temasek, GIC, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Another chart by efinancialcareers.com.

Portfolio Manager, Hedge Fund – Again, your compensation is based on performance, size of assets under management, and the number of employees. First-year associates out of business school can make $250,000 – $500,000 at the largest shops. By the time you become a general partner or portfolio manager, you should be making at least $1 million a year if your fund is over $500 million. Here are some great charts by efinancialcareers.com.

Portfolio Manager, Actively Managed Long Only Fund – Fund manager pay is based on tenure, performance, and assets under management. In order to earn $1 million a year, you will probably need to manage over $1 billion in assets under management and have a solid 5-year or longer track record of performance. A 1% fee on $1 billion generates $10 million a year in revenue to pay the portfolio manager, analysts, office rent, marketing, other operating expenses, and the overall company.

But most of these actively run funds are charging less now (~0.5%) due to the proliferation of index funds. Companies such as BlackRock, Fidelity, Wellington, T.Rowe. Price, Capital, PIMCO, Prudential, Nuveen, Invesco, Janus, AXA, Legg Mason, TIAA-CREF and many more all have portfolio managers and some analysts who earn over $1 million a year.

Principal/ General Partner, Venture Capital – Just like all the other money management industries, there are good venture capital firms and there are bucket shops. The largest VC firms like Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins pay their General Partners multi-million dollars a year, especially if one of their investments has a huge exit such as when Whatsapp sold to Facebook for $19 billion in stock and cash.

I consider being a VC one of the best vacation jobs in the world because you don’t have to build anything, you get to earn a nice salary with carry, and you don’t have to prove your investment returns for years given the normal 5-10 year lockup periods for funds. By the time your limited partners discover you’ve made terrible investments, you’ll have earned a lot of money and moved on to a new VC or started a new fund within the firm.

Analyst $ 80K – $ 150K

Associate $ 130K – $ 250K

Vice Presidents $ 200K – $ 250K + $ 0-1MM carry bonus

Principal/Junior MD $ 500K – $ 700K + $ 1-2 MM carry bonus

Managing Directors/Partners $ 1MM + $ 3-10MM carry bonus

Partner, Big Law – The starting salary for first-year associates is around $190,000. By their 8th year (34-35 years old), their salaries will have risen to around $330,000. The funny thing about big law is that everybody up to the 8th year all get paid pretty much the same across all firms.

Bonuses are nothing to write home about, often ranging between 0% – 20% of salary. Therefore, in order to make the big bucks in law, you need to become a partner where you’re bringing in business and earning a percentage of profits.

Starting in 2018 from law.com

* Strategy Consulting, Partner – Firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are some of the top strategy/management consulting firms. But to get to partner and $1,000,000+ generally takes about 10 years after business school, and only a few make it that far. Here’s the salary progression from the website: managementconsulted.com.

First-year out of undergrad:

Base: ~$80k

Signing Bonus: ~$5k

Performance Bonus: up to ~$12k

First year out of MBA:

Base: ~$150k

Signing Bonus: ~$25k

Performance Bonus: up to ~$44k

Manager/Project Leader (2-3 years out of MBA):

Base: $190-210k

Bonus: $80-120k

Associate Principal/Senior Project Leader (4-5 years out of MBA): 

Base: $230-300k

Bonus: $110-200k

Junior Partner/Principal (6-8 years out of MBA): 

Base: $320-400k

Bonus: $300-500k

Senior Partner/Director (10+ years out of MBA): 

Base: $400-600k

Bonus: $500k+ (all-in, senior partners at top firms usually make $1M+; top partners can make $4-5M while ultra-performers can make more)

* Division I Football Coaches – The average salary of a Division I football coach is roughly $1.8 million. It is the football coach that is often the highest paid state employee. For example, Nick Saban took down $11,132,000 at Alabama in 2017. Not bad! Even Urban Meyer, a head coach full of controversy for covering things up makes over $6 million a year.

Source: USA Today

* Public Company C-Level Executive – Don’t let $1 salaries fool you. C-level executives are often paid mostly in stock compensation. The theory is to tie compensation to performance. They simply end up getting way more stock than anybody at the firm. For example, Dara Khosrowshahi reportedly got a $200+ million package to join Uber and pretend that the firm cares about its minimum wage earning drivers. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has a base salary of around $650,000, but got a stock grant worth $199 million in 2016. The median CEO pay for the top 100 largest companies reached a record $15.7 million in 2017.

Source: Equilar

* Self Help Gurus – The self-help industry is estimated to be worth more than $11 billion dollars and growing because we’re all jockeying to make more money and gain more prestige. The self-help industry is also considered recession-proof since even more people are looking to get out of the muck during downturns.

Folks like Tony Robbins make millions selling $10,000 self-help seminar tickets. His net worth is estimated at $500 million. TV personality Dr. Phil wrote a bestseller on how to lose weight and eat right, despite he himself being overweight. Then there are guys like James Altucher whose company generated over $11 million in sales selling himself as a cryptocurrency genius in order to sell his courses online.

Whether you succeed or fail, these people will always succeed because people are always feeling bad about themselves in this ultra-competitive world.

Anything is possible!

* Professional Athletes – They make great money, but their longevity isn’t very long. One estimate says that if you are able to finish every professional golf tournament at par, you will average $1 million a year in earnings. Did you know the NBA veteran’s minimum salary is $2.4 million if you’ve been in the league for 10+ years? Pretty good if you can survive that long.

The average NBA player will make ~$25 million during his career. This is based on an average annual salary of $5.2 million and a career length of 4.8 years. In comparison, the average NFL player will make only $6.5 million due to a lower average salary of around $2 million a year and a shorter average career length of just 3.3 years. Elsewhere, the average MLB player earns about $3.3 million annually, while the average NHL player earns about $2.5 million.

NBA Minimum Salary Chart

* Bloggers – Blogging is my favorite business in the world because you can simply write whatever is on your mind and advertisers will pay you, not your readers. Since you give away your product for free, there are no returns, no customer support, and no obligations to your customers, only freedom baby!

One of my favorite responses to an unhappy reader is, “I’ll gladly refund any money you’ve paid to read my work.” For some reason, they never respond. Whoo hoo! I’m telling ya, if you’re irreverent and don’t want to worry about your product spoiling or having a defect, blogging is the best.

Once you build a brand and can generate organic traffic of over one million pageviews a month, there’s a decent chance you could make $1 million in revenue a year. Here’s a sample income report from a personal finance blogger.

The Million Dollar A Year Dream

The easiest way to make $1 million a year or more is as a public company non-founding CEO. The compensation is outrageously high for what they do. CEOs have huge teams who do most of the work for them. A CEO is really just an ambassador of the firm who tries to drum up positive PR. They sign off on decisions that have already been carefully vetted. They neither invent new ideas or get in the weeds.

It’s good to be CEO vs. the common worker +997.2% vs. +10.9% since 1978

The hardest way to make $1 million a year or more is a profession that relies mostly on performance. As a fund manager, you’re either outperforming your respective index or you aren’t. As a professional tennis player, nobody is going to win a match for you. As a blogger, you’re either going to come up with interesting content that gets indexed and shared, or suffer in purgatory. The upside is professions that rely mostly on performance provide the most satisfaction.

I don’t have to tell you that earning $1 million a year is difficult. Even if you do get to such a milestone, it’s even harder to stay there over the long-term due to competitive forces that will eat away at your product or services.

Never assume you’ll make $1 million again the next year. Instead, save as much of it as you can. If possible, figure out a way to build a brand around yourself or your business to expand your earning power. Always work on improving your craft because eventually, you will become irrelevant. When that time comes, however, you already will have saved up a lovely nest egg to support you for the rest of your life in peace.

Remember, you only need to get rich once!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Related:

The Top 1% Net Worth Levels By Age Group

The Top 1% Income Levels By Age

How High Net Worth Individuals Invest Their Riches

Reader, do you believe you have the ability to earn $1 million a year? How long do you think you can earn $1 million a year if you do? Did your happiness change at all once you hit the $1 million mark? What other types of people earn $1 million a year?

The post Who Makes A Million Dollars A Year? Exploring The Top 0.1% Income Earners appeared first on Financial Samurai.

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