ames-writes

[ames-writes]

Trying to frame pro-Luigi "punks" negatively by sharing that they *checks notes* hate pedophiles is hilarious

[ames-writes]

Omegaverse AU - Part 1

Gooseflesh trickled across Creed’s arms as the night set in around him, crickets strummed underfoot and a coyote yipped in the distance. He hadn’t even realized it had gotten so late, he’d been lost in his thoughts over being back in Colorado after so long. Only reason he was up this way was he got word Undead Jack had crossed the state line. It had been little over 5 months since Creed had last seen the outlaw. But as far as he could tell the man had never come through Colorado, at least not in any way that would get written up.

But either way it didn’t seem like he was going to find the man tonight anyway so he might as well look to camp out for the night. He gave Maggie’s neck a hefty pat, “Alright girl let’s see about some supper, hm?” He said as he turned her to start heading into a small copse of trees atop a hill. The moon just bright enough to light the way.

As soon as they set foot in the trees Creed could smell it. It was heady and thick, and it smelled like smooth whiskey, chili pepper and orange peel. Maggie snorted at the heavy scent and began to stamp her foot, which is when Creed noticed he was squeezing her sides while pulling the reins as far back as he could. He quickly relaxed his grip and slid of her back. He ran his hand over her face in apology but his focus was on the darkness of the trees.

He felt his alpha start stir in his chest. 

He didn’t hear anything that would be an obvious source so he, as slowly and quietly as he could, led Maggie into the dark. He’s always had great night vision, thanks to trying to heard cows through the night since he was 8, so that’s how he can easily spot the canvas tent pitched against a tree. With a potentially familiar looking palomino pinto ground tied beside it. The scent gets even thicker and Creed has to pause to bite into his hand to avoid growling.

An omega in heat. 

He should’ve guessed from just how saccharine it smelled. If he had to guess he’d say it just barely started before he got here. There wasn’t a light on in the tent but that was probably intentional to not attract passerby’s. Creed dropped Maggie’s reins and she dutifully stopped as he took slow steps towards the tent. His hands were shaking with how much trying not to put out a responding scent. He got about 5 feet from the tent when he heard the distinct sound of a shotgun being prepped.

“That’s far enough friend.” The voice was raspy and said through huffs of breath but it was steady enough for Creed to instantly know who it was. His alpha started to wake as the voice washed over him.

“I understand I smell might fine right now but I ain’t lookin’ to share and,” a small whine bleed through the words, “and iffen you take one more step you’an my shotgun here are gonna have a disagreement.” A muffled groan, “So you, you best be on your way.”

Creed’s mouth fell open to heave a breath before he could speak, “Jack.” His voice sounded like he hadn’t had a sip of water in a week. He was sure his scent was already heavy enough for Jack to smell even through the mess of herbs he slathered on his glands every morning.

There was a audible pause so Creed tried again. “Jack it’s-”

“Marshal? You-what are you,” Creed caught the tremor in the man’s voice, “why are you here?” he whispered at the end almost like he was scared to ask.

Creed swallowed heavily, “Lookin’ for a place to camp, ain’t even know you were in here till I smelled ya at the treeline.” 

A long, seemingly involuntary whine came from the tent. “Jack I gotta ask, why,” he cleared his throat, “why you ain’t at a heat house? It ain’t safe out here for you like that.” He could feel his mouth filling with saliva the longer he stood this close.

Jack’s raspy laugh caught Creed off guard. He heard a soft thump, the gun hitting the ground maybe, as Jack spoke too happily, “Ain’t no heat house gonna let a man in there. No matter if he’s an omega and ain’t never looked sideways at a lady. Ain’t even got the parts to do nothin’,” he mumbled under his breath and Creed could swear his heart skipped a beat at that thought.

“An’ anywhere else, well,” Creed could hear the sneer on his face, “male omegas being practically infertile an’ all makes it easier to rape ‘em when you don’t gotta worry ‘bout kids and they ain’t strong enough to fight nobody.” He spat the last of it as if he could get it out of his mouth faster that way.

Creed was quiet at that. He had no idea male omegas weren’t allowed in heat houses. Hell he hadn’t even thought they existed until a minute ago. But he’d never heard of any before now. “Ain’t even know you were an omega till now. Always smelled like a beta.” 

Jack snorted a laugh, “Yeah, you can imagine how well announcin’ to folk yer less of a man and ain’t even useful like a woman would go can’t you Marshal?”

Creed growled before he could even think to stop it and snapped his teeth before saying, “As if havin’ a dick is what makes a man and woman are only for breedin’.” He was always thankful his Ana had been a beta. Omega women being rare meant they were treated like glass or like dolls to show off so Ana being a beta meant she was allowed to make her own choices and be her own person so long as she had a mate. Alpha woman, well at least the ones he knew, seemed to be either not interested in anyone or interest in everyone. 

He knew his scent had shifted when he heard Jack give a soft gasp. His alpha was awake and alert as an overwhelming rush of the need to protect ran through him. It’s thanks to being the only alpha in his family that his alpha always jumps to protecting others before it even has any other thought. He remembers vividly every drop of blood he spilled for his younger siblings. 

And now it was attaching to Jack whether he wanted it to or not. 

He cleared his throat, never sure how to gracefully navigate a conversation, he just moved past what they both had said. “This how you usually spend yer heats?” 

“No.” Jack snarled, “It hit me faster than usual. Was about halfway to my hideout ‘fore I could barely cling to the saddle.” He ground out through his teeth as if it was his fault.

Creed opened his mouth before he could even think about what to say and said, “I could get you there.” His words hung in the silence of the night. An owl hooted from the tree tops as something rustled through the brush.

“Jack?”

“Shut up! I-” a keen ripped through the night. “I-I’m, ahn, gimme a moment marshal!” his breath hitched and Creed heard a wet squelch and was hit with the pungent scent of orange with the distinct tang that was distinct to omega slick. 

Even through the layer of protect, Creed could feel the spiked desire to breedflare underneath it. Suddenly his gun belt was painfully in the way as his dick began to fill. He could hear the creak of his jaw with how hard he was clenching it. All of his focus going towards keeping his scent locked down. There was no way Jack would let him help if he thought for a second Creed was reacting this way. And so help him it had been a long time since he’d laid with anyone; even more so someone he had, albeit, complicated feelings about.

“You ain’t got a moment Jack. Either I take you now while yer still able to point the way or you don’t go at all.” He wasn’t sure how long Jack had before his fever really set in and Creed wouldn’t be able to trust if he was pointing them the correct way. 

“Fine!” Jack hissed. “For fuck’s sake, fine! Let me get my shit.” He grumbled. Creed heard shuffling inside the tent along with little sad omega rumbles as he had to deconstruct whatever kind of nest had had built in there, even if it was a barren one. Creed knew better than to offer his help or a comforting croon, as neither would be well received by the other man. No matter what his alpha wanted. 

Quick enough Jack stepped out of the tent and Creed got a look at him in the moon-lit dark. His dark hair stuck to his sweat-soaked skin and he looked like he hadn’t sleep in days. A shiver ran through his body as he stepped around Creed with a quick, “Break the tent down for me.” as he went to saddle his horse.

Creed quickly jumped to do as requested, no doubt his alpha aiming to please the omega, and had the stakes rolled into the canvas just in time to see Jack bring a strip of rope to him. “Hell’s that for?” Creed grumped as he traded it for the canvas in his hands.

“Tie me to the saddle.” He said it so casually Creed almost thought he was joking. But when nothing came after he felt a growl roll out from deep in his chest.

“You’re a damn fool if you think I’m about to let you get up on that horse.” He stomped closer only to jump back as teeth flew into his line of sight, just narrowly avoiding getting his arm bit by Jack’s horse. Her ears were pressed all the way to her neck and she stared down her nose at him, almost daring him to try and get closer.

Jack smiled at his horse before turning a confused and suspicious look to Creed, “Then pray-tell marshal, just how I’m going to get there? Walk? You gonna drag me behind you like some prisoner?” His sneer was cut short as he curled inward, arms wrapping around his stomach.

“Ride double with me.” Creed tried to say it as casual as possible but must’ve missed the mark, what with the shocked look on Jack’s face. “Look I,” he turned his head down a bit hoping his hat could hide the heat on his face, “I would feel better if’in I could know that you’re secure.” He cleared his throat, still not looking at Jack, “Also I thought, if you needed, or wanted, you could scent me to try and calm it down.” He felt his voice leave him with every word and be replaced by an embarrassing heat spreading down his neck.

Silence once again sank in between them. All Creed could do now was wait for Jack’s response. “Well now,” his raspy drawl whispered into Creed’s ear, “are you propositioning me marshal?” Creed’s gaze shot up and saw the amused curl of a smile on Jack’s face, the ripped scar turning the left side into a harsh smirk. 

He felt cold water splash over him at the implication that he would- “No! I’d never-”

Jack’s sharp chuckle cut him off, “I’m just pullin’ yer tail marshal. And I ain’t one to turn down the offer of scenting from a handsome anybody.” He winked and Creed could feel the blush creep back up on his face. “I am in your care then, marshal.” He tilted his head back a little, just enough to bare his throat in agreement and acknowledgment of Creed’s poorly hidden alpha desire to keep the omega close.

It was going to be a long ride.

———

A shiver ran through Jack’s body as the cool night air swept across his sweat-soaked skin, the baying of a coonhound echoed off the hills. He should’ve realized sooner that this heat would be worse than the others. His usual week-long preheat routine of slight cramps, heat flashes and sensitive nose (among other things) had lasted all of 3 days before he got hit with the worst pain of his life. Being gutshot was preferable to this.

The marshal showing up when he did felt… oddly coincidental to say the least. Preordained to say the most. Now, William Boyd was no religious man -and Undead Jack weren’t one neither- but he’d swear on his mama’s grave, god rest her soul, that something or someone pulled the two of them together at this exact moment. The one time Jack’s heat hits him faster just happens to also be the first time he’s ever heard of the marshal crossing into Colorado? Jack maybe a put-upon fool but he ain’t simple.

Maybe that’s why his omega has been so keen to trust the marshal. Maybe it knew something neither of them did. Either way Jack sure hoped what-in-the-hell this was didn’t get him locked up in county at the end of it.

 “Don’t you do it.” Creed growled a warning followed quickly by a horse hoof digging into the dirt. Jack snapped out of his reverie to look over just in time to see Creed snatch his hand back from being dangerously close to Honeysuckle’s snapping teeth. “Shit!” his hissed and glared at her while she threw her head in the air and pawed the ground. 

Jack huffed out his raspy cackle, “You tryin’ to lose fingers marshal?” He’d be more worried if he couldn’t clearly see Honey’s ears perked forward. She enjoyed pulling the marshal’s tail just as much as he did.

“If your goddamned devil-horse would let me just tie this lead-” he turned to Jack and shook a strip of rope at him.

Oh, that’s what he was doing. “You ain’t gotta pony her, Creed. She’ll follow just fine, ain’t that right sweet girl?” He pushed out a purr towards her and she responded with a soft whicker of her own. 

Jack’s smile seemed to soften Creed’s frown and he stomped over to his horse as he bundled the rope into his saddle bag. “Ain’t nothing sweet about that snapping turtle pretendin’ to be a horse.” Creed grumbled to himself and quickly swung himself over the back of his horse.

The blue roan didn’t so much as sway even with the marshal’s weight and Jack leaning against her. He smiled as he ran his hand along her neck and shoulder, calm as the night. Jack thought she seemed a good match for the reckless marshal; a dropped head and a soft mouth but ears on a swivel and legs stood firm ready to do what the marshal asked. 

Jack didn’t put a lot of stock into how men treated other men -you could treat someone like a king one day to rob him blind the next- but it was always obvious to him what kind of man it was by how he treated his horse. And Jack could always see it, plain as day, that Creed and his horse were family. Jack may not know the history behind them, and he won’t ask, but the first time he saw them all those years ago made Jack trust the marshal time and time again.

A hand on his head pulled Jack out his thoughts (no doubt running away with him again as his heat picked up) he looked up to see a soft look on Creed’s face as he ran his fingers through Jack’s greasy hair. A whine pulled from his throat when Creed’s big gun-rough hand slid across Jack’s cheek and he leaned into the warmth of it. “Gimme your hand, Jack.” the rough whisper-like cadence of Creed’s voice strummed lightning under his skin.

“Why marshal,” Jack purred as he gave the marshal what he asked, “ain’t it a li’l early to consider marriage?” His cheshire grin stretched as he watched red bloom on Creed’s skin. “Unless,” Jack gripped Creed’s hand and pulled him just enough to whisper in his ear, “unless you want to consider this,” his lips brushed the shell of Creed’s ear, “the consummation.”

A growl ripped through Creed’s chest as he dropped Jack’s hand only to wrap his arm around Jack’s back and hauled him up from the ground. The gasp that burst through him at the show of alpha strength quickly turned into a drawn out moan as he dropped right into the marshal’s lap -chest to chest.

Jack bit down hard on his lip to try and stop the keen from rolling out of his chest when he felt just how hard Creed was through his pants. His arms were thrown over Creed’s shoulders, hands gripped tight to the back of the marshal’s shirt and his legs laid over the other man’s thighs. It was entirely too warm, too close, too intimate but also it wasn’t close enough and Jack could feel the desire to burrow under Creed’s skin stir up from his omega.

Creed’s big, warm hand slid along Jack’s back and pushed them even closer until they were crushed together and Jack could feel the alpha’s rumble roll through his whole body. He buried his face in the marshal’s neck, his nose pushed directly into the man’s scent gland.

He felt his short omega fangs drip with the want to claim as he finally got to taste the scent he’d been craving since the marshal showed up outside his tent. The deep hearty scent of black coffee, leather and juniper fill his nose and he feels slick drip from his cunt in response. Jack groans and instinctually tries to clench his legs together only to clamp his thighs around Creed’s hips, rutting him directly into the alpha’s stiff cock. 

“Ah!” air punched out of Jack’s lungs, hips rolling hard to get any amount of friction against his smaller omegan dick that was already weeping for release. “Creed-” He rasped against the man’s neck until he snarled, teeth scrapping against skin.

The hand on his back slipped down to grip his hip just shy of painful as he liked, while the other gently guided Jack out of the marshal’s neck until they were face to face. Breathing each other’s air. Lips mere seconds away from each other. Jack could barely see the green of Creed’s eyes in the dark, but it couldn’t hide the desire Creed wore plainly on his face.“I got you, Jack.” he whispered against Jack’s lips and then closed the distance between them.

It was softer than any kiss Jack William had had before. Even his first kiss had been filled with a teenaged passion. Every kiss after filled with the heat of secrecy and want of release. William had been soft for Adam, their kisses born from familiarity and longing and the future. Jack knew better than to compare the softness of his last kiss with Adam to this kiss with Creed. It did no good for anyone to compare a dead man to one still living.

Creed’s softness was the difference. No one had been soft for Jack William before. Not that he had been with anyone since Adam (hard to fuck anyone without them seeing what your packing) but it was always the unspoken expectation that he’d soften his edges for them. But of course here was Creed, an large unmated alpha soaked in the scent of a heated omega, gentling himself for William Jack. An omega that offered jagged edges and sharp teeth rather than the desired soft curves and sweet words.

Jack snarled into the kiss and bit down on Creed’s bottom lip, the familiar tang of blood coated his tongue as he pushed into Creed’s mouth. He fisted the back of Creed’s short salt and pepper hair and tugged harshly earning him a groan that had Jack echo in return. He picked up the pace grinding his dick hard against Creed’s, no longer able to keep a steady rhythm Jack settled for just small short ruts in the the marshal’s lap.

Creed pulled Jack back from his lips just enough to catch his breath, “That’s right darlin’ chase it.” 

The lust roughened voice went right to his dick and he nearly knocked Creed’s hat off as he threw his head back with a bitten-off moan. Creed quickly latched onto Jack’s neck, kissing it softly before gently pushing his alpha fangs against Jack’s browned skin. “Alpha!” Jack hissed, just barely catching himself from screeching into the hills.

“I got you, I got you Jack.” He groaned against Jack’s neck and now both of them were panting, steamed puffs of air visible in the cool night air.“Come on darlin’, you’re so close I can taste it. Come for me.” He whispered. Jack gasped and jerked his hips erratically. “Come for me omega.”

A high-pitched keen filled the otherwise silent night as Jack felt his stomach tighten with release and his mind blessedly go blank as the most intense pleasure spiked through him. Through the haze he heard a grunt and a deep rumbling growl from Creed but couldn’t parse what it was about right now. He could hear himself whimpering as he came down from his orgasm, chest heaving and hips stuttering against Creed. 

He felt slick pool in his britches along with the front of them covered in a small amount of come from his dick. In the back of his mind he knew they still had a day’s ride till they got to his hideout and he’d hate himself for sitting in his own slick. But right now his omega was happily basking in the post-orgasmic haze and the scent of satisfied alpha.

Jack opened his eyes and looked down until he met Creed’s eyes. He watched the logic and reasoning slowly return to him and cover over his alpha’s desires. Jack leaned down to quickly brush his lips against Creed’s in an almost chaste kiss. “Feel s’rry for y’er horse.” he somehow managed to mumble out.

Creed blinked as he took a moment to parse through whatever words had left Jack’s mouth before he huffed out a short laugh. “She’s fine.” his drawl was heavy on his tongue, “Maggie’s sturdier’n any bed we could’a found.” He kissed Jack’s lips then his cheek, “You ok to set off, darlin’?”

Jack rubbed his cheek against Creed’s wide shoulder, a small smile hidden in the collar of his shirt, “Whenever you are marshal.” his whispered, barely loud enough for Creed to hear as he closed his eyes and cling to the older man’s shirt as if he were a pup again.

He felt strong arms cage him in and heard the jingle of reins being picked up. The horse picked up into an easy walk, like she hadn’t just sat still while they had an impromptu jerk off session while on her back. Jack knew she was a good horse. A quick peak from under his dark hair to see Honeysuckle pick up to follow behind without missing a beat. 

“Head straight west for now if you would marshal.” He felt more than heard the hummed response. “Wake me when the sun crests.” he said as he felt sleep pull him into the black.

[ames-writes]

Bare Hands - a character exploration oneshot

There wasn’t so much as a breath between them, the chain from the cuffs making it so they couldn’t be more than a few feet away from each other as they laid, faces to the night sky, side by side. 

Jack fiddled with the chain that laid across his belly connecting his right hand to the Marshall’s left, the cold from the ground crept into his skin with nothing more than his shirt as a blanket since his jacket was relegated to being his pillow. They couldn’t even have a fire to stave off the cold for fear of being spotted, or so the Marshall said. For an honest-to-god minute Jack wondered if the Marshall simply didn’t mind freezing his balls off, given the fact that clearly didn’t have any. 

The day’s events replaying in his mind like a fancy stage play he saw once. Him the handsome main character, the Marshall his grizzled nemesis, the Kelly-Green man the villain who was having a hard time breathing on account of Jack’s hands around his throat. The stage set on top of a moving train heading for the next town; backdrop of the rolling prairie hills of the middle west rolling by as the train speeds up. 

The scene plays out how its intended. Jack dodges a bullet and tackles the man to the roof of the train, trying and succeeding to smack the gun out of his hands. Jack’s slim fingers find their way around the man’s throat and pushes what little weight he has down as hard as he can. He can see in the man’s eyes that if Jack even lets up for a second the man is going to kill him. The audience sits on the edge of their seats, the band quiet for this intense moment.

A shot rings out. The audience gasps and a hollow violin sings alone. Jack sees the bullet hole in the train beside his hand. One inch to left and there would be a hole in his right hand. The train shook beneath them with every new track. An expert shot. A shot only one person on this whole train could make. Jack looks up to see the Marshall’s hard eyes boring into him. His gun aimed down at Jack’s hand, steady regardless of the shaking. The band starts to pick up as Jack and the Marshall stare at each other. 

The man stabs his boot knife into Jack’s bicep and pulls it out again to aim better. Jack rears back to grab it and another shot rings out. The man slumps backwards and slides off the side of the train. The cello plays a false chord as the curtain closes on the scene.

With the light of the moon Jack stares at the unmarred back of his right hand. One inch to the left. A warning, Jack had thought at the time. To not kill the man. But then the Marshall had done away with the man himself. So if not a warning then what? It was driving Jack mad. So much so he was now just outright jangling the chain that laid across him, his left arm aching from the knife wound. 

“Would you knock it off?” Marshall Creed yanked on the chain pulling it out of Jack’s hands. His voice gruffer than usual as if he was actually almost asleep. 

“You ever killed anyone with your bare hands Marshall?” That wasn’t what Jack had meant to ask but now that the question was out of him he wanted to know.

The man was silent for a moment, Jack could practically see his shoulders push back with tension. The chain jingled softly as he set his hand back onto the ground. “Why you askin’?” 

Jack frowned at the question to his question but answered anyway. “Guess I’m curious as to why you’d bother to stop me from killing that guy if you was just gonna do it yourself.” He waited a beat to see if the Marshall had anything to say to that. “Look in your eye told me you know exactly what that kinda thing does to a man.” Again, silence met him. He turned his head and stared at the back of the Marshall’s head. “And seemed to me like you were hoping to spare me that horror.”

At that the Marshall turned his head all the way to look at Jack. Jack would have to be more of a blind idiot than he already was to not be taken by Marshall Creed’s handsome face. The man should’ve been making beautiful kids with a pretty little woman and running for mayor, not rolling around in the dirt with Jack and all his demons.

“And why would I do that?” Marshall Creed spoke softly like he was asking himself that question more than he was Jack. 

Unable to take Marshall Creed staring at him any longer Jack turned his face back toward the speckled sky. He took a deep breath before he started, “There’s something… different when you kill someone with your hands.” His hands hang over his face as he stares at his palms for a moment. “With a gun you can look through the scope and pretend it’s just another animal. Even with a handgun,” he makes a gun with his fingers and points it at the sky, “you can even put it down to bad luck on their part. The bullet could’ve gone any which way, they could’ve dodged, the wind pushed it, whatever you want to say to get yourself out of it.” 

His hands fell back down to his chest. “But when you’re face to face, smelling what they had for breakfast, feeling the warmth on their skin,” he flexed his fingers unconsciously, “seeing the life leave their eyes as you get to keep yours. It changes a man.” He takes a deep breath, “Staring death in the face always changes men.”

Crickets filled the silence between them and Jack didn’t dare look at the Marshall as he said, “And if that’s why you’d try to stop me from killing like that I’d tell you not to bother. That kid died a long time ago.” He hopes he hid the waiver in his voice. He hadn’t thought about that in a long time and he hadn’t expected to tonight.

The Marshall was quiet for a while, no doubt chewing on all this new information. Jack skin itched with the continuous feeling of being stared at. His fingers twitched and he quickly found the chain once again to finger like he was a damn nervous old woman. After another minute the nerves left and now he was just annoyed. Why the fuck wasn’t he saying anything? Did the bastard fall asleep while he was spilling his guts over here? “Alright you son-of-a-” he turned to face the Marshall and cuss him out.

“When?” The Marshall spoke as soon as Jack’s eyes locked onto his as if he was waiting this whole for him to look at the Marshall.

Jack sputtered, insult lost to the shock of the question. “When? When what? You ain’t say shit for the last five minutes and you-”

“When did ‘that kid’ die?” The look in Creed’s eyes stopped Jack’s tirade instantly. There was anger but it wasn’t the normal kind he had shown Jack over the last week. No this was some kind of righteous anger, the kind of anger revenge comes from. 

Even though he didn’t look away Jack still felt cowed under that righteous fury. No one had ever felt angry for him before. Hell he didn’t even feel angry about what happened anymore. It was simply what it was. He’d do the same again every time.

Jack felt that kid from 13 years ago force himself into Jack��s throat to whisper, “He was 15.” Creed held his gaze and Jack watched that fury soften with the shock of knowledge. There was a pressure building behind Jack’s eyes, his one already blurry eye becoming almost completely useless. 

“I’d fucking do it again.” He snarled when he felt a tear run across his cheek, body half turned to face the Marshall. He didn’t know which of them he was trying to convince.

He quickly flopped again onto his back, not bothering to hide him wiping off the evidence on his face and then rolled onto his side, his back facing the Marshall. He had to lay with his hip and shoulder digging into the ground and his hand gripping his waist to keep the chain from pulling the cuff on his wrist. It was the worst way possible position to lay on the ground but he’d rather fuck up his shoulder than look Marshall Creed in the face again tonight.

There was a shuffling across the dirt behind him and he felt chain go a little more slack against his side. Then the silence of the plains once again. Jack felt his body getting heavier as sleep called to him, a coyote screamed far off in the distance.

“I was 23.” Jack felt his awareness come back a little but wasn’t sure if he actually heard that until Creed said, “I’d do it again if I had to. But we shouldn’t have had to.” A breath heaved from Creed’s nose and it seemed like that was that.

Jack closed his eyes to the cricket filled silence. The memory of watching his father’s life drain from his body as Jack struggled to breath from the noose still tight around his neck followed him into the darkness.

[ames-writes]

Soulmate AU

summary: In a world where the first words that will be spoken to you by your soulmate are written over your heart in their handwriting, William Boyd’s is a name that’s not his and Thomas Creed’s is a job title he feels compelled to take up.

---------

William Boyd was 5 years old when old man Macready told him about soul-words. “It’s the good Lord’s way of helping us find who we’re meant to be with.” He had said and he showed off the flowing script of words his wife had spoken to him 40 years ago in black ink across his heart. Will had gone home that night and stared down at his chest, bare if not for the singular word over his heart that simply read Jack in firm stocky lettering. Even though he wasn’t sure why his soulmate would be calling out a name that wasn’t his, he figured it’d make it all the easier to know who it was when the time came. 

He spent his afternoons day-dreaming all the ways he’d meet his soulmate. Maybe they’d be like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday – the most famous soul-pair to come out of the west – gun-slinging side by side before riding into the sunset. Or maybe they’d be like the Miltons, a small family who ran a ranch a few miles outside town, who seemed happy enough to live out their days in simple peace.

But he had known better than to bring his thoughts to his pa, seeing as the man had never once spoken to Will about soulmates or soul-words. He spoke even less about Will’s mother. The one time Will had seen his pa’s soul-words and asked after them he had walked away with a shiner that lasted him the next two weeks. After that Will wondered if his parents were even soulmates.

Quiet marriages, is what non-soulmate couplings was called. No words, no passion, no heart beating in time with yours. Just… quiet. They were more common nowadays, what with more and more people stretching out across the new land; especially this far west where it was literal days ride between towns. Sometimes soulmates just never ran across each other. Or they did and it was the wrong time. Or one of them died too early. There were lots of reasons for quiet marriages, so Will didn’t think too hard on it when he got it in his head to marry Adam Kelly. 

Adam Kelly’s first words to Will were “Well ain’t you the prettiest rattlesnake I ever seen” and Will had never hated the singular word over his heart until that day. Will never asked what Adam’s words were just as Adam never asked him. Even when they first laid together Will did his level best to look everywhere – his golden hair, his sun-kissed freckled skin, his strong thighs – but where he knew the black words laid. He told himself it didn’t matter who’s words were on Adam, Will was the one loving Adam in the here and now and planning for the future.

It wasn’t until after Adam was dead did Will think about Adam’s soulmate. He figured the decent thing would be to find them and apologize for being the reason why they’ll never be together. Will’s own soulmate was most certainly better off without him, given how people just kept dying because of him. He often found himself looking down at his soul-word and just hoping that, whoever his soulmate was, they were perfectly happy without him.

Not even a year later all the reasoning behind his soul-word becomes clear. Undead Jack the papers were calling him, after his failed attempt at a one-man bank robbery that left him empty-handed and scar-faced. He thought he had fallen into a sun-sick delirium again when he first read the headline “Undead Jack: Bank Robber Rises From the Dead” with a drawing of what he supposed was his bloodied face. The rest of the week was blurred with sickness and pain but he knew at the end of it he came out as Jack. 

After the first year of living as Jack he thought back to what old man Macready had told him and he decided that the “good Lord” must have a sick sense of humor he reserved just for Jack. He had lost count of how many times he had been called out by “name” by someone or other (he had stopped counting after the 5th time of his heart rabbiting when someone called out to him only for them to pull a gun on him).

The years go by and Jack thinks less and less about a soulmate he’s not even sure that he hasn’t met already. He’s bedded enough men along the way, some who’s soulmate was platonic, some who’s soulmate had died, some who had never met their soulmate and never wanted to. He wasn’t picky about who he fell into bed with, so long as their first word to him wasn’t his name.

---------

Thomas Wayne Creed was 7 years old when his soul-words appeared on his chest. The chicken-scratch scrawl looked different from what he’d seen of his mama and papa’s soul-words. And it looked to be only one long word instead of the few words over each of their hearts. When he showed it to them they couldn’t read it, and he couldn’t neither, but when they went to town few weeks later he took some eggs to Mrs. Calhoun and asked her to read it for him. 

Marshal it had read. He had asked her who marshal was and she had told him “Not a who, boy, a what. Looks like you’ll be a lawman when you come o’ age.” She had patted his head and told him to keep one foot in front of the other and he’d find his way to his soulmate one day. And that he’d best not rush ahead worryin’ about it ‘fore it’s even time to think about it. 

And for a while he kept to that. Not thinking about the word on his chest, or who it belonged to, or why Mrs. Calhoun thought he’d be lawman when he obviously was gonna take over his papa’s farm when he’s old enough. He didn’t think about it all the way till he was 16, when he first laid eyes on Anastasia Fuller and the first words she said to him were “Don’t think I’ve ever seen a man with that sweet a tooth.” Eliza was right sour with him when he came back home with no chocolate for her, on account of him having run out the store without so much as a word back, but all he could feel was a phantom burn where his soul-words were.

They had a quiet-marriage a few years later, once her daddy approved of him despite his low-birth, and it wasn’t until their wedding night did he see the blank skin above her breast where her soul-words should’ve been. He hadn’t meant to freeze when he realized but she knew him better than anyone and brought it up after everything was done. She told him she had never had soul-words. It’s why her daddy was so protective of her and why it took 4 years for the man to accept Thomas. She said she had never minded about it but he could tell it was a hard-earned mindfulness in the way her smiled didn’t reach her eyes when she said it.

Soulless, is what people born without soul-words were called. A cruel name for something becoming more and more common in the world. As if it was some kinda failing to be wholly yourself and not need someone else to complete you. There were days Thomas felt envy for Ana’s lack of soul-words, it was torture knowing there was someone out there for you but you had no idea if you would find them or if it would even work out in the end. Sometimes it wasn’t even that soulless didn’t have a soulmate, it could be their soulmate wasn’t born yet or had died before they were born. And for the longest time Ana believed she just didn’t have one, until the day their daughter was born.

Amelia was the most important thing Thomas had ever held in his hands before. He looked down at her and the words My little peach blossom printed in her mother’s flowy script over her heart. It’s matched soul-word Mama now vibrantly scratched over Ana’s heart in what is obviously the writing of a child. Ana looked more beautiful at that moment than any before. Thomas thought fleetingly of his soulmate and hoped they were as happy as he was before putting them out of his mind.

He should’ve known something would go wrong. He’d heard tell from the elders than those who try to find happiness outside of their soulmate only brought ruin upon their chosen. As Ana and Amelia’s blood ran through his fingers into the hardwood floor of the bank they had just died in Thomas cursed his soulmate. He wished he had been born soulless. He wished Anastasia had been his soulmate. He wished he had carved his soul-words off his chest when he was 7. He wished his wife and child weren’t dead at his feet.

His road to becoming a marshal was bloody on both sides. The outlaw that had killed his family was dead and there was a pointed star hanging off his hip now. Finally he lived up to his soul-word. Except the only people to address him as Marshal were those he had no intention of being soulmates with. So anytime someone greeted him by title he didn’t say a word. So he kept to himself, worked with folks when he needed, slept with others when he wanted, but only those that called him by name.

---------

Through the sound of Arizona’s cicadas Jack caught the gentle creak of the floorboards behind him and then, even clearer so, the unmistakable sound of the hammer of a gun cocking directly behind his head. Looking out the window across the road he saw the blue roan he had been keeping an eye on to wait for her rider to return. Her rider being the one who had the gun pointed at his head. Jack slowly raised his hands halfway up his shoulders, “Marshal.”

“Jack.” He said simply and a smile spread across Jack’s face at the familiar, albeit odd, call-and-respond between the outlaw Undead Jack and Marshal Thomas Creed. 

It was the same ever since they first spoke to each other over a year ago when the marshal found him in that saloon in Mexico. They had crossed paths a few times before then but always in the distance— a cheeky tip of Jack’s hat or a shot going wide as Creed chased him down��� but that was all. Jack had been down to check in on Maria and Arturo (like he’d promised) when the marshal caught up with him in a dusty bar halfway across the Chihuahuan desert that was no more than a watering hole. “Jack.” Creed had said, whispered almost, as he slid onto the stool next to Jack.  Caught by surprise, Jack wheezed out a, “Marshal” before almost coughing up a lung for trying to breath his whiskey.  And that was the start of it. Since then, whenever they were close enough to speak one of them always called out to the other like that. 

“Ain’t heard you was this far west, Creed.” Jack turned his scarred smile toward Creed so he could see the man’s pretty green eyes. “You come all the way to Winslow just for me?”

Creed was silent for a moment as they held each other’s gaze, “Prison transport.” The hammer of the gun clicks back to rest. Jack lowers his hands and turns around in time to see Creed slid his gun into it’s holster as he stepped over to the sheriff’s desk. “Haulin’ a couple o’ horse thieves to Tucson in the mornin’.” He fell into the sheriff’s chair, black hat pulled low to shadow his eyes, as he bit down on a fresh cigarette.

Jack hummed as he followed the marshal to lean back against the side of the desk, arms and legs crossed in front of him. “So this is just what, some sort of—”

“Coincidence?” Creed’s drawl pulled out his smile. He scratched a match to light against the sheriff’s desk and lit the end of his cigarette, puffing out smoke to get it going.

Jack shot a look at him for the unneeded commentary, “— some sort of cosmic happenstance—”

“‘Cosmic happenstance’.” Creed purposely mocked loud enough to be heard.

“— a fortuity marshal!” he reached down and Creed let Jack slap at his knee for interrupting again. Creed’s deep chuckle pulled a huff from Jack and the two of them settled into the baked head of Arizona; half listening to the dulled sounds of the town around them.

Jack broke first as he usually does, “Do you believe in fate, Creed?” 

The man blew smoke out in a scoff, “I believe she got better things to do than muck about in small men’s daily lives.” 

Jack hummed but didn’t say anything else. Uneasy from the sudden quiet, Creed peeked out from underneath his hat, “What do you believe?” Creed could just barely see the edge of the jagged scar that ripped up from his lip to his cheekbone as Jack licked his lips to speak.

“‘No one alive has ever escaped it’,” Jack spoke as if he was reading from something Creed couldn’t see, “‘neither brave man nor coward, I tell you- it’s born with us the day that we are born’.”

“What’s all that about?” He asked around his cigarette, forgetting for a moment that he was smoking it in the first place.

Jack turned to him with that crooked smile that called to something in Creed, “It’s an old story from the Greeks, ‘bout a boy deciding what kind of man he wants to be.” He stepped up to Creed, his long lean legs framing around Creed’s own thick thighs.

Creed grit his teeth on the butt of his cigarette and resisted the urge to wrap his wide hands around Jack’s narrow hips. He stared up into Jack’s eyes, “What’re his options?”

“Well, he can turn tail and run- live a long and happy life.” Creed swallows what little spit his dry mouth is able to make in this desert as Jack pulls Creed’s hat from his head to rest it on the desk beside. “Or he can stay and fight- fated to die in glory so all know his name.” Jack ran his hands through Creed’s short, dusty hair as he spoke all soft and wistful-like.

Creed held his breath as Jack leaned closer to him, this was the closest either of them had been to each other without the law sitting between them. Sure they’d danced around their attraction to each other before, flirtin’ weren’t against the law and Creed had thought it ain’t mean nothing since neither of them would follow-up on it. But now, with the outlaw so close- practically petting Creed with his gentle his hands were in his hair- he could feel something tuggin’ on him.

Mexico had been the start of it. He had gone down there in search of James Green, an outlaw who had been knockin’ over stagecoaches throughout Texas. He had stopped at a no one-horse town almost like he had been guided to it out in the middle of the desert. He had spotted Jack at the bar almost immediately and was half turned back out the door before he caught himself. Creed had always believed coincidences were nothing more than that. He knew folk believed there was some higher power that pushed things together but given everything he’d seen and done he didn’t like the idea of someone doing all that with purpose. On any other day he’d’ve sat himself down easy as anything and shared a drink with the man he had some kind of familiarity with. But this felt different. He had come this way on account of a gut feeling. He’d had no idea this bar was out this way let alone that Jack would be here. The whole of Mexico, hell, even the whole of North America and Undead Jack just so happens to be in this hole-in-the-wall at the same exact time Creed was. It felt too much like something he had to face, either here and now or some other time somewhere else. Might as well get it done now.  So he slid onto the stool next to the younger man, “Jack.” He said plainly, unsure of what to expect. The man sputtered around his whiskey, “Marshal.” Creed felt a jolt of panic but it died as soon as Jack opened his sharp mouth to say whatever the hell came out of him next.

“Boy had an easy choice then.” He said, quiet as Jack stepped closer, knees brushing against Creed’s hips, his long thin fingers plucking the now-dead cigarette from between Creed’s lips.

A sad thought flitted across Jack’s face, too quick for Creed to grab hold of, before covering it with a knowing smirk and a whisper, “If you say so, marshal.” And before Creed could even begin to understand what that meant Jack’s lips met his in a hard, painful way.

Jack half expected Creed to pull away- and fully expected Creed to shove him away- so it’s easy to say that the feeling of wide hands grabbin’ his hips and yanking him down just about spooked him right out his skin. The marshal’s lips were chapped and tasted of tobacco but his hands were warm and rough like old leather and Jack couldn’t get enough of either.

The ease of which he fell into Creed should be embarrassing, but all Jack could feel was the heat between them and the hardness of Creed’s cock against Jack’s own. He moaned into the kiss when he felt teeth nip at his bottom lip and big hands squeezed his hips. “This the fate you had in mind, Jack?” Creed said as he moved down to kiss and nip at Jack’s jaw.

“Part of it.” He gasped and tugged on Creed’s hair when he bit down on Jack’s earlobe.

Creed hummed as he found his way back to Jack’s kiss-bitten lips. “What else you have in mind?”

Jack smiled and without looking found his way past Creed’s belt to wrap his slim fingers around Creed’s thick cock, causing the man to pull off from Jack’s lips with a gasp like he had been drowning moments before. “Shit son, warn a man first.” He hissed, teeth pressed to Jack’s jaw as he gave the man’s dick a gentle squeeze.

The marshal’s heavy breath against Jack’s throat made him shiver. “That all your mouth good for, marshal? Complainin’?” He huffed out with a smile he knew would rile Creed up like a coiled rattlesnake. His prize was the dull pain of Creed’s teeth against his collarbone, pulling a moan from him he weren’t expecting.

One of Creed’s hands slipped into Jack’s half-opened shirt to squeeze his chest while the other fumbled gracelessly past Jack’s belt and into his britches. He groaned as Creed’s large hand slid down heavy around his dick. He had to bite into his lip to stifle the whine brought about by a calloused thumb rubbing the pre-come that dripped from his cock.

The thought of stopping shot clean through Jack. He had promised himself not to fall in with someone who’s first word to him was his name. And here was running to it like a coyote dying of thirst at the first scent of water. No care of who that water belonged to or if it was poisoned. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, him and Creed would always come to this. He felt it like it had been foreshadowed his whole life and only now was he cottoning onto it.

Creed’s hips bucked up as Jack’s hand started stroking him at an almost glacier-like pace. He groaned against the younger man’s sweat-soaked skin, “You lookin’ to give me a fever in this heat, boy?” Jack’s smooth fingers twisted around the head of his dick and squeezed just shy of painful making him bite and suck at his collarbone again, a bruise slowly working it’s way to the surface.

Warm air puffed against Creed’s ear with Jack’s labored breathing, “You tryin’ to tell me you don’t like it?” Creed was sure there must’ve been a breeze come through the window at that exact moment to account for the shiver and gooseflesh that ran across his skin.

Creed twisted his hand on Jack’s cock in retaliation making Jack whine as he curled over to press his forehead into Creed’s sweaty hair. “That answer your question?” was what Creed meant to say back but it fell off his tongue as soon as he spotted the soul-word over Jack’s heart. 

There was a hitch in Jack’s breathing before Creed found himself again and quickly brought his teeth down onto Jack’s nipple, the soul-word staring him in the eye. He swirled his thumb over the head of Jack’s cock, smearing more pre-come down his shaft as he picked up his pace.

Jack threw his head back in a half-bitten shout at the sudden change. He squeezed his knees on either side of Creed’s hips to keep himself from rutting into the marshal’s hand to chase his orgasm. He slid his free hand from the marshal’s soft hair down to scratch his blunt nails into the thick chest hair under his shirt. 

His fingers slid down to tease at the older man’s balls making him grunt and bite hard on Jack’s nipple in surprise. “Shit,” Jack growled out a moan and leaned forward to look him in the eye, “that-” he paused, eyes slid past green to settle on the soul-word over Creed’s heart.

Green met brown as they stared at each other. Both having seen the other’s soul-word. And the all too familiar hand writing each was in. They both breathed each other in both losing the rhythm as they whispered the soul-word on each other’s chest and came together. Jack rutting his dick into the big warm hand while Creed bit a kiss into Jack’s mouth again.

The sound of the town outside the sheriff’s office slowly filtered back into their awareness. “Ain’t close the door.” Jack muttered as he pulled his hand from Creed’s pants and wiped it on the man’s shirt.

Creed frowned at the outlaw and did the same, smirking when he got a responding frown. “Weren’t like I was figurin’ on this happenin’.”

Jack hummed and stood from Creed’s lap, the marshal already missing the weight of the man on top of him, “Well then,” he buckled his pants back up, “I s’pose we shouldn’t figure on this happening again.” He smiled his cheshire grin as he picked up the marshal’s black stetson, gave it a futile dusting, before setting it back on the man’s head. He stepped around Creed and headed for the door, he didn’t have to leave town till tonight but right now he needed some air.

“What was his choice?” Creed called out before Jack could make the door.

Creed turned to stare at Jack’s back as the younger man kept his eyes forward and was still for a moment before he said almost too soft to hear. “He died, marshal. Weren’t no choice for him in the end.” He finally turned to look at Creed, a sad smile on his face. “Never really was.” And walked out the door.

Creed could see him walk down the dirt road through the window and thought he felt a tug on his heart in the direction of the man who had Jack written on his heart to match the Marshal over his own.

[ames-writes]

FuckNoWriMo

Here's my official Writing Challenge Post for anyone who wants to play along.

FuckNoWriMo will be held December 2024 for this year only, and will be held in March from 2025 on. Due to the terminology being used, this is probably an 18+ event, but I swore like a sailor at 12, and it's not like I can stop you from participating.

How to Participate:

Decide you want to write during the month of the event.

Write.

Bonus!

3. Post and share that you're writing, and what you're writing if you want \o/ 4. Tag your posts with #fnowrimo or #fucknowrimo

Want more structure? Certainly, allow me.

Pick one of the categories to run with and set that as your goal for the month:

A Word, if I May?: Write at least 31 words for the month.

Get That Shit Outlined: Write at least 1,000 words for the month. (33 words a day)

Give it the Gusto!: Write at least 5,000 words for the month. (162 words a day)

Hell Yeah, Write!: Write at least 10,000 words for the month. (323 words a day)

Words At Work: Write at least 20,000 words for the month. (646 words a day)

Punctuated: Write at least 35,000 words for the month. (1,130 words a day.)

Fuck It: Write at least 50,000 words for the month. (1,613 words a day)

Crazy 88 (it's a Kill Bill reference): Write at least 100,000 words for the month. (3,225 words a day)

Please note you may write anything:

An outline, several outlines, rough draft(s), poetry, journaling, lyrics, role-play with your friends, a campaign idea for a table top game, the script for a movie, show, visual novel, etc., notes to defend your dissertation, recipes, to-do lists - you get the point.

If you want to breakdown the granular concepts of an old historic text on index cards for shits and giggles, that counts too!

The event is less about the quality of the end result, and more about creating a habit to write daily. If you don't want to spend a lot of time fixing and editing a harried rough draft, then don't worry about the word count at all.

0 is a valid word count for the day. So is 1, or 10, or 100 or all those little numbers we often get discouraged seeing.

But set aside some time during the month, and write some fucking words, hell, write some words fucking. A real alphabet orgy. Be silly, weird, cringe, strange, gross, problematic, thematic - whatever \o/

Just write it yourself. I don't care if you dictate it, use the hunt and peck method, a pen, pencil, quill, or chisel.

But for the love of all that's holy -

No Generative AI

That's the only rule.

[ames-writes]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[ames-writes]

People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

[ames-writes]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but modern guns won’t go off when dropped.

[ames-writes]

My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."

He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."

He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"

I did.

"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."

It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.

So my dad and I agreed, what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn't made you stronger than you were before, you're probably not done healing. You've got to give these things time to set.

[ames-writes]

there’s a thing I think about sometimes when I’m writing that I call ‘the rabies condition’

by which I mean: there are no contraindications to getting the rabies vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis.

every other vaccine usually has a few contraindications like ‘don’t take this if you’re allergic to it’ or ‘if you’re pregnant discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor’ or ‘don’t give to children below age 6′ or something, but not the rabies vaccine. if you’ve been exposed to rabies, there is literally no medical reason that can justify not getting the rabies vaccine–you can be deadly allergic to literally every single ingredient and the correct decision is still to administer the vaccine, because if you don’t, you’re 100% guaranteed to die of rabies. even the life-threatening allergies are a step up in survival rate (especially since anaphylaxis is something that can be managed, even if there are risks associated with it)

which is to say, the rabies condition: if a character has been ‘exposed to rabies’, aka, in some impending absolute worst-case scenario, like the apocalypse or some death curse or the destruction of their entire city via demons or whatever, then that character has to take action and the consequences and risks no longer matter, because literally any other outcome would be better, and 1% chance of survival is still better than 0%. that doesn’t make those actions necessarily good, the same way that injecting yourself with something you know you’re deadly allergic not a good thing to do, but it’s still better than dying horrifically of rabies. desperate times and desperate measures etc

and then, after your character’s prevented some horrible thing by doing some almost equally bad thing, they should absolutely experience the consequences of those choices.

[ames-writes]

The fixation on making characters behave exactly like real people in 95% of writing advice I see kinda misses the point imo. It’s how we get people pointing at certain scenes and being like “this is so unrealistic, no one would do that, what terrible writing”. Like, idk how to tell you this, but it’s *not* real. There’s a reason why situations, emotions, and actions in stories are often exaggerated (to make a Point more obvious when it might otherwise be missed) and you went ahead and missed it anyway

The focus should always be on how to craft characters that best suit the narrative. If that means they act like “real people”, then that’s fine. But that’s not the case for every story and shouldn’t be treated as such 

In fact, the focus of all writing advice should be how to best tailor the setting, characters, word choices, and writing styles to the type of story you want to tell. It’s why writing advice is so dang subjective and often frustratingly difficult to both learn and teach

So yeah, I guess I just don’t want fledgling writers to think that just because their characters are “unrealistic” that they are automatically Doing It Wrong. Those characters might be acting in the exact way your story needs them to act

[ames-writes]

show, don't tell:

anticipation - bouncing legs - darting eyes - breathing deeply - useless / mindless tasks - eyes on the clock - checking and re-checking

frustration - grumbling - heavy footsteps - hot flush - narrowed eyes - pointing fingers - pacing / stomping

sadness - eyes filling up with tears - blinking quickly - hiccuped breaths - face turned away - red / burning cheeks - short sentences with gulps

happiness - smiling / cheeks hurting - animated - chest hurts from laughing - rapid movements - eye contact - quick speaking

boredom - complaining - sighing - grumbling - pacing - leg bouncing - picking at nails

fear - quick heartbeat - shaking / clammy hands - pinching self - tuck away - closing eyes - clenched hands

disappointment - no eye contact - hard swallow - clenched hands - tears, occasionally - mhm-hmm

tiredness - spacing out - eyes closing - nodding head absently - long sighs - no eye contact - grim smile

confidence - prolonged eye contact - appreciates instead of apologizing - active listening - shoulders back - micro reactions

[ames-writes]

Story Structure Explained: Pinch Points, Midpoints, Plot Points, and Middles (Warrior Phase)

Some writers find the middle of a story very difficult to write. They know the beginning. They know the end. But they don’t know what comes in between. After this article, you should have the information you need to finish filling in that middle! And filling it in, in interesting ways.

This post focuses on the second part of the middle, aka, the “active” or “warrior” phase of the story, and will take you from the midpoint up to the climax.

For the beginning part of story structure–the prologue, hooks, setup, and “orphan” phase–visit this page.

For the first part of the middle, between the inciting incident and the midpoint, or the “reactive” or “wanderer” phase, visit this page.

Midpoint

At the midpoint, new information enters the story that changes the context. It moves the protagonist from reaction to action. He stops being a wanderer and turns into a warrior, trying to fight back and attack, usually with a clearer goal or a more refined strategy. In other words, he is now more empowered than before.

Midpoints can be mind-blowing. Or they can be subtle. In the film Interstellar, the midpoint also serves as a twist. The context shifts and the audience and protagonists realize that there never ever really was a plan to save the humans on Earth. It was all a ruse to provide people hope. Once Cooper learns this, he changes into warrior mode, determined to do whatever it takes to return to Earth and/or save the people there.

Other midpoints aren’t as drastic. It might be the protagonist sitting down to eat and suddenly having a profound realization that changes the perspective of everything she’s been reacting to.

In Spider-verse

The midpoint in Spider-verse happens at the very end of the scene where Miles and Peter B. Parker steal the computer from Alchemax, and it goes into the very beginning of the next scene, the bus ride with Gwen Stacy.

Prior to this, even if Miles and Peter have a plan, they’ve largely been responding. And the only reason they need to go to Alchemax in the first place is because Miles himself broke the override key.

However, by the end of this scene, a few things have changed that steer us into the next phase:

1. Miles learns how to unstick intentionally 2. And how to use his web, intentionally 3. By this point, he’s learned how to listen to his spider senses. 4. Peter and Miles begin working together as a team

In other words, things they were reacting to are starting to get under control. Sure, Miles still doesn’t have control over all his powers, and maybe that’s a variation, but it works because he has control over the iconic, main Spider-man powers.

On the bus ride afterward, Gwen Stacy reveals she knows where they can go to make another override key, promising they’ll make sure the new one doesn’t break, and thus giving Peter and Miles a clear plan and a clearer path to defeating the antagonist.

Warrior State (and Character Arc)

From the midpoint to the climax, the protagonist is in a stronger proactive or “warrior” state. Armed with what they’ve learned as a wanderer (which may include having mentors, friends, and helpers), the protagonist is ready to make more proactive efforts or actual attacks on the antagonistic force.  According to Larry Brooks, they may literally fight back, hatch a plan, enlist assistance, demonstrate courage, or show initiative.

They may not always be successful (after all, the story isn’t over), but they are brave and intentional. And not only will they be fighting the antagonistic force, but their inner demons as well (which relates to character arc and theme).

Keep reading

[ames-writes]

A reminder that you can’t outplan your mental disability/illness. There’s never going to be a schedule that will magically make your disability disappear, that will make you be able to do things as if you weren’t disabled.

No amount of telling yourself that ‘this school year will be different’, ‘this semester I’m going to attend all the classes and do all the work and take all the exams on time’ and ‘I’m going to get this huge list of tasks done tomorrow’ will make any of that true.

In fact, setting such high expectations and putting so much passive pressure on yourself will only make everything worse.

But what will work is being honest with yourself, and planning with your disability in mind, whether that means taking into account that you won’t be able to do anything for a couple weeks at a time, or that you can only work an hour a day, or learning how to recognize when your disability/illness is about to act up (if there are signs) and preparing for it by messaging professors and prepping whatever you’ll need to get through it- meds, snacks, water bottles, etc.

Most importantly, learning to be kind to yourself will help you get through things far better than being unrealistic and mean ever will.

[ames-writes]

This hit home, and I think it will resonate hard with all my creative friends, here. You are amazing and brilliant and I BEG YOU to keep creating!! ❤️❤️❤️

[ames-writes]