#This was supposed to be short and pithy

[furrywithfourlegs]

tfw shower thoughts happen during services

I accidentally wrote an entire dvar Torah during shul yesterday and the only appropriate place I could think of to share was here, on Tumblr, so here I've come to share it.

There is no one type of Jew. In fact if anyone tells you there is you can immediately discount whatever they're saying, because they've already proven their ignorance. We can't even agree on how to categorize and group ourselves; the only common denominator among Jews is we worship the One G-d, Unique in His Oneness. Everything else depends on circumstances.

There's a common Jewish joke to this effect: "Two Jews, three opinions." I rather think our history of debate is one of our great strengths - it forms the basis of our quintessential and almost instantly recognizable learning style. We sit in pairs or groups with a holy book on the table between us and read it aloud... And we argue over what exactly, precisely, the author meant. What did he mean by this word, this phrase, this parallel structure, this reference? What can we learn from the text to apply to our daily lives?

Jewish study halls are loud.

And believe me, they're not necessarily polite, either. Some full-time scholars treat arguing like a beloved hobby. The magnum opus of the Jewish academic world, the Talmud, contains the collected opinions of the greatest ancient sages, written down when the chain of oral transmission was threatened. To our great fortune, they also preserved the lively discussion (source) and passionate name-calling that came with it: "empty-headed", "scatterbrained", even "a first-born son of Satan" come up more than once. (Source) They insulted each other, each other's wives, each other's entire generations to prove a point.

So how do we resolve these conflicts? How does the study hall ring in harmony, rather than strife?

The answer lies in another Jewish maxim (we love our proverbs):

שבעים פנים לתורה / Shiv'im panim la-Torah. / There are seventy faces to the Torah.

Biblical context: The Torah refers to 70 languages, 70 nations, and means "all the people in the world." So when we say there are 70 faces to the Torah, we leapfrog off that concept and say "The Torah encompasses all possible permutations and interpretations in the world." (Recall the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where someone says, "They can't both be right!" and Tevye responds, "You know, you're also right..." Source.)

The Talmud is a unified text because the sages recorded in it were debating toward a common goal. Their opinions may have been equally valid (peep the story of Rav Eliezer vs the majority, source), but at the end of the day they agreed on a deciding factor and made a final decision. The study hall rings in harmony because we argue and debate not toward a common goal but for a common purpose: to increase our knowledge and understanding, and to deepen our love and relationship with G-d. With this as our guiding principle, differences of individual interpretation melt under the overriding truth that all are facets of G-d's World.

How does this apply to us? Let me make this very, very Jewish and end with a parable.

So, nu, you're sitting in the study hall and your partner has just spent the last twenty minutes trying to explain a fakakta idea and you KNOW he's meshugana but you don't have time to reason with him because the rabbi just hammered on his desk to call for the afternoon prayer service. You take a deep breath and remember - shivim panim laTorah. He can keep his ideas, and maybe next time it'll be your turn to rant, because the Word of G-d is infinite and encompasses all interpretations.

And another:

You stand with the prayerbook in your hands and stare at the paragraphs written by sages hundreds and thousands of years ago and you struggle to relate to the words, even though your teachers and rabbis have lectured about how meaningful they are over and over again. You take a deep breath and remember - shivim panim laTorah. These words were codified with a particular set of meanings in mind, but you have a unique relationship with G-d. You can use these words OR their original intention to inspire your own, private prayer, and it is equally valid. Because the Word of G-d is infinite, and encompasses all possible permutations of prayer.

70 whole and unique faces to the Word of G-d.

Whether you're in the midst of an emotional crisis, a spiritual crisis, an existential crisis, or a motivational crisis, may each of us merit to see the conflict we are feeling, and find a new face to study instead.

[ginshi-san]

I had a panic attack at work because I accidentally tried to move a trailer that was open & already slotted in a door. Doing that is serious enough that it's DA (disciplinary action) & will automatically put you on a final. I immediately reported it & cancelled it. Then I had to work another 8hrs with that panic hangover lingering in my stomach. I persevered though and kept going.

You know what snapped me out of it? My fellow department lead deciding to get on his bullshit again by shirking his responsibilities. He has a nasty habit of fucking off in the office (usually) for at least the last 30 mins of shift. That leaves me to cover calls. This time it was only 10mins til he left. It especially chapped my ass nine ways to Sunday because he ordered me to pull the remaining 6 people out of production.

First off, we're peers. Don't fucking order me around. Especially don't do that when you have seemingly sabotaged any ounce of trust/respect/goodwill I might have given you. You're the reason why our manager shadowed each of us for 5hrs & brought in another manager to run the department for the day. You are also the reason why we no longer have the privilege of choosing when we take our breaks (with or separate from the team) because you took advantage and pushed it to where you wouldn't return to the floor for the last 1.5 hours. Because of him, we also can no longer spend a few mins in the office for admin stuff.

He is a grade A bullshit artist and I'm convinced that's how he was promoted. He is able to regurgitate all the right verbiage & jargon when it's in front of the right salaried people. When it comes to actually doing those things? He's all hat and no cattle.

Somehow, he's unaware that he's being managed out. Did he wonder why we were being audited & another manager was brought in? Probably not or, worse, he thought his shit don't stink (more than likely). I've also never heard of another lead (or manager!) getting as much additional training outside of the initial 6 week ramp of period. He was even sent to another key for another lead to train him and only seemed to absorb the wrong things.

I keep escalating to my manager because all these issues directly and negatively impact my ability to carry out my responsibilities on my side of the business. At least my manager seems to be following proper procedure in handling him and the issues he creates.

[vixstarria]

Apples

Alright, so this is actually going to be included in a future chapter of my longfic as a flashback, but the readership of that is a small fraction of that on my one-shots, and I giggled too much writing it to not show it to the masses.

Astarion x Tav, Act 1

Humour, ponderings on the topic of vampire physiology, my Tav being a gremlin

Rated M, I guess.

Approx. 600 words

Somewhere along the Risen Road

Astarion sat with a book, trying to ignore Asmodea as she perched next to him, loudly crunching on an apple. It was proving to be impossible to concentrate under her inquisitive stare. 

“Yes?” he said, sighing. 

“So does pussy taste like ash to you?” 

Astarion wrinkled his nose in distaste. 

“Must you be so crass?” 

“You’re really going to continue the ‘uptight noble’ act after last night?” she said with a smirk. “And I’m actually being considerate, not crass – it was only after, that I remembered vampire taste buds have certain quirks.” She shifted where she sat. “I wouldn’t shove your face into an ash tray,” she said, sounding almost apologetic, before biting into the apple again.  

“Very well,” Astarion said, shutting his book. “No, pussy tastes like pussy. And yours tastes like-” 

“The finest nectar, divine ambrosia, blah blah,” she interrupted him with a dismissive wave of her hand, talking with her mouth full. “But why?” 

“I... I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose it’s all similar to blood in that it’s still produced by the body. And-” he cut himself off, with a shake of his head. “Do you really want to talk about this?” 

“Just trying to understand you better, that’s all,” she said, swallowing. “Hmm,” she hummed, before leaning towards him with a grin and beckoning him with a finger.  

Astarion glanced in the direction Wyll and Karlach had walked off. The group was taking a short break. Their tryst in the night seemed to have gone unnoticed by anyone, and he didn’t want to make it known, at least not yet. Satisfied that they were alone, he pressed his lips against hers in a kiss. Her tongue cautiously sought his own, and he let it, before pulling away.  

“Did that taste like ash?” she asked. 

“No, that... tasted the way an apple smells,” he answered. 

“So it tasted like apple.” 

“No, it tasted like the smell.” 

“That’s the same thing,” she argued. “And do you like the smell of apples?” 

“No, it’s not the same thing,” he sighed. “And I suppose, but... Hells, how do I explain it? ...You enjoy the smell of roses, yes? But you wouldn’t want to eat one, now would you? And if you did – it would not taste the way it smelled anyway. ...Do you understand?” 

Astarion supposed he should have been annoyed by her questioning, but something in her earnestness placated him.  

Asmodea let out a prolonged “ahh” of comprehension, and he thought that would be the end of it, but then she extended her half-eaten apple towards him. 

“Lick it.” 

“What?” Now he was getting irritated.  

“Don’t chew it, just lick it. Have you tried regular food since getting tadpoled, anyway?” 

He had, and he had immediately regretted it, but he obliged her anyway.  

“Ugh,” he grimaced. “Now it tastes like ash.” 

“Fascinating,” she said, biting back into the apple. “Perhaps it’s the juice being mixed with human saliva that makes it palatable for you. I wonder if there is a minimum ratio of spit to plant liquid that is required...” 

He opened his book again, determined to ignore her.  

“I could feed you like a mama bird feeds her hatchlings,” she continued thoughtfully, looking off into the distance.  

Astarion snapped the book shut again.  

“I do not need to be fed apples!” he exclaimed. “And you are the most ridiculous person I have ever met.” 

“Thank you,” she smiled. 

Series master list

Tags:

@littleenglishfangirl @something-pithy @darlingxdragon @tragedybunny @spunky-89

@lariatbunny @whiskeyskin @asterordinary @wingsy-keeper-of-songs @spacebarbarianweird

@brabblesblog @littlejuicebox @icybluepenguin @snowfolly @ayselluna

@mj-bites @bardic-inspo

[winterbirb]

In 2015 a Russian media outlet (Izvestia I think?) accused the State Department of writing an email commissioning an activist to accuse certain Russian political figures of being homosexuals and the US Embassy in Moscow responded by marking up the supposed email with corrections because it didn't fit the necessary bureaucratic format and then asked Izvestia to send the Embassy a copy to proof-read first if they were going to make up emails

Go on, pop this bad boy into a translator, I know you want to

And here's an image for funsies:

(The signoff, Госдеп, is short for State Department and honestly so much easier to say than State Department, DoS, or the short-but-confusing "State." Tragically, the paragraph a NYTimes article from 2017 devoted to the existence of the word was not so pithy.)

[thanatologie]

@deathwalkerr - "who was this?" aristide casually surveying emmrich's shelves. and all the skulls there. why do you have so many. are they friends or are they just cool. 

FROM VARIOUS POINTS ENCIRCLING THE ROOM ON SHELVES HIGH AND LOW hollow eye sockets peer out into the room, the light from innumerable candles flickering over dry, aged bones, giving the illusion of movement, of life.  It's nonsensical imagination conjuring such an image, of course; these skulls typically stay where he puts them, though a mischievous wisp or two have made attempts since his arrival.

“I see you've found Bastian.  An absolute cad, but his understanding of the textures the Fade warps itself into is second to none.  Incredibly recalcitrant with strangers, more's the pity.  It took ages to coax more than pithy insults out of him."  Death, as it seems, does not encourage one to listen to the angels of their better nature.  In truth, the vitriol Bastian had hurled at Emmrich after he'd first acquired his skull had sorely tested his patience, until they'd finally come to something of an accord.

He pauses, in front of one of the lower shelves and lifts one of the skulls from its place among the others.  “Others simply have no name at all.  Either they refuse to answer inquiries or are so old the connection is…Tenuous.”  

These are, for lack of a better phrasing, his problem children.  Some have finally come round to conversing with relative ease, and it's no longer an uphill battle with metaphorical tooth and claw to glean anything at all from them.  Others…The unnamed individual he now holds is one of those that refuse to speak almost at all.  He can reach out and grasp what was, he can hold it for a short time, but like a feral cat determined to remain uncaged they will invariably claw their way free.  His grasp has gotten stronger from where they started but they still have an exceptionally long way to go before they're fit for meeting polite company.

He gives the skull a long, contemplative look for a moment longer, searching the empty eye sockets as though the answer to the riddle this particular specimen taunts him with will be provided in the dark hollows, before gently replacing it.  “But not impossible, given time, and enough patience to draw them out."

And, he supposes, to be stubborn enough to keep picking at the knotted string they are, loosening the tightened portions bit by bit, loop by loop, until it eventually unravels.  Not every corpse is as willing to share their secrets as those housed in the vaults of the Necropolis.

“These, for the most part, represent those forgotten by the world of the living, found mostly among the charnel pits and the occasional mass grave, and I do what I can, to extract their histories so they may be remembered and recorded, and a proper resting place in the Necropolis can be found.”

[all-pacas]

anyway here's the first little bit of my durge fanfic (where i'm actually trying to make tav. a character. and not. self insert. but also play with the blank slate thing. anyway it's fun.)

-

She wakes up to the bracing familiarity of pain. First clue: she.

Stumbling from her knees, ichor and bile in her mouth. Her hands are mottled with blood and bruises, fingernails jagged short. Arms: grayish blue. Purple with bruises. Face: wet, her palms black and red when she pulls them away.

She. Clothes: a shirt that may have once been bone white or ash gray. Trousers, dark. Boots, red soled and worn. Pouch at her hip: wet. Sticky. Red. Her stomach twists. She feels satisfied. She wants to taste it. To lick her fingers, suck marrow from her own bones.

Satisfied?

Something twists behind her eye. Sharp-bright in her head. You must move.

She does.

-

The evening after the crash, the five of them make camp in the woods, amidst arguments on where to go. But it’s dark, and they don’t know where they’re headed, and the air is filled with ash and putrefaction from the rotting ship.

Their parasites hum. Names are exchanged. Wizard, male, human. Abnormally pale high elf; a magistrate in the city. Cleric with a disinterest in small talk. Githyanki warrior with even less. Gale does his best. Shadowheart is at least polite in her dismissals; Astarion pithy. Everyone’s gaze is watchful.

Their last is silent. Gale asks her something simple, something innocuous. She looks up from the fire, eyes wide and startled. “I don’t know,” she says.

“Memory loss isn’t as uncommon as you might think,” Shadowheart tells her. The knowledge of the other woman’s amnesia has somehow softened her. “It could be the parasite, certainly. But that doesn’t appear to be the case with the rest of us…” her mouth almost, nearly twitches. “I don’t suppose you remember if your memory was better before the crash?”

“At least a name,” Astarion hums across the fire. “A name as delicate and beautiful as you are?”

She looks at him and imagines him in the flames between them, screaming and twisting and crackling to ash. Choking on his own boiling blood, his tongue —

Astarion sees her shudder of disgust. He feels a twinge of anxiety and suppresses it.

“What do you know of yourself?” Gale asks. It is interesting in itself, of course: a mystery to solve, a puzzle to poke at. It is hardly casual dinner conversation, and yet beggars and choosers: Goddess knows the small talk isn’t exactly forthcoming.

The woman is a long time answering such a simple question. “I am… female.” She looks down at her bare forearms. Under the blood and bruises, her skin steel silver, knife white, ice blue. “I believe I am most likely Drow. Perhaps half.”

“Full blood, I’d wager,” Gale says: he sees what she can not. Her hair has been hacked and cropped, but is silvery under the dried blood. Her eyes a pale white: there is no color at all to her besides the bruises and stains. But her ears are too sharp to be part-human, her features too strong.

She nods. Relieved to have more to add to her list.

Lae’zel watches with little interest: she can barely understand the myriad distinctions those of the mortal plane use to classify herself. All four of these people look alike to her: fleshy and bulbous and unnatural shades of pink and gray. She pities the woman for her lack of knowledge and heritage.

But she remembers, too, the Mindflayer ship. Leaping upon the woman to strike first, and watching her dart back, her hands bloody to the elbows and strange, pale eyes void of all intent. Remembers watching her hold an imp down with her boot as she tore the thing’s wings from its back.

It is not the savagery that strikes Lae’zel. It is no more than the creatures deserved. It is her eyes, the emptiness in her expression. Her strange, round pupils had been pinpricks in a sea of ice. It is at odds with this humanoid now. Her fingers digging into her knees.

“Tav,” the woman says suddenly. “I think… that sounds right. I think… I might have been called Tav.”

She was not.

-

They push inland at the first strike of dawn, having rested fitfully or not at all. Gale takes lead but finds it immediately tiring: to need consider others and communicate his plans, rather than strike off alone. But the others are even less inclined. “We must find people,” he decides for them all. “They will perhaps have a healer among them, a shrine to some useful goddess - or better knowledge of the area, at least.” He says this to pacify Lae’zel, who scowls.

“A crèche remains our only option, but you are not incorrect that the locals around here might point us in the correct direction.”

Gale forces a smile. This is exactly what he just said, he refrains from pointing out. Did she really need to rephrase it for the sake of her ego? Beggers, he reminds himself. Choosers.

Shadowheart and Tav do not object to this plan, the former for whatever reasons of her own and the latter because Gale suspects she barely has agency, let alone a name.

They find a dirt track soon enough, helpfully laden with cart tracks. Unfortunately, they are city folk to the last, and none of them have any real idea how to determine which way to follow: Lae’zel confidentially proclaims north, Gale throws in with her for the appearance of unity, and the rest go along.

Astarion is chatty in the morning sunlight, trying out lines on the women and complaining genially about mud and dirt on his boots. He is the first to make a crucial discovery, as they all suddenly feel a flash of incredulity and disbelief, pain and flushed cheeks.

“You have a sunburn, I think,” Shadowheart says dryly.

Astarion blinks. His cheeks red and striking. “I confess, I do not spend much time... traipsing about the countryside.”

“Did anyone else feel that?” Tav asks, suddenly excited: to feel, for the surprise of pain and heat and confusion. It is almost like a memory.

“It appears our little friends are still sharing information between them,” Gale surmises, familiar enough with the concept.

Within an hour, Astarion has figured out how to do it on purpose, sending every little ache and blister to the rest of them until, exasperated, Shadowheart suggests a break.

[contreparry]

happy dadwc Ann! "imagine if we really did like each other that way, huh?" from the romantic yearning prompts?

Here's some CassandraxVarric for @dadrunkwriting!

It was a careless bit of teasing, some pithy comment Dorian shot off because Varric made a joke- more of a casual remark, technically- so Dorian had to react. Action, reaction, pretty standard stuff. But when Varric observed that Dorian and The Iron Bull weren't being subtle about their arrangement, Dorian retorted that Varric and Cassandra were doing a poor job of hiding their pining. Awkwardness descended, though Varric did his best to hide the shock, the trickle of fear that ran down his spine. His gaze shifted to the bar, where Cassandra was speaking with one of the field scouts. He hoped that she hadn't heard that. But she probably had, because she had sharp hearing. Varric was proven correct when Cassandra rose from her seat and walked out of the tavern. Varric made his excuses and followed, facing the cold and the wet and the dark so he could-

So he could do something, he supposed. Better than doing nothing.

"Hey, Seeker," Varric said once he joined Cassandra near the fence that enclosed the training grounds.

"Varric," Cassandra replied, her words short and crisp.

"Sorry for the trouble back there," he said with a shrug, and he was grateful for the darkness. Grateful that humans had poor night vision. Grateful that Cassandra hadn't looked at him, her gaze fixed on the slowly rising moon, a sliver of yellow-gold hanging low in the sky. if she had, she might see that he was flustered, that he was blushing, that he wasn't... himself.

"It was hardly trouble. I've heard worse," Cassandra snorted, her way of trying to hide the fact that she was about to crack and let out a genuine laugh. Varric learned a lot of Cassandra-isms in their time together. She wasn't as serious as she acted. She had a soft spot for little creatures. She liked sugary sweets. She hid the soft parts of her under armor and a sharp tongue.

Varric understood what it was to hide by putting on a show. He did it every day. Maybe that was why he liked her, despite it all. Kindred spirits had a way of finding each other.

"Imagine if we really did like each other that way," Cassandra murmured, almost to herself. "It would be a disaster."

"Hey, I'm a catch. You’ll have to fight half the Coterie to claim me as a prize," Varric protested, even though he privately agreed. It would be ridiculous if they, well, got together. If they were a partnership. If they meant anything to each other beyond a casual friendship.

It was funny. It would be funny someday, when he was old and reminiscing over his past indiscretions and the follies of youth. Someday he’d look back on this conversation in the darkness and have a wry chuckle, but for now… right now his heart hurt.

"As I said. A disaster," Cassandra sighed.

"You'd win," Varric retorted. "Counts for something, yeah?"

"I suppose so," Cassandra frowned, then glowered down at Varric. "If you put this in one of your novels..."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Seeker," Varric lied. If he couldn’t have a reality with Cassandra Pentaghast, at least let him write some damn good fiction about it.

He wouldn’t even publish it, because he had some manners.

"See that you don't. Unless..." Cassandra hesitated.

"Unless?"

"... give me a good sword. Something memorable,” she finally said, and Varric laughed.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised. And he would. He found that he liked keeping promises when he made them to Cassandra.

[nimuetheseawitch]

2, 3, 14, 15, 29

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

Yes. All the time. I pretty much write entirely for me (and am pleasantly surprised when other people like it too).

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Gosh, this is really hard. They're all my babies. If I really have to pick one, I guess it would be Sitting here tonight because I'm a sucker for pining and love letters and this series is really dear to me, even if I'm super blocked on it right now and cannot manage to work on the next installment.

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

I don't think most of them have anywhere near enough plot to make much of a film, but I think Autopilot would make a really cute comic.

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

I almost always go looking for lyrics that work. I don't usually bother naming chapters unless I'm really trying to use lyrics throughout. Sometimes though, I try for something pithy. If I can't find a good song or a pithy title that works, I usually just go for something basically descriptive.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Oh man, I dug into the archives for this one. This is a WIP that hasn't seen the light of day in ages, and that I'm never planning on finishing. I think I already started using it for spare parts because apparently this is from chapter 6, and I have absolutely no clue what was supposed to come before this. I also have no idea what I had planned as an actual plot. But this was supposed to be a MASH post-war reunion fic. I'll put it under the cut since this post is getting long.

Hawkeye slowly opens the door and calls out "Beej?"

The room is dark, but the light is on in the bathroom, and there's the damp scent of a recent shower and hotel soap. After looking around the room to make sure, Hawkeye gently knocks on the door. "Hey Beej, it's me and Father Mulcahy, can we come in?"

"I'm not really dressed for church." Hawkeye cringes, that wasn't even close to funny. But he gently pushes open the door and finds BJ sitting on the floor in his shorts and undershirt holding a razor and wearing half a mustache. He tries really, really hard not to laugh, but after letting in Father Mulcahy and seeing the look on his face, he just can't.

In no time, he's holding onto the edge of the sink in a futile attempt to keep himself upright because he's laughing so hard. He just keeps pointing and then miming a mustache on his own face while Mulcahy looks completely at a loss and BJ turns bright pink. It looks like he's trapped somewhere between joining in or punching something.

Mulcahy takes the plunge and asks, "What happened?"

"I thought I should get rid of it, but then I got halfway through and I couldn't recognize myself without it."

"I'm not sure half a mustache is going to do you much good."

Hawkeye realizes he's being left out of the conversation and stops laughing enough to open his eyes, free up his hands and contribute, "Remember that time when I did that to you in your sleep? I think it's perfect. You should keep it!"

Father Mulcahy adds, "Well, it is quite a showstopper."

At that, BJ gives in and starts laughing too. Then he catches a look at himself in the mirror and laughs again and again until he's crying too. Then he pulls Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy into an awkward hug as the laughter turns a little bit more into tears. He holds onto them loosely and somehow manages to get them all through the door and finally lets go in order to pull on his pants.

[thinkingofmikey]

This book was published in 1999 - 24 years ago. It's no longer talking about "kids these days", it's literally talking about the last generation of "kids these days" -- the Millennials. We're about 40 now, most of us, and I'd say my peers are no more cynical about love than any usual folks, but more cynical than a poet I suppose.

I'd bet you were thinking about cynicism from online dating or Grindr culture -- but this book predates both by more than a decade. Maybe the short attention spans "caused" by Snapchat and TikTok? Again, the book predates them by two decades.

It's a pithy quote, but complete nonsense.

bell hooks, All About Love

[twilight-town-zombies]

writing patterns

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

I want to play!

Tagging: @snowflake-of-destruction ; @localcryptideli ; @government-assigned-riku-kinnie ; everyone else - I am tired and can't remember usernames right now but I think this is really cool and want to see more of them

(1) Striding through the grand, cream-colored, high ceilinged hallways of the Destiny Kingdom palace, hung with sharply fragrant garlands of woven branches of evergreens and berries, threaded with glittering fairy lights, Axel expertly balances a tray of rapidly cooling hot chocolates on his shoulder and forgives himself for committing petty theft twice in the past half hour.  - Invitation Only

(2) The tapping sound is ceaseless, like a downpour pelting a window pane, and even from the depths of the sleep of the dead and the damned, wrapped in satin sheets and surrounded by lusciously thick curtains that don’t spill a drip of sun, Ansem hears it. – The Coffin

(3) Ansem the Wise doesn’t like to use phrases like “human sacrifice” or “lamb for the slaughter.” – Songs of Sunset

(4) Xehanort opens the portal of light and steps through without waiting to see if Eraqus will follow, the dark cloak billowing out behind him his only farewell.  – Sink or Swim

(5) The air already smelled sharp with rain, but Riku was wearing reliably worn hiking boots, and the September morning was a warm one, so he decided to go on the date alone.  – Enshrined

(6) Strickler is not sure the flowers are going to cover it, but he brings them anyway. – Disaster Uncle

(7) “Don’t burn your tongue.” – There’s No Place Like Hell for the Holidays

(8) The summer sun burns the color of a blood orange against the hazy dove gray of the Halloween Town sky, and Roxas imagines as he stares up at it that, if she could, Sally the Ragdoll would pluck it from beyond the atmosphere and use it in one of her potions. – Please Do Not Feed the Heartless

(9) “As we’re all in unanimous agreement regarding launching the Hatching Dragons Initiative as this year’s senior prank—aside, of course, from myself—I suppose that concludes our final order of new business on the agenda.” - Selfless By Technicality

(10) “I should call and tell them I can’t pick up the cake.”  - Indulge Me

I see three styles here. One is what I learned in creative writing class: character + location + intrigue, with some flowery scene setting description for immersion. Another is short, pithy, and unexpected, makes you want to know more and easy to read a few more sentences since the first was brief. The third, starts with dialogue, tosses you right into a scene, but still lays the ground work for what the conversation might be about and, again, is unexpected enough that you want to know more about the situation.

Do you notice any patterns I missed?

[jeanjauthor]

I agree 100% with Diane here. Some stories require regular-sized chapters (and some publishers' formats demand them, too!) where there's a certain wordcount or pagecount range you stay within.

Some stories require each scene being its own chapter, while others insert paragraph breaks. Some break up the story per character viewpoint (limited 3rd person to one person per scene, but you're writing a story that needs more than one POV, etc, etc).

Some are just "Oh crap, forgot to throw in some paragraph breaks. Uhh...here looks good!" And some are "I want to drag this poor reader forward with so many (hopefully good) cliffhangers that they just can't put down the book until they've read every last little bit of it!!1!"

Some do a whole mix of things...and some use chapter sizes as a genuine comedy beat. Jo Clayton wrote the Skeen trilogy, and in one of them (I think the 2nd book?)...well, she put header sentences for chapter titles on each chapter. And one chapter had a chapter titlee that was over a page and a half long--the chapter title itself--and then the prose text of the actual chapter itself was just a couple paragraphs long. Not even half a page!

But it was hilariously well-done, because she had led up to it with increasingly humorous, verbose, and/or brief but pithy chapter titles prior to that point. She literally used the chapter title to summarize what was going on outside of the scenes being written officially into the story. And then she backed down and most of the rest of the chapter titles/headers were reasonably short and to the point...but still hilarious in context.

She, and I, and Diane, all come out of the school of "However long your chapter needs to be, to make your story make sense."

I wrote my milSF quintiloty, Theirs Not To Reason Why with over 250,000 words when it was supposed to be a quadrilogy, but we decided that the last book could be split into 2 books because one set of scenes took place on a planet without a starship (just under 100k words), and the rest had a starship (over 150k words).

That last book had 8 chapters. Because that's how many chapters I had for telling the story. Were there a lot of time skips and scene breaks? Yes. Could I have made the chapters shorter? Probably not, because all five books of the story were written with an epigraph at the start of each chapter.

This is something the reader omnly finds out in the last book (sorry, spoilers, but it's been many years since their release!) that are all quotes taken from an interview the main character gives toward the end of the series--ever single one of the quotes across five novels. Those interview quotes were the reason for each chapter break, because each had something to do with what was happening in the story.

Including them--and short-sheeting my chapters to a mere handful that were each tens of thousands of words in length--helped tie all of those events together into one narrative whole. In this sense, that makes sense when you realize that the main character is a massive precognitive who knew (almost) every possibility that was coming. We the reader were reading those epigraphs from the moment in the future when the interview was given, which is the MC's pregognitive perspective, but the events we learn as the reader (the main text of each chapter) were allowed to unfold "in real time" as it were.

But that was that story, my military science fiction. My fantasy romances...were literally me hitting Page Down in my .doc file, counting out X number of taps, and then finding a good scene break somewhere around there, plus or minus a few pages.

Sometimes I did already have a good scene break! Sometimes I had to wedge open a spot for a good chapter break without needing a scene break. And sometimes I had to end the chapter on a cliffhanger. Sometimes that was a deliberate choice on my part, but I tried not to do it too often, because it gets stale and irritating. However, if a story required it, I would have done it a bit more.

So. How long should any of our chapters be? As long as the story scenes, and that writer, need them to be.

Above all else, understand that you will never please every single reader out there. Please your story. Write the story how it needs to be written. With or without epigraph quotes, with or without increasingly elaborate chapter titles, with or without scene breaks.

Write the story that needs to be written.

And if you're not sure, hire a story editor. Pay someone whose writing skills, reading comprehension, and critiquing eloquence you can trust to help you figure out what you need to do.

Hi, Diane, I have a technical writing question for you: How do you decide how long a chapter is?

I've noticed a trend among mass market books of authors adopting the James Patterson style of chapters lasting a page & a half to three pages, but sometimes not even half a page. It's infuriating, especially when action on a single scene is split amongst them. I grew up learning that a chapter is an association of scenes, & that breaks were left for major scene and/or expository changes. If a book had 30 chapters, it'd be 400 pages long. Now I have 215-pages novels with 45 chapters!

You've always delivered a really good, fairly even, page & word per chapter count. So what's your thoughts on how it should be defined, & perhaps any on this metastasizing trend?

I haven't been entirely clear about what to do about this since I first started seeing this divergence of chapter lengths happening. (And bear in mind, this is a wide spectrum to be dealing with. There are books of Terry Pratchett's that have no clearly defined chapter breaks at all.)

My own take on it in the short term has varied depending on what book I was writing, and what rhythm the interactions among the characters were expressing. Sometimes written character business can happen very quickly, over a few pages: sometimes it has to happen more slowly, as it does among real people—a series of interactions, a pause, then further ripening developments and interactions.

Patterson is well known (I think) for having a house style... because I'm sure it'll have been a good while since he wrote anything but the high points of any given book himself. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the house style reinforces his own preferences, which would seem to be for very short interactions... that "short attention span" we've seen being discussed for so long, and getting shorter and shorter all the time.

I think it's safe to say I refuse to go that road. I want to allow readers time to sit in the characters' business (as it were) and think about what might happen next. I'm not afraid to allow the readership time to speculate about what might be about to occur before the next sequence of events sets in.

Is Patterson afraid to allow this? (sigh) I may have been a psych nurse, but I decline to attempt to read another writer's mind: that's a sure path to a headache. Is it possible that writers are as susceptible as their readers to that short-attention-span problem... and unwilling to attempt to slow it down for fear of being seen as somehow "behind the times?"

Damned if I know. Again, I decline to judge. But I sure as hell know how I'll behave on my own ground.

...Let me suggest a possibility to you, looking forward. Patterson's rhythms have all become the same because his (for certain values of "his") books have all become the same. ...And who's to blame for that? Readers are well known, in the industry, for wanting to read the same thing again and again, just a little bit different. That's not the readers' fault any more. They've been trained to it. And the market reflects their training.

You, meanwhile, get to set your own rhythms, and (ideally) allow the reader to settle into them, if they find other aspects of your voice congenial. Just because the Patterson modality seems to be all over the place at the moment, doesn't mean that it will continue to be. The market, gods help us, is all about the New. Someday (gasp) Patterson will be Old. And then what? Will slow slowly start to become cool? Tough to tell.

For myself, I write in a lot of different modes (gods help me, right now over on Bluesky we're discussing the possibility of a paranormal travel agency German [or maybe Swiss] Christmas market cozy murder mystery); and every single one of them requires a different rhythm according to the subject matter, the thought processes of the characters, the rhythm of the story itself and of the characters making their way through it, the way the action expresses itself throughout this story, etc etc. I can't imagine what doing it the same way all the time, regardless of the story's and the characters' imperatives, would feel like. Deadening, at the very least. And isn't writing about being, and becoming, more alive, not less??

If I've got a message, it's this: Let Patterson go his own way (for whatever values of "his"). None of us are going to be him, any time soon.*

I think you should write in the rhythm, and with the chapter breaks, that best suit the story you're telling. If some of your readers don't like those... fine. Others will. Whether they like to hear it or not—and some of them won't—like books, readers too are ephemera: they come and go. Your job is to be faithful to the story as you conceive it, and the rhythms and chapter breaks you feel it needs. The story has no one else to depend on.

So: get busy being God in your own creative universe, and ignore what other gods are doing in theirs.

HTH!

*Though do we want to be?

[steviesunrises]

steal away at sundown (pick a place to hide)

Rating: Mature

Relationship: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

Major Tags: Canon Compliant - CA: TFA, angst, emotional sex, implied top Steve Rogers, implied bottom Bucky Barnes

Length: 2.1k

Summary:

Just for a moment, Bucky can convince himself that someday, the war will be over. He wraps himself in Steve’s warmth and commits the embrace to memory. Someday, he promises himself, I will build myself up from patchy switchgrass and razed earth, and we will have this again.

Or, the first touch after war is always the hardest.

Notes:

I expanded this drabble into a short fic because I couldn't get it out of my head.

It's based on this post by @turtle-steverogers (screenshot attached)

Warnings for a short mention of eugenics, but nothing drawn out.

Read it on ao3 or under the cut

Bucky smokes. He smokes more than he ever remembered smoking back home. During lulls in the fighting, he’d bet his cigarettes on card games with the other scared infantrymen of the 107th and hustle them out of their own smoke rations. Bucky cleans his gun. Over and over. More than the upkeep mandated during Basic. It’s algorithmic: check the chamber, clean the bolt, apply lubricant, repeat.

The smoking, the compulsive cleaning, none of it’s necessary, but he needs it. In the trenches, he takes whatever quiets his mind for any single, solitary minute. The procedure of it all calms him, letting his mind drift into nothingness.

It doesn’t let him think of Steve. Stevie. Safe in Brooklyn, not here. Not here, where the smell of mud and blood and piss sinks into the marrow of your bones, so deep that your hands itch to scratch at your own skin with the dull side of a blade, knowing, despite it, that the smell would never wash off. Not here, where the only sound is of the pained wail of the private shot twice in the stomach and his leaden gasp as you put him out of his misery. Not here, where the only touch to be found is the frantic slap of skin between two men carrying the illicit air of darkness, desperately trying to give each other what they cannot give themselves.

But now, it's three days after Azzano, and Steve is here.

****

Steve is not supposed to be here, but Bucky can almost make out the heated arguments between him, Agent Carter, and Colonel Phillips in the meeting room. The War isn’t supposed to touch him, isn’t supposed to dim the light in his eyes, isn’t supposed to break him apart and leave him with mismatched pieces.

It’s not that he thinks Steve is weak. He’s capable – he’s always been capable, even when he was picking ill-timed fights with men twice his weight. God, does Bucky hate everyone who underestimates Steve because of his size. He thinks back to the Eugenics Record Office; thinks of the people they sent to the Manhattan slums, looking for the “feeble-minded.” Fuckers would’ve taken Steve away if they knew everything his body tried killing him for. Asthma. Arrhythmia. Nervous trouble. As if Steve wasn’t the smartest goddamn person he knew, eating through history books and war stories; art alongside strategy. Try to hustle little Stevie Rogers in a game of chess and say goodbye to your pocket money.

Bucky thinks back to Steve’s pithy little phrase – I can do this all day, muttered with conviction, even with blood spilling out the corner of his mouth – and it makes him want to cry. Yell. Fuck, anything to get the black tar pit in his lungs out. I know you can do this all day Steve, he thinks, I just don’t know if I can.

But Bucky presses on.

Even if Steve is big and broad and can do this all day while Bucky just wants to lie down in the blood-soaked dirt until 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8 is a meaningless set of numbers and nothing more.

He will smoke and clean his guns and clutch a thrice-assembled rifle just to stand next to Steve. He presses on because what is he if not an essential component of his friend’s blinding light. What use is a limb without a body?

****

And Steve is here. And Bucky is tucked into the corner of Steve’s private quarters, smoking through his last pack of Lucky Strikes, and cleaning his rifle for the nth time since his capture.

The door opens with a quiet snick and Bucky hears the gentle whirr of its gears. He’s never been able to hear it before; it’s just another reminder of how things have changed. Soft steps inch closer to where he’s sitting.

Without looking up, he knows it’s Steve. Even if Steve’s body has changed. Even if other people see him like Bucky always has, Bucky will always know it’s him. His gait, hampered by years of scoliosis, his particular way of breathing, mastered to overcome pernicious asthma. Steve is carved indelibly into the grooves of Bucky’s soul.

They haven’t talked since they fled Azzano.

Steve has been holed up in meeting after meeting, too busy getting chewed out by Colonel Phillips to spend time watching Bucky assemble the same goddamn rifle over and over.

But Steve is here now. And he’s sitting next to Bucky.

Bucky sets down his cleaning rod and the partially disassembled rifle and looks up at Steve.

“Hey pal,” Steve whispers, as if afraid to spook him. “It’s late.”

Bucky looks into Steve’s eyes for a moment, staring into that deep, familiar, blue. He turns to gaze at his feet again. Tentatively, he touches his pinky to where Steve’s hand is splayed out in front of him. It’s the first time they’ve touched –really touched, not the short, utilitarian assurances in Azzano– since the night Bucky shipped out.

“Yeah Steve, it is.”

“Can you sleep here with me? Just tonight.” Steve takes his hand, turning the hesitant contact between them into something solid and real.

Bucky tightens his grip on Steve’s hand and tries to give him the same cocky, self-assured grin he’d give to girls back home. He fails, and Steve knows it too. “Okay Stevie. Just tonight.”

They both putter about the room, preparing to go to bed in silence. Bucky finishes reassembling his rifle and puts it away. Steve changes out of his uniform into something more comfortable, but no less unfamiliar. The tension between them is a taut string, as though acknowledging the reality of their situation, that they’re just two boys from Brooklyn stuck in the European front, would cause it to snap.

It’s taut with something else too, an expectant air, just waiting for them to act on it.

Eventually, they find themselves lying in the same bed. Bucky’s front is pressed along the line of Steve’s broad back, his arms wrapped around Steve’s torso. Their legs twine together under the scratchy blanket. He can feel Steve’s breathing: it’s even and steady, unlike every time they’ve laid together in Brooklyn under the guise of keeping warm.

Steve turns to face him, tucking his face into Bucky’s chest; he can feel the warm wetness of Steve’s breath through his military-issue shirt. He kisses the depression right underneath the swell of Bucky’s pecs before pushing himself up his body, drawing a thin line with his lips as he goes. When he reaches Bucky’s neck he scrapes the thin skin with his teeth – not enough pressure to leave a mark, but enough to sting – and pauses, as if waiting for Bucky to object.

Oh. Bucky knows what this is. The kissing and the petting – it’s something they do sometimes, when they feel filled to the brim with emotion. Like a too-tight sweater pulled over a hollow and brittle skeleton. Their touch is always rough and harried, done in the dark shadows without any of the endearments, no sweetheart or baby, no ‘I love you’s whispered into sweat-slick skin.

Bucky’s bones have felt like dust since he was first laid out on Zola’s cold metal table, fire racing through his veins and burning his insides to ash.

He feels Steve kiss the space behind his ear, obviously having taken Bucky’s lack of protest for acquiescence. A half-choked sound makes its way out of Bucky’s mouth.

“You really wanna do this here?” Bucky can hear the rest of the base’s men, suddenly all too conscious of the thin walls.

Steve merely shushes him by pressing a wisp of a kiss to his lips. “Just be a good boy, Buck. Silent.”

Steve’s hands settle on Bucky’s waist like a firebrand, pushing his shirt up. Taking the hint, Bucky strips it off quickly, leaving his chest bare and arching his back to meet Steve’s gaze. Steve takes advantage of the newly-revealed skin, rubbing his face into Bucky’s flat stomach before pressing the flat of his own tongue into the valley of his pecs through to his adonis belt.

Bucky pulls at the hem of Steve’s shirt, wanting him to take it off, but Steve bats his hands away.

“Patience,” he whispers, “let me take my time.”

Steve’s words make Bucky feel unmoored, and he’s hit with the realization that this touch feels different from all the other times they’ve sought comfort in each other’s bodies. It’s heavy with meaning Bucky cannot discern, bogged down by an uncharacteristic softness.

Every other time they’ve touched each other, it was rough, the quick release of two boys bathing in the aftermath of adrenaline, trying to shore up pieces of themselves before they wither into sand. It’s desperate and unwise suckjobs in dark alleys, frantic fucks after fights.

It’s always a vicious cycle. They wait until right before they break, when the threads holding them together start to fray.

They fuck.

Then it's waiting again. Until they’re butting right up against the edge of a ravine.

They don’t kiss. They don’t take their time– and they sure as hell don’t talk about it.

The first time they comforted each other like this was after Sarah Rogers’ funeral. Bucky remembers it clearly– Steve, all 5’4 of him in his ill-fitting suit, pressing Bucky to the wall of his apartment and sinking down to his knees. Steve gave him a suckjob, fast and dirty, before wiping his lips off with a grin and a cheeky “thanks.” He stood up and walked away, like it never even happened.

It’s a far cry from the Steve mouthing quiet kisses into every scar he can find and carding fingers through his hair.

To Bucky, every breath shared between them feels stolen. Steve is a righteous slip of morning, beautiful in his dissonance against Bucky’s dark concrete and flood lights. He is a boy playing with matches against Steve’s bright forest fire.

Bucky pulls away from the sweet kisses, instead sinking his fingers into Steve’s blonde hair and pulling, trying to wrest control of the situation. He doesn’t understand the softness; he needs to make it hurt.

Bucky tugs at Steve’s trousers forcefully, leaving no room for negotiation. He mouths at the tent of Steve’s cock, still clothed in his underwear, and inhales the virile scent of him in the crease of his pelvis.

Bucky lifts a hand to squeeze at Steve’s ass, feeling the plush softness there before dipping his fingers across his waistband. Steve’s hand covers Bucky’s for a moment, just holding it there before Bucky pulls away and Steve finally pushes down his boxers.

Every second makes him feel more and more desperate, so when Steve’s fingers grab his hair tightly and tug his face back, he feels nothing but relief. Relief that Steve’s misplaced softness will stay saved up for the right person, kept safe and tucked away from his greedy hands.

Bucky can’t help but trace his tongue against the prominent vein of Steve’s cock. In response, Steve lets out a quiet growl, pushing his hips in, forcing himself further down Bucky’s throat until he gags on it.

Two fingers make their way into Bucky’s mouth, petting at his tongue and making him choke.

Steve’s return to familiar roughness is medicine and poison, intertwined and inseparable. Bucky will take whatever he can get until it burns right through him.

****

Sometime in the dark of night, after they’ve both cleaned up any trace of their coupling, Bucky blinks awake. They’re both in bed together, Steve spooning him from behind, a mocking parody of their earlier connection. This too, feels stolen, but Bucky lost all his will to resist Steve’s tenderness after the waves of his pleasure crested and crashed.

He pushes himself deeper into the curve of Steve’s frame and doesn’t try to leave. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries not to wake his companion, too afraid Steve will realize that he’s surrendering all this softness to a tainted man and pull away.

Just for a moment, Bucky can convince himself that someday, the war will be over.

He wraps himself in Steve’s warmth and breathes in his scent. Someday, he will have this again– not in between bouts of gunfire and dangerous missions, but after a day at the office, or at the docks. For Steve, he’ll build himself up from patchy switchgrass and burned down weeds. He’ll walk into their shared apartment and find his Stevie safe, smelling of the same paint that dusts his coveralls. Steve will smile at him, and they’ll both laugh. Someday, he swears to himself, when the war is over, we’ll be together.

In the meantime, he closes his eyes, and shifts closer to Steve, committing the embrace to memory.

[arcane-ish]

Book of Silco: Chapter 7

Enforcer : Hey. Stop right there!  Benzo: What the devil... Vander: No. Benzo: Silco? You animal. Go crawl back into whatever hole you came out of. Vander: Benzo, stay back. Silco: You never did know when to walk away. Vander:Wait. No! Silco: Hmm. Stubborn to the end.

1.) I have to admit, I’m kind of confused by the logistics of this scene how Deckard alone can kill so many people so quickly. As we pan away there seems to be at least 3 or 4 enforcers, including Grayson. (in the scene preceding this we only say Marcus and Grayson enter Benzo’s shop and the scene right before it I would say we see about 3 enforcer shadows. But it certainly would make sense for Grayson to have brought a larger team for this arrest.)

2.) The world devil is used. There’s definitely demons in the League of Legends world, but devil and particularly “the devil” seems a bit weird. And of course they speak of the devil and Silco shows up from the mists. Benzo picks up a weapon from the flood in this shot. 

3.) I’m not sure whether Vander’s no is supposed to be a general “omg everything is going to shit” or specifically about Grayson? Not sure whether the angle of the body in the front really fits with what we see of her dead body? Seems to me that Grayson would be lying left of the show we see and of course with her front towards the camera. 

4.) Shallowly, this scene of them staring into the mist as if it is very hard to see will never not be funny to me, because it doesn’t look that misty to me. Yeah I guess it’s misty, but I dunno, just how many short there are or how “overacted” they kind of feel is just funny to me.

5.) Getting Vander’s expression as it goes from squinting to wide eyed was a bitch to catch, it’s really super split second. I guess what is noteworthy is that it is Vander’s expression that is important, even though both Benzo and Marcus could also recognize Silco in this situation. 

6.) Cool cinematography of Silco’s eye glowing out of the mist. From his position it seems Silco was pretty away from the actual Grayson killing action. Deckard seems like he’s going from side to side in front of Benzo’s while Silco comes fro the far bar.

7.) So what’s noteworthy here is that  (i) Benzo knows Silco and recognizes him immediately (II) He immediately sees Silco as the threat and starts storming towards him (III) He has some harsh words for Silco. And crawl beck into the hole you came from would kind of be extra saucy if the backstory about Silco having been a child laborer in the mines is true. 

Vander meanwhile seems to be mostly stunned/dumbfounded. 

8.) So personally, when I watched this scene first, my only read was that Vander is scared for Benzo, he knows that Silco is dangerous and that attacking him is a bad idea and so he wants Benzo to stay back. I guess you could also read it as he doesn’t want Benzo to attack Silco, that he wants to resolve this peacefully? Seems kind of hard to buy with bodies littered around? Seems more plausible that the bodies littered around would give Vander the idea that Benzo shouldn’t be walking out there. 

9.) The other side of the coin. We know Benzo dislikes Silco. We now also know that Silco has a low opinion on Benzo (his reaction would probably be closest to irritated). It should be noted that Silco stays calm and indifferent at the prospect of Benzo coming in and he doesn’t give an explicit order to Deckard. 

10.) Vander tries to get Benzo to stop. Beno gets tackled from the side. Vander very much not happy.  It should be noted that Benzo is decidedly not an enforcer as we keep track of Silco’s crimes (that said within in his moral code, he was in the process of attacking Silco and from Silco’s POV they are cooperating with enforcers)

11:) Vander falls to his knees and slumps. Silco is being pithy, again, apparently referencing some sort of shared history with Benzo. (In case that isn’t obvious, this is a pretty cold reaction to somebody’s death) Also, Silco kind of eye-sexes the camera here. 

12.) In general this is supposed to be the first time after at least a while that Benzo and Vander have seen Silco. Is this the first time they see his face injury? Or have they been in contact since his post drowning transformation? One of the many things we don’t know. 

[qotu33]

Um... hello world.

First posts are daunting. Especially when you didn't exactly wake up with the knowledge that you were going to start a Tumblr today. I wasn't. Yet... here I am. Maybe I will have more pithy things to say later. Most likely, I'll just be here, enjoying the content of my favorite things... like Person of Interest and Murderbot. Maybe other things too. But you know, POI fanfiction is very comforting and sometimes very edgy... and sometimes both at the same time. lol.

But back to first posts being daunting... they are. It's a lot like a writer staring at the blank first page of a novel, a short story, a poem, or a work of fanfiction. Been there. Done that.

I have started this blog at the beginning of November, which was a bad idea. I'm writing a long piece of POI fanfiction for National Novel Writing Month. Today is day three, and I've hardly written a thing because I haven't had the time and I'm one of the leaders of the local writing revolution so I put out lots of fires on Discord. lol. And now I'm about to fall down the Tumbr rabbit hole. I didn't need to write that long fic anyway, right? My readers won't mind that I skipped out and never came back. Right? RIGHT?!?!

The first chapter of that fic is priceless though. I started this fic in 2020, but didn't finish it. Now I get to go back and finish it and add new scenes. The first chapter is on fire. (wasn't I supposed to be putting those out?... well, I can't put this one out. Seriously, it's beyond amazing.) I guess that means I need to keep working on it. Which means I probably need to end this blog post and go do that.

Gotta climb out of this rabbit hole then.

... first posts are daunting.

... there. I've done it.

:-)

[saulweissberg]

it was practically movie-perfect. with a pithy line and his chin held high, he left terry’s table and exited the restaurant without allowing them any space to interject or call him back, if they even would have. he got into his lexus and drove the short way to oak gardens, pulled onto his street, and settled his car in his driveway, still riding that high of a perfect exit. he entered his cold, silent home, his two cats lazily meowing from their perch on the cat tree in his living room was his only greeting, and that welcomed high started to dissipate. it started to come back a little when he gave himself a heavy pour of johnnie walker blue, smoothing out the rougher edges of the night, but it couldn’t be entirely saved by the added scotch. by the time he was laying in bed, finished with the nightly routine of brushing his teeth and washing his face, the glow of the tv playing some late night talk show as it lit up the otherwise darkened room and his cats took their rightful places on the mattress, the high had faded entirely and the comedown had completed.

and that was when the guilt set in. like any typical night, after his nightcap had been consumed and the crushing loneliness of his quiet home weighted on the center of his chest like he was being pressed to death, every regret in his life passed through his mind. it was as if this fucked up nightly parade of mistakes was part of his bedtime routine, and he couldn’t fall asleep without it. anxieties and fears compounded into some terrifying beast that lived within his stomach and made him wake up feeling nauseous every morning, and every night when he was finally able to drift off to sleep, there was only one coherent thought still left as he eventually succumbed: he wished to fix things, but knew that he couldn’t.

there was not a sense of triumph that he had whenever he had a judge rule in his favor or he got a pretty settlement for his client when he woke up the next morning. only the unmistakable sorrow of a clear head that knew he had done something wrong the night before. that particular feeling, more of an emotional hangover than a physical one, had started when he was a teenager and followed him loyally throughout adulthood. it had lessened in its faithful pursuit in the last few years, much slower and older than he had been as a twenty-something so he had less opportunity to do wrong, but it felt stronger every time it came back. a stark reminder that he had not wisened up like he was supposed to, that he was still careless and cruel in moments where he just wanted to be loved and understood. he had acted shamefully last night, and he knew that, but it still felt justifiable, damn it! the bright light of the morning sun had not changed that. was he not warranted a little anger? was he not allowed to be hurt, too?

saul had been too harsh, though, much like he was any time he fought with terry. this was the mother of his child. his only child. in the heat of the moment, that would be hard to remember, while also being all he could remember. normally, it took a lot to get a rise out of him, but his anger was always white-hot and unforgiving. unyielding until he laid his head to rest for the night. guilt never happened in the moment, instead leaving a bitter aftertaste that could not be washed away with his first cup of coffee. that morning when he woke up to his alarm and smokey pawing at his nose, he was greeted not only by that familiar shame, but a voice message notification from his first ex-wife. his heart began to race. by the time he was out of bed, showered and dressed for the day, his heart rate had not decreased. he was usually a man that took off headfirst into confrontation, not one to cower at a fucking voicemail. why was he so hesitant to listen? by his account, he had won their argument last night. what exactly could terry say that hadn’t already been said last night? was their relationship not totally and completely irreparable?

saul could not open the message until long after he finished up at the office. he tried to push it out of his mind, focusing instead on his work with surprising ease for anyone that wasn’t saul weissberg. it was sort of astonishing how easily he could push aside his personal feelings for his career, and as long as he was focused on felicia wilson’s divorce settlement or matthew foster’s father’s estate, then he wasn’t curious or fearful about what terry had said in their message. it was only when he was back at home—forgoing his normal dinner out with a friend or client for some drive-thru fast food—that saul had the courage to finally listen. with a trembling hand, he opened up their message and pressed play.

it was the one thing he hadn’t expected: an apology. an angry reprise of how terrible of a father he was, how it was all his fault that micah was so distant from him, or that he was a piece of shit that didn’t deserve love because he had it three times and couldn’t keep it wouldn’t have shocked him. to hear them say i’m sorry after he had been so brutal in the restaurant…

i’m autistic. micah, he’s the only one in my family who knows.

well, make that two things he hadn’t expected.

saul had to stop the message after that, and took a few minutes to sit with the information before he could start the message over again. terry was autistic. they were neurodivergent, just like saul and micah, but in a different way. things that had never made sense to him suddenly clicked into place and things that he thought he understood were suddenly mystifying and foreign. saul barely processed anything else they said after that, though he played the message back four more times.

it took him another twelve hours before he responded. after puttering through another workday, he found it within himself to draft a text message, unable to voice what he wanted to say.

SAUL: Hey. I got your message. I’m still processing what you told me, but I wanted to thank you for being honest with me, and I appreciate the apology, I really do. I’m sorry for not understanding your perspective and always assuming the worst with you. SAUL: And if there’s anything I’m sure of in this world, it’s how much Micah loves you. SAUL: Please reach out if you need anything, Katie. I’ll see you around, maybe.

his fingers trembled again as he typed and pressed send before he could convince himself not to. he set his phone down, expecting them not to respond, and saul felt quite comfortable with that particular silence.

END SCENE.

— TIME SKIP. 

This late into the night, with the familiar warmth of their bedside lamp absent, only the digital clock was alive in the dark. 1:17 A.M., read the neon-green display, the colon serving as its secondhand pulsing steadily with each passing moment. Time, as with memory, was beginning to slip away.

The room was still, the bed carefully made, though the sheets bore subtle evidence of restlessness, creases where they had been tossed and tugged. Leaning against the copper railing of their headboard, Terry curled up, knees drawn to their chest, wrapped in the comforting weight of a thick blanket. The night replayed itself, persisting alongside the vast, tense blackness of their world.

You’re right. I do pity myself, I pity the idiot that I was to think that I could be honest with you.

Even now, against the dark hour, Saul’s words rang in their head, stark and electric. Walking home had done little to dilute the wretchedness against their chest, as it often did. Instead, there was only numbness. Their breathing grew shallow and imperceptible, unwilling to disturb the stillness of the world, and the ends of their fingertips stubbornly remained cold.

With a sigh, they reached for their phone on the bedside table. Drawing a long breath, Terry picked it up with their left hand, scrolling to find Saul’s caller ID. Their thumb hovered over the “record” button before they began speaking. 

Saul. I’ve been replaying what you said in my head—and look, you don’t have to pick up. I understand if you don’t want to call me back, but—I’m sorry. I am.

Their eyes focused on a single spot by the window. Here, at this vantage point, they could see only the faint outline of the moon sitting atop the sky, disrupted only by the crown of an oak tree that had stood taller than others, further made translucent by the linen curtains. They blinked, trying to clear their vision, but it was no use. 

I didn’t mean to shut you down or make you feel like you couldn’t be honest with me. It’s just—it’s always so hard with you. With us. It’s clouded with so much hurt and pain and we say the wrong thing and do the wrong thing and then go into defense mode and once that happens, when we’re both trying to win the argument, we’ve already lost. We just end up having conversations where we try to get each other to apologize, and it’s so fucking unproductive.

Their movements were deliberate, almost ritualistic, as they crossed the room to the arched window. The curtains were drawn back, and with a slow, careful push, they opened the window as wide as it would go. The hinges creaked in protest, the harsh sound cutting through the stillness, captured by the microphone as Terry resumed speaking.

I don’t want to see you either. I really don’t. But not for the reasons you might assume. I see you—and—I get overwhelmed and lash out, and I know that’s not fair to you, Micah, or whatever is left between us.

Their gaze remained on the giant oak, its leaves swaying in the summer breeze. A common nighthawk perched on one of its branches, shaking its dark feathers. They leaned against the windowsill, a free hand resting on the side for support, just enough to maintain balance as they hovered above the shrubbery two floors below. Here but not quite, the ledge was its own sort of limbo.

I’m autistic. Micah, he’s the only one in my family who knows. I only found out two years ago. And I keep coming back to how difficult it might’ve been, for him to live with me all those decades, for him to take care of me while I was still reeling.

Against the gravity of the words, Terry stifled the tears that threatened to break free, the clearing of their throat faint though still audible.

I didn’t have anyone to talk to, to figure it out. I still don’t. I was supposed to be the one caring for him, Saul. Not the other way around. He didn’t deserve someone so broken as a mother—

—and it’s a different kind of pain with him. Different from yours. Saul, you were displaced from our lives. So I bore that resentment, sour looks, tantrums, and arguments, every time I came home. And sometimes, I don’t know how to live with myself. Because I look back and I realize that I’ve hurt him without knowing, without meaning to. All that fucking time. And I know it’s easier if I were just to pull myself out of the equation, but I can’t. I don’t know who I am without him.

But—nothing had changed between them, hadn’t it? The world would not stop at all, for that matter. It was almost comforting, that smallness of their existence. Beneath the earth’s crust, the red-hot magma would continue to churn and flow and rupture the plates overhead, even if the violence appeared to be frozen. 

But this isn’t about me. I just want you to know that it’s hard for me to process things the way you do. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I just need time. To process things. To try and see them from a different angle. When you ask me how I feel, I don’t always know how to respond. When you ask what I want from you, I’m not sure how to answer that. But I think that we want the same thing, and that’s to be good parents to him. I don’t expect to be on the same page with you about everything. We each provide for him how we know best, and we have two different strategies for accomplishing that. 

They shut away any other regret threatening to resurface. Even now, as they moved back towards their bed, Terry felt their quiet resolve returning. Their measured cadence returned, drained of emotion, of sorrow. They were never too comfortable for too long in this act of vulnerability, this act of sinking unto themselves and making their pain tangible to someone else.

I’m trying my best to understand—there may be some compromise here, but I can’t do it on my own. If you don’t want me around, that’s easy. I can leave you alone—but I’m asking for your patience. That’s all I ask.

The wooden floor of the cabin creaked softly as they returned to their bed, satisfied. The moment had passed. All that was left was the quiet exhale.

Good night.

[radley-writes]

what would you like to see more of in stories?

Nonbinary neopronoun-using main characters in both YA and adult fiction, written by nonbinary neopronoun-using authors!

Disabled main characters in both YA and adult fiction, written by disabled authors!

Neurodiverse main characters in both YA and adult fiction, written by neurodiverse authors!

...you may be starting to sense a pattern here......

For bonus points, in SFF, I want more casual nonbinary neopronoun-using side characters, disabled side characters, and neurodiverse side characters in everything - especially if they're treated completely normally and like they're part of the SFF world!

Other than thinking about representation, I suppose I'd love to see more poetic, long-winded writing, in YA especially. I love short, pithy, snappy wordage that tells a story in an economical and yet still lyrical way! That's the standard against which I measure myself! But I do think there can be too much focus on paring everything down to the bare minimum. I want lush description! I want beautiful, inventive metaphors! I want space to breathe.

...Is it ironic that I am requesting this as The Most ADHD Author Imaginable whose editor had to gently beg me to let the characters chill out just for a couple of chapters?? Maybe so.