#but i want to put this knowledge to use in my actual manuscripts

[pinnithin-writes]

i cant wait for the semester at writing school to be over so i can write again

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

The "why" behind Game Design

I've been doing a lot of thinking and talking with my friends about Prima Materia, as I often do these days. For the past few weeks there's been something itching at the back of my mind, I'm making mechanics that are starting to work well but for whatever reason they don't "feel" like Prima Materia to me. They technically fit in with the design pillars I've assigned myself; grounded, cinematic, dynamic, and fantasy, but I've felt like things are missing. Going beyond that, I don't think someone would properly grok the game if they were to read my past blog posts. If I read my past blog posts without knowing what Prima Materia is, I would think it's a game mostly focused on combat with some interesting worldbuilding.

I decided to talk with one of my friends about this, and the conversation led to me trying to properly articulate the kinds of things I want to happen in Prima Materia and compare that with the direction the design is going. In particular, how do I imagine a campaign going? What do people actually do in the game? While these are questions that can be applied to most ttrpgs, I hadn't realized how important it was to answer them concretely to make correct design decisions for my game rather than the design being driven by vague subconscious conceptions of a game that does not yet exist filtered through some core design pillars and my own limited experience in playing ttrpgs.

What do people actually do in the game?

This is a wide question, and has a wide answer.

When I think of what it would be like to actually play or GM a game of Prima Materia my mind tends towards uncovering secrets, diplomatically dealing with situations, and overcoming obstacles that require lots of preparation to pull off without getting seriously hurt. Secrets should be important to the party and world, and depending on the tier of play can be anything from uncovering new alchemical magics to metaphysical secrets of the universe that can act as MacGuffins for a longstanding party.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that uncovering secrets is one half of the beating heart of Prima Materia, and the other half is preparation for overcoming obstacles to achieve the uncovering of those secrets. Characters in the game aren't meant to be incredibly powerful but rather incredibly skilled at their area of expertise, whether that be being good with a sword, knowledgeable in certain subjects, good at diplomacy, or making useful items. That's the concept of the game that's in my head that needs to be concretely written down (and how convenient for me that I've just done that).

Going Forward

A lot of the ideas and drafts I've written or verbalized to friends make a lot more sense in this light of uncovering secrets and preparation, as lot of those ideas hinge on uncovering secrets or being prepared. There are lost manuscripts I've been itching to put in that grant skill bonuses as well as character features due to the knowledge contained within. The Alchemist profession alone is a class that takes the ideas of preparedness and uncovering secrets to 11, where you create new spells and tinctures and unlock more and more useful things to make as well as ways to make them.

There are several design decisions I've been making recently that do not spark joy for me. They will be dealt with, and going forward I will have this to keep in mind as what I want the heart of the game to be.

If you read this far, thank you very much! It means a lot. The astute among you who read my last post will notice that this is suspiciously not a post about the Sepia as I promised, and that's because I thought this post was important. I will of course try to get the Sepia post out next week, but if that fails I will bring you an update on my most recent mechanics experiment which will surely have transpired by then.

[translations-by-aiimee]

Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 21

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is the product of my limited knowledge of Chinese characters as I attempt to learn the language. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

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Chapter 21 - Paying Homage to Our Ancestors

Song Qingshi got up early and took Yue Wuhuan to the ancestral hall to pay respect to his ancestors.

The ancestral hall, which other sects attach great importance to, is remote and inconspicuous in Medicine King Valley, hidden in the trees, dilapidated and not much better than the medicinal servants' residence. Outside of the ancestral hall was a medicinal garden. Yue Wuhuan had passed by several times and thought it was an abandoned building and ignored it.

Song Qingshi pushed open the door, sealed by an array.

There was a thick pile of dust inside the ancestral hall, and apart from the simple tables, chairs and offering table, there was only an old painted scroll.

"Actually, it doesn't matter if you lock it. There aren't any valuables," Song Qingshi explained with some embarrassment. "I haven't been here for many years. Wait a minute while I clean it up." Then he rolled up his sleeves and first used a cool breeze spell to blow away the dust. After throwing cleansing spells everywhere, he set up an incense bowl on the altar and put flowers and fruits around it. Finally, he found a broken mat, patted the dust off with his hands, and said with satisfaction, "All done."

Yue Wuhuan stood beside him, holding the incense in a daze. He had never seen such an unrefined sect in his life. . .

Song Qingshi unrolled the painted scroll on the offering table and hung it up.

The scroll had no figures or inscriptions, only a boundless sea of clouds. A brilliant light beamed through the depths of the sea of clouds, lighting up the sky.

Song Qingshi tried his best to explain: "I accidentally got the inheritance from my ancestors in the hidden realm. My ancestors didn't leave a name, only the surname Song. I didn't have a surname then, so I took my ancestor's surname as a sign of respect. . ."

There were a lot of killings in the immortal world. Many children had lost their parents. His original body was one of them. Because he was born with two kinds of spiritual abilities and had a very high talent for medicine and poisons, he accidentally obtained the Medicine King's inheritance in the hidden realm and created the Medicine King's Valley. Practicing medicine and treating diseases, refining alchemy to make poisons, and occasionally going to the hidden realm to grab some rare medicines unknowingly helped gain the sect the reputation it has today.

"This inheritance in the immortal world was placed directly into my consciousness, so this painting is the only physical material left by the late master. I guess it has special sentimental value, so I used it as an offering. In fact, I don't know what the painting is about. It may be a landscape. . ." Song Qingshi, feeling guilty about his random assessment, quickly dismissed it. "Anyway, I have copied all the manuscripts that are suitable for inheriting the sect and put them in the library. You can read them yourself."

After Song Qingshi finished his introduction, he felt confident that he hadn't missed anything and instructed Yue Wuhuan to offer incense.

Yue Wuhuan lit the incense respectfully. When he was about to kneel down, the incense went out.

He re-lit the incense, knelt down again, and the incense went out once more.

Yue Wuhuan looked at Song Qingshi worriedly: "Could it be. . . the master doesn't want to accept me as a disciple?"

"Impossible. You're so smart. The late master couldn't be happier." Song Qingshi waved his hand. He lowered his head and pondered for a moment, "Speaking of which, I don't recall ever having kneeled here before. Every time I come here, I clean up and leave after I burn incense. I must have forgotten. . . I guess the late master might not like being bowed to by his disciples, so try offering incense directly."

Yue Wuhuan dubiously inserted the burning incense into the burner, stood up and saluted.

Sure enough, the incense in the burner burned steadily and didn't go out.

Yue Wuhuan couldn't help asking: "Is this disrespectful to the ancestors?"

"The late master didn't like these sorts of things. He liked. . ." Song Qingshi recalled the inheritance that the original body received. Those inheritances were full of knowledge, leaving almost no personal traces except a very interesting word, which seemed to be his motto, "Question."

Question authority, question knowledge, question everything in the world.

Questioning is the driving force behind scientific research.

Song Qingshi wasted a lot of energy explaining his philosophy to Yue Wuhuan: "The late master didn't want us to respect him personally. What he wanted us to respect was knowledge, to carry out his philosophy, to study well, to study carefully, and to never hesitate to question what he left behind just because he was the master. Although Master was very powerful, he could still make mistakes. We have to find the correct answer in the neverending mistakes."

Yue Wuhuan hesitated: "The correct answer?"

Song Qingshi said happily: "Well, I've already studied and proved several mistakes of my master and re-revised the answers."

His theory can be described as shocking in the immortal world where masters are respected.

Yue Wuhuan was too shocked to speak.

"Perhaps this is the root of Medicine King's Valley foundation," Song Qingshi said longingly. "If I die, I hope to be like my master, to not have my disciples worship, and to not leave portraits and names for future generations to admire. These things are a waste of time. If you have the time to do these things, you might as well use it for research. It's better to finish the projects I haven't finished, correct the mistakes I made, and create more interesting. . ."

Before he finished speaking, Yue Wuhuan yanked his arm heavily, interrupting his thoughts.

Yue Wuhuan stared at him fiercely. His face was as gloomy as a sky about to rain. He almost gritted his teeth and said, "Don't say such unlucky things..."

Song Qingshi finally came to his senses and said with a smile, "Don't worry, I'm talking about the end of my life."

Medical students aren't afraid to talk about life and death, and he didn't feel that this topic was anything special.

Yue Wuhuan panicked and interrupted sternly: "Don't say that!"

Song Qingshi realized that he was really angry. He thought about his psychological problems and obediently shut up.

Yue Wuhuan also knew he should bow his head, but he didn't want to apologize.

The two were silent for a long time and finally silently pretended that this topic had never happened.

The worship ceremony was completed.

. . .

Song Qingshi liked to eat sweets, especially sorbet. Yue Wuhuan was very picky about the taste, thinking that the ones bought from outside weren't good enough and too dirty, and there was no good cook in Medicine King's Valley, so he took the time to study various sweet food preparation methods. Every day, he cooked all kinds of sweet food for him in different ways, which was especially delicious.

After An Long discovered Song Qingshi's private stove, he became incredibly grabby and tried to get Yue Wuhuan to cook for him too.

Song Qingshi was instantly angry: "Is my eldest disciple a waiter?"

An Long didn't care about such reasoning. He made a big fuss, just wanting to eat desserts made by Yue Wuhuan.

"Forget it. He's very busy," Song Qingshi lost his temper. He put down his book, rolled up his sleeves and said, "I'll do it for you."

An Long's eyes lit up with joy.

Although Song Qingshi loved sweets, he didn't go out of his way to eat them. He was fine whether he ate them or not. In the original world, he was the eldest young master who only had to stretch his hand out for food. In this world, he would rather fast than make food, so he had never been in a kitchen in either of his two lifetimes. His brain was filled with tens of thousands of herbs but had no place for oil, salt, sauce or vinegar. . .

He stood in the kitchen in a daze for a while, trying to figure out how to use various utensils. He couldn't find a recipe and didn't know how to make fire with ordinary firewood, so he simply used spiritual fire and made dessert like alchemy.

Finally, after mucking around for a long time, he brought out a plate of round dumplings with charred black skin, each of which was exactly the same size and shade of charred blackness. Perfectly satisfying for anyone with OCD.

"These are green dumplings." Song Qingshi had always been brave in the face of failure. He took out the finished product to prove that he had tried hard. He then said, "It probably won't taste good, so I should throw them away. I'll ask the cook to make something for you. As long as it doesn't bother Wuhuan, anything is fine.”

An Long smiled and watched, then suddenly picked up a dumpling and threw it into his mouth.

Song Qingshi didn't have time to stop An Long from indiscriminately eating them, so he was a little worried about diarrhea.

An Long chewed it carefully for a long time and praised: "It doesn't look like much, but the taste is actually alright."

Immediately afterwards, he happily threw a few more dumpings into his mouth until only the last one remained.

Song Qingshi was dumbfounded. Even he didn't dare taste this stuff after it came out of the oven. Was it really edible? So, in a brave and challenging mood, he put the last dumpling into his mouth and chewed it. The explosive taste rushed over his taste buds in an instant. The fishy taste was worse than the most bitter medicine and was bad enough to make him nauseous.

Song Qingshi was so disgusted that tears came out of his eyes. He quickly spit out the dumplings, gesturing to An Long speechlessly.

An Long slapped the table and laughed crazily, so much that he couldn't sit upright.

He was like this in the past. He would be willing to hurt himself in order to make fun of the original body. He has a good grasp of how low he could go before he went too far with the original body, so he could successfully walk on the thin line of death every time. When he saw that Song Qingshi was about to explode, he quickly wiped away the tears from laughing, regained his dignity, and added: "I'll never ask Yue Wuhuan for food again."

Song Qingshi instantly dissipated his anger.

An Long said playfully: "It's only the first time you made it. It's precious. You must try again."

When Song Qingshi thought about his creation, he felt a little embarrassed.

An Long chased after him: "By the way, do you want to see the new poison I developed? It's very cute."

Song Qingshi immediately forgot such insignificant things as dumplings and happily dragged him to the research room.

On the way, An Long smiled and asked, "You're really nervous about this darling Yue Wuhuan. What's wrong with him?"

Song Qingshi glanced at him vigilantly, unwilling to answer this private question, and instructed: "Don't mess around."

An Long pondered: "That's interesting. . ."

The more Song Qingshi didn't allow things to get messy, the more he wanted to mess things up.

How fun is it to mess around?

. . .

After finishing sword practice, Yue Wuhuan was returning to his room to shower and change clothes. When he passed by the corridor, a small paper ball hit the back of his head.

The ball of paper fell on the ground and rolled around. It seemed like there was something wrapped inside it.

Right now is when Song Qingshi does pharmaceutical experiments and can't be disturbed. . . So he squatted down obediently, picked up the paper ball according to the other party's wishes, and slowly unfolded it.

Wrapped in the paper ball was a terrifying double-headed centipede, with countless legs wriggling and disgusting mucus flowing from its two grotesque mandibles. It opened its teeth and claws to pounce on him.

Yue Wuhuan thought about it and wrapped it in the paper again. He threw it away and said angrily, "Immortal An, don't do such childish things."

"What? Qingshi's not here, and suddenly you're too lazy to pretend to be good?" An Long laughed and came out from behind the screen wall. He beckoned, and the centipede immediately crawled out of the paper ball and returned to his palm, "This little guy isn't poisonous. It’s just for scaring people. Every time it can scare a beauty into screaming and trembling, it’s very fun. Why aren’t you afraid at all? I’m a little disappointed.”

Yue Wuhuan said helplessly: "If the Immortal Master wants it, I can scream for you."

"Don't, it'll sound too fake. I won't like it," An Long flipped his hands, and the centipede disappeared. He walked over lazily, looked Yue Wuhuan up and down curiously, and praised, "I never thought that a man could be so beautiful. Even more beautiful than Miss Wan in Mingyue Tower. I know you only like men, but still, I don't feel disgusted."

Mingyue Tower was a famous brothel in the immortal world, and Miss Wan was a famous prostitute.

This analogy was extremely malicious.

But Yue Wuhuan didn't care. He smiled and said: "I've heard that Immortal An's confidantes are all over the world and have seen countless beauties. Many immortal maidens and devils are jealous and have even fought over you. Today, it's a great honour for Wuhuan to be praised for his beauty."

"Young Master Wuhuan is joking," An Long heard him secretly mocking his flirtations and was amused, "My confidantes can't compare to the many that must be fascinated with you. I once knew a friend, what was his name? He's still a hero following a righteous path. He can't forget about you. Knowing that you have willingly entered Medicine King's Valley and can no longer get close to him, he gets drunk and complains a lot."

Yu Qing talked nonsense after drinking in Xilin, which tarnished Song Qingshi's reputation, so he killed him and sent his body to Medicine King's Valley for research.

Yue Wuhuan pretended not to understand: "I never remember dead people."

An Long sneered and said, "Beauties are so ruthless."

"Yes, prostitutes are ruthless and heartless." Yue Wuhuan pointed out his sarcasm. He raised his head, brushed his hair that was wet from the sweat from practicing sword practice behind his ears, and walked a few steps. He lazily leaned against the corridor's screen wall, raised his eyes, and asked provocatively: "Immortal An, don't you think it's interesting to be alive?"

An Long followed and bent down. He pressed his arm tattooed with the five poisonous creatures tightly against the screen wall next to his ear. He towered over him, smiling wickedly, and took off his disguise, baring his sharp wolf teeth: "I think I think you're a funny little fake. I want to know what's hidden under this beauty's skin. Let me have a look, okay?"

Yue Wuhuan smiled and asked: "Is Immortal An interested in my true face?"

An Long frivolously pinched his chin and forcefully lifted it. He examined his face carefully, leaned forward, and said fiercely: "Very interested."

Yue Wuhuan looked at him quietly for a moment and reminded him: "Master seems to have finished his experiments ahead of schedule."

An Long withdrew his hand quickly. He panicked momentarily before suddenly remembering that he had blocked Song Qingshi's spiritual detection so he wouldn't be discovered.

Yue Wuhuan lowered his head and held back his smile.

"You dare lie to me?!" Realizing he had been tricked, An Long was furious and wanted to flash his claws at this ignorant guy.

In an instant, a spiritual fire rose under his feet.

An Long sensed the crisis and immediately jumped away.

Immediately afterwards, several spiritual fires forced him to retreat several feet away.

Song Qingshi appeared behind him, wishing he could smash An Long to death with spiritual fire for bullying his little angel without a second thought. Fortunately, Yue Wuhuan had reminded him that he should secretly use his divine sense to check what An Long was doing while he was here; otherwise, this dead dog could have torn down Medicine King's Valley! Although high-level cultivators were able to isolate the divine mind from detection, when he found that An Long's aura had suddenly disappeared from the research room, he realized something was wrong. He thought he was going to hide and do bad things, so he came here after discovering Yue Wuhuan's location.

An Long pointed at Yue Wuhuan, so angry that he couldn't speak properly: "You!"

Yue Wuhuan whispered aggrievedly: "I didn't lie."

Song Qingshi rushed to Yue Wuhuan in one large step. He carefully checked whether he was injured, and asked nervously, "Did this guy bully you?"

Although he didn't see what had happened, it didn't take much thought about who was right and who was wrong between the fierce and domineering An Long and the cute little angel. Was there much to consider when comparing who's stronger and weaker between a mentally fragile patient and a rough and thick-skinned immortal? What's more, An Long can kill Yue Wuhuan a hundred times over with just one finger! He must take good care of his little angel! Not just for the investment but to protect him!

Song Qingshi was eccentric and magnanimous, and frankly, he was justified.

An Long glared desperately at Yue Wuhuan behind his back, the kind of gaze that held a particularly strong deterrent effect.

Yue Wuhuan looked at it and said softly and protectively: "No, Immortal An is quite nice. He's joking with me."

Song Qingshi looked back at An Long suspiciously. The spiritual fire on his body was still burning, and there was a faint urge to switch to a poisonous fire.

An Long instantly switched to a pure smile: "I wouldn't dare bully him. I'm just chatting casually and telling jokes."

"Yes," Yue Wuhuan continued to persuade. "Master, I seldom go out, so I'm quite curious about the outside world. Immortal An is good-natured and had a lot of interesting things to share. I'm happy to listen."

An Long grabbed Yue Wuhuan's shoulders and patted his chest. He laughed, "He and I hit it off right away. We just want to be friends."

Yue Wuhuan admitted with a smile: "Immortal An really didn't bully me."

Song Qingshi gradually extinguished the flame and doubtfully asked: "Is that so?"

The two of them nodded at the same time: "Yes."

Song Qingshi was a little confused and scratched his head. When he saw An Long blocking Yue Wuhuan from leaving with a domineering posture, he felt angry. He really didn't understand what they were doing. Could it be a misunderstanding?

"You go first. I'll find you next time to play a little longer," An Long greeted Yue Wuhuan with a hidden threat. and then dragged Song Qingshi away as quickly as he could. "Come on, let's see if the petri dish from yesterday has any results."

"Don't be angry. I really dare not bully your glass man."

"Rule 72."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop talking about it. Have a drink with me."

"I don't want to."

". . ."

Yue Wuhuan saluted politely and watched the two leave.

The King of Xilin Poison stood in a high position all year round. He didn't need to think many things through. Violence was enough to crush everything.

Therefore, his temptations and thoughts were superficial and very easy to guess.

It's just investigating his miserable past that brought up despicable suspicion; suspicion that he had someone backing him up, suspicion that he had evil intentions for Medicine King's Valley, suspicion of his ambitions, and even suspicion that he had feelings for Song Qingshi. But he was also worried that if there was no evidence, Song Qingshi would tear him apart, unwilling to actually investigate. He wanted to find an excuse to wind him up, try to find out his true face little by little, and then crush him to death.

This matter isn't difficult to solve.

Since the King of Xilin Poison wants to see his true face, then he'll show him his true face.

He hoped he could take it. . .

[freakingoutthesquares]

The Think Tank: Russell Senior Words: Pat Reid, Photographer: Retna Taken from Select Magazine, October 1996 Transcription: Acrylic Afternoons

Pulp's fiddle maestro Russell Senior dispenses earthy wisdom on Lovejoy, pastry dishes, Tony Blair and Cinzano.

Which are worse - pigeons or rats? I'd say rats. Pigeons wouldn't survive a nuclear holocaust, and rats would. I think that's got to be against rats really.

What's your favourite haircut? I always think Stuart from Menswear's hair looks very nice, a kind of centre parting that doesn't make him look like a swot.

What's your favourite non-UK country in the world? I like Italy very much and I found Iceland a place I'd like to go back to. Apart from that, you can stuff it really... In America the generosity of spirit is totally genuine, they do want you to have a nice day, they really do. And anyone who's got a little cafe, they want it to be the best cafe and they want you to enjoy it. And you don't get that on the M1 at all.

What is the secret of being really well dressed? Go to a lot of jumble sales. This suit was made by a tailor in Sheffield called Ashley Rogers. I think the London East End gangs used to go up there to get their suits made in the '60s. He effs and blinds, makes a chalk mark on you, swears, drops his fag, and goes and does it. I'd formerly never paid more than £10 for a suit. This one was the princely sum of £250.

Is there any cause that you would be prepared to die for? No. Other than rescuing my loved ones from a bad fate. I have in the past been involved in left-wing things and put myself in mild amounts of danger, but I'd never be the one at the front of the picket line. I'd always be three or four rows back, pushing.

If you could invent a new recreational drug what would it be like? It would put you in the frame of mind that you're in just as a thunderstorm breaks, when the electrons in the air dissipate and you get that unaccountable euphoric feeling.

What do you reckon to Lovejoy? Is antiques dealing really like that? Not in the slightest. He trolls about in his aimless fashion and 17th century bronzes and ancient manuscripts just happen to turn up on his doorstep. Most antique dealers basically buy junk for £10 and sell it for £20. My specialist field was glassware, which is hard to provenance because it doesn't have marks. That stuff is rare and valuable cos there isn't much of it. There's lots of great things that aren't worth a lot of money, like potatoes. If potatoes were rare they'd be worth a fortune, cos they're delicious.

Which is better - rock music or dance music? I'm not a massive fan of either, I prefer pop music. I used to be a rocker, I still like Motorhead, actually. I don't like dance music particularly, cos I find it difficult to dance to. I don't claim any knowledge on the subject.

If you had to do national service, which regiment would you choose to serve in? It'd have to be the SAS, because apparently they get shaved every morning no matter where they are.

If you had to give up your life and go and live in a novel or film, which one would it be? Film: probably La Dolce Vita. Novel: Possession by AS Byatt. It's about these two researchers, a bloke researching a nineteenth century male writer and a woman researching a nineteenth century female writer. They don't like each other's authors very much, but they uncover letters that show the two writers were lovers. As you might guess, the two researchers end up being drawn to each other's writer and therefore to each other. Rather like the owners of the dogs in 101 Dalmatians. I didn't know it was a 'post-feminist novel', or I certainly wouldn't have read it.

Is Tony Blair selling out the Labour Party? Well, he does have the distinction of being the first Labour leader to have sold out before getting in office, so he might be a total subversive like the Tory posters make out. God, those posters are so racist. This sinister black figure with red eyes, behind a red curtain. I think they're definitely trying to play a subliminal race thing. I wish Labour were as the Tories portray them to be - I'd probably vote for them. I'm more of a Scargillite. I didn't vote for Kinnock because he was too right-wing.

What do you make of the new Suede album? Haven't heard it. I think Bernard was a hard act to follow. They were just so hot, and now they don't seem to fit into the lineage and canopy of 'britpop' that's been defined. It seems like it could have all been there without Suede. I thought their singles were great. I remember thinking at the time that they were better than ours. I didn't think their albums were as good as ours, though.

Going to Knebworth? I'm not, no. I just fancy a night out in London. I haven't been for ages. It's the most exciting city on earth, everybody you meet around the world wants to live in London, and Londoners say 'It's so boring'...

Who are your violin-playing role models? I'd be hard put to emulate even the worst busker. I don't like Nigel Kennedy's playing very much. I like classical music as it's habitually performed, I don't like all that extra fortissimo.

Say something in a foreign language. "L'erba dell baccino e siempre piu verde." The other man's grass is always greener. It's from an Italian version of the Furry Freak Brothers comic.

It's the night before the Warrington gig and you've got 'gout'. Who do you nominate as your replacement? Anybody who could play the guitar and the violin to the standard of the average 15 year old. Someone able to master the rudiments of the notes, the squeakiness of the noises and the random element.

If pop music was made illegal tomorrow, what career would you pursue? There's a number of possibilities. One is being an inventor; I do invent things. Just domestic appliances, little gadgets to amuse myself, like a new kind of pastry dish. I do like to think that at some point in my life I will (a) write a novel, (b) do some inventions, and (c) open a restaurant.

Do you know anyone who's had cosmetic surgery? Me. False teeth. Three front ones. I lost the originals on a piece of wholegrain bread. Apparently, after assault, the second biggest cause of tooth loss is wholegrain bread.

What's the most erotic moment you've ever seen in a film? A film called The Beast by Walerian Borowczek, I remember that being quite saucy at the time. It was the less explicit things that were the most erotic, the heaviness of these oak-panelled rooms, it might have been Bach playing... I don't find squalor erotic. I know it's a Pulp thing and I recognise the truth of Jarvis' lyrics, but I like sophistication, Cinzano, these kinds of things..."

[literaticat]

I've been communicating with an agent back and forth but the more I've read about them online, the more wary I've grown about them. How do I stop the communication and/or refuse to send a full manuscript if they request one? They've been questioning me a lot after I queried them so I started to look them up more and ... yikes. Some of the comments (as well as my own comms with them) have freaked me out. If I say "I've decided to go in a different direction" this soon it might seem odd?

I don't really have a clear picture of what kind of "freaked out" you mean. So, obviously, use your best judgement, and also take this with a grain of salt as it is coming from somebody without any knowledge of the backstory or players here.

(Why are they "questioning you a lot" if they haven't even requested the full yet, let alone offered rep? That's weird. Questioning you ABOUT WHAT? Email me if you want, because I wanna know the tea! Who is it?! Anyway.)

Assuming that this is really not somebody you want to work with, I think you just put them on ice. Like if they ask you bizarre / intrusive or otherwise off-putting questions, you can say, "I'm uncomfortable with this line of questioning" or "I'd prefer not to answer that, and I'm not sure why it would matter" or something like that -- OR, for that matter, you could just *stop responding altogether.* If somebody is truly being a weirdo at you, set some boundaries!

If they ask for the full, say "Actually, thanks for your interest, but I've decided to go in another direction with this manuscript." I don't think you need to say that unless / until they actually request the full. After all, for all you know they are going to pass, and then it will be moot anyway.

[so-journeying]

—Joseph Addison, 1712 (after Psalm 19)

There then comes to you a person, saying:

“Here is a new bit of the manuscript that I found; it is the central passage of that symphony, or the central chapter of that novel.

The text is incomplete without it.

I have got the missing passage, which is really the centre of the whole work.” The only thing you could do, would be to put this new piece of the manuscript in that central position, and then see how it react[s] on the whole of the rest of the work.

If it constantly brought out new meanings for the whole of the rest of the work, if it made you notice things in the rest of the work—which you had not noticed before, then I think you would decide that it was authentic.—C. S. Lewis, ‘The Grand Miracle’

Excerpt: Intro to Planet Narnia, Authored by Michael Ward

In modern profession, this proof of evidence is known as fitness, which tends to question the reliability of a person's testimony in court with regard to their mental health & the accuracy or veracity of their claims—whether a figment of their imagination or actuality.

In a society [or worldview] which rejects the truths of GOD, known as real knowledge, everything then becomes whatever one wants it to be. In grade 9 my pen pal coined it as, "living in my head." Att, I had no idea what she was talking about, no one in my circles understood what she meant—she was way ahead of her time I guess. . .

As it has been said, truth supersedes our feelings; however if we reject truth—truth then is broken up into the pieces, where we only acknowledge & affirm pieces we find agreeable with our lifestyle.

This is why GOD warned against false teachers/prophets, our world allows truth to be peddled in fragments which often is no truth at all.

To recenter many find relief looking up at the skies for this reason, to catch a glimpse of the truths it proclaims boldly & unapologetically of the only truth that matters: GOD created all things, what HE does is good & beautiful, though HE allows us to choose whether to accept HIM as our MAKER or to reject HIS love—and forgiveness for all our rebellion and cosmic crimes against HIS created world, we have great need for HIS goodness to reabsorb us in HIS plans for redemption & reuniting others into HIS eternal Kingdom.

Inspiration: Eric Metaxas Interviews Michael Ward

Narnia was the only Summer Camp I was ever exclusively enrolled in for children, most of my summers were spent in-front of the T.V. or playing with the neighbourhood kids & my siblings, something I'm told by colleagues no kid does well before COVID lockdowns, as an immigrant parent of an only child he had no option to alleviate his child's loneliness, which he blamed on gaming consoles & the online forums that kids were glued to.

Basically the internet age wrecked his child's life circa 2011.

Right around the time the world was celebrating Steve Jobs for handheld super computers, it was creating waves that would traumatize children the world over.

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Disco, how does one go about finding an editor? is there a secret writer's rec list of decent ones?

DW: There is no secret list, but we do share our recs when we find a great editor! 

Firstly, you need to figure out what sort of editing you need. There are 3 types, and at some point you’re going to need all of them if your aim is to publish your book. 

But to confuse things even further, let’s take a step back and start with what you need before an editor: beta readers. If you’ve already written fic, you know exactly what beta readers do. They’re your first line of defence against “but this bit doesn’t make sense” and “I have fallen into a plot hole.” Beta readers are also great at pointing out what works for them, and what doesn’t. And obviously YMMV with your beta readers, but let’s say you have five beta readers and three of them point out the same issue. Chances are that’s something that you have to take another look at.

After you have a draft your beta readers love, it’s time to look for an editor. 

(Again, this is for professional stuff, not fanfic. You don’t need to do all this for fanfic. And you don’t even need to do all of it if you’re looking at trad publishing, because your publisher will provide the editors. But you definitely need to do it for self publishing if you want your book to be the best it can be, and you might want to look at at least a developmental editor if you’re considering trad publishing, because a good developmental editor will make your book so much stronger that it already is.) 

The Developmental Editor. 

On the surface, they look like a glorified beta reader. This is the description of a dev editor that I stole from Reedsy: 

Developmental editing is a phase in the book publishing process where editors work with authors to resolve “big picture” issues in their manuscripts, including structure, form, plot, and character. Because of its focus on wider story elements, this type of editing normally won't address sentence-level errors such as punctuation and grammar typos.

Good developmental editing will bear your target audience in mind and assess your work in relation to industry standards and expectations. Only once your manuscript has been revised, reshaped, and developed will it be ready for a copy edit and proofread. 

And this is where a lot of people screw up, because even though a dev editor looks like a beta reader on the surface, they are a professional, with industry experience, and with working knowledge of the market, and with actual qualifications. That’s why I bolded that part! A great developmental editor is worth their weight in gold. 

The Copy Editor 

This is the editor that makes your manuscript look like a rainbow, with all the different coloured highlights on every page. You will probably hate your copy editor even more than your developmental editor when you first open that email. The copy editor is the language expert. They’re also the ones who make sure your character doesn’t take their hat off twice in the same scene. 

The Proofreader 

After reading your manuscript so many times that you can see it printed on the backs of your eyelids when you go to sleep, you’re going to hate the idea of dropping a few hundred bucks on a proofreader. 

But then they’ll send it back with all your typos highlighted, and you’ll realise exactly how important they are! 

Finding an editor 

This one’s easy. Check out who your favourite authors in your genre use, and look them up. Or, you can check out a site like Reedsy, and narrow down your search by genre and by experience level. You can check out each editor’s work experience, and their portfolios there.

Writing a book for publication is an investment in your future as an author, and finding the right editors is important. If you’re self-publishing it’s so easy to get put off at the cost of editors (but hey, they have bills to pay too) that you might be tempted to go for your cheapest option. In my experience, this is a mistake, because that person on Fiverr or Tumblr or Facebook is usually unqualified, and you’re getting exactly what you pay for -- very fucking little. 

It takes more to be an editor than just liking reading or, hell, even being a writer yourself. If someone calls themselves an editor and asks for money, ask to see their qualifications and recommendations from authors they’ve worked with. Anyone asking you to pay for their editing services should at least be able to show you their accreditations. 

Good luck with your writing, anon! 

[nanowrimo]

5 Tips for Finishing Your Novel

April’s session of Camp NaNoWriMo is drawing to a close, and you might find yourself nearing the end of your novel. If you need some tips on writing and polishing the ending of your story, author Derek Murphy is here to share a few! Plus, you can check out the rest of our novel-finishing resources on our #NaNoFinMo page. 

You won NaNoWriMo and have a 50k collection of scenes and sentences, but how do you clean it up and get it done? How do you make sure it’s finished, satisfying and enjoyable? Here are 5 powerful strategies for finishing your novel and some helpful writing tips that will push you past the finish line.

1. Give it a satisfying resolution.

In order to have a powerful story, your book should probably focus on a main character’s change or transformation. There’s an inner war, a.k.a. the character’s emotional healing, and an outer war: the conflict that forced the reckoning. If it’s a purely symbolic internal realization, you can mirror that with actual conflict in the real scene: the breaking of a dish, a fit of rage, a sudden ray of sunlight (or a storm… this should not be pleasant; It’s a breaking point and spiritual death/rebirth).

You can clarify the moment of change by setting up an illustrative contrast, a before and after, that shows how those internal changes have resulted in real-world consequences or benefits. Each character’s unique challenge will match their personal weakness or fear. The price for victory is the one thing they have so far refused to do, or something they cannot give up or bear to lose.

Make sure your protagonist has gone through a transformative struggle to arrive at deep insights, knowledge or awareness. Find a way to deepen the incidental scenes so that they become instrumental to a deeper purpose, leading towards an identity-shifting event.

The plot is what happens, and it’s important. But you can make it more dramatic and meaningful by making sure you demonstrate how hard it was and what it cost. It matters, it is remarkable, because it forced your protagonist to change.

Your conclusion might include:

Physical tension as allies perform a tug-of-war battle against resistance, that shows how difficult this struggle is, and how much force is required.

The consideration phase, as characters are tempted last minute or the price for victory is revealed: the sweet memories that give them awareness that this fight is worth the cost or risk (you need to show them making the choice, knowing what they will lose).

The final flashback, as the full backstory is revealed so we can see exactly why this conflict is so difficult or meaningful for the main character.

2. Add (unresolved) conflict.

Your story is made up of the events and scenes, where something happens. Each new event will push the characters further into the plot. Slow scenes where nothing is really happening can be red flags, so the first thing to focus on is increasing conflict, drama, suspense and intrigue. This is what creates urgency. The full reveal, demonstrating why THIS challenge is so difficult and powerful, should happen just before the final battle or resolution.

You want to make sure every scene, especially in your conclusion, has enough conflict. I recommend these three:

Outer Conflict (threats): Challenges or obstacles that prevent the character from achieving goals.

Inner Conflict (doubts): Moral struggles, decisions, guilt or shame, anger.

Friendly Fire (betrayal): Strong disagreements between allies or supporting characters. 

You want to extend and deepen the potential conflict, without resolving it too easily. The biggest destroyer of conflict is conversation: when your characters just sit around and talk to each other. Most conflict involves a lack of information, and a desire for clarity. A lot of conflict is perceived or imagined.

The most important information needs to come last, and come at a great price. The information that has an emotional impact, and influences their actions and decisions, should be big reveals at dramatic peaks. A surprise or twist should be treated as an event: each scene is leading towards a change or new piece of information that provokes the protagonist to respond.

3. Fill plot holes with character motivation.

After you’ve made sure that “what actually happens” is intriguing (opening questions and raising tensions without resolving them) you can focus on making sure the plot holes are filled, and characters are properly motivated – these two things are usually adjacent.

You can find and fill plot holes by asking:

Why are the characters doing this?

Why does any of it matter?

Basically, readers need to respect the main characters enough to care what happens to them, so their choices and actions need to make sense within the given information. If there’s a simpler, easier solution, readers will get stuck up on “why didn’t they just…”? To fix plot holes and gaps in logic or continuity, or make the story go where you need it to, you can add urgency, fix the mood of the scene (bigger stakes require bigger justifications), show characters in a weakened mental state, or raise concerns but have them dismissed, with an excuse or justification.

You need rational characters to make plausible choices that lead to dire consequences. You need show why they don’t do something easier, or nothing at all, or why they face clear challenges, despite potential obstacles.

They’ll also require a deeper motivation, for why they’re willing to put themselves in identity-destroying conflict, rather than just giving up or running away. Why do they stay in THIS fight, when they’ve run from similar ones? If they weren’t ready at the beginning, why are the ready now – what changed in them, as a result of your story’s journey?

Your protagonist needs to have a strong, consistent internal compass, and it needs to be revealed through incidents that establish their character. This is who they are. Without this reliable core identity, we won’t be able to tell a story that forces them to change. 

4. Let readers picture your story with detailed description.

In the final stages of revision, you can begin improving the description with specific details.

It’s smart to start – or end – a chapter with a vivid, immediate scene. You want to leave readers with an image they can see in their minds, hopefully connected to the feeling you aim to evoke. You can close a chapter with a reference back to a motif or image, with a deeper or more reflective context; applying meaning to the metaphor. This will help readers feel engaged, be moved, and leave a lasting impact.

Vivid scenes are mostly a matter of detailed description, so add the specifics about the story environment. Be precise, not vague. Instead of “she put a plate of tea and snacks on the table” you can write “she gently placed an antique porcelain teapot on the table. I could smell it was Earl Grey from the scent of bergamot. The half-sleeve of Oreos and can of onion-flavored Pringles seemed incongruous with the fancy dishes, but I knew she was making an effort to welcome me.”

Focus on the sensations and feelings; but also zero-in on any potential sources of conflict or internal emotions or states of mind. In my example above, the host might be nervous or ashamed of her spread; or perhaps she has a degenerative brain disease and doesn’t notice the incongruity. Tensions are unspoken, potential sources of negative feelings. They hover in the background of your description.

Readers will remember the pictures you put in their heads, not the words on the page.

Description should serve and be bound to the story, not distract from it.

It should be squeezed into and around the scene action, when the protagonist is using or exploring.

Show what’s different, not what’s the same.

Leave space for readers to fill in the gaps, but get them started in the right direction so they aren’t surprised later.

Sidenote: be careful about your metaphors, analogies and similes. Each one will put a picture into readers’ minds, and it can quickly get overcrowded with imagery. You’re asking them to ignore your real scene and think of something else. Use them to confirm and amplify the scene you have, and limit distractions.

5. Prepare to publish.

Typos are bad, but perfectionism will ruin you. This section is about editing and proofreading, but I don’t have time for all that, and you don’t either. The real problem with a story is rarely the number of typos. A very clean book isn’t better if people stop reading.

You can solve a lot of common writing problems, with my big list of 25 common writing mistakes, and self-edit your manuscript to make it as good as possible. After that, a copyeditor or proofreader isn’t always the best investment (and it can also be the biggest publishing cost).

Instead, use an editing software (I like Grammarly) to root out obvious mistakes, but don’t dwell on the small stuff like perfecting every word or rearranging the commas. Spending a very long time wrestling a poorly-written manuscript in shape is less effective than getting something (actually) done to the point where you’re comfortable sharing it.

This may be difficult at first, but you can’t learn and improve without genuine reader feedback (from people who aren’t your mom or best friend; nor the short-sighted opinions of a self-proclaimed literature enthusiast). You need to find readers who enjoy your particular genre, and the sooner you find them, the more valuable feedback you can get.

Shorten the feedback loop: Get over the fear and focus on learning by getting feedback early and often. However, this doesn’t just mean joining a writer’s club: writers are brutal and might focus on trivial things. The safest bet is to make it public, on Wattpad at least. Or get a cheap cover and throw it up on Kindle, Draft2Digital or even your own blog.

Making it public is scary and vulnerable, but it’s better than letting the fear of messing up keep you from the brutal, necessary experience of allowing readers to tell you what they liked and disliked about your writing. Will some people be critical? Yes! But guess what, you’ll get negative reviews even if you’re a brilliant, famous writer. Those are inevitable. And the first negative reviews may teach you more about writing than 10 years attempting to self-edit, afraid of putting your book out into the world.

PS. You can use resources, like my 24-chapter plot outline, as a way to spot story gaps in your manuscript and improve the structure (especially if your book suffers from a “soggy middle.)

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, writes urban fantasy and is the founder of the alliance of young adult authors. More recently, he’s started sharing writing tips on http://www.writethemagic.com

Top photo by Adegbenro Emmanuel Dipo on Unsplash.

[fbfh]

I mean, you did ask - leo x reader

all  characters are aged up to 18+ for smexy subtext

word count: 2k

pairing: leo x gn child of calliope reader

genre: adventure, romance, hints at a lowkey soulmate au

summary: after a bumpy reunion turned interrogation with your friends, you finally prove to Leo that you’re someone worth catching up with

warnings: swearing, friends hold you at knife point (for good reason) memory loss, dimesion/reality travel, the phrase “horrible sexy little goose” not about an actual animal, moderate time difference between worlds, reader is acting like a cocky piece of shit half the time, you call yourself sexy a lot, annabeth slaps reader and reader is unbothered, reader and leo hae very visceral reactions upon seeing each other, piper picks up on this, moderately aggressive face grabbing, discussing personal info with someone somewhat privately, brief mentions of hand holding and hair pulling during sex, you spill tea about the rest of the demisquad, I think that’s it pls tell me if I missed any

song rec: choke - i don’t know how but they found me

a/n: this is from a very vivid daydream I had so er ah if reader seems op coded that’s cause she is uwu

You were excited to reunite with your friends after so long, but being tied up and held hostage at knifepoint by the people you love who don’t even remember you wasn’t the welcome wagon you were hoping for. Then again, as a child of Calliope, you can’t say you’re surprised. 

Apollo has a lot of kids, but demigod children of the muses are exceptionally less common. They’re volatile, really powerful, extremely engrossed in their art, and usually care more about their latest thesis paper or painting or manuscript than going on quests, and more often than not have very specific powers. You, for example, love quests but feel like you never get to go on any, usually because you’re fighting monsters somewhere else. One fun little power you inherited from your mom is - somewhat involuntary - dimension shifting. 

A lot of times you just get summoned somewhere else, with a little inherent background knowledge and your weapon, set free into the new world like a horrible sexy little goose. There’s usually some kind of objective you need to meet; find this person, set something in motion, give someone support in a time of need, deliver a package. After that, you get sent back to your family at camp half blood. The catch, one of them at least, is that a few days Somewhere Else could be no more than a few minutes in your homeverse. 

Another catch is that because of all that, and the fact that you wouldn’t know how to begin explaining, let alone if anyone would believe you, no one knows you can do this yet. Chiron has an idea, but you’ve never told anyone outright. 

You guess now is as good of a time as any to come clean, as Percy holds his sword threateningly close to your neck. You let out a disbelieving laugh, and bite the inside of your cheek.

“Okay, okay… you want the truth?” he starts to back off, and you continue, leaning forward, “I’m not surprised you’d want to know where someone this sexy-” your words cut off as Annabeth’s hand slaps you across the face. You let out a laugh of disbelief, cheek stinging.

“A cheap shot, Annabeth? Wow, I really didn’t take you for the type,” she grabs your face, leaning in close, knife once again against your throat. 

"How do you know my name." She hisses, and behind her, the door opens. Messy dark curls peek over her head in your vision and you know instantly who it is. Your heart starts pounding, loud and hard, and something heavy starts swirling deep in your gut. Your eyes lock as soon as he enters the room and an instinctive smile blooms on your face, knowing what's inevitably on its way. 

"Hey Sparky…" 

Your voice, slow and drawling (and, he'd be lying if he didn't say kind of very sexy) impales him as soon as he enters the room. He watches your pupils expand, eyes locked, immediately swept away by your magnetic aura. A fox like grin decorates your pretty face, and he gets the feeling you know more than you let on. Way more. He's so drawn to you on a guttural level, way more than he's ever been to someone before. His face is hot, and when you slowly wink at him, he feels flames erupt on his cheeks. It takes him a second to put it out, feeling your white hot gaze on him the entire time. 

Piper, who's been helping with your interrogation, looks back and forth between you two as this progresses, taking in a breath and mumbling a shocked, "Oh," as she begins to understand. 

"How are those repairs coming?" Jason asks, oblivious to everything that's happening between you two. 

"Uh… nearly done…" Leo mutters, watching as you hold back an elated giggle at the sound of his voice. You never forget how good it feels to see him again, but the fresh feeling is always better than you can imagine. Jason glances between you two, and walks over to Leo, suspicious of your interest in him. 

"I'll walk you back," Jason says, glaring at you. Your eyes stay locked with Leo's until the door finally closes again. Piper stares at you, bewildered by the tension turned to frantic energy crackling around both you and Leo. She can sense it on him even after he's out of the room. 

Annabeth finally drops your face, pacing and pinching the bridge of her nose. Percy slams him hands down on the table and levels his face with yours. 

"I'm gonna ask you one last time. How do you know us?" 

You stare at the table for a second, still thinking about him. You have to see him again. You’ve waited for too long, you just can’t do it anymore. 

“H- okay. Um,” You blink a few times, facade falling away almost instantly as you look up in a silent prayer that this doesn’t go as badly as you feel like it will. You sigh, looking back up at the other people in the room, a new, deliberate intention in your eyes that they hadn’t seen before. 

“You want to know why I’m here?” 

Their answer is the silence that follows.

“You’re not gonna believe me.” They look around at each other, collectively thinking about everything they’ve been through in the last year alone.

“Try us.” Annabeth replies. You sigh again, and introduce yourself. “...I’m a child of Calliope, muse of epic poetry, and I know you all because we grew up together. One of the fun - quirks, I inherited from my mom is traveling into different stories, or realities, I guess. It’s hard to control, and sometimes happens involuntarily. I adapt to wherever I am, and the universe sort of auto adjusts to follow the rules that stories have to follow. 

The reason you don’t remember me is because I was gone for a really long time, and your story had to keep going. Trying to find me wouldn’t have moved the plot forward, questioning where I went would have been confusing, so it did the simplest thing and edited me out so you could get closer to meeting your objectives.”

Once again, their silence is your answer. 

“Guys, sidebar.” Annabeth says, pulling Percy, Jason, and Piper out of the room for a moment. The come back in a little while later, and she looks you dead in the eye.

“If you really know us as well as you say you do, prove it. Tell us you’d only know if we were as close as you say we were.” 

You sigh yet again, having lost count at how many times that’s happened today alone. You roll your shoulders and bob your head, irritable that you’re still restrained and itching to move. 

“Is there anything we can do before the whole tell me something really personal thing?” 

Percy looks at you, challenging.

“Can you do it or not?”

Another noise of exasperation leaves you, and you agree, resignation all over your face.

“You know what, yeah. Okay, we’re doing this. Someone go get Leo.” An involuntary smile once again launches onto your face at the mention of his name. Jason starts to object. 

“Hey, I’m not going to spill something personal about someone when they’re not in the room.” They agree reluctantly, and Jason leaves, returning again with Leo. You look at him again, enraptured by his presence. He can’t say he doesn’t like the attention - a hottie like you looking at him like that? Yes, please - but something about it feels different, and he gets the feeling there’s a lot more going on than they’re aware of. 

You nod your head once, indicating for him to come closer. He gets a little closer. You widen your eyes, nodding two more times, and he hesitantly gets within whispering distance. 

You turn your head to your left, dangerously close to his face. He can feel his pulse already speeding up. Heat radiates between your faces, your breath fanning over his neck as you whisper slowly,

“You really… really like holding hands, and when I pull your hair during sex.” 

He pulls away from you quickly, beet red, bewildered expression obvious to everyone in the room. “H-how-”

“How do you think?” You reply calmly, loving everything about him, “Okay, to be fair…” you nod once more, eyes flaring, and he leans in once again, equally hesitant and curious. Your words tickle his ear, seeming to light up his entire nervous system like a firecracker.

“I really really like when you bite that spot on my neck, just below my ear.” 

He pulls away again, trying not to literally and figuratively combust. He stares in your eyes intensely, searching for anything besides the truth. He finds absolutely nothing. He turns around, unable to look his friends in the eye. 

“They’re legit, guys.” 

“Wait, what did you say to him?” Piper asks, unsure if she wants to know the answer. 

“Yeah,” Annabeth agrees, “what if it’s some kind of mind control-” Your deep, burning desire to finally hold Leo after god knows how long is starting to beat your better judgement, and you really, really want to be untied from this stupid chair. “Annabeth! Your favorite show was Cyber Chase growing up, you used to come up with plans on how to defeat Hacker, your best was cutting off his food supply - good strategy, I’ve used it before, myself. 

Percy, you feel like you can’t sing because you were forced to participate in an elementary school recital and some kid called you tonedeaf behind your back, it kicked you right in the RSD balls. 

Piper, you’re a closet weeb, you watched Ouran High School Host club obsessively and still do sometimes, you fell for Jason because he had, quote, 'Tamaki's looks and Kyoya's brains, the ideal man'. 

Jason, that scar on your lip is from biting a stapler as a child-"

"Okay, everyone knows that-"

"-and," you continue, showing no signs of stopping, "the reason you ate the stapler is because you were pretending to be a trash compactor because you saw one on TV. 

Nico is totally not right outside the door keeping guard right now, but if he were and you asked him if he likes the diary of a wimpy kid movies he'll ask how the hell you know that - should I continue."

Again, the answers are in the silence hovering in the room. 

“I think it’s about time to catch me up on what I missed.” 

A beat passes.

“Right,” Annabeth says, blinking and readjusting her ponytail as she sits down across from you, Percy already taking the bindings off of your wrists, “so, about the quest…”

She starts to fill you in on the details you missed, bringing you up to speed. After a little while you all decide to call it a night. Piper senses your energy ramping up in spite of the exhaustion settling in. You finally bid them all good night, but Piper’s not sold by your forced yawns. After what feels like another lifetime, you finally leave the room you’ve been in for hours with one objective. 

You can’t stay away from him anymore, you have to find Leo. 

After navigating a maze of hallways and doors, you finally push open the right one to see him looking up at you, and find yourself saying for the second time tonight,

“Hey, Sparky…” 

His heart is racing, and he gets that heavy, full feeling in his chest again, not having fully shaken it from the last time you saw each other. Looking into your eyes makes him nostalgic for something he can’t quite remember, and he knows with full certainty that you have more history than he’s aware of. He wants more than anything in this moment to remember. He sets down the wrench in his hand, taking a step toward you.

“Hey…”

[aeoncryptic]

Arthur's Day Trip

This is Fluff~ Story after the break.

I also just want to put a big thank you out there for those that looked over this, gave me advice, or just put up with me! <3

Word count: This story is 4,667 words long.

Edit: I suppose I should have added before that there is a bonus at the end for Theo torture. <3 (not actual torture just...)

(March 13th, xx; four in the morning; Arthur)

Arthur was possessed. The sun had long since set, yet he sat at his desk writing. The sound of a quill scratching away at paper were the only noises in the barely lit room. Midnight-colored bangs fell to cover his eyes as he sighed, finally setting his writing utensil down. He had fully intended to cease his habit of working through the night once he had asked his lovely girlfriend, (MC), to be his wife. Unfortunately for the exhausted writer, his mind would not grant him the solace of keeping his promise. He raked his tired hands through his hair and turned his sapphire eyes onto his beautiful fiancee. She had been so exhausted from her work in the manor that she collapsed on his bed, stretching her entire body across it. The blankets were in disarray and her red hair was splayed around her as if she had a halo. Leaving his story unfinished for the night, the tired writer climbed into what little bed space there was next to his beloved. He wrapped his arms around her waist, hoping he wouldn’t wake her. His eyes slowly drifted off to sleep.

(March 13th, xx; two hours after noon; Arthur)

The smell of coffee wafted to the author’s nose, causing him to stir. Upon opening his eyes, he was greeted with a smile that rivaled the sun. (MC) set his daily dose of “bitter energy provider”, as she called it, on his desk with a glass of rouge. “Good afternoon, Arthur. I brought your coffee and lunch. You happened to sleep through breakfast.” The red-haired woman glanced at the bookshelf next to his desk. It held resources the writer used for reference, but also held at least an entire shelf of completed manuscripts yet to be published. Arthur knew the expression on her face well. It was one of love and admiration; one he felt he didn’t deserve. Pushing away those dark emotions as they welled up, he carefully got out of bed to give her his full attention. “Arthur, it's a waste for your stories to just sit on your shelf! They’re exhilarating and should be shared!” She tried to appeal to him. “You work so hard day and night to write these, why not try to find a publisher?” With a gentle and encouraging tone, she attempted to persuade her lover.

Ah, the old song and dance. He thought as he allowed his usual playful smile dance across his lips as he stood before her, lifting his hand to gently hold the strands of her long hair and let them slip through his fingers. “Hmm~ Perhaps I’ll consider it. More importantly, won’t you join me for lunch, luv~?” His seductive expression would be enough to convince any woman. However, Arthur knew that she would turn him down as she would most likely be busy with her work. Couldn’t have hurt to ask~.

Though his words made her blush, her emerald eyes glittered playfully as she responded. “Really, Arthur? I have to get back to work.” Her soft lips brushed against his cheeks, as if trying to banish his pout, and then she was out the door. Her movements were swift enough to prevent him from convincing her to stay, which was guaranteed to succeed. The writer chuckled at how adorable his fiancee was. If he had convinced her to stay, he would have felt guilty at having taken her from her responsibilities. The writer quickly shook off those thoughts, lest he spiral back into the unending strings of guilt.

Deciding that he desired his coffee rush, Arthur quickly got dressed and sat before his desk. He picked up his pen and stared at the unfinished manuscript. If I can finish this by the end of today, why, I may just get (MC) all to myself tomorrow~ After all, it is her day off. With that thought alone, he felt a surge of energy. Today he would finish this manuscript and start tomorrow’s story so he could spend the day with his lover.

(March 13th, xx; five in the evening; MC)

Her hair swished with the wind as she finished the last of her chores for the day. Working at a mansion with eleven vampires was tough work when there was only the butler, Sebastian, and herself. Now that spring was here, they had been exceedingly busy. (MC) felt guilty that she wasn’t able to spend as much time with Arthur as she wanted. Taking care of everyone here is my job and it’s important, so I’m sure Arthur understands. Remembering that she is supposed to help the butler with prepping and cooking dinner, she glanced at her pocket watch. An expression of shock spread over her features as she realized the time. Gathering her skirts a bit, the young lady rushed inside.

Upon her entry to the kitchen, she was prepared to receive Sebastian’s signature flick to the forehead as punishment for being late. Luckily, he simply glanced in her direction and gave her a smile. “You’re late. If you finished the work in the garden, why not get started on Sir Isaac’s dinner?” He instructed her as he was finishing up Theo’s and Vincent’s “dinner”. Her nose scrunched up at the pancakes and Theo’s entire bottle of syrup that she knew he would pour on the unsuspecting victims.

“Pancakes again? Theo is going to end up sick.” She giggled, but set to work on Isaac’s sandwich. Isaac preferred sandwiches because it was easier to eat and work, Theodorus preferred pancakes, and Napoleon would sometimes cook his own food. Pleased with her efforts, she gently placed the sandwich on a plate and set different vegetables around it. With dextrous fingers, she placed the meals on the serving cart. Before leaving the kitchen, she made sure to grab not one, but two syrup bottles with the knowledge that Theo would drown his pancakes without mercy. Once everything was set up they headed to the dining room.

Sitting at the table was the usual crowd, but she was surprised to see her lover amongst the group since he was working on his manuscript. She had expected that Arthur would still be hard at work. As she placed the prepared plates on the table along with the two syrup bottles, she gave Theo a playful smile. “Here you are Theo, your syrup with a side of pancakes.”

Theo’s usual cocky smirk disappeared from his face to display a scowl. “Despite what you seem to believe, I do eat other foods besides pancakes, hondje.” Vincent and the housekeeper watched as Theo poured more than a normal amount of syrup on his cakes as usual.

Vincent, reaching for his own bottle, poured a little amount on his. “But Theo, pancakes are your favorite meal and that is your fourth bottle of syrup this week.” Sebastian, overhearing this conversation, bemoans the lack of chances to shop this week and makes note that they will need more syrup. Seeing Theo being called out by his own brother caused her to cover her mouth to hide her giggles. Theo turned to Vincent wide eyed. “Are you taking the knabbeltje’s side, Broer?” The brunette pouts at his older brother.

The older paused and seemed to think for a moment, “Sebastian has been making you pancakes for almost every meal this week. Maybe (MC) has an idea of a meal you would like.” He offered his brother his winning angelic smile. Theo merely grumbled in response and began to eat his pancakes. Seeing her chance, she decided to appeal to Vincent. He was her key to convincing Theo to at least give her idea a try. “Actually Vincent, there is a 21st century recipe for pancakes that I have been wanting Theo to try. I just know how much you love Sebastian’s pancakes, so I didn’t want to force it on you.”

She lowered her head and looked away, which sealed the deal as she heard Vincent say, “I’m sure Theo would be happy to try them, especially since you said you wanted him to try them.” Realizing his fate was sealed and the overhanging possibility of him trying a healthier option of pancake caused Theo to choke on his breakfast. Clearing his throat, he wiped his mouth and sent a strained smile to his brother. “Sure, Broer, even a hondje can’t mess up something as simple as a pancake.” She grinned at her feat, already planning the ingredients she would need. She turned her attention back to her work.

(March 13th, six in the evening; Arthur)

Her attempts to get Theo to at least attempt to eat healthier, despite the lack of need for food, had not gone unnoticed. Vincent was happy that she worried for them, but it was unnecessary. Though, her mischief towards Theo and his beloved pancakes was always a sight to behold. It always amused the writer. Arthur, having been a spectator for this specific trial, was quite pleased with his fiancee; She had managed to place Theo in a checkmate position.

Catching Sebas taking notes for groceries gave Arthur an idea that he was mulling over as his lover took her seat beside him. He gave her a smile that rang of his pride for her. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he drew her slightly closer to place a kiss to her temple. “You’re a clever bird~” He whispered into her ear. She grinned at him, while Theo merely glowered.

(March 14th, six in the morning; MC)

The sunlight started to trickle past the slightly parted curtains, blessing the room with light from the sunrise. The red haired lady glanced at the empty spot next to her, saddened to find he wasn’t resting there. She turned her emerald eyes upon his desk, only to find it missing its owner as well. Concern began to creep in through her fingertips and slowly spread throughout her body, making her cold under the warm blankets. Perhaps he went to get coffee? His side of the bed looked untouched, as if the writer had never even entered the bed. She quickly sat up, the press of her feet to the cold floor sending a shiver through her. Running a hand through her hair to calm herself, she used her free one to open the dressing room.

Once she was dressed, the red-haired lady quickly stalked down the deserted hallways towards the kitchen. She was late to help with the chores, but she was more worried about her lover. Had he just gone to get coffee as she had thought earlier? Perhaps he needed fresh air and went for a walk? Her steps were light upon the floor, making barely a sound. Once she reached the kitchen door, she had managed to calm her fears. She slowly opened the door only to find the very man where she had guessed he would be. Drinking his “bitter energy provider.” Flashing a gentle smile at the sapphire eyed man, she walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, Arthur!”

He gave her a lazy grin, his eyes already looking tired, but there was something playful there in his expression. “Good morning, luv~” He sang in his usual flirtatious tone and set his coffee aside in order to give her a tight hug. “Comte dragged Sebas out early this morning and asked that you do the shopping for the day.” The author was pouting as he placed a kiss to her temple. “While I am desperate to have your attention all to myself, I was wondering if I could accompany you~?”

The look she gave him at that question was one of disbelief. “Don’t you have to finish a manuscript?” She eyed him, knowing all of his tricks. In response, he gave her the puppy dog eyes; she had to look away, or else he would win their little game too easily. With a huff, she wiggled out of his arms and picked up the note left to her by the dark haired butler.

“Dear MC,

I have been asked by le Comte to accompany him on some business outside of Paris and will be gone for the day. Along with the usual chores, I have left a list of items that need to be picked up in town.

I can come in many shades and often made from unconventional materials and I am used in strokes.

I am desirable and appealing to some, due to my false sense of calm. My life started with a spark and then goes up in cinder and smoke.

I often end up in sticky situations and don’t come from bees, but I can be found at breakfast and cannot be spread freely.

Dark as sin and a pain to wash out, I am often used to send someone’s thoughts. Without me, people cannot read.

When I am well worn, I have a crack in my spine. I often have dog ears when I am done. I can be heavy or lean, but left alone I can gather dust.

Be sure that this list is completed by the end of the afternoon. I know you need to go to town to pick up your ingredients as well for your 'pancakes'.”

She let out an exasperated sigh, wondering what could have possessed the butler to leave such a puzzle for her to solve. These riddles couldn’t be too hard, right? As she was trying to relate each sentence to an item that one of the residents could need, her lover snaked his arm around her waist and laid his head on her shoulder to look at the letter. “Ah~ A fun little game.” His free hand slid along her arm, taking the letter from her hands to read it better. Glancing up, she puffed her cheeks out at him. “Get your coat, luv. We are going to town.” Folding the letter neatly, he put it in his pocket.

His fiancee’s expression left nothing to the imagination. “Don’t you have to work?” She asked, obviously worried that she would, once again, distract him from his manuscripts. However, a selfish part of her brain told her she wanted him to go with her. And, with great effort, she crushed that part. He needs to continue his work! I can’t get in his way!

Arthur chuckled, “As it so happens, I seem to be having a bout of ‘Writer’s block’. Going for a walk may help clear my mind~” He kissed her head, spun her around, and gently pushed her towards the door. “Now, go doll yourself up. We’ll have lunch out after we do our little shopping; I’m sure you’ll be starved. Meet me in the foyer at eight~” She beamed, her cheeks turning a slight pink shade, and left the room with renewed excitement. Though, in her mind, she knew he was only pretending to have writer’s block so that he could spend time with her.

(March 14, eight in the morning; MC)

She ran the brush through her beautiful, wavy red hair one last time. Nervousness was the prevailing emotion over her excitement. Since it had been so long since she and Arthur had last been out together, she wanted to look her best. She let out a deep breath to calm her nerves and set her brush upon her vanity. Shaky hands grabbed at her skirts as she looked in the full length mirror and twirled. The skirt billowed out around her, looking for all their part petals to a beautiful flower. The dress she had chosen was a blue-grey that matched her lovers’ usual attire. She beamed at the woman in the mirror; Perfect! I hope Arthur likes it! Once she was content with her appearance, she rushed out of her room to meet her fiance.

The look of delight and the light that brightened his eyes as she descended the stairs finally waved away her nerves. His gaze took in all of her, following her from the very top of the steps to the very last. “My~! Don’t you look gorgeous, my dove~!” He held out his arm to her to escort her to the carriage. She put her hand on his arm, willing to walk anywhere this man demanded.

Now that they had reached town, Arthur pulled the letter out and unfolded it. She had a hard time keeping pace with him as he was concentrating, his long strides requiring her to almost jog beside him. “Now, where to begin.” At the very least, her lover seemed to be taking this seriously. “‘I come in many shades’ could be just about anything. What really narrows it down is that it mentions ‘strokes’ and ‘unconventional materials’. Now, my dear Watson, who in the mansion uses something that has to do with strokes?” His tone of voice told her that she should know this answer. She paused her steps for a moment, causing him to stop as well.

Memories of her talks with the residents began running through her mind. Just as she was about to give up, she remembered a conversation she’d had with Theo. They’d been looking at one of Vincent’s paintings! Theo had been describing the particular style of his brother’s art. “Vincent! His paints! Vincent mentioned needing more paints just the other day!” She exclaimed excitedly, clasping her hands together, her eyes bright.

She knew she’d said the right thing when he gave her a radiant smile. “Brilliant, luv~! You make a wonderful partner.” A gloved hand caressed her cheek in a moment of affection. Pulling a pen out of his pocket, he scribbled “Paints for Vincent” next to the first puzzle. “The hints for the second riddle is… ‘desirable and appealing’ and ‘starts with a spark and goes up in smoke’.” He glanced at her, to which she already wore a smile.

“That HAS to be cigarillos for Leonardo. They’re known to have an addictive substance and due to the tobacco, give a sense of calm, right? Also, it starts in a spark because it needs to be lit. As its ‘life ends’ it ‘goes up in smoke’.” She grinned at Arthur, knowing she was right this time as well.

He nodded his affirmation, writing down “cigarillos for Leo”. Arthur quickly wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to himself as a carriage whooshed past them both. While it would have missed her, he was glad to have had a reason to hold her close to him. “Perhaps we should take a seat to finish the rest?” To this she gave him an amused smile, shaking her head in playful exasperation. His gloved hand grasped hers and began tugging her towards a bench. His hand felt warm in hers, but oh how she wished he weren’t wearing gloves.

Once they were seated at the bench, him having her sit so close to him that she was practically in his lap, he held the letter between them. She glanced around to make sure no one was paying them much mind, her face almost a scarlet hue. He had his arm around her waist and was leaning close to her in order to allow them both to look at the letter easier. “This one is for Theo. The bees usually means honey, but since it's sticky and not from bees, it has to be because we ran out of syrup.” After she finished her explanation, Arthur turned to face her, their noses almost touching.

“Brilliant! You could be a detective yourself.” He winked at her and removed his arm, writing down “Syrup for Theo”. She felt slightly colder after he had pulled away, already missing his warmth. But she shook this feeling off. “Any ideas for this one?” His finger was indicating the fourth riddle. He recited, “‘Dark as sin and a pain to wash out’…”

“Oh! Ink! Speaking of which, Arthur, did you write this morning?” As he had pointed at the paper, the sleeve of his white shirt poked out from under his jacket. It displayed blue ink marks on the cuffs, which stood out against the bright white. She started inspecting his sleeve with a frown; ink certainly was a pain to get out and now she was going to have to spend a lot of time cleaning this shirt.

“Ah. Sorry, poppet. I attempted to write a bit this morning and forgot to roll up my sleeves.” His tone was certainly apologetic, no doubt worried about his lover having to spend her time trying to clean his many ink stained shirts. He wrote down “Ink for Arthur and Mozart”. “Last one and then we buy all the items. Then I treat you to lunch.” His eyes skimmed the very last part of the list. "'When I am well worn, I have a crack in my spine. Heavy or lean and gathers dust’.”

“A book?” She glanced at him, worried that she was wrong. The problem being that if it were a book, who would it be for? There was no title written down or any information. Just the riddle.

“I did happen to ask Sebas for a reference book the other day, perhaps that is what he meant. If not, we may have to come back into town!” They both set off together to purchase the answers and the ingredients for her special “pancakes." After they had their bags together, Arthur whisked her away to enjoy a lunch together.

As they were enjoying their food she decided to put to word what had been on her mind earlier that day. She set her fork upon her plate and turned to face Arthur. “You don’t really have writer’s block, do you?”

He froze, his spoon almost to his mouth. There was a clink as he set the spoon back in his bowl. Longer fingers tugged nervously at his collar, his expression sheepish. “Well, luv… The truth is that we have both been busy lately… With you doing all the cleaning and my writing… Then our sleeping habits. I simply wanted a bit of your attention to myself.” His pout made her laugh, her expression brightening.

Another suspicion arose in her mind. “You made these riddles, didn’t you? It seems a bit out of place for Sebastian to suddenly decide to play a game!” She laughed when he confessed to this too. The sound of her laughter was a bright sound that lightened the load on his heart. He knew he had done something right with this “date” he had planned. But surely his fiancee was too clever to have picked up on it. But he grinned, happy to be able to please his future wife. Times would be hard and there would be highs and lows. But one thing was for certain: this was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Bonus (Torturing Theo)

The next morning, MC woke up very early and began preparing everyone’s breakfast. Today was going to be a special day, a day she would never forget. The ingredients for Theo’s healthy breakfast lay before her on the counter. She tried hiding her smirk, her fiance chuckling as he sipped away at his coffee. Arthur was excitedly wanting to watch as his best friend got what he deserved. Especially after the time where Theo forced him to drink his most hated substance, tea. She knew that no matter what, Theo would have no choice but to eat what she made; Vincent was sure to have her back on this. After all, she only cares for Theo’s health.

Arthur pushed away from the counter he was leaning on, sauntered over to his lover and placed a kiss to her temple. With a hand resting on her hip, he whispered into her ear. “I’m off to the dining room~ Try not to have too much fun before the main act, luv~” Focused on her work, she barely noticed the affection he gave her. The lack of attention made him pout, but he knew she was enjoying herself. Just as his hand slid from her waist and he turned to leave the room, (MC) gave him a kiss to his cheek. A gentle smile returned to his lips as he left the room. Once he was gone, she continued her work on the “pancakes”.

Theo’s POV

Theo watched as (MC) entered the room. He knew something was going on with the way she was humming to herself. Trying to think of what would make her so happy, he tensed upon remembering that she was making his “special pancakes” today. His dirty blonde hair shadowed his face as he considered whether or not he should make a break for it.

Watching as she placed everyone’s breakfast down, his ocean blue eyes went wide as he looked at the abomination before him. Is this even a pancake!? It was fluffy, that was for sure. The “pancakes'' before him had cabbage in it. Instead of syrup, it had a dollop of something white and what smelled like garlic. “What is this, knabbletje?” He turned his icing glare on her.

She beamed at his expression. “It’s called Cabbage Fritters. It’s just like pancakes, except with cabbage!” Her eagerness only made his scowl deepen. He knew she was doing this on purpose. However, if he said anything that might make her cry, Vincent would get onto him. “I made them fluffy, just like you like your pancakes.” She was at least trying to ease his displeasure.

With hesitant movements, he grabbed his fork and knife. “Don’t I get to have syrup at least?” As she shook her head, he sighed, giving in to his torture. On one side, he could eat it quickly and hope it isn’t as bad as it looks. On the other, he could refuse to eat it. The latter would cause him to receive a stern expression from his broer and he would still have to eat the nasty food.

Theo heard a snicker in front of him and he glanced up to find Arthur trying not to laugh as the author hid his face behind his coffee mug. Cutting into the fritters, as she called them, he stabbed the piece with his fork and slowly lifted it to his mouth. The look of pure disgust on his face as it touched his tongue brought joy to Arthur and his fiancee. He began to chew, resisting the urge to spit it out. Once he swallowed, he tried to force his usual cocky expression back into place. “I-I suppose it’s okay.”

Suddenly, everything was sunshine and brightness as Vincent smiled. “If you liked it, perhaps (MC) should make it more often.” His brother tilted his head, seeming absolutely pleased. He threw a dark look in her direction; She was definitely trying not to laugh. Arthur, on the other hand, broke out into a fit of laughter. His shoulders shook and he was having troubles catching his breath.

Finally having enough, Theo slammed his hands on the table, pushing his chair back as he stood up and made his way towards the lady. With panicked laughter, she ran to her lover, who was still laughing. “Arthur, help me!” At his lover’s call, he stood up and pulled her behind him.

“Schei uit, Theo.” Vincent grabbed Theo quickly, while (MC) pushed herself as close to Arthur’s back as possible to hide behind him. Theo struggled in his brother’s hold trying to get to them. “What has gotten into you, Theo?” His brother’s concerned voice hurt his ears, but he could no longer behave.

“That is NOT a pancake. They’re doing this to me on purpose, broer!” He tried appealing to his older brother, to no avail. Vincent simply held him tighter and gave him a look of disapproval. This only added fuel to the fire. Arthur was sure to pay for this later. He’d make sure of it.

Riddles provided by @madam-mademoiselle

[dwellordream]

“...The number of practising barristers in England and Wales rose sharply over the course of Scott’s career: from fewer than 400 in 1785, to over 700 in 1810, and more than 1,100 in 1830: a rate of growth far greater than that of the population or the economy. Even so, there were far more students at the Inns of Court than is implied in these figures. Lincoln’s Inn alone admitted some 1,400 students between 1780 and 1799 and the combined total for the four Inns was over 3,500. Clearly only a small proportion, somewhere between one in five and one in ten of these students, were actually ever called to the Bar (that is, completed their studies and became qualified barristers).

Part of the explanation is that many Irish law students came to London for a year or two (to study, and to make useful contacts) and were admitted to the Inns of Court, but returned to Dublin to be called to the Bar there rather than in England. There were also a considerable number of young men, often heirs to substantial properties, who were enrolled in the Inns of Court, but who never had any intention of practising as barristers. Some had no interest in their studies but, as Edward Ferrars told Mrs Dashwood, ‘made a very good appearance in the best circles, and drove around town in very knowing gigs’. 

Others were more serious in their approach, but wanted just enough knowledge of the law to equip them as landowners and figures of consequence in their neighbourhood, so that they could understand the essential points of entails and marriage settlements, of property rights and enclosures, of turnpike trusts and canal companies, and of all the cases they would encounter when they took their place on the magistrates’ bench as JPs. There were also a few young men, like George Canning, who studied for the Bar, but found the law irksome and abandoned it to pursue their ambitions in the House of Commons without ever qualifying as a barrister. 

And finally there was a group – probably quite a numerous group – who simply abandoned their studies and looked for some alternative career that required less study. Students were required to be enrolled in the Inns for at least five years unless they were university graduates, in which case the minimum term was reduced to three years, although only a few graduates took advantage of this concession. The Inns themselves provided very little in the way of teaching or supervision: it was up to the students themselves to find a barrister who would take them as a pupil for a fee, and in return guide their reading, give them access to books and allow them to copy endless manuscript precedents. 

Some students formed study and debating clubs and developed friendships that would stand them in good stead in later years, and they might also move from studying under one barrister to another to gain a thorough grounding in different branches of the law. Most found the experience dull, dreary and demanding great powers of concentration; however, James Stuart Wortley, writing home to his mother in the 1820s, strikes a more positive note: 

This life in a special pleader’s office, does not appear to me near so bad as I had been led to expect. We sit (6 or 7 of us) in a tolerably comfortable room variously at different desks & tables, in reading cases [and] putting them in legal form. I am writing out all the different forms required by the law; we are in no way confined but at liberty to employ as many as four hours as we like between 10 in the morning & 10 at night. I find that the 6 hours which I have always proposed to myself will be considered good application. My companions, though not perhaps the most refined, are by no means deficient in intellect, & are very obliging and good humoured. The intervals of our labours are occupied with lively & tolerably agreeable conversation though frequently upon the merits of some case of the day.

…The age at which barristers were called to the Bar was generally a little older than might be expected: fewer than one fifth of those who went on to be judges were under 24 years old when they began their career; half were between 24 and 29, and another fifth were 30 or older. Once called to the Bar a newly minted barrister would find himself a set of chambers – not joining a well-established set as is the case today, but generally by himself, perhaps, as with Scott, in the house in which he lived with his family. Here he would wait for attorneys to send him briefs, and, as Scott found, the wait might be lengthy. 

Good legal connections were very useful at this point, for few attorneys would trust even a small case to a young man of whom they knew nothing, but they would find work for the son of a fellow attorney, or the nephew of a KC whom they sometimes consulted or the protégé of a judge. Still such connections only created opportunities; they did not ensure success. As John Campbell, the future Lord Chancellor, wrote soon after arriving in London in 1800: 

Practice at the English bar depends by no means so much upon family interest as at the Scotch [bar], and whoever distinguishes himself is sure of employment. Those who have powerful connections no doubt have a much better opportunity of displaying their talents, but if they are dull or dissipated no interest however great can push them on. They must yield to those who, joining attention to talent, have shone into notice notwithstanding the seemingly impenetrable fog in which fate has enveloped them.

This may have been a little sanguine, but the success of Campbell’s own career, not to mention that of Scott, of Gifford and of dozens of others, shows that it was not entirely unrealistic. Of all careers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, that of a barrister was probably the one most open to talent, provided that the ambitious aspirant had the financial and mental resources to survive years of study, followed by further years of thin pickings while he established himself. As well as chambers, a barrister needed a clerk to handle his affairs and collect his fees. 

Not all clerks were figures of great weight or maturity as Campbell admitted to his brother soon after he first employed one in 1807: I have for some days spoken almost perpetually of ‘my clerk’. Who do you think this object of my boasts may be? A scrubby boy nine years old, son of my washerwoman. He can scarcely read, far less write, but he blacks my shoes in the morning, brushes my coat, carries down my wig to Westminster, and goes errands for me to all parts of the town. The only use I have for a clerk is to keep the chambers open, and this he can do as well as if he had taken his degree at Oxford. When I am Attorney General he may perhaps, like Erskine’s clerk, be worth £20,000, receiving 5 per cent on all his master’s fees; but at present he is satisfied with being clothed from my old wardrobe and receiving 5s. a week.

A new lawyer with time on his hands could earn a little by ‘devilling’ – that is, searching out precedents and doing other preparatory work for a busy barrister, but such work was poorly paid, demoralizing and not good for his reputation in a highly competitive profession. Almost all barristers struggled at first. Campbell admitted that ‘During my first term I had not even a half-guinea motion’, but he went on to put this in  context, ‘To be sure there were about thirty men called during the term, and of these only one had anything to do. So I have partners in misfortune.’ 

He had already supported himself for several years in London as a journalist, and was able to supplement his income and gain a valuable connection by ghosting a book for a successful member of the Bar who lacked the time or the ability to write it himself. Most young barristers either relied on continued support from their families into their late twenties or supplemented their incomes in other ways. Some were fortunate enough to retain a university fellowship which might give them an income of £200 or £300 until they could afford to marry. Some provided private tutoring or coaching for younger law students, in London or at university. 

Campbell was not unusual in taking to journalism, with subjects ranging from court reports to literary and dramatic criticism and politics. There were also a number of part-time positions within the courts themselves that provided a valuable lifeline to a young barrister with more time than work, and these often helped make him known to more senior members of the profession. This supplementary income was all the more necessary as a young barrister faced considerable costs that were hard to minimize and impossible to avoid. 

In addition to the cost of chambers and a clerk – however young and poorly paid – was the cost of law books, which might easily run to £200 even for a beginner’s library; while the six weeks spent on the circuit would probably cost a further £100, twice a year, for the circuit had certain rules designed to preserve the dignity of the profession that did much to increase the expense, for example, no barrister could travel by public stage coach or stay at an inn. This meant that a practising barrister needed an income of about £400 a year, even if he was unmarried and frugal; and very few barristers received briefs for even half this sum in their first few years at the Bar. 

It was a formidable obstacle for anyone without family resources or some other source of income, making it almost impossible for the son of poor parents, and difficult enough even for many sons of good but not rich families. Most barristers, at least until they approached the top of the profession, earned the bulk of their income on the assize circuit, and their success or failure was obvious and observed by all their colleagues. For beginners, as one young lawyer ruefully remarked, the circuit was likely to contain, ‘more bugs than briefs, more fleas than fees’. 

Campbell records the potential for humiliation: When I arrived here no one had called for me . . . Men junior to me had got briefs and were inquiring for mine. I was in the deepest despair. Gloucester! my sessions town! where I had exhibited so often! which was to be the origin of all my success on the circuit! I fully anticipated the horror of going into court next morning without a single brief in my hand. On this occasion he was spared by the arrival of several briefs, but most lawyers felt this mortification repeatedly in their early years on the circuit.”

- Rory Muir, “The Law: Barristers.” in Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: How Younger Sons Made Their Way in Jane Austen's England

[zeldasayer]

I transcribed and translated Pedro’s interview from GQ Germany for all of us. I tried translating as good as possible but bear with me, English is not my mother tongue. By @sixties-loser

Pedro Pascal, the star from “Game of Thrones”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Mandalorian” talks about becoming an adult, film, fashion, corona – and a painful surgery in the exclusive GQ interview.

It seems almost eerie how empty the streets of LA are in the sunshine. Meanwhile a new normality seems to be coming to Europe, most people in L.A. are still cutting their own hair. Many have not seen their friends for half a year. The pandemic is out of control. The reaction towards it too. Inviting someone into their garden for a “distance drink” can cause the same distress as suggesting to switch spouses.

Therefore, it was particularly surprising that Pedro Pascal immediately accepted. He accepted the drink, not to switch spouses. He is one of the rising stars and newcomers this year – if it wasn’t for corona sending the whole film industry into a forced vacation, there would most likely not have been time for said drink. After having his skull crushed in “Game of Thrones” followed the lead role as a DEA agent hunting Pablo Escobar in “Narcos” in 2015 and now he is stepping towards big Hollywood films. From the 1st of October onwards the Chilean-born actor will be starring in the blockbuster “Wonder Woman 1984”. Moreover, the second season of the “Star Wars”-series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ starring him as the lead is going to air in October this year – but he will be underneath a helmet. Well, we all are under a helmet in 2020 in one way or another. We want to meet the man who a few years ago still worked as a waiter in New York, whose parents were political refugees who found asylum in Denmark and settled in Texas and whose son one day signed up for a theatre group in High School.

Then, the cancellation! While we were in the middle of fixing up the house and the garden for the drink with Pedro and organizing the fashion shoot, which was not easy considering the safety measures in L.A., his management called with an unfortunate message: Pedro – no, not sick with corona – had to get emergency surgery because of a damaged tooth and was lying in bed with a swollen face that was hindering him from speaking and taking pictures. The sun is shining onto empty streets. And our empty garden.

A few days later he nonetheless arrived at our front door without a swollen face but still with threads in his mouth. He was not chauffeured by a limo-service but he came with his own car – he even picked up his make-up artist. He is helping her carrying all of her utensils into the house and declares: “I’ve got time today!”. What a celebrity! It seemed like we did not want to ask him how he made it to the A-List of Hollywood but he wanted to ask us how we made it to the A-list. Pedro Pascal! Yes, what kind of a celebrity?

Pedro Pascal: Sorry for messing with your plans. The surgery was an emergency.

GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling wasn’t the product of a secret visit to the plastic-surgeon. Apparently, they are drowning in work because of the quarantine in Hollywood.

PP: I have to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I was rushing to the hospital with a fractured tooth and the worst pain in my entire life – a hospital in which treats people with severe cases of corona. I was unable to reach any dentist! Right in front of the parking lot a specialist called me back. The pain was hell despite the ten injections I got. The doctor said I was not an exception because a lot of people are grinding their teeth because of all the stress.

GQ: What are you most afraid of at the moment?

PP: How the government is handling the pandemic is worrying me more than the virus itself. This shortage of intelligent management of the crisis is a moral shame. The leadership crisis in this country is turning us all into orphans – destitute and abandoned.

GQ: How did you spend your time over the last few months?

PP: I spent it with frozen pizza and sweatpants in Venice Beach. I live in a rear house that’s in a family’s garden. Actually, there are a lot of good takeout places nearby but for some reason I just love pepperoni pizza from the supermarket.

GQ: That does not really sound like movie star-lifestyle. What does it feel like being suddenly stopped from top speed to zero?

PP: Regarding what is going on around the world one should hold back one’s own mental turmoil. I would be lying if I was saying that I am not disappointed. The whole team put a lot of heart and work into the production of “Wonder Woman 1984”. We had a lot of fun on set. I wished to travel around the world and introduce the film with the same lively energy.

GQ: You come from a politically engaged, socialist family that fled from the Pinochet-regime in Chile. What do you remember from that time?

PP: My sister and I were born in Chile but I was only nine months old when we first found asylum in Denmark. From there we quickly came to San Antonio in Texas where my dad started working as a doctor at the university clinic.

GQ: Texas is not known as a socialist utopia. How did you assimilate?

PP: San Antonio is not a Cowboy-town but very diverse with big Asian, black and Latino communities. I remember it as a romantic place, culturally open. The culture shock only came as we later moved to range county in California. There the atmosphere was suddenly white, preppy and conservative.

GQ: How were you received in California?

PP: I’m still ashamed of the fact that I did not correct my classmates when they kept on calling me Peter. I am Pedro. Even if I didn’t grow up in Chile the country and the language are still a part of me. I was very unhappy in that environment. However, I was fortunately able to go to another school close to Long Beach where I felt more comfortable. Through the theater group at that school I found my way.

GQ: Were you able to visit Chile as a child?

PP: Yes, when my parents made it to the list of expatriates that were able to travel to Chile without consequences. First, there was a big family reunion and then my sister and I stayed there for a few months with relatives while my parents went back to Texas. They likely needed a break from us. They got us when they were very young, had a buzzing social life and my mother was obtaining a PhD in psychology.

GQ: Was your mother a typical young psychologist who wanted to apply her theoretical knowledge at home?

PP: You mean, whether I was her guinea pig? For sure! I remember strange tests and sittings that were disguised as games where someone was watching me react to different toys. I cannot have been older than six but I was already aware of the dynamic. My favourite thing was being questioned about my dreams. That was a wonderful opportunity to come up with fantastic stories.

GQ: Was that your first performance?

PP: Of course! My mother worried about my strong imagination because I was living in my own fantasy world rather than reality. I hated going to school. I was always categorized as the troublemaker. At one point, the topics at school became more interesting and my grades also went up. There are so many kids that are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be abhorrent. Why is it so accepted to be bored in class when there are so many stimulating ways to convey knowledge?

GQ: Considering al that has happened this summer around the world: Do you believe that we can seriously demand social change now?

PP: I Hope so. After lockdown, the first time I went out was to protest for “Black Lives Matter” on the streets. The energy was peaceful and hopeful until the police provoked severe conflicts. Nevertheless, we cannot run from problems like we used to this time and we cannot distract ourselves from them either. It seems like the pressure of the pandemic led to a new clarity: We cannot go on this way.

GQ: The “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer revives the optimism of the 1980’s. From today’s point of view, it seems almost nostalgic.

PP: That’s right. You really are happy for two hours. The director Patty Jenkins created a film full of positive messages. We shot in Washington D.C., then in London and Spain – this sounds like I am talking of a past time.

GQ: Do you miss traveling?

PP: I’m just now realizing the privilege of just packing up one’s stuff and being able to fly anywhere. An American passport used to guarantee unlimited travel. And that’s why it the small radius of our lives is actually unimaginable. Over the last years I often retreated for a break after shootings because I was constantly on the move and overstimulated. My friends were already complaining I had become too comfortable. We all took social contact for granted and are only realizing now how dependent we actually are on human contact. Over the last weeks I often longingly thought about all the parties and dinner invitations I declined.

GQ: In L.A. people spend more time at home or nature than in other metropolises that are more geared towards public life. Could this city become your second home after New York?

PP: My Real Home are my friends. I have been a nomad since I was little and I do not have a place where I have put down roots. Up until not long ago my physical home was a place in between departure and arrival. Therefore, it was something I did not want to complicate through the accumulation of stuff. On the contrary: Without having read Marie Kondo’s book I have freed myself from excess baggage over the last few years and I lived relatively minimally.

GQ: Is there nothing you collect or something you just can’t throw away?

PP: Books! I even still have the literature I read when I was a teenager and when I was in college. Recently, I stumbled upon a box full of old theatre manuscripts and materials from my time at the New York University. I also cannot part from art easily, just like I cannot part from lamps or old photos. On the other hand, I can easily get rid of furniture and clothes.

GQ: Do you remember roles that were really only completely defined through the costume?

PP: Yes, I am particularly thinking about “Game of Thrones”. At that time I understood for the first time what it meant to be supported by a look. This is thanks to the costume designer Michele Clapton. She created very feminine robes and brocade coats for my character that nevertheless looked masculine when worn and I felt very sexy in them. Of course, Lindy Hemmings power-suits and Jan Swells bleached hairstyle for the tycoon-villain in “Wonder Woman 1984” were very important as well. At first I did not really see myself in the role because the cuts and colors of the 80s do not really fit my body. I’m more the 70s type.

GQ: Do you incorporate those inspirations into your personal wardrobe?

PP: In my free time I choose comfort over a cool look these days. Sometimes I miss the times when I expressed myself through a certain style. It is hard to imagine that I went to Raves as a teenage in the 90s; I was a real club kid with ridiculous outfits: overalls, balloon pants, football shirts and a top hat, like in Dr.Seuss’s “Cat in a Hat”. Later in New York I was hanging out with a group of people that felt it was very important to have a certain style. The fact that I am basically only wearing sweatpants everyday is actually tragic.

GQ: whoever plays roles in comic book adaptations becomes a bodybuilder and eats ten chicken breasts a day. You don’t?

PP:My body would not agree with that. It is hard enough to stay in shape normally. When you’re in your mid-forties you have to live with a lot more discipline. Up until before my tooth-incident I worked out with a trainer in my garden multiple times a week to keep the quarantine body in check.

GQ: Apart from the personal trainer, are you in a steady relationship?

PP: I am not ready for that yet. Maybe at some point I will be but until then I’ll let it be. I can’t even offer you absurd corona dating stories.

GQ: What would annoy you the most if you were your own roommate?

PP: I can be quite controlling. I have to conjure all my humanity to prevent myself from going through my entire film collection. When I don’t want something I cannot keep it to myself or be passive-aggressive, I always have to take it to the frontlines. Other than that, I tend to have tunnel view: when I am not feeling well I cannot imagine to ever feel better again. I have trouble relativizing my emotions or to wave off problems. Method-acting would really not be for me. This is why I try to only work on projects that feel good, where there is mutual support and encouragement.

GQ: When we were trying on the clothes earlier you spoke of a lack of self-confidence. How does that get along with a career like yours?

PP: Isn’t it interesting how these characteristics and circumstamces relate? Self-worth comes from inside but it is also influenced by what society values because we often internalise the public gaze. I have lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and made a living by working as a waiter until my mid-thirties because the theatre and film jobs I got did not pay the bills. There were so many times I was almost there. The disappointment of having missed the perfect role or opportunity by a hair’s width can be crushing. When should you give up and what is plan B? That is a question that is not only on many actors‘s minds but also on many others minds who struggle for a living – no matter how much potential they have or how close they seem to be to the top. We are seeing now how our narrow definition of success destroys society. At the same time, we are realizing that where we come from and the color of our skin still decide whether we can exist with dignity.

GQ: What are the positive aspects of a relatively late success as leading-man?

PP: I feel like I can decide over my own life without the pressure of having to accept projects or to have to present a certain identity on social media. This is for sure also because I am a man. Regardless of age, Women have to try harder to stand out.

GQ: Life always consists of risk management – now more than usual. For what would you risk losing something?

PP: Generally, when you never risk something you might never get ahead. That is for friendship, love, work and creativity. I have to be ready to take risks for the things that really matter to you.

[weaverofthreads]

On the process of writing a novel...

Ok, so this began as a DM to a very dear friend who had said they were super excited to work on a novel of theirs that they'd abandoned for years, but they felt a bit lost when looking at the project again. They had "too many characters, too many intrigues" and they didn't "know how to create order" for all their ideas. They didn't know "what to keep, what to remove, what to change" and wanted to know if I had any tips.  

I began to reply in messages and then realised I needed to make a whole post out of it, so here it is! All 3k words of it. This is for you, darling! I hope it helps.

Things I found extremely helpful when planning my novel for NaNoWriMo this year, after also taking some time off from it.  

Most of this comes from Alicia Lidwina’s Four-Part article on her NaNoWriMo prep process, and setting up a writer’s notebook, for 2018. You can find the link to the first part here and I highly recommend you check out the whole series of articles for a more in-depth read. 

Content of this ‘essay’: 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials

Project 'Stats' & Overview  

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

Things to Consider, and Important Bullet Points

Get to Know Your Characters  

Chronological Order

Tangential and Preceding Events

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, Sub Plot Ideas  

List of Locations

Scenes

Chapter Outline

NaNo Plan

Additional Notes and Tips for Writing

Ok. Let's begin.  

First of all, I'm not saying that this is the only way to write or organise a novel. It can be tackled in as many ways as there are writers in the universe. This is just the method I used to get my ideas crystallised and organised. 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials.  

Take your preparation seriously. I bought a cheap but still nice A4 sketchbook with blank paper for maybe £2 at the local hobby store, and used it solely for the purposes of being my Novel Notebook. It doesn’t have to be a pretty, perfect, Aesthetic(TM) journal at all. Its function is to act as a route-guide through the process.  

I bought a cute sticker from Etsy and used it as the front cover design so that I liked the book and that it felt a little bit special, without being too intimidating to put a mark in. Then I left the very first page blank, and opened it to the first double page. On the left, I wrote ‘Contents’ and then moved on to the right and wrote ‘Project Stats and Overview’.  

I used a pen that was comfortable to write with, which for me was important. I’m a very tactile person, and having nice paper and pens (not necessarily fancy), made the process feel good.

Project Stats and Overview

This is the bare bones of the book, and includes details such as:

Project Working Title: (in my case it’s Weaver of Threads)

Targeted Wordcount: (to give yourself an idea of the scope, but it’s not necessary. For me it’s 50-100k)

Genre: (for me, fantasy)

Series: (will it be one book or more? For me, probably more than one, and at least two).  

Inspiration: (here you can jot down all sorts of things which inspire your world and your writing, and it can be anything. In my case, I began with “density and lore, and feeling of being grounded in a real world from LOTR and Tolkien.” And I went on to include other writers and novels in the fantasy genre, as well as elements from our own world, such as Mongolian herding communities and way of life, the history of the Persian Empire, and Renaissance Florence!).  

Project Timeline: Give yourself a structure, and be realistic. If you know you’re a slow writer who’s prone to distractions, be generous, but if you’re someone who responds well to short deadlines, tighten the time frame up a bit. I said “November 2020 - November 2021 for the whole manuscript” because I know I’m a procrastinator who gets dejected if they shoot past intense deadlines….

Editing Deadline: December 2021-January 2022. I know I can edit fairly quickly, so I made this one much shorter.  

Main Requirements Prior to Starting: What do you need to get sorted before you can get going? It could be purchasing a laptop or figuring out a magic system. In my case, it was the latter.  

What Happens in your novel?: This is not ‘what do your characters do?’, but what, in one sentence, actually happens in the book. For Fellowship of the Ring, you could say ‘a diverse group of people assemble and set off together with the goal of destroying the Ring’. LOADS more stuff actually takes place, obviously, but that’s probably the key thing that happens in that book. So, write the same thing for yours. I’m not going to tell you what happens in mine, because that would spoil it :).  

That took up the first A4 page of my writer’s notebook, and after that, I moved on to Mood and Key Imagery. 

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

On the left hand side of the page, I wrote down the words and concepts that sprang to mind when I thought of the novel itself. These were in no particular order or placement — just a random cloud of ideas in a rough column on the left hand side of the page — and they included: history, mystery, love, friendship, betrayal, nostalgic, homesick, sense of belonging, sense of place, searching, closeness, secrets… etc. etc.

Then on the right hand side, I wrote down five key words that I wanted to associate with the novel. These would form the ‘visual aesthetic’ in the background of my mind, and could be very easily expressed with a moodboard.

This same process (writing down words and creating a moodboard) could be achieved on a website like Pinterest. Take your time with it, find the right visual clues that really match the essence of your story, and create a final mood board with a limited number of panels that will be your novel’s ‘true north’ when it comes to feelings. If you're artistically inclined too, you could draw sketches of things relevant to your world too.  

While this stage is really important for solidifying the feeling and mood of the novel, don’t get stuck here and spend forever procrastinating on Pinterest or whatever. Once you’ve crystallised that ambiance, it’s time to move on. It’s also perfectly fine to come back to this at a later stage if you find yourself running out of inspiration or drifting a bit. Daydreaming, drawing, mood-board-ing are all great ways to work on your novel on days when you don’t feel like writing.

Things to Consider:

Alicia Lidwina asked herself some questions which helped me get past the ‘block’ that I’d created when thinking about the novel, and those were:

What scares me about this story? (in my case it was the scope of it - it was easy for me to get lost in over-thinking tiny details and get too overwhelmed to handle the big picture)

What will readers take away from it? (in my case, I hoped that it was a sense of friendship, people from desperate cultures finding common ground, and a sense of being grounded in a real, tangible world.

What is its selling point? (essentially, why would an agent/publisher choose yours over the next one in the pile?). Don’t be bashful about this. This is your notebook, so if you’re proud of a feature or aspect of the story, write it down. In my case, there is no ‘Big Bad come to destroy the world’, no Chosen One who is the only one who can stop it. There is an antagonist, but it’s on a personal scale, and that’s the selling point. It’s about two people going on a personal journey to uncover a lost piece of knowledge that’s arguably not all that world-changing on its own, but which means the world to them.  

What will be the three biggest issues in writing the first draft? Identify the three biggest roadblocks, and then take a bulldozer to them. For me, it was time management, getting mentally stuck, and the sheer darned effort of it becoming overwhelming!

Important Bullet Points  

These are five key facts about your novel, distilled from the sections above. They include: What’s at the heart of the story? How long is the story? What’s the narrative focus of the story? What are the maximum number of main characters? And the maximum number of supporting characters (this obviously doesn’t mean you can’t have other, less important characters too!)?  

Relationship between the two main characters is forefront

50-100k words

The novel’s focus is on the characters’ main goal (had to be more vague here so I didn't give it away)

2 main characters

3 supporting characters  

If you find you’ve got too many main characters (not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of characters - look at A Song of Ice and Fire after all!), then figure out whose story you want to tell here. You can always write another story with other characters in a connected novel, or a sequel. You don’t have to tell everything all at the same time.  

Speaking of characters… 

…Get to Know Your Main Characters:  

Here you can write character sheets for each of your main characters and cast. There are hundreds of these templates available on the internet, asking questions like ‘how would your character react to [insert event]?’ etc. to get to know your character. If this isn’t your thing (it isn’t mine) then at least write down some useful information about them. Rough height and weight, hair, eye and skin colour, general temperament, and any other defining physical or mental traits. 

Next came the Chronological Order

This does not have to represent the final order of the novel’s structure, nor the order in which you write the manuscript, but you need to know what happened within the timeline, and when, in order to be really clear when you’re telling the story. You can write the manuscript out of order, and you can tell the story with flashbacks or in a different order, but you need to have the underlying chronology securely in place so that your writing makes sense and so that you don’t confuse yourself or the readers in the process.  

Preceding and Tangential Events

These don’t need to be in the novel itself, but it may be important to define the sequence of events that also led up to the moment where we pick up your story, and what is happening elsewhere so that you can be sure of these too. In my case, I defined the events that concerned one of the supporting characters’ lives so that I knew how and why they were at the point they are in the story. It relates directly to - and heavily influences - the events of the novel, so I needed to have this person’s history nailed down as well, even though I don't tell it all explicitly in the book (because that would be unnecessary and a bit dull).  

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, and Sub-Plot Ideas (plus writing a synopsis)

Alicia Lidwina defined the story premise helpfully with the following formula:

Story Premise = Main Character + Desire + Obstacle

Pick a different colour for each of these components, and write a short paragraph to explain them in the context of the novel. Alicia Lidwina used the following:

[Main Character] “Harry, an orphan who didn’t know that he’s a wizard, [Desire] got invited into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wanted to live his school life to its fullest, [Obstacle] but a certain Dark Lord who killed his parents is trying to rise into powers again and kill him in revenge.

Do this for your novel, and keep it really short.  

Plot Definition: This is even shorter than that! It’s a single sentence!! It’s most closely tied to the desire of the character, and lies at the heart of the story. It’s most likely a distilled version of the ‘what happens in the story’ from the Project Stats page, so check that to see what you wrote there.  

Sub Plot Ideas  

Five bullet points (no more) for things that are happening concurrently and which are related in some way to the main story. For me, Kae and Tomas are doing their research, so that’s the main theme, but beneath that there are a few other related incidents.

Writing a Synopsis - developed out of the points in this section, and includes:

Who the main character is

What the stakes are (the story premise is your guideline)

What the main plot line is

How the MC resolves the problem in the main plot line

How the book ends.

List of Locations  

Start with the main ones and add to it as you go on. Write a little bit of information about them so that you have something to refer back to. I also drew a big old map which I found very helpful and also really fun to do.

List of Scenes

It’s very important to map out every single scene that happens in the novel. Use your timeline to help with this, but remember a scene is not necessarily a chapter. You can have more than one scene within a chapter, but try not to have too many.  

I used small post-it notes (sticky notes) and wrote down things like “M joins K’s clan at the fire and K learns about magic” and “K studies at Citadel, intro to Citadel, magic, and characters” as separate scenes. Once you’ve written down everything that is going to happen (this will take some time! Get a drink and some snacks ready, and go slow), you can stick them into your notebook in the order you’d like to tell the story. Some chapters may have just one scene, while others may have two or three. I didn’t have more than two in any of my chapters, and actually ended up splitting some scenes that I’d made too vague in this section into more chapters. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it will form a road map.  

Additions and Notes:  

I left a section of the Scene Outline bit of the notebook blank for things to add in as I went along. I haven’t used it yet, but I might.  

Chapter Outline

I arranged the scenes into the chapters already by sticking them in order, but you could do a chapter outline separately after this. It’s up to you. 

NaNoWriMo plan:  

I did this back in October, and wrote down the main goal for nanoprep, which was to finish the background info. Breaking that down further, I listed - magic (how does it work exactly), geography, and politics. 

After that, it was just a case of writing the 1667 words a day. *spoilers, I got distracted and didn’t do NaNo this year* . What I should have done, was break it up into chunks and write down my goals so that I had something tangible to use as a road map, and I will be doing that now for the novel as I take it up again outside of NaNo. Having check boxes and manageable goals really works for me. Find what will work for you, and if it turns out not to, adapt!

Some final pointers and tips:

Set regular goals for yourself. Whether you work by saying ‘I’ll write 1000 words a day’ or ‘I’ll write something every day’, make a structure for yourself. If you slip and miss a day, week, or month (I didn’t meet NaNo this year because I chose to work on another project instead *slaps forehead*), don’t beat yourself up. Writing is a craft and it takes a long time and a lot of discipline to master a craft.  

Your first draft does not have to be good. At all. Your first draft is just words on paper. A first draft is the block of marble taken from the quarry, and subsequent edits and reworking is the process of carving the sculpture itself. The editing that is done by the publisher or the professional you employ to edit it for you later, is the final polishing. Don’t be demoralised if the block of marble seems very rough when it first lands in your studio. That’s ok!  

Take regular breaks. Writing is hard work, and most people can’t concentrate on something successfully for longer than 55 min's, and if you’re doing that, you’re already doing really well. Personally, I’m at 15-20 on a good day. Write in little sprints of ten minutes or so, and then get up and stretch, look out the window, maybe leave the room, come back in with a fresh approach.  

Stretch your hands, and wear wrist braces when you work. Seriously. I gave myself tendinitis on my first major project, and couldn’t use either hand properly for weeks. The ones I have are these, and they allow me to work safely for much longer.  

Keep hydrated. Have a bottle of water on the desk in front of you between your arms as you type and sip it, otherwise you’ll forget. 2 litres a day is usually recommended, but know your body and drink accordingly.  

Treat yourself. Whether that’s something as simple as a decadent hot chocolate after your first chapter/chunk/sprint is done, or a new notebook or a pen or that sticker set you wanted on Etsy or literally anything nice, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve put in, with tangible things you can look at or experience and say ‘I have that because I did the work’. It’ll help with your sense of achievement, especially if the project is a long one.  

Join a local writer’s group for feedback. With the current Covid-19 chaos, this is probably not possible right now, but getting constructive feedback on your work from someone who hasn’t been cocooned in the project in the way you are, but who respects you as a writer and wants to help you grow, will be invaluable. It’s too easy to exist in a little isolated bubble and think you’re doing ok, when in reality you could be creating bad habits which will be difficult to break later. By these, I mean things like ‘filler words’ you don’t realise you use, or other pit-falls it’s easy to tumble into when you can’t see the wood for the trees…It’s intimidating, and it might take some courage to work up and do, but I promise it’ll help you grow. You don’t have to do what the people suggest, but it’s great to get outside opinions all the same.

Submit work to writing competitions. This will help with showing agents and publishers later down the line that you’re not only committed, but hopefully talented, and will help you to push yourself. Use the world of your novel for the setting, and get to know it by writing short stories on the competition’s theme set there.  

Read. Read the writers you admire, and read them ‘actively’ - figure out exactly what it is about ‘that’ sentence that made you shiver, and use the same techniques in your own work (don’t plagiarise, obviously, but if it was alliteration that made the sentence work so well, use it yourself! Perhaps it was the metre of the line? Great, now you know a rhythm that will drive a sentence forward or slow it down etc.)

Enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’ll show in the work. Take a step back if you start floundering, and ‘interview’ yourself about why it’s not fun any more. Refer back to the sections in the notebook that helped to clarify the plot/process, and see if you’ve wandered away from them. Make yourself answer questions like: ‘What is the main reason I don’t want to do this?’ ‘What is the character’s motivation?’ ‘Should I scrap this section?’ (don’t delete it, but cut and paste it into another ‘scraps’ document, and then start afresh from the last place you were happy with. Nothing is wasted - it all goes into building the world and getting to know the characters, even if it doesn’t get explicitly told in the finished product, so don’t be afraid to do that last bit).  

Good luck!

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or things you’d like to add to this, please feel free to send me an ask here on Tumblr.

If you’re a new writer hoping to get an agent or publisher, you might also find this post on ‘talking to a published author’ helpful or interesting.

If you would like to keep up to date with my own novel’s progress, you can follow me here on Tumblr, as well as on my writing Instagram @rnpeacock

[ka-za-ri]

Descent Pt. 1

I told myself I was gonna take a break. I lied. I wanted to write a whole bin of Sin for Simeon. I’m sorry, not sorry at all. Let me know if you want to be a part of the tag list: Chapter Masterlist: Here Crossposted on Ao3: here Part [1] Part [2] Part [3] Part 4: [4] Part [5] Part [6] Part [7] Part [8] Part [9] Part [10]

Paring: Simeon x Reader Wordcount: 4,900 ish Genre: Smut Tags: Masturbation, Voyeurism, hints of dirty talk? Summary: Sent from the Celestial realm to observe and study humans; Simeon made a name for himself as the illustrious author of The Tales of the Seven Lords. After reaching acclaim for his first series, he's having trouble writing his next great hit. Good thing you're there for him as his manager and editor to help him work out the... kinks in writing.

Trip

The most dangerous aspect of humans was their innate ability to tempt even the most stalwart and steadfast of angels into a world of sin. Simeon was not immune to their ways, no matter how reclusive he became. It was easy to study them from afar, learning about them through numbers and sales numbers. The masses were easy to sway with a few pretty words. Blending in with humans was a trivial task for him. All he had to do was make a few public appearances for book signings and some launch parties for a new series; otherwise he was free to observe and study from afar. 

After the international success of The Tale of The Seven Lords, Simeon found himself feeling rather empty. He needed a new project to keep him entertained in the human realm. However, no matter what he started to work on, it didn’t inspire the same sort of passion he had for his older series. He needed a new genre, a new style of writing to refresh his passion for words. If he was going to make it in an ever changing market, he would need to adapt as well. Yet, no matter what genre he tried, every draft he came up with seemed too mundane and overdone. 

Everything except, for the temptation of writing something much more salacious than his last work. 

Just entertaining the thought had him on a slippery slope of falling from the grace of the Celestial realm. Sure, the strict protocols of olde had been loosened over the centuries. Many angels realized that enforcing perfect adherence to the standards of purity set so long ago no longer applied to modern times. Rules had been loosened and enforcement had relaxed to the point where Simeon was almost positive if he wrote an absolutely obscene novel, he didn’t risk losing his Celestial powers. 

The only problem was that he had no experience in the genre at all. He threw together a vague plot and outline, thinking it would be all he needed to inspire him. Surprisingly enough, the publishing house allowed for the drastic change in genre, confident that he would be able to create another best seller. Just having that much trust put in him made him want to succeed even more with the haphazard novel idea. 

But, despite his determination to make his new manuscripts lewd, he was at a complete loss as to what, and how to write them properly. The outline he presented to you seemed excellent on paper. Even if it had a few plot holes, you knew he could patch them up with a little work. So, it was natural that you would push the approval and leave him to his own devices to work on the manuscript. You were sure that an author of his caliber would be able to break into a new branch of the literary market without any issues. 

But, after several months of waiting, you had no contact at all from him regarding the progress of his new book. The industry needed proof of his work in order to justify their investment in him. Being so renowned, the pressure was on him to create something magnificent. You could only imagine the kind of stress he was going through and as his manager and editor, you were responsible for making sure he met deadlines. You hated to rush his process, but there was no way he could meet the dates set by the publisher if he didn’t give you something to work with soon. 

After trying to reach out to him several times by phone and email with little to no response, the only option left was to go to his abode and see just what he was hiding from. No other outline he submitted had passed so this was his one and only chance to continue his writing career. You patiently waited after knocking on his door, hoping he would answer and wasn’t going to ignore you any further. You knew how serious writer’s block could be; but you hoped he wouldn’t let that get in the way of being a professional. 

Luckily, the door opened soon enough and you were ushered in by an extremely tired and frazzled looking Simeon. He lead you to his office after you had taken off your shoes and changed into the guest slippers he offered. Simeon didn’t speak to you during the whole exchange, a shell of the soft spoken and attentive author you had come to know after so many years of working with him. He shuffled into his office, an obvious slouch in his posture and slumped behind his desk before gesturing at the empty chair across from him. 

“I’m guessing you know why I’m here.” You said and he sighed in resignation, burrowing his head in his hands and running them through his hair. You felt terrible adding stress onto him, he looked ragged, like he hadn’t slept in days. The bags under his eyes were so dark, they almost looked like deep bruises. 

“Yes… You want a manuscript…” his normally soft voice sounded hoarse and you wondered if he had eaten or drunken anything at all that day. “I’m almost done with the first draft… would you like to come and see?” He turned his laptop towards you and you started reading what he had so far. 

All seemed well and good at first. The characters were believable and the premise, though a bit cheesy, was definitely acceptable for the genre. The further you read, the more you noticed large gaps in his writing. Whole paragraphs seemed to be missing and sentences ended midway. Dialog was left unfinished and by the time you reached the end of the first chapter, it was a mess. You could already feel the inevitable headache you were going to get from editing for him. 

“Uhm…”

“Yeah, I know. It’s not my best work.” 

He tried to smile, but the emotion didn’t reach his eyes. You reached out to him and held his hand, rubbing your thumb in reassuring circles on his palm. “You’ve worked hard on it, still. What’s got you so hung up though?” 

He got a little flustered at your question, nervously running his hand through his hair and looking to the side. Writing such a topic with no experience in it was proving to be difficult for him. He could research all he wanted and consume all the media he could to aid him, but there was just something missing. His lack of knowledge was showing and he wasn’t sure how he could keep being composed about his failure so far. He gestured at the screen and shrugged, trying to get his message across without using words; but, when he saw your confused expression, he had to speak. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” he finally admitted. “I want to write this so badly, but I don’t know how to… describe the scenes the way I want to.” 

You sat back in the chair, crossing your arms over your chest and nodding. You could only imagine the difficulty he was having in producing the quality content you were sure he was used to coming up with. With deadlines looming above your head, you needed at least a chapter to submit to the publishing house so they knew actual work was being done. You sighed, trying to think of ways to jump start his creativity. The gloomy atmosphere of his office didn’t seem help. The lights were dim and the curtains were all drawn. It didn’t feel like a place that could invoke the imagery he was going for. “Let’s move somewhere.” you suggested finally. “Do you have a room with lots of sunlight? Maybe a change of mood will help.” 

“Ah… there’s the sunroom..” he said. “But I don’t know if just changing where I am writing will help the situation. If it hasn’t gotten done here, I doubt it will anywhere else.” 

“Just try it.” you encouraged, already unplugging his laptop and taking it with you. “It’s so gloomy in here, even I’m getting depressed just sitting around. Come on, which way is it?” 

“Ah… this way.” He said, shamefully shuffling out from behind his desk and showing you the way to the sunroom which overlooked a rather well manicured garden with a variety of flowers in full bloom. You marveled at the bright, airy feel of the room and took a second to really appreciate his choice in decor. 

“Wow, would have never pegged you as the kind of guy who gardens.” You teased, flopping onto the couch he had in there and lounged in its plush confines. Looking through the glass ceiling, you watched a few clouds drift by while Simeon got comfortable in a recliner in the corner of the room. You could tell he was still a bit frustrated, but you knew getting him some sun would do him good. 

“Well, when I don’t have any pressing deadlines, being with the plants helps relieve stress. It’s unfortunate that I cannot give you a tour this time.” 

“There’s plenty of opportunities in the future. They’re not going anywhere, and neither am I. You know I’m going to keep hounding you until your manuscript is finished.” 

He chuckled, nodding and opening up his laptop. You let silence pass between the two of you, going back to watching the clouds while the sound of his fingers flying across the keyboard lulled you into a daydream like state. You grabbed onto one of the large, decorative pillows he had on the couch, clutching it against your chest while you made up stories in your head about the clouds above. If you weren’t so stressed about turning something into the publishing house so soon; it would have been a perfect, calming afternoon. 

The clack of the keyboard stopped after a little bit. Whatever inspiration Simeon had when he entered the room seemed to have fizzled out and he was stuck in yet another rut, writing one word and deleting it over and over again. You sighed, turning to watch him as he gnawed on his thumb, mumbling to himself. 

“What’s not working?” You asked, your curiosity piqued. 

“Just… this scene… it’s not working. I can’t envision it.” He grumbled. Looking up at where you were laying on his couch, clutching onto the pillow, he was suddenly struck by a brilliant plan. The worry lines on his forehead disappeared and he broke out into a slight smile when he realized how he could get his creative juices flowing. “Help me… I need inspiration.” 

You sat up straight, ready to assist in any way you could. “Okay, what do you want me to do?” You asked. 

Simeon squinted, in the right light, you looked similar to the main character he had written. His plan could work if you reenacted the scene he had in mind. The issue was actually explaining the scene to you in a way that didn’t make his body feel overheated. He was already playing with fire by writing such a lewd book, pushing his limits further felt like he was sliding right down a slope heading towards a great fall. There was no other way, he reasoned. As long as I do not defile her, it’ll be fine. Taking a deep breath, he got up from where he was and walked over to you. 

“I need you to…. Uhm… Well.. how do I say this… I’m having trouble writing a love making scene and I need some… visual aids.” You blinked, processing his request and then looked him up and down, feeling your whole body heat up at once. You were sure you had kept your crush on him a secret. To have him ask you so suddenly to provide visual aid for an explicit novel felt like too big of a jump for you to comprehend. “Oh… Oh no, no, no. You don’t have to do anything with me.” He said, gesturing wildly when he saw you pointedly stare at his crotch. “You can just pretend that this is the ‘lover.’” He took the pillow from your arms and laid it on the couch. 

You didn’t know if you should have felt relived or disappointed that he wanted you to reenact a sex scene with a pillow and not him. It was all quite a bit to take in, but the desperate pout on his face was something you couldn’t ignore. And both your jobs were on the line. You sighed in resignation. “Okay, okay… But only because we have deadlines coming up.” You said. “You’re lucky you’re cute. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else.” 

Simeon smiled for the first time that day, hurriedly moving back to his computer and preparing to take notes on what you were doing. “I’m ready when you are.” he announced once he opened up a separate document. 

“You sure you don’t want me to just, you know… do you?” You asked, cocking an eyebrow as you started to undress. It was embarrassing for sure; but part of you relished in seeing Simeon so flustered when it came to the nature of lewd things. You wondered why he had bothered submitting such an outline at all when he wasn’t familiar with how to write erotica; but his determination to branch out to other genres had won you over in the end. It just fell upon your shoulders to show this man how it was done. 

“I… No… I can’t. I need to write.” He stuttered. Do not defile her, do not defile her. Her womb is sacred and not something you can toy with… Even if he wanted the first hand experience, he still had rules to abide by. 

“Alright, whatever you say. You’re the boss.” You shrugged, unbuttoning your blouse. “Don’t forget, part of the sexiness is in the tease.” You explained, taking your time to sway your hips side to side as each button came undone. Trying to seduce a pillow was so much more boring than trying to seduce Simeon. The things I do for this job… 

You made sure to waggle your ass as you peeled off your pants, tossing them to the side along with your blouse. There was something thrilling about being in a room made of glass. Any woodland creature that decided to come visit his garden at that moment would also get an eyeful of your progressively bare body. The rush of having Simeon watch you as you stripped had your heart racing. 

At the very least, you knew your efforts weren’t in vain. You could hear the furious clacking of the keyboard as you gave the pillow in front of you a sultry look. As lame as it all was, it was still rather arousing to know you were being watched by the man who you had crushed on for so long now. “Alright… sir. I’m going to need you to lay down. You have a problem that only I can take care of.” You said to the pillow. You tried hard not to laugh at how ridiculous the scenario was. It wouldn’t do to break the mood, especially when you could tell Simeon was definitely getting some writing done. 

You got back onto the couch, straddling the pillow between your legs once you were in nothing but your underthings. Licking your lips, you pretended that Simeon was under you and not the decorative cushion. If you closed your eyes, you could almost feel his lean body under your own, squirming in discomfort as you took control of the scenario. There was just something about how gentle and soft spoken he was that made  your heart flutter with the need to dominate him until he was a flushed, moaning mess. 

Using that fantasy in your mind, you slowly started to gyrate your hips onto the pillow, throwing your head back and moaning. “Oh yes…” You breathed, pleasantly surprised at the stimulation you got from the friction of your panties rubbing against your spread core. You hummed, content with the thought of Simeon holding onto your hips to keep your steady. If he wanted to watch, then you were going to give him the best show available. 

You grasped at your breasts, teasing your nipples through the fabric of your bra until they were sensitive little buds that made you gasp. As you continued to grind against the pillow, you could feel your essence starting to flow, no doubt you were going to leave quite a substantial wet mark on the pillow if you continued. You wanted to pause and warn Simeon of what was about to happen; but when you turned and saw the look of concentration on his face, you didn’t dare break his focus. 

He’ll just have to deal with it later… You figured going back to that happy place in your mind where the writer in front of you was actually under you. Closing your eyes, you imagined what it would be like to hear him moan as you pressed your heat against his cock. Surely he must sound absolutely angelic when he cums. Pushing slipping your hands under your bra, you pushed the fabric away, peeled it off your skin and threw it into a random corner to pick up later. “You have no idea how hot you look right now.” You purred, looking down at the cushions below you, wishing you had something sexier to talk dirty to; but you would have to make do with what you had. 

Leaning down, you grabbed a pillow to act as your ‘lovers’ head and started to kiss it. It was so hard to ignore just how disappointing it was to make out with a lump of fabric and not the beautiful man in the corner who was so engrossed with his writing, you might as well have been invisible to him. You could only use your imagination to fantasize about how soft Simeon’s lips must be. He always took such good care of his skin and he had an ethereal glow about him, as if he was blessed by the sun itself. You moaned into the pillow, hating the rough canvas you were pressed up against, but at least your pussy was getting something out of how much you were humping the pillow. 

You came up, gasping for air after having half smothered yourself with a pillow and glanced over at Simeon again. Even as he was furiously typing, you could see that he was at least a little affected by the show you were putting on. Good, I would have hated myself if he’s not even a smidgen turned on by this. You smirked, looking down at your ‘lover’ and pretended to whisper sweet nothings to them before getting off the couch. 

Simeon made a small sound of protest when he saw that you were no longer straddling the pillow, but he quickly shut up when he saw that you were divesting yourself of your panties. “Oh… carry on.” He mumbled, going back to his document, though his eyes continuously flicked up towards you to make sure he was capturing the moment properly. 

Feeling your bare pussy rub against the rough fabric of the pillow sent shivers of pleasure up and down your body and you moaned, riding it harder than before. The stimulation was great, but it wasn’t enough. Really, you wanted to have Simeon buried balls deep in you and not at his computer. However, your priority was your job and that meant sticking to what you had to work with. “Fuck…” You groaned, clenching your inner walls around nothing and wishing that you had at least a toy to fill you up and give you something to ride. 

You ground against the pillow, your essence soaking the fabric and leaving a sizable wet mark, but you didn’t care. It was all the stimulation you could get and you were going to work it for all it was worth. One hand went back up to your breast, rolling your pert nipple between your thumb and forefinger, whining at the mixture of pain and pleasure you were giving yourself. “Yeah… you like watching me touch myself, babe?” You asked no one in particular; but truthfully, you hoped Simeon was really enjoying what he saw and heard.. 

His fingers on the keyboard never ceased moving as he vividly described the scene before him. He was so wrapped up in his work, he didn’t even notice himself getting hard. There was too much to write and no time to think about the attention the rest of his body was asking for. He licked his lips, his gaze constantly going back and forth from the document to your body. You were acting out the scene so well, he couldn’t stop writing; he needed to record every detail. You were everything he had imagined his main character to be; effortlessly confident, commanding in the bedroom and dripping with sex appeal. Even if it was a spur of the moment suggestion, he had no regrets considering he was getting so much more writing done in the last half hour than he had in the past two months. 

Your breathing came out in short little pants as you tried to chase a release that just wouldn’t come with so little to work with. You reached between your legs to fondle your sensitive clit, groaning loudly as you made love to yourself. You didn’t know how long the scene was supposed to be, but your thighs were getting tired of riding an inanimate object and you just wanted to get off now. 

“Mm fuck.. You feel so good…” You breathed, closing your eyes and imagining Simeon sliding inside of you. The first pass must feel so good. You fantasized about lowering yourself onto his cock slowly letting him savor every inch that entered you. In your head, his bright blue eyes glittered in lust, watching his dick disappear into you until your hips met and he would moan at the feeling of being completely buried in you. “Yeah… just like that…” You moaned, rubbing circles at your clit while your inner walls clenched rhythmically at air. 

You went back to dragging your pussy across the fabric of the pillow smearing your essence all over to get as much out of the scenario as you could. Your fingers rubbed your clit harder, pushing you ever closer and closer to release. “Oh… Oh… I’m so close…” You whined, announcing your climax mere seconds before it happened. The last push you needed was looking over at Simeon and seeing him completely engrossed in what you were doing. His fingers frozen on the keyboard and his comfortable pants with a rather impressive tent in them. 

“Fuck. Simeon.” you cursed, cumming all over the pillow. Your fingers slowed their pace around your clit, rubbing your labia back and forth as you rode out the orgasm. You fell forward onto the pillows beneath you, still slowly humping them while you let the initial high pass and the afterglow set in. It wasn’t until the haze of pleasure passed that you realized you had called his name while getting off on his couch in front of him. 

Simeon swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way you called his name. Everything had gone smoothly until you had cried out for him while in the throes of your climax. He had stopped everything he was doing just mere moments before you did that; and now, he didn’t know if he had the mental capacity to continue with what he was writing. 

For once, he was tempted to throw away whatever celestial blessings he had to take you and be the real reason why you screamed his name. 

Shoving the indecent thoughts to the back of his head, he turned back to his document, writing a sentence and erasing it, repeating the action over and over again while his brain looped the beautiful image of you as you came on his couch. Now, he noticed the tightness in his pants, the obvious boner he sported as a result of such an experiment. But, he couldn’t be mad at it. He had achieved a groove in writing and he was sure he could finish the draft you needed in time.

Simeon let you rest a bit and gather yourself together on the couch. No doubt both of you were aware of the slip, but he could pretend it didn’t affect him as much as it did. Eventually, you had the courage to look back up at him, only to find him busily typing away at his computer. Sighing, and running your hand through your hair amused that he could stay so calm, you got up and started to get dressed. “So, I’m guessing moving somewhere else worked?” you asked, keeping your tone light. 

“Hmm… yes.” He agreed, half paying attention to what you were doing. He couldn’t bear to look at you while you were exposed and waited patiently until you were fully clothed until he made eye contact and spoke to you again. “I definitely got some good notes in. I’ll just need a little more time to flesh out some of the filler scenes and I’ll email you the draft in a couple of days.” 

You let out a laugh, surprised that he was able to focus on work still after what he had just witnessed. He truly was as innocent as he presented himself to be sometimes. “Alright, well. I’ll look forward to reading it.” 

“Will you be back?” he asked, looking at you with hopeful eyes. “You were so helpful, I think I might need more help for the rest of the book.” Not, like I want to see something like that again… No, I just need it for research purposes… 

“You know I’ll be back.” You laughed heartily, ruffling his hair. “I have to bother you at least once a month to make sure you’re on schedule to finish.” 

Simeon slouched into his chair and let out a soft laugh in relief. “Of course, how could I forget.” In his mind, he was already planning new scenarios for you to play out. There would be much more research to be done, and supplies to be obtained before your next visit. But, all those things could wait. For now, he closed his laptop, noticing how low on battery it had gotten.Time had slipped by him, the sun already well on its way past the horizon. “It’s getting late…” He commented, trying to change the subject to something a little safer than the masturbation session you just had in front of him. 

“Yeah… I’ll get going and let you work in peace.” In a moment of bold recklessness, you stepped forward and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “See you next time, babe. Can’t wait to see what you’re gonna make me do for you.” you teased, giving him a coy wink before showing yourself out.

As soon as the door was firmly shut, Simeon let out a deep sigh, laughing out loud at the predicament he had put himself into. He wanted to quit everything and dissolve into the ground. He wanted to continue writing and see your body writhe in pleasure. He wanted to also defile you and sate himself inside of you. Most of all though, there was a growing darkness within him, one he didn’t even notice just yet; and that part of him craved to see you put in your place to beg for him like the god he knew he was. 

Pushing all his desires down and curbing his lust for the time being, he moved his computer back to his office and let it charge for the rest of the evening. His mind still swirled with the image of your exposed body riding that pillow in the sunroom. The early evening sunset made your body glow with an almost angelic light; and for once, he felt jealous of an inanimate object.

Quietly padding back into the sunroom, he looked at the soiled cushion; feeling a surge of heat rush through him when he saw the wet spot you had left behind. Licking his lips, he approached it like it was a wild animal, tentatively poking at it. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend to still feel your warmth lingering on the fabric. He could feel shame rising up in him as he laid down on the couch, rested his head on the pillow and took a deep breath, memorizing the scent of your arousal. 

His hand reached down between his legs, slipping past his pants and to his hard length that needed his attention. Turning his head to smother his moans and to surround himself with your unique smell, he teased and pleased himself, putting himself in the scenario you had played out just mere moments ago. 

“Oh… oh fuck…” He groaned surprised at how little effort it took to make him cum and ruin his pants to the thought of you bouncing on his cock and calling his name. He was quickly falling down the deep end of temptation and he could feel the darkness of sin encroaching. 

The scariest part was the fact that he didn’t care at all. 

[thevoilinauttheory]

Soul Meets Body

[ FFxivWrite2021 Prompt 23: Soul ]

[ Content Warnings: None! ]

[ original video not posted for shaky camera / depictions of implied animal death (it’s a strange video, because it isn’t actual animals, just metaphorical) ]

==

“Lothaire.” “Hm?” Lothaire turned his head up from the papers he was writing - a never ending manuscript, it seemed - tapping his pen against his cheek in thought. The monotone voice was no other than his grandfather, staring down at him with his usual glare - which he had learned to ignore, since his face never seemed to match what mood he was in. Ever. Maximiloix closed his eye, folding his arms over his chest. “I have something for you.” “Eh? Since when do you give out gifts!” He laughed, pushing himself up from his desk; his grandfather stared at him blankly. “Well, since it seems you have forgotten, I will retract it - continue on.” Maximiloix shooed him back to his desk with some vague resemblance of a smile on his face. “Wait- what? Forgot what!” He had to think on it… a lot longer than he should have. What was the date again? It certainly wasn’t Starlight, it was in the middle of summer. Oh. He started to laugh. “Forgot my own nameday again, huh?” “You are far too focused on your work, so it would not do well to miss the dinner Camilla has been working on for you due to it. First, however…” Maximiloix pulled a small decorated box from his satchel to pass over to him. “I feel you have grown enough to take care of this, and I trust that you will not misuse it.”

Lothaire tilted his head, taking the box with hesitation. It wasn’t that he distrusted his grandfather, but he had stressed *several* times to not trust him fully - but his curiosity always got the better of him, and usually he ended up giving his full trust in the end. Inside the box laid a small crystal upon a bed of cotton; it was hand chiseled and smoothed into a queer shape, dark blue with a golden symbol he had only read about in books etched into it. It pulsed with a soft light in response to him, accepting him as his new owner. “Is this…?”

“A soul crystal, with all of the knowledge I have gained regarding that of old Nymian Scholars. I know it will help you with your current work, as well as keep you… *safer* on your forays. Please take care of it - that is quite a lot of knowledge to hold, and I will be livid if it falls into the hands of another.” “O- Of course!” He didn’t know what to say, speechless was an understatement. He was trying to hold back tears just from how happy he was - this was more than he could have *ever* expected from him. He took the crystal from its resting place, holding it in his palm to feel the soft hum that resonated within his mind. There was so much within this small stone, he didn’t know where to start, how to sort it all out. 

“Grandfather, this is…” He shook his head, opting instead to rush forward and hug him tightly. He never dared to touch him, he was always so strict about that, but he couldn’t help it. This truly was the best thing he had been granted from him. Maximiloix stood stiff for a moment as he tried to comprehend the action, letting out a sigh of defeat as he accepted it; he returned it with a gentle one of his own, then pried him off of him. “Do not attempt to gain its power all at once, you will become overwhelmed. It will grant it to you as you become accustomed to the previous lesson, and with enough practice, you may be able to put your own twist on its spells as well as add your own.” He scoffed out a laugh. “Here is to your nameday, and the upcoming mid-life crisis you may go through.” “Thanks. I think I’m already hitting one.” He laughed, stacking up his massive bundle of papers into a neat pile. “Grandfather?”

“Hm?” “...I don’t regret leaving Ishgard. I want you to know that. I don’t regret seeking you out, regardless of the warnings. I don’t regret asking to learn from you, asking for help from you.” He smiled brightly. “It’s rough work, but… I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, since.” Maximiloix blinked at him - the closest to surprise one would get from him. Rarely did he ever hear such words from his family, not after their disowning of him. Lothaire was one of two that would speak with him without disdain, but to hear it out loud? He offered him the first genuine smile he had seen in thirty years. “It is your nameday, not mine. Keep those words to yourself.” “Like hells I will!” Lothaire laughed. “Why don’t you join us for dinner, huh? Bring Grandpa too?” “Mm.” “Camilla would like to see both of you again.” He let out a heavy sigh, then nodded. “I suppose so. I have one other piece of business to attend to, then I will be over.”

Lothaire nodded with another bright smile, taking his leave after that. Maximiloix made his way downstairs, and down another flight to the basement and his own desk, flopping himself into his seat with another sigh. It was exhausting being kind, though he could muster it for one day. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the surface, drawing his clawed fingers up through his hair. His eye stared down at the array of chipped crystals he had been imbuing for future students, with one staring back at him - pulsing with the same light the one he had gifted. One that accepted him as its owner… he had denied it, refused its knowledge. It did not belong to him, he did not deserve anything it had to give.

The smoothed circular stone that gave off the faintest aura of orange and gold, with the spurts of violet aether which belonged to its original owner. It tried its damnedest to get into his mind, to change the way he thought and acted, but he would not give in. He would not yield to a dead man’s word; nor would he relive the memories which drove him mad.