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orions-tears · 2 years ago

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Yours Truly - Ominis Gaunt [Final Part Ver. B]

Pairing: Ominis Gaunt x fem!Reader

Themes: Fluff

A/N: Heys guys! You agreed it should be so here it is. Fluff only version. Update: Saw my format was ass. I fixed it

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and the Smut Version of this are linked :)

"I think it's cute!"

Ominis leans back in his chair. He put the letter in his pocket and sighs. "I don't know anyone who likes poetry."

You shrug and cross your legs, smiling at him. He often puts on a face when he's thinking and Merlin it's cute. You like to watch him when he's like this and wonder what's going through his head.

"Who do you think it is?" he asks, turning to you.

"What?"

"The person sending the letters? Who do you think it is?"

"Oh I don't know," you reply, forcing back a smile. "Could it be Imelda?"

He snorts and laughs, shaking his head. "Imelda could only hope to speak so nicely to someone."

You laugh and nudge him. "Don't be mean." You're silent for a moment, thinking of another person. "Must be Sebastian. He does keep trying to get you to tell him what's in it. Besides, it landing in his food? A lie, must be."

He straightens and looks at you, smile dropping from his face. "You don't really think..."

You tilt your head, looking at him. "What's wrong with that idea?"

You shake your head. Why are you putting ideas in his head? Imagine if he actually likes Sebastian and you ruin your chance. He stands, grabbing his wand.

"I have to go."

You watch him leave and sigh. Sebastian's going to give you an earful for this one.

***

"Are you in love with me?" Ominis practically yells. He'd found Sebastian sitting in the library. Everyone turned to look, a few laughing and whispering to themselves.

Sebastian looks up, bursting out in laughter. "What?"

Ominis holds up all of the letters he's received and tosses them onto the table Sebastian's sitting at. "Are you the one that made these?"

Sebastian looks at the letters and back to Ominis. "You're joking, right? Why would I write you love notes?"

Ominis folds his arms. "I'm serious, Sebastian. Is it you?"

Sebastian grabs the papers, standing and putting them back in Ominis' hands. "No, Ominis. Unfortunately for you, I'm not in love with you."

Ominis frowns, taking the letters and putting them into his pockets. "Not unfortunate. This isn't funny. I want to know who it is."

Suddenly, an owl flies overhead, dropping an envelope onto Sebastian's head. He winces, yelling at the bird and picks the envelope up from where it had fallen on the floor. He holds it out to Ominis, scoffing.

"Another one for you. Not sure I would have an owl drop it on my head if it were mine in the first place."

Ominis sighs and opens it.

My one and only Ominis,

I've heard rumor that you long to know of my identity.

I hope one day for this to come to pass but for now I must keep

myself a secret. For you to discover me without my knowledge that

you feel the same would be my ruin. I hope you enjoyed the poem.

I long to experience such an endless love with you but I fear you

may never requite my love. Just know how I care for you. How

your very being infects my mind. I think of you, day and night,

and wonder if you think of me. I long to hold your hand. To feel

your warmth near me. To feel a gentle kiss. I do my best to push

away my thoughts of what you must taste like but they plague me

even now.

I often imagine conversations we would have. How kindly you would

Speak to me and how soft your voice would be. Would we walk in

the garden together, spring sun on our faces, breeze flowing through

our hair, bees buzzing about? I find it to be a beautiful idea. I do

adore nature, much as I adore you. I long to experience simple things

with you. Studying in the library, walks through the valley, tea in

Hogsmeade. Simply being in your presence is enough to satisfy me

and bring me great happiness.

I feel I have to thank you for your kindness, once again. You make me

feel so important, like no one else does. How I love you, Ominis…

Eternally yours,

Anonymous

Ominis is silent as he finishes the letter, red flushing his cheeks.

“Please tell me this is the dirty one,” Sebastian begs.

Ominis groans and turns his head to him. “It’s never dirty, Sebastian. You should stop hoping for it.”

Sebastian laughs, folding his arms. “Never. There’s got to be one, one day.”

Ominis shakes his head and bids Sebastian goodbye, walking out into Central Hall towards the Slytherin common room. He stops by the door to the courtyard, still holding the letter. He sighs and smiles, running his hand over the papers again.

“Ominis!” you say, walking over.

He tilts his head up, smiling at you. “Hello, (Y/N).”

You smile, putting your hands on your hips. “You’re in a good mood.”

He nods.

“Another letter?”

He nods again. “They do make me happy, to be honest. I really wish I knew who it was, though…”

“I’m sure you’ll find out, one day soon. She has to say something to give it away, right?”

He shrugs. “Maybe…”

“Well…if you’re not busy? I wanted to ask if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade. I’ve been wanting to have tea with you, but you’ve been so busy recently.”

He’s silent for a moment. Tea in Hogsmeade? Odd that you ask that after he received this letter…Just a coincidence…right? He smiles and nods.

“I’d like that.”

***

Merlin, he hopes you’re the one writing the letter. He walks into his dorm room, running his hands over his face. He loves spending time with you and if someone else is writing these letters, he’s in trouble. He walks to his bed just as Sebastian walks in.

“You should tell your secret girlfriend to leave me alone,” he says, laughing and flopping onto his bed, book in hand.

Ominis turns to him, scowling. “What does that mean?”

"Wouldn’t you like you know, loverboy," Sebastian retorts, sitting up quickly, "but look at what I found!"

He gets up and tosses an envelope onto Ominis' bed. Ominis picks it up and turns his head up to him. "In your food again?"

Sebastian shakes his head. "Technically it wasn't in anything of mine. I couldn't find my potions textbook anywhere so I took yours. It was in there."

Ominis sighs and shakes his head, opening the envelope. "I really wish you'd ask before taking my things."

Sebastian laughs. "What kind of friend would I be then?"

Ominis, my forever love,

I hope my previous letter did not scare you away. I feel,

simply, that you should hear how I truly feel about you.

I feel, now, that you may know something about me. I love

music. My father would bring me to the shops in London to

listen to phonographs. How I adored our time together. I

feel that my most favourite song must be Camille Saint-Saens

Symphony No 2 in A Minor. I wonder if you have heard it before.

It brings me such joy and makes me feel free.

I adore the colour yellow. It reminds me of the sun. It

reminds me of whins. My house used to be surrounded by

bushes of whins. Butterflies and bees would swarm and I

loved them greatly. I never much cared for the color blue

but when I look in your eyes I feel a great fondness for it.

My favourite flowers are Bluebells. Ironic, I know, but

I find them to be quite adorable. I love their shape,

how their petals flare, how they hang from the stem.

You don't see them much near Hogwarts, and I miss them

dearly, but I hope to see many more throughout the valley.

I wonder if you care to know these things and if you've

even read this letter. I guess I just want you to feel

closer to me, to enjoy who I am. I do love you so.

One day I hope to hear you say the same to me.

I will write to you no more, to quell my need for you.

I pray you will find me and hold me in your arms.

Eternally yours,

Anonymous.

Ominis sat in silence, fingers holding over the closing of the letter. This is the first time they she had mentioned anything about herself. He stands, quickly folding the letter into his pocket and leaves the room to find you.

When he does he runs up, grabbing your sleeve. You had been potting some dittany in the greenhouse and almost drop your pot when he latches on.

"Ominis!" you shout, catching the pot and setting it down. You laugh and turn to him. "You can't run up on me like that, I almost lost my plant."

He swallows and straightens, letting go. "If I read this," he says, pulling the papers from his pockets, "can you tell me if you know anyone that it could be?"

You nod and lean against the table. "Go ahead."

He read the full letter to you and sets it on the table, waiting for a response. You're silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Ominis, I truly can't think of anyone."

He sighs and kicks the ground. "No one?"

You shake your head. "No, I'm sorry."

You hate lying to him, especially since you're really just pushing yourself away, but you don't have to confidence to admit it to his face. He slowly picks up the letter and frowns. He thanks you and turns, leaving the greenhouse, downhearted.

***

Dearest (Y/N),

I hope this letter finds you well. I am hoping you

will meet me in the library. I would like to speak with

you as soon as possible about an important matter.

I hope to see you.

Wonderfully yours,

O.G.

This is one of the only letters Ominis has sent you. You love getting letters from him so you fold it up, sliding it into your robe pocket and running to the library. When entering the second door, the sound of music hits your ears. It sounds…familiar? While you walk towards the sounds, you realise. It’s Camille Saint-Saens Symphony No 2 in A Minor!

"I love this song!" you sing, rounding the corner to the lounge area.

You see Ominis sitting next to a phonograph in the corner. He perks up and turns to you.

"You...you do...?" He turns back to the phonograph. "This usually sits in here, untouched, but I convinced Madam Scribner to let me play one piece."

You sigh happily and sit down next to him. "My father used to take me to London to hear this played in shops. He always requested it."

He's silent and stares in your direction. "Your father..."

You nod, smiling. "I miss him dearly."

"You wrote the letters."

The smile drops from your face and you look at him. "What?"

He stands and pulls the letters from his pocket. "You wrote these. It's you. You've been saying you don't know but you've been hiding the fact that it's been you the whole time."

You feel your hands beginning to sweat and you swallow hard. “Yes…” you whisper.

He walks over and holds his hand out to you. You slowly take it, and he kneels in front of you. He widens his eyes. “Thank Merlin!”

You tilt your head and chuckle. “What?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “I was so worried it was someone else. I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t you.”

“Wait…you wanted it to be me?”

He nods. “Every time I read the letters I thought of you saying those words to me. They mean so much coming from you.” He sighs and rests his arm over your legs, squeezing your hand. “I’ve loved you for a long time…” he says, softly. “Is it okay for me to say that?”

You scoff. “Okay?” You put your hand on his forehead, prompting him to tilt his face to you. You lean down and kiss him, smiling against his lips. You pull away a few seconds later and sigh happily. “I’ve been waiting for you to say it.”

He pulls you in for another kiss and you both sit silently together for a few more minutes, listening to the rest of the song.

"You know, Bluebells are my favourite as well," he hums.

Tag List!

Let me know if you want to be added or removed! Also please let me know if you want a specific fic or all :)

@somethingiswrongwithme @blueberrydinosaur @kuukimeioo @sometimesidreamthaticanlevatate @thenerdysimp @sarahskywalker-amadala @amatchasky @sugaringheart @nekee-lilac02 @gh0stgirl333 @m0xyl @lonadane @roouh @amelliss @fanboyluvr @scarlet--raven @belladonna6-6-6 @wwdits-luver @elvenbloodmoon @brain-has-left @zyuyea @raveduck @nox-ceur @aurora-starwars @lezstrange @woolypeaches

#hogwarts legacy imagine #hogwarts #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt x you #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis imagine #ominis x reader #ominis gaunt #hogwarts legacy ominis #ominis gaunt fluff #ominis gaunt imagine #sebastian sallow

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fictionadventurer · 7 months ago

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I’ve loved following along with your NaPoWriMo poems! Any advice or tips for someone who’s thinking about trying out writing her own poetry?

I am so glad you've asked this question, because one of my main emotions during National Poetry Writing Month was anger at all the people who made poetry seem like this agonizing endeavor that only the most intelligent and soulful should undertake. As I got going, I found that it was fun. It was easy (or at least a fun challenge). It stretched my brain in new ways, and let me express things in a new creative format. I think everyone should get the chance to experience that, and I want to encourage everyone to try.

So here's my:

Guide to Writing Poetry For Absolute Beginners

Read a poetry anthology: One that collects works from multiple different poets across lots of different time periods. Ideally, one meant to introduce children to poetry, because children are going to want poems that are enjoyable, understandable and fairly straightforward--which is much easier for a beginner to imitate. Reading A Child's Anthology of Poetry was what first made me think poetry was something I not only wanted to do, but I could do. Reading a lot of different poets made me learn which styles I liked and didn't like, and gave me examples to keep in mind when I decided to write my own poetry--for example, I kept Sara Teasdale's poetry and this A.E. Housman poem in mind a lot during the month, because I found I liked short, rhyming poems that talked about nature with fairly straightforward language.

Don't be afraid: Poetry should not be intimidating. Ignore the books that say it's an agonizing endeavor. Poetry is putting words on a page, and then rearranging them to say what you want to say in a cooler way. That's it. Don't make it more complicated than it has to be. You don't need to scrape out the innermost depths of your soul--you can just tell people about something you saw, maybe share a thought about it. It can be simple. It can be fun. It's fine.

Do not try to write good poetry: This is the most important rule. Staple it to your forehead. Write it on the wall. As an absolute beginner, a lot of what you write is going to be bad poetry--and that's great! It means you're creating poetry! Which is much better than not creating poetry! Worrying about whether your poetry is "good" or "bad" is the easiest way to destroy your enjoyment and keep you from writing poetry. I cannot tell you how many times during April I looked at my poetry and thought in dismay, "Wow, this is really bad compared to other poetry," and then remembered, "Good thing I'm not trying to write good poetry!" and happily continued writing. If you just keep writing, whether it's good or bad, you're going to wind up with a lot more poetry--and have a lot more fun doing it--than you would if you'd let yourself worry about quality, and writing more poetry is a great way to get better at writing poetry.

Use prompts: I found that the prompts for National Poetry Writing Month were a great source of inspiration, giving me guidance when the idea of poetry was so new and intimidating that I didn't know where to begin. Not every prompt is going to inspire you, but the ones that do can be a great way to stretch your imagination. Having a community was also great--seeing other people respond to the same prompts made the idea of filling those prompts less intimidating--but I recognize that's not easy to arrange outside of National Poetry Writing Month.

Short is good: Short poems take less time to write. They make you focus on one or two things you really want to say or images you really want to use. They're easy to structure--set-up an image or an idea, resolve with a thought about it, and then you're done. You can write longer poems if you have an idea that requires it, but keeping your poems short is a great way to get a sense of accomplishment very quickly.

Play with rhyme and meter: Because it's fun and I like it. Because it makes you think about the sound of the words you use and encourages you to think about word choice and word arrangement. Because it can make a poem feel more structured and complete. Because the rhyme or meter you choose can help you figure out how to structure your idea. You don't have to use it for every poem, but I find that using it can make it easier to turn an idea into a poem, because it forces you to pare down your ideas to fit the structure.

Use poetic forms: For many of the same reasons I encourage you to try rhyme and meter. A poetic form can help give your ideas structure. It turns poetry into a fun crossword-style game. There are a lot of short, familiar poetry forms to start out with--I began with a limerick and a haiku--but there are tons of possibilities. When I needed inspiration for a poem, I often looked through this list--when I found a form that looked intriguing and doable, I'd try it out. Often, a certain form will suggest certain topics that would work well in that format, so this method can help with brainstorming, too.

Don't be afraid to branch out: It's fun to use rhyme and meter, keep things short, and use established poetry forms, but if you come up with ideas that don't do any of that, go for it! Especially after you've written a few poems--you've learned what you like and don't like, what works and doesn't work for you, so you can use your knowledge to branch out and try something new.

Observe your surroundings: It's a great way to get images and thoughts to inspire new poems, especially once you have a few under your belt and learn what kind of ideas lend themselves well to poetry.

Have a deadline: I found that having a poem-a-day goal helped me to write much more than I would have otherwise. I couldn't tinker with a poem forever--I had to post it by the end of the day and then move on. One day, I'll have to learn how to revise poetry, but that's a goal for when I'm not an Absolute Beginner. For now, finishing poems is the more useful goal.

Remember, all of this is advice from an Absolute Beginner who has been writing poetry for barely over a month. There's a lot I don't know, and I'm just sharing what worked for me. But as an Absolute Beginner, I feel I'm qualified to tell other Absolute Beginners that the endeavor of beginning to write poetry is absolutely worth it.

#answered asks #poetry #napowrimo 2024 #fictionadventurer poetry #also: i'm so glad you enjoyed following along with my poetry #it was so fun to share it with all of you #and the accountability is probably the reason this is one of the only month-long writing challenges i've ever won

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glorified-red · 2 years ago

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can you give some more examples how to to show instead of tell when writing?

Of course!! If you'd like more let me know, i have thousands. This was just the first example I thought of:

"You should be stronger.

The agonizing tremors that allowed fear to course through your veins after the initial smash.

You should be stronger.

The fleeting breaths that left you gagging after the child clattered to the ground.

You should be stronger.

The sense of humanity that clinged to your bones and tore open all your vulnerabilities as you loomed over the scattered remains of broken porcelain.

But strength was fleeting. It was a dying flame that continued to be hunted by those who weren't as pitiful as you were. Once you finally had a chance to gaze at its remains, it was snuffed out, leaving you with nothing."

"You should be worried.

The satisfaction that pooled into your veins after the initial smash.

You should be worried.

The triumph that weaved its way into your muscles after porcelain clattered to the ground.

You should be worried.

The sense of strength that straightened your spine and relaxed your shoulders back as you loomed over the scattered remains of broken porcelain.

But worry never fully settled into you. It banged against the distorted glass of this world, just outside your skin, but never got the chance to settle in. It was a far away siren, a warning with dulled flashing lights that begged you to stop, to listen."

These are two sections from two seperate chapters from Nightmare that are direct parallels to each other. In the first section, the reader is forced to murder dolls against their will, they dont want to but they have to in order to survive. You can tell that reader is fighting between their morality and their instincts to survive yet I never explicitly say that. Instead, I focused on how that would manifest in the body (tremors, gagging, etc).

In the second section, readers morality is completely gone. They murdered these dolls and theyre happy about it. Yet I never explicitly said that reader's morality disppeared. Instead, I focused on what the morality was supposed to do: keep reader empathetic to the dolls. Since that empathy is gone, I thought about how it would appear in the body (sense of satisfaction, triumph in the muscles because reader got stronger, etc).

But what actually got the message across was the structure of these two segments, theyre identitcal to each other and I did that on purpose. Structure can benefit you so much more in your writing than you realize, you're not just writing paragraphs, you can format those paragraphs to tell the story better. Look at poem structures, they utilize this sooooo much.

But what else?

Personification.

I used personification to write about strength, humanity, and worry as if they had human attributes, as if they could interact with the reader. Personifying emotions is the easiest way to show how those emotions are affecting the reader in a visual way instead of just saying those emotions are affecting the reader.

Humanity cant cling to you, but in here, I said it was because reader is clinging to their humanity right now, their morality, because thats the last thing they have left thats seperating them from the monsters theyre facing.

Strength can't fix your posture, but in here, I used it because it elicits a visual of how the reader looks with their newfound strength, the reader is confident now. Did I mention confidence? Nope. But posture often represents confidence. That subtext is so important.

Worry cant bang on glass, just as theres no glass around your skin, but in here, the glass represents a barrier between the reader and their old self, especially their lost humanity. Worry cant bang, yet it showcases that Worry is begging the reader to stop because if they don't, they turn into the monster they were so afraid of becoming.

But even now I'm personifying worry to get my point across.

But in actuality, worry itself represents the internal turmoil the reader is facing. Half of their mind wants to stop and protect their humanity but the other half hates these monsters and needs to survive. This is the entire point of these two scenes.

Yet inner turmoil was never talked about at all.

But it was heavily implied.

That, is how you show things.

Personifiying the senses and emotions is one of my FAVORITE ways to show not tell because you can be so incredibly creative with it.

Structure too.

In fanfiction especially (less-so novels or professional writing) you're given so much leeway when it comes to formatting your writing. Use it to your advantage!!

#if you still want more examples lmk #i have thousands #this is just the first one i thought of #asks #writing advice #show dont tell #writing help #writing tips

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wrongpublishing · 2 years ago

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BOOK REVIEW: KATHLEEN PALM'S INTO THE GRAY

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Into the Gray by Kathleen Palm Spooky House Press Release date: Feb. 14 Buy it: https://a.co/d/6sLfaGg

This is Murf. Murf lived in my children’s bedroom and he was lost. It was very sad. Murf was very sad. But Murf was found. Murf lives in my bedroom now because what idiotic children ignore a sad-eyed sloth?!!!

Murf is here to demand that you read Kathleen Palm’s Into the Gray.

Yes, my own personal stuffie is appearing in a book review, and that probably seems weird AF. Not for this book. Into the Gray tells a story of the lost: lost stuffies, lost bracelets, but most of all, lost people. Twelve-year-old Ember and her sister Ash have moved to a new town with their two parents—Mom’s holding it together, but Mama’s falling apart. Ash has lost Pink Kitty, her connection to her birthmom. Ember, on the other hand, never knew her birthmom. But she believes, in that magical way that only children can, if she can find Pink Kitty, everything will be okay again.

When horror-loving Ember tumbles into a gray Nowhere of lost things overseen by creepy-ass Caretaker, she’s sure Pink Kitty is there somewhere. But Nowhere gives her a job to do. And she’s got to do it, or else . . .

Admission: I love novels in kid-voices, and they’re nearly impossible to do right. I might be a sucker for them, but I’m always eyeing new ones slightly askance: I have three kids (swear to God this, like Murf, is relevant) who just turned nine, eleven, and thirteen, and my older two would rather die than say “diddly-darn.” But I choke up when I think of my skinny middle son as Ember: the thought patterns, the connections, the wants and dreams—Palm absolutely nails that innocent, sad tweenager trying so hard to hold it together.

You will want to sweep up these children and hug them forever.

Testament to how good this novel is: I read it in PDF without proper formatting and the damn thing looked like a narrative poem. It sort of read like one, and that’s a good thing. Palm’s prose is dreamy in an authentically kid-way, which is nigh on impossible.

Plotwise: it moves fast, and moves well; the puzzle pieces fit in the end, and in an unexpected way that leaves you satisfied with the journey you’ve taken. And that Nowhere? Well, it’s more than nowhere . . . and you understand why. And it’s brilliant.

Murf agrees. He was lost once, and he says that loss is about more than being gone. It’s about . . . *if a stuffie could burst into tears he would, and I just did*.

Into the Gray is one more example of indie horror presses at their best. God, I love indie horror. Presses like Spooky House are doing the Lord/Satan/choice your deity/I’ll pick Black Tezcatlipoca’s work. They’re plucking stories the big five would never touch—the prose is too pretty, the story’s too inventive, the characters are too queer, etc. What the big five don’t get, and never will: this is what we should be reading. This is what we want to read. Believe me: you want Ember drifting through gray Nowhere in search of Pink Kitty. Palm’s offering something amazing and different, dreamy and profound. Pick it up.

Instagram: @/kathleen.Palm Twitter: @/kathleenpalm Instagram: @/spookyhousepress Twitter: @/SpookyHousePres

Instagram: @/EABroadbent Twitter: @eabroadbent

#review #gothic fiction #fiction #gothic literature #horror literature #horror novels #book review #MG horror #MG fiction #horror fiction #middle grade horror #middle grade fiction #ya horror

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my-own-oracle · 4 years ago

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Could I get a fluffy Drift romantic Valentine thingy?

Of course! Every bot deserves some love. You didn't specify any specific version of Drift, so I'm going with the MTMTE version. If you wanted RID15 or something else, just let me know. Sorry, this kinda got long; I've been without power for the majority of 3 days, this was one of the few things I could to do.

You still kept track of the days that passed on Earth. At first, it was for your own amusement. Wanting to keep track of the time on Earth, but as some holidays came and went, you kept track to keep the connection to your home alive. You kept track of the calendar changes, making a special note when you entered the month of February

You planned, quietly and carefully, gathering spare datapads and using your little stash of credits to purchase a small gift for a particular bot. It was hard keeping the whole thing a secret, considering most of the things you had to hide away were significantly larger than you, but by the power of pure determination, you managed.

You spent hours locked away in your hab-unit, carefully typing out cheesy Valentine's poems for your friends. Most following the 'roses are red, and violets are blue' format. And when they were done, you beamed.

You spent the day dragging different data pads around to other bots. Tailgate had even decided to help you for a while, flying you around on his hoverboard, laughing and talking with you as you made your way through the large ship. Even with his help, the event took up most of the day. Slowly everything was handed out. All but one Valentine remained.

You bid a farewell to Tailgate as he dropped you off at your hab-unit. You had to do this delivery alone.

This was the Valentine that mattered the most.

**** Drift had spent most of the day with Rodimus, talking about everything from different tactical plans to the many ways the Co-captain could encourage and rally his mechs with a more powerful aura. Or at least Rodimus pretended to listen to that last part. Either way, Drift had spent several hours with his friend. During that time, the spectralist had spied an unusual sight, a datapad in Rodimus' personal quarters. "Did someone slip that in here when you weren't looking?" Rodimus laughed good-naturedly before shaking his helm.

"No, the Space Cadet dropped it off. She's celebrating an earth holiday today and is passing out some gifts to bots she thinks will appreciate them. Rodimus passed the datapad over to Drift, letting him read the short poem written on it.

"Roses are red, And you are too. I am so thankful, To be friends with you."

Drift found himself smiling as he reads the blurb of text below it, where you explained Valentine's day and its significance to humans in your own culture.

"So this day is used to express love and gratitude to those around you?" Drift clarified, smiling a little wider as Rodimus nodded.

"She told me humans also use this day as an excuse to express more romantic kinds of love too."

A feeling of jealousy settled in his tanks.

"(Y/N)- she is truly a wonderful person. Did she pass out many of these?"

"She had a large stack. You'll probably have one waiting for you in your room," A servo pushed into drifts shoulder plating.

"I doubt that we-" he calms his spark before speaking again. "We may be friends, but we hardly spend time alone together. I think she's frightened of me."

"Uhhh I-"

"She must have learned about some of the things in my past. She can hardly look at me in the optics when we're together, and if we are alone, she can't speak. I fear that I may be terrifying to be around.."

"Okay…. Have you ever thought that maybe your being," Rodumis rolled his optics, "I don't know, a little overdramatic?"

Drift pondered the thought. But no matter how he looked at it, the hesitant gaze, the fidgeting when together, the quietness she only had around him, all signs pointed to her fearing him.

"Drift, please, don't make me be the responsible one. It goes against my entire being."

Silence lapsed again.

"I am not spelling this out for you," Rodimus stood, pulling Drift to his peds and shoving him out the door. "Come back when you're done being a sparkling. Go talk to her," the door shut, leaving Drift to walk back to his hab-unit.

****

You could feel your heart racing under your ribs. Thundering with each step you took, leading you to pause every few meters. 'This is so stupid. I can't do this.' you told yourself for the hundredth time.

"You alright there, Space Cadet?" you snapped your head behind you, spying Rodimus standing maybe a few feet away. When had he snuck up on you?

"I'm fine, just lost in my head." you face back towards Drifts unit, your confidence waning with each passing second.

"Is that another one of those valentines?" Rodimus squatted down to you your level, a servo reaching out to the special datapad you had placed on the hall floor.

"No," you dashed in front of his hand. "Nothing of interest, really. It's just like the one I gave to you and everybody else."

"And I suppose the box next to it is nothing too," you took a large step to the right, standing between the white and red wrapped box you had next to the Data-pad, before sharing a small, shy smile with the co-captain.

"It's- it's nothing." your voice was softer than you wanted it to be. The smug look on Rodimus' face told you he didn't buy it. "I wanted to give a gift to someone, and if I was on Earth, I would give a special someone candy. I found out Cybertronians can eat energon candies, and I bought a crystal of it as a gift. But it's stupid. He probably won't like it anyways."

You sunk your head closer to your shoulders. "Just giving him a poem and a piece of candy isn't going to make someone like him notice me." Your fingers worked at the hem of your shirt, rolling the worn material as a means to work out the lump you felt forming in your throat.

Rodimus held his servo out to you, a silent invitation to 'climb up' as he so often said. You took it, settling down into his palm. You watched as he carefully gathered your measly gift into his other servo and began walking in the direction you needed to go.

"So, you like this mech, and you're worried he doesn't like you." You nod. "Who is it?"

"I'd rather not say."

"It's not Ultra Magnus, is it?" You snap a playful glare at your friend. "I just needed to know, I'd still support you, but I won't be thrilled."

"No, it's not Magnus." you heard his vent of relief. Thundering footsteps filled the hall as Rodimus carried you farther a small way.

"so…"

"It- I, Drift," you whispered. "It's for Drift." You were thankful Rodimus didn't outright laugh. He did his best to stay composed. You could feel it in the way his digits curled for a moment, him gasping for air as he tried to talk.

"You think, he- you dont realize-" giggles filled the space between each attempted sentence.

"Yes, I like Drift. Go on, get it out. The little silly human is in love with a bot who probably couldn't care less, who's so far out of her league it's embarrassing." The lump in your throat returned, this time accompanied by a burning feeling behind your eyes. You took a few calming breaths, refusing to cry in such a frustrating situation.

"Oh stars, you're hopeless." Rodimus was smiling, oblivious to your emotional turmoil or not caring about it. "Trust me," he lifted you level with his politics, "He'll be thrilled."

***** Drift sat in his hab-unit, wondering how he could use this Valentine's day thing to his advantage. Find a way to earn some positive affection, and talk to you.

He was coming up blank; you were beloved. There was no way you would give up your time to talk to a bot who terrified you. If only he knew a way to quell your fear and maybe show that he wasn't such a bad bot. Drift heard his door open but didn't turn from his desk. His EM field told him it was Rodimus.

"Yo." Rodimus walks over to Drift, and before he can turn, his friend grips the closest servo to him. Drift feels you more than sees you, as you're practically tossed into his servo. His optics widen monetarily, and he throws his other servo around you, desperately trying to keep you from falling.

You have his full attention, so much so that the sound of Rodimus putting your gift down on Drift's desk before walking out hardly registers in his audials. Rodimus' smug "You'll thank me later" rings aloud and as the door slides shut behind him.

Drift cautiously checks you over for injuries. Slowly you roll over, sitting up and trying to look up into Drift's optics.

Your eyes can barely go past his chassis.

"Are you alright?" Drift questions. His optics take over you again, first your body, then your aura.

"Hi Drift, I'm alright" you raise your hand in a little wave, you sound a little frightened, and he watches as your body tenses. "I'm sorry for-uh- barging in like this. But I wanted to bring you a valentines gift." you waved your hand to the small offering on the desk beside him. "It's been delivered, so I'll stop bothering you now, I'm so sorry to have-"

"You are not bothering me," he smiles down at you. You're nervous; that much is plain to see. He turns his attention to your gift. While the box interests him, he takes the datapad first.

"Roses are red, And you are kind. I hold you in my heart, always on my mind."

He watches from the corner of his optics as you become red, the color complimenting the flustered pink in your aura.

"The poem is beautiful," he smiles, but you don't look at him in the optic. He puts down the pad and reaches for the box. The lid removes easily, and he is touched by the piece of energon candy you had inside.

"Thank you for my gifts, though I will say I'm surprised you gave me one," your eyes snapped to his optics wide and hurt.

"Why, you're my friend." Your question was soft, so quiet should he had been organic, he wouldn't have heard it.

"You're frightened of me, so I didnt think you would take the time to make me a gift."

"I'm not frightened of you," your hand reached our reassuringly to one of the digits around you, "What gave you that impression?"

Drift listed the clues he had gathered over the few months you'd been aboard, noting that with each one, a look of guilt took form over your face.

"Drift- I-I am not afraid of you," you stood abruptly, hopping from his hand to his desk "do you know what valentine's day is all about on earth?"

"It's about showing your affection to those in your life," your smile made his spark hum. It was soft, there was fear, but he focused in closer and saw in your aura; it wasn't a fear of him.

"Correct, but only half correct. It's also about telling people who don't know you lo-" you took a breath. "Some humans use this day to confess their love for another person." He could see the struggle you had to keep your eyes at his optics. "Those things I did, the ones that made you think I was scared of you, I did them because I was nervous. I really like you Drift, I would go as far as to say love, but I'm frightened at what you'll do, what you'll think."

He brought his servo to you again, two digits brushing your cheek and your hair. "If I were human, and it was Valentine's day, what should I do to quell your fears? How am I supposed to respond if I feel the same way about you?"

You leaned into his digits, your body relaxing from a tension he hadn't realized you had been holding in.

"You just did."

#valentines requests #drift x reader #mtmte drift #Transformers #transformers x reader

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qwertyfingers · 4 years ago

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WOO CONGRATS ON THE TEET YEET!!! also also, your poetry is beautiful. can i ask how you got started?

thank u!!! apologies for how long this answer got i’m waffling

so i feel like the start of my answer is kind of unhelpful because i really just. started writing? no one encouraged me or helped me or anything i really just ran with it on my own. a lot of how i write is really just how i think - the metaphors and similes and weird comparisons come very naturally to me. i have no idea if this is how other writers feel?? but i can’t give any advice on how to develop that beyond just. writing a lot.

i’ve find poetry to be really good emotional outlet, so a lot of what i write about is very repetitive in terms of themes - a lot of mentions of my dad and my stepdad, compulsions, teeth and while i don’t think any of what i wrote back then was very good or worth sharing it did give me a lot of practice in kind of. building a writing headspace?

i can’t really point to any specific inspirations early on because i really didn’t read very much. most of my favourite poems when i was younger were very structured and used a lot of rhyme - i really enjoyed war poetry when we studied it in high school for example - but i’ve always written pretty loosely, a lot of enjambment and playing around with formatting. i felt very drawn to mary oliver and richard siken when i discovered them in my mid-late teens (although i defintiely think that i understand them better rereading them now as an adult).

i’ve written many different styles of poem, but i really only have two style of writing behaviour: either i write total stream-of-consciousness and don’t edit it until i’ve totally run out of things to say - pompeii, reimagined from this collection was written this way, as was FOIL - or i write very conscious of the formatting from the start - some examples of this are unholied, ajovy and my father thinks i should learn how to code. sometimes there’s a crossover like in inelegant fingers but typically its one or the other.

the city i live in now has a pretty big ~poetry scene~ with several regular live readings, even more random events throughout the year, and people regularly coming from out of town to read here. i hiiiiighly recommend going to readings if you live somewhere that you can get to them because it can expose you to a really wide range of writers, from first-timers to people with long publishing histories. being involved in that scene really taught me that there’s really no hierarchy of talent, that there are fantastic writers at every ~skill level~. and more than anything, that it’s possible to hate a poem or poet and still get a lot out of their work. i’ve made a lot of friends through going to and helping to host events too :)

some recommendations for writing that i personally find useful:

spend a lot of time thinking about writing! when i’m out walking, even when i’m getting groceries, i’m spinning thoughts around my head about writing. i frequently think up what i think of as the ‘headline’ of a poem when i’m busy doing something else. write that shit down! keep a notebook or note on your phone and write them down.

relatedly: absolutely cannibalise your old poems. if you’ve got a piece you don’t like any more, or that you could never finish but you’re attached to it, steal your favourite lines and work them into soemthing else, or challenge yourself to rewrite that poem in a new style or format

i keep a word doc full of lines and phrases i liked that i couldn’t fit into anything or that weren’t developed enough that i go back to and take things from. sometimes it’s just a handful of words - ‘ transposing neuroses onto neurons’ sat in that doc for months before i used it - and sometimes its entire lines or even stanzas. i also paste in here things i deleted from existing pieces during editing - sometimes you like something but just not in its current setting yknow

give yourself writing challenges! there are allllll kinds of things you can challenge yourself to do. find a photograph you like, and try to write the feeling it gives you, or write about the content of it, or from the perspective of the person taking the picture. pick an album or song and listen to it on repeat and write. go to different places and see if your writing feels different there. write a poem first thing in the morning or on your lunch break or write before you go to bed. write when you feel really happy, or scared, or angry or tired. write about someone you love, or someone you really hate. write using found-language - blackout poetry is one version, but you can also cut words out and collage them. a friend of mine wrote an amazing poem using ads on gumtree. i like to hit random page on wikipedia and challenge myself to write using the words on that page or about the content of it. i dont find timed challenges helpful but some people do. experiment! ask your friends for prompts! if you’ve friends who also write poetry, give eachother challenges and give eachother feedback

also, if you’ve got friends who write, absolutely ask for their input on a piee if you get stuck. my friend tasha frequently helps me with my grammar and punctuation to improve clarity and many more people have helped me with ideas, promts, challenges and encouragement :)

my personal favourite: write about fiction! a lot of my favourite of my own poems were about this. ;kodos in error - which desperately needs reworking but that i’m nevertheless very proud of - was written about the tarsus iv storyline in the original star trek. the only overt reference to it’s origin is the name kodos in the title - and it’s very much about myself too - but ultimately the entire time i wrote it i was thinking about that plot. i’ve also written about fortnite and the expanse

play around with what you want from a poem. sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s all about the sound and the feel of it in your mouth, sometimes it’s about imagery and giving the reader a clear picture of something. Sometimes you want to do something fun with the formatting, or make it short and snappy or long and lilting. Try not to get stuck in one type of poem.

personally unless i’m writing for a specific thing - like a reading of to submit to a specific journal - i never think about a reader until i’ve finished at least the first draft. i’m not a professional; i share the things i like but ultimately i write for myself only. i don’t need to have an audience in mind for anything i write, and i think that helps me. not everyone finds this easier, but i do.

read poetry! read absolutely anything you can get your hands on - even when you don’t like something you can learn from it. poetry foundations

talk about poetry! i didn’t go to school for creative writing and most of what i learned in HS went totally over my head, but i find talking about poetry i like with friends to be infinitely valuable. discussion will help you find things you didn’t see before, and understand why the things you do like resonate so much, how you can maybe replicate those in your own writing etc.

if you’ve never written before, it is literally never too late to start. just get going! don’t let your inner critic get in the way, just write and write and try not to worry too much about whether its ~good~ until you get more used to writing. there are a thousnad different ways for a poem to be Good. if you write for emotional release and it works then its good. if you write to get other people to understand how you feel and that comes through, its good. if you just want to make it sound a certain way then its good.

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rpbetter · 4 years ago

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Hey, can I get some advice on improving my descriptions / becoming more literate? I feel like I'm really dull when it comes to my writing and would like some advice! Thank you!

You absolutely can, thank you for asking! I apologize it took me a bit to get to this, tumblr didn’t show me notifications and I’ve been rather busy. Hopefully, I can offer some good advice!

Please, keep in mind that, as always, it is just my advice. If these things do not work out for you, don’t feel bad about it! You just need to find what does work for you. And, if you have anything that jumps out at you that you wish me to elaborate more on, or even that simply occurs to you more specifically to ask as you read, please, do ask! I am always happy to have those questions, of course.

Being more literate in itself can help. It can also be a hindrance, however, as we tend to compare ourselves to others negatively. I’d say not to do that, but it’s something you have to unlearn, not something you can simply stop doing. We’re taught a lot of self-criticism by comparison in both the educational system and our society. You’ve got learn to approach material you enjoy as just that, something you enjoy, not a standard you need to uphold. All writers should be unique, they’re all individual people! I think the death of a good many unwritten works hinges on that, honestly; the writer couldn’t live up to their own expectations, born of comparison to their literary heroes.

That being said? Read.

Read new and diverse things, and revisit old favorites. Learn as many words as you can in whatever way works best for you; through reading alone, through word of the day apps, or looking up novel words you run across/looking up words as you write to compare them to synonyms. I know, tumblr has gotten really nasty in recent years about writers who seem to have “regurgitated a thesaurus.” There is always a bad way to do something good, there are always excesses when you’re passionate about something. Don’t replace every third word with an exotic one simply because you think it looks better. Do replace words that are, legitimately, better in how they evoke the setting or mood you are going for. Remember that word flow is important, perhaps especially when it comes to descriptions.

If you do not tend to read much material that is description heavy, I’d suggest doing so. Try to find works that are still descriptive, but fit with the genres you like to both read and write the best to get you started, but don’t stay there exclusively. It doesn’t need to be something like...let’s say, Tolkien. Not to piss anyone off, I’m not anti-Tolkien or anything, but I could never get into his works, regardless of interest or effort, because they’re so description heavy, and in ways that don’t pique or hold my interest much. So, if you find that you are not into description laden works, that isn’t a poor reflection on you! It’s more likely that you simply aren’t into those specific works, you need to find something that is more of interest to you, personally.

If you do tend to read many works that are descriptive at all, take up a few of your favorites and pick some passages within them that you enjoyed the most. Ones that you could feel. When they described an outfit, you not only saw it, you saw the way it moved on the character, knew what it would feel like to touch it. When they described a setting in nature, you had a sensory experience there as well; you could smell the hyper-specific scent of wildflowers on a warm breeze, or the electric chill of a sudden summer storm moving in.

Ask yourself what does this for you so that you can experiment with doing it yourself. Is it the words, the word flow? Is it what the author isn’t saying, leaving the reader to automatically fill in with their own sensory recollections? There are so many ways of being descriptive in writing, as many as there are writers, and as many as there are things to be descriptive about.

So, it’s, again, a bit of a situation of finding what naturally pulls you into those descriptions yourself. While there are always good rules that can apply across the board with writing, it is a creative art. If you’re only following the rules others have set down, you can end up feeling negative about the process, yourself, and the product...or your readers/RP partners feel like the work is lacking or boring. Even when people can’t quite put their finger on something, forced work feels forced, unnatural, or lacking substance.

Diversify what you consume.

I know, I just said that thing about the familiar stories! Once you’re better able to identify what it is that stands out as evocative to you, though, you can better feel that in unfamiliar works. You can get a better idea of how language itself works as a living thing. Read some things out of your usual genres, ask for recommendations from friends or family who read, check out some older works, and even follow some blogs that post a variety of poetry quotes or full poems.

Reading song lyrics and a variety of other spoken-word style things like slam poetry and rap is helpful as well. They’re all doing the same here, evoking imagery and emotion. That is what you are trying to do as well! These formats, additionally, use highly evocative words to describe in a shortened way. They are great for realizing unique ways that familiar words can be paired.

By going outside of your usual bounds, you may encounter words, writing styles, and other descriptive qualities you hadn’t considered before. If you don’t, you still end up with a fuller grasp on writing itself. Everything is a potential learning experience if you are willing to approach it that way! Use it to play around with words and styles, Use this as experimentation, and realize that it is perfectly alright for it not to work out. That’s part of the exercise of finding what works for you; realizing what doesn’t work.

When you have some ideas of what makes you experience the things being described, practice. Pick anything. In fact, incredibly mundane, irrelevant things are perfect for this. If you can describe a sock in good detail, in a way that isn’t either inaccurate or boring, giving it relevance and life, you can describe anything.

Use ask memes and writing prompts, and write them out from your character’s perspective.

Even if you are not writing a first person account, it helps you to use narrative language that the muse might use, or that gives the reader a intuitive feeling for the muse. Don’t try to fill the whole thing up with descriptions. Sometimes, just simplifying is a good thing, and will help more relevant details stand out.

For example, I will often use things in the environment around my muse to help pair with, further denote, and give the reader a feeling for the muse’s emotions, psychological state, and so on. If that muse is in a hectic state, I’m not going to describe something in the environment that isn’t, like a peaceful meadow. I’m going to describe the seeming chaos of some ants in the grass taking apart their food, the erratic seeds or spores on the wind, or the clatter of an old farm truck on the roadway that breaks up the peace of the surroundings.

It’s a very different effect than describing the entire meadow in high detail, in ways that are perceptible to my muse and not, down to a blade of grass or a rock. It then takes over too much of my reader’s imaginative process and agency without giving them anything of nonnegotiable importance about the scene or the muse. Details that reflect a state of internal distress, like the ants, seeds, or truck, then fall by the wayside of this massive scene-setting I’ve done. And, as unfortunate as it is, if you are writing RP especially, your audience is looking for details that are pertinent and impactful. They’re likely to, intentionally or otherwise, skip several paragraphs of descriptions no matter how beautiful they are.

Since you just said “descriptions” and “writing” {nothing wrong with that, I just want to be sure I’m covering as much as possible that might be of help to you}, I’m not sure if you are meaning external descriptions or more internalized, character-driven ones, and not sure if you are writing only RP, only traditional writing, or a combination thereof.

As I said above, using descriptions that reflect things about the muse is useful and interesting, regardless of how or what you are writing. So, even if you were not meaning internalized descriptions, doing the things I’m about to talk about relating to this will still be helpful!

Internalized descriptions include things like: mood, thoughts, memories, and sensory perception.

To do these things any justice, you have to really know your muse, be able to experience things from their unique perspective and not just your own - or just what you wish the reader to experience through them.

If you didn’t have inspiration for the muse, you wouldn’t be writing them, but inspiration isn’t the same as knowing them as well, maybe better, than yourself. To do that, it is a process of learning and experimentation...and practice.

Those memes I mentioned above? Those are useful here, too! It doesn’t matter if it isn’t an ask meme you want to reblog, or if no one sent you anything from it; you can find a variety of memes, save them, and ask yourself the questions.

On sentence memes, or “starter memes,” ask yourself what your muse’s internal reaction to having that sentence said to them would be, how it might externalize (or not), and if these things are true, or just your perception/what you would like to have happen. If you’ve developed this muse from scratch or spent time learning them from canon, you should have some pretty good ideas as to how they’ll feel. Expand on that instinctive or learned idea. Does it change if a different muse or character type says this? Say it is an inflammatory sentence, something accusatory, derogatory, or pushy. Do they react the same way if a loved one says it instead of a stranger? How about a person who is obviously intoxicated, or a person who is under the influence of youth, so to speak? Take that, and write out two different scenarios.

On ask, or “headcanon/development memes,” pick a question and answer it yourself. Just answer it in depth. Now, have your muse answer that question. You may notice that the muse didn’t want to answer as clearly, is lying or omitting things, and/or had other thoughts generated by that question. If you didn’t already do it this way, answer the question again as a story in which your muse goes through those thoughts. Describe their emotions using words that carry the same emotional resonance, not all descriptions need to be lengthy if the right words, right word order, are found for optimum impact on the reader. Write out the thoughts they are having, just as messy as they are naturally having them.

Outside of memes, you have yet more options for helpful exercises that get you in touch with your muse and your writing.

Try out photography and inspiration blogs. Pick a some pictures that drew your attention, and write about them descriptively. Write out how the picture makes you feel, what it makes you think about. Practice not just describing how something looks, but how it would feel to be there. Using the same pictures, write as your muse in the same way. Put them in this scene to give their experiences. It helps you get a grasp on putting impressions and experiences down in creative ways that allow others to experience it the same way, and it helps you more easily step into your muse’s mind and experiences.

Seeing things through your muse’s eyes (through the lens of their life experiences, preferences, biases, emotions, and thoughts) is critical in giving authentic descriptions. To do more of this, you can practice in every day life. Even if you cannot write it out, or write it out yet, you can consciously think as your muse. If your muse was watching this TV show or hearing this song, what would they think? Don’t just answer as, “they would/n’t like it.” Answer as to why they would or would not, what it makes them feel and think. You can continue doing this with your muse’s impressions of different environments and people.

You can even simply contemplate an emotion and how your muse feels and expresses it.

Adding on underlying and overarching emotions to the mix as you go along; emotion, and thought, is complex. We very rarely are only angry, sad, or happy. We are very rarely only thinking of a single thing, and even rarer, thinking of it out of nowhere. It’ll help you identify the way your muse experiences emotion and thought, as well as how best to describe these things.

For example, I write a muse that can easily present as simply being quiet and angry. Additionally, as the character develops, his actions and general behavior can seem to not match well with his overall, genuinely kind nature. It’s necessary for me as a writer to identify where the anger comes from, what its components are; it isn’t just anger. It’s built on the things anger so often is; frustration, sadness, and fear. It gives the reader insight and helps delineate the muse’s expression of “anger.” When the anger is coming more from a place of insulation and protection than it is frustration, it presents differently.

I describe the sensation of the most obvious emotion, the anger, but also the underlying states that have led to it being apparent. How it really feels to be a wounded animal in a corner. I describe an experience or two pertaining to the emotional pain and fear, keep it relevant throughout the text in callbacks (what set him off is related to those experiences in some way, and during or after the experience of anger, those other situations are referenced again). Maybe it is an outright flashback, maybe it is less thematically stated. The descriptions I use, again, of his surroundings-not just his expressions, tone of voice, or movements-denotes that he is in this particular state of mind. He might notice similarities in the environment relating to a previous bad experience, since he is in that mindset, or he might be noticing things in a more critical way than he normally would. Things he might see every day are being processed as hateful in some way; garish or otherwise visually displeasing, might be seen as outright harmful, or even menacing. Bold colors, sharp lines, stand out. Things come into high relief and are painted in large swaths of color, the minute details missing suddenly.

Further, you can think of things that make your own similar state of mind so much worse in these situations. Is there a repetitive sound in the background? Is the person he is speaking with seemingly blowing him off in some way? Is he hungry, tired, thirsty, in physical pain? I then write those things throughout as additional, building irritants.

Using your personal experiences isn’t a bad thing, I really wish tumblr hadn’t gotten into that mindset. Unless you really have written a 100% self-insert character, they shouldn’t experience things exactly as you do, no. However, you have a basis to go off of already when you are describing their inner life; your own.

Maybe you have never been so wracked with grief that you collapsed, but you have been caught up in a significant loss of some sort that you can build upon. If you can better imagine what your muse’s experience is, you can describe it not only better, but also in a way that reads as legitimate. It’s not a description of grief that you could have gotten from anywhere else, doesn’t have cliché lines in it about grief, such as, “though he was drowning in an ocean of loss, he knew he had to be strong for his friends, so, he put on a brave face.” (There are other issues with that, but that’s a whole other post!)

My point is, you have the tools of accurate inner life within you, and you should use them to build that accuracy in your writing. Again, play with the words and structure, make sure you are building the feelings or otherwise being immersive about them. Keep them throughout the thread, do not have a muse magically become the opposite of what you’ve described because it is no longer convenient, and do not forgo little reminders that the muse feels the way they do, no matter what their actions might be saying.

When you describe your muse’s actions that are being influenced by an emotion, good or bad, use words that evoke the emotion while describing those actions.

If the muse is very sad, do not use words that bring to mind vivacity and passion. Don’t use metaphors that bring to mind those same things. Your muse doesn’t slink like a jungle cat to the table when depressed, but they might move in a daze, like a shadow, or a have to put maximum effort into their every step as though heading to their own execution.

I don’t think anyone should describe, let alone to an extreme, every action their muse undertakes, but when you are imparting these things with emotional tone or thought processes, it really shouldn’t be done. It’s exhausting for you to write, and just as exhausting for your reader, who is very likely going, okay, we get it, she’s angry. Like the descriptions of the surroundings, try to keep it to important and telling actions. You needn’t describe your muse’s every eye movement, but if they are so embarrassed they’re having trouble keeping eye contact, or so annoyed they glare, that is a description you want to add.

Writers never seem to forget facial expressions or dramatic body movements, which is reasonable, considering how visual a species humans are, but quite often forgo tone of voice and word pronunciation entirely. These are great ways to denote what your muse is feeling. Consider how your muse speaks most often, whether they work at proper pronunciation and hiding an accent, or if they simply let their most natural speech flow. Then, consider how different emotions might impact that. I’m not talking about the only go-to many muns on tumblr have, the “my muse speaks -first language here- when angry” thing. I’m talking about your muse entering into any emotion strongly enough to drop crisp pronunciation, outright mess up familiar and easy words, stumble, stutter, or pause. Write emotion into your muse’s speech, and don’t keep it to adding things like, “said angrily.”

That’s telling, not showing, and is the death of descriptive writing of any sort.

Doing any of the above in a document is highly recommended. Not only are you less likely to encounter tumblr eating your drafts as you work on them, you have more freedom to open it up later and play around with the structure. Additionally, writing directly on the platform can be distracting in more ways than just the desire to dash scroll! It can make you feel like you need to be doing what you owe instead, need to be responding to messages, posted memes, comments. Taking it off site feels more like your own space and time for experimentation.

I know this was long, and covered many points (though, it could always use more). So, I’m going to kind of rehash some below!

For learning and inspiration:

read things both familiar and not in order to figure out what sort of descriptions speak to you, then practice doing them yourself

read a variety of works, not just books, and not just new books; oftentimes, the lessons in older books will stand out to you even more for using descriptions that are no longer common. Those lessons still hold, like the very act of using common, highly recognizable objects and settings to describe a person, place, or thing. In those cases, see what you can rewrite that would give the same feeling using things that are currently so recognizable

don’t count out things like music and poetry, they flow with emotion and it is imperative that they give emotion and setting in unique ways

use ask/starter memes, pictures, and even common situations occurring around you to experiment with both writing descriptions and getting into your muse’s mindset

think on your own experiences with your environment and emotions

consider how your muse’s perceptions may change based upon thoughts and emotions, and/or how you can describe the setting to reflect and drive home these factors

really get to know your muse by exploring headcanon memes, giving yourself a refresher on their canon (yes, even if you wrote it), and comparing and contrasting your experiences with your muse’s on the same topics

experiment with new words, their use, and their flow

seriously, practice! Outside of writing you intend for anyone else to ever see!

Things to Remember:

you are unique as a person, therefore, you are unique as a writer...and that is a good thing, you just need to find what works for you

describe things that are important in setting the scene in ways that are not just visual; be emotive, and pick things that have bearing on the immediate topic

don’t forget that your muse’s voice and spoken words use can, and should be, impacted by thoughts and feelings

just like you, your muse is unlikely to see the same objects in the same light under any manner of strong emotional influence

also just like you, who is saying something and in what context is extremely important in how your muse reacts internally and how that is presented externally; if your muse feels and reacts the same way no matter the other party, they’re a little cardboard and you’re not being descriptive or thoughtful enough

listen, if you just really need to describe something utterly irrelevant to live another second? That’s fine, but you need to make it relevant. Perhaps, your muse noticed the cracks on that rock because they’re in an altered state - be that by way of a substance, or an emotion

there is a reason why we use clichés, and I am not going to say they should never be used, just that you should try to be more creative with them, and they should always be viable ones that truly match the mood

the same is true of words, we have some words that are just so commonly expressive of sensations and emotions that they come up quite often, but again, try to find something similar if possible, and always make sure it’s still evoking the right thing

I repeat: get in touch with your muse, even if you do not write them from first person. The language you use as a writer to describe them and their world is better if it feels like them

no support for tumblr’s anti-wordiness, but huge support for optimizing word use for maximum impact

to that end, if you’re a RPer, even a fic writer, please know that your desire to write descriptively isn’t going to be appreciated by some people. That’s their fucking loss, and you are better off without them. You will find the audience that will properly appreciate what you’re doing!

I hope some of this helped to give you some starting points you might not have thought of!

#rp advice #writing advice #descriptive writing #Anon E. Mous #answered

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sunscreenstudies · 4 years ago

Note

hey ik this is random but I was scrolling thru the leaving cert tag and saw your post abt your results. Firstly congrats (even if it is 3 years late haha), secondly I’m currently in 6th year and was wondering if I could ask for some English advice? I’m looking to go up a grade (h3->h2) and was wondering if you have any particular tips for studying english, the exam, technique, or for literally anything relevant to the subject. There’s no pressure to answer this, ty either way :)))

Hey! Thank you so much for the ask and i am so sorry i’ve only gotten round to it now XD

LC English tips below!

Okay so it’s been a while since I did the LC but if things are more or less the same, then you’ve got your three texts to answer a question on.

Tip #1: Even though there is an awful lot to learn, you just need to remember key words, and you’ll sail through!

In the comparative, you need to compare your texts in every. single. paragraph. You could write a fantastic essay, but if you don’t say “In comparison to this…” “Text 2 however differs from this…” “Similarly…” “The two texts are different in the sense that…” etc. you will get zero marks at all.

When answering your poetry question, you need to keep referring to the style of the poet. Every past poetry question can be broken down into two simple questions: What did the poet write about? and how did they say it? If you can answer both these questions on every poem you learn, you’ll do great!

Also, do not learn any more than 5 poems per poet and don’t learn any more than 5 poets to begin with. This covers you completely no matter who appears on the day!

Tip #2: Please please pleaseee remember that for the comphrehension section, you must answer one question A and one question B from two different texts! If you answer from the same text you will get 0 and worse than that, this section is worth 12.5% of your total paper which means you will be down an entire grade immediately.

The length of your answer needs to correspond to the marks going for that question. In question A you usually have three parts, worth 15m, 15m, and 20m. Your 20 mark answer must be longer than your 15 mark questions.

For every 5 marks a question is worth, you need 1 A4-page pararaph. Unless you’ve got tiny writing, this is usually 5 to 7 lines of the page.

Your teacher has undoubtedly told you all about timing and “don’t spend any longer than 40 minutes on your question A” and yea they have a point, to an extent. I spent about an hour answering my question A and then sailed through question B because for me, I found the second question a lot easier to answer. Don’t panic if you don’t stick to the “recommended time” because every single person is different and what you find easy might be difficult for someone else.

In saying that, if you are spending loadsss of time on one particular section and you can feel the clock ticking, then move the heck on. Take a deep breath, leave a blank page for yourself to come back to that question later, and start your next part. Every question has a finite amount of marks, so no matter how brilliant your 20 mark answer is, you can only ever get 20 marks for it, and if that answer came at the expense of not getting question B done at all, then you’re down a grade already.

Tip #3: They want your opinion. Let me repeat that. They want your opinion. No matter what the heck they ask you, whether it’s about poetry or your novel or a Shakespearean text, the examiner will be checking to see what you thought of the text. I know firsthand how weird writing things like “In my opion...” or “I believe that...” but this is how you get the marks. Don’t lose the H2 you’re aiming for cause you’re feeling a bit awkward. After the exam, that feeling will never matter again, but your grade will!

Link every single paragraph in every single answer. This doesn’t have to be complicated, you don’t even need to write an entire sentence. Just start every new paragraph with phrases like “However...” or “Therefore...” or “In contrast to this...”. If you don’t link your paragraphs, the examiner will think that you don’t know what you’re talking about and that you have no opinion of your own (see Tip #3) so use those joining phrases!

Tip #4: For that letter/article/diary entry question B, make sure that whatever part of it you answer, you know the layout for that style. Reports must have a title, introduction, work carried out, findings, suggestions, recommendations, and conclusion sections. Essays need to have a clear introduction, 5+ paragraphs, and closing. Even diary entries should begin with ‘Dear Diary’ which physically causes me pain to write, but it’s what gets you the marks!

Letters are the most asked question B but the most diffuclt to get good marks in. First things first: Figure out if it’s formal or informal. Formal will be editors, principals, government, or anyone that you would address as “sir” or “ma’am” in real life. Informal will be your friends, close family members, penpals, or anyone you’d hug goodbye and laugh with in real life.

Formal letters begin with your own name in the right hand corner of the page, with your own address directly below it. Skip a line, and then write the date below it, always in the format of “01 January 2020″ and be sure to check the question for any hint about what this date should be. If you’re writing a letter to your boss asking about organising a staff barbarcue for staff morale, then you wouldn’t date it in the middle of December, right? Sign off with something professional like “Kind regards” or “Thank you for your time”

Informal letters begin with your own address on the top right-hand corner of the page but do not write your name! It’s an informal letter to your friend; they know who you are. Skip a line, and then write the date below it, always in the format of “01 January 2020″ and pay attention to the time of year again. Sign off with something casual like “see you later!” or “talk soon!”

Tip #5: Section 2′s composing section is worth an entire 25% of your paper. If you want to get a good grade, you need to get a good grade in this. If you’re aiming for a H2, then you need to get a H2 in this section minimum.

Your essay should be between 4 to 6 pages, or 1000 to 1250 words. At least.

Always open with a quote, a rhetorical question, or a shocking statistic. I went online the night before my Paper One exam, and wrote down 10 quotes from well-known people about the most popular topics in life, eg. Education, Love, Money, Travelling, Death, Youth & Aging, etc. and just learnt them off in half an hour. I ended up using three of them on the day, and you have no idea the relief you feel when you’re guaranteed that at least one thing in your composition will get you marks!

Take an entire A4 page and plan your essay before you start. Not only is it just common sense and super helpful to get all your ideas down before you forget them, but if you run out of time for whatever reason, then the examiner will be able to see what you were planning to write, and will give you an extra mark or two. Your plan doens’t have to be complicated and you definitely shouldn’t spend any longer than 5 minutes on it. Just throw down a few words, organise them based on paragraph, and then start writing.

And finally (i’m so sorry that you had to read all that) remain calm! No matter what happens, whether you get a H1 or a H7, as long as you do your best then no one can say anything to you! You are more than your grade and you are more than some English exam that won’t matter in ten years anyway. Stay calm, always put your mental and physical health first, and remember that this paper is not the end all be all of anything. You’ve got this.

#ask #leaving cert #leaving cert advice #leaving cert english #study tips #anon

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tartagilicious · 4 years ago

Text

[CN] spring morning agreement (lucien)

while getting some translation practice in for the upcoming qixi event, I also managed to stumble upon what is now probably one of my favourite lucien dates uwu. domestic lucien and a canon relationship gives me so many butterflies. it’s also probably obvious that I took a little bit of inspiration from cheri for the format of this, but let’s be honest, she’s basically the standard haha

this date contains spoilers for a date not released in English servers!

-------

In the blink of an eye, I arrived at the last two days of the orphanage spring camp. Before we left, we were going to hold a celebration party. The dean took the children early in the morning to buy the things needed for the party, and probably won’t be back until late.

Before Lucien woke up, I hurriedly dragged out the cardboard box hidden behind the sundries, preparing to quietly construct my secret plan. But, just as I cut the box open, I heard the sound of footsteps coming from the bedroom and looked up nervously.

Lucien: Good morning.

Really…

Lucien held a cup of hot tea and leaned on the doorframe and smiled at me. The dark knitted jacket he wore was half open, revealing the white cloth of the shirt beneath. The morning light came in from outside the window, sprinkling a layer of light gold on the types of his hair that also enveloped his whole person in the thin sun.

Probably because my expression was a little hesitant after unintentionally breaking a secret, he faintly guessed something.

Lucien: Am I not supposed to be here?

I quickly shook my head to deny, orderly packing up the items of the box and holding it in my arms.

MC: It’s really nothing…

Lucien: This is a dream catcher?

MC: ...I talked to Xiaohua and Xiaodu, and they said brother Lucien had a nightmare when he fell asleep on the sofa the other day. That you must have dreamed of a big monster that is fierce and bad.

MC: I promised them that I would catch the big monster in brother Lucien’s dreams, so he would never have nightmares again.

I imitated the children’s tones and picked up the dream catcher, shaking it in the air.

MC: Just use this~

Lucien showed a thoughtful expression, seeming to be thinking about what to do. After a while, the line of his lips slightly curled up and his face became stunned.

Lucien: It would be useful during the nap before.

He walked slowly over to me, bending down and placing a hand lightly on my head.

Lucien: It seems you’ll have to work hard to catch the big monster in my dreams for me, then?

The dream catchers were soon covering the entire cabin thanks to us. The white feathers show a fluffy touch under the sunlight. It seemed to paint the whole house as a pure white dreamland.

MC: That’s it~

Lucien glanced around the living room, then lowered his eyes to look at me.

Lucien: Since you made these, will I see you in my dream tonight?

Lucien: If you don’t come and catch the monster, i’m going to tell Xiaohua and Xiaodu.

He was so serious that I couldn’t help but laugh.

MC: Professor Lucien, you are a scientific researcher, shouldn’t you teach children that dreams are a routine way for the brain to process information?

Lucien: I think that the rational way of thinking does not conflict with pure imagination, especially for children

MC: Well, Professor Lucien is right!

I quickly trot up to him and stretch out my right hand, putting a small finger in front of his chest.

MC: Ok, make a promise with me and I will find you in your dream on time.

Lucien’s finger naturally hooked with mine, but, with his other hand around my forearm, he dragged me a few steps closer to him.

Lucien: Since the dean and the children are not here, does that mean you belong to me today?

He lowered his voice, there was a hint of provocation in his words. I looked into his smiling eyes in a dazed manner, not yet sure what his idea was.

Lucien: Do you remember we have unfinished work?

MC: The puzzles?

When coming here, I had bought a lot of gadgets and gifts for the children to pass the time. Remote control cars, building blocks, and rubik’s cubes were all very popular. Only a blank puzzle was left behind.

When Lucien and I were free, we would take out time to put together the puzzle.

Lucien: Did you not say that after we finish the puzzle, we would draw something on it?

MC: Well, I haven’t thought of what we should draw yet.

Lucien paused, gripping my hand.

Lucien: I thought about it.

He glanced at the dreamcatchers that were swaying slightly in an open breeze.

Lucien: Let’s draw a dream. One of the most beautiful dreams.

He spoke slowly, not sharing the charming and fantastic scene he was thinking of which made me curious for a while.

MC: Can dreams be drawn?

Lucien: Can’t they?

Lucien: Didn’t you tell me the other day, that you dreamt of strawberries sitting in a small wooden boat singing? Such a dream is more interesting than even the many paintings I've seen.

Thinking of the wonderful and playful dream I had two days ago, I was suddenly intrigued.

MC: Ok, let’s draw a dream. I’ll look for something to use!

Lucien responded briefly and walked into the next room. After several searches, from the centre of the coffee table to between the sofa cushions, I found a set of pens the children normally use.

MC: Lucien, are you going to bring the puzzle to the dining table?

I yelled in Lucien’s direction, and he laughed softly from inside [the other room]

Lucien: Bring the utensils here. The living room is very cold, so we have to beware of getting sick.

MC: Should i turn on the heater?

This time, Lucien did not respond to me. I assumed he didn’t hear it, so I walked over quickly. As soon as I pushed open the half closed door to the bedroom, a gust of warm wind blew overhead. The sunlight outside of the window reflected the branches and leaves of the trees, casting mottled shadows on the walls and bookcases.

Lucien sat on the bed. He smiled at me and patted the position opposite to him.

Lucien: Come on. If you think about it, it is best to dream in bed.

The light and shadow of light and shade fell in his eyes, scattering among the fascinating depth. I kicked off my slippers and climbed onto the bed. Laughing and leaning close to him, I looked straight into his eyes.

MC: Is drawing a dream the same thing as having a dream?

In the overlapping atmospheres, I recognised a faint halo in his eyes. There was a smile in them. It is warmer and more beautiful than the scenery of March.

Lucien: But, if you don’t have a dream originally, how can you draw it?

As he spoke, he whispered thoughtfully. Across the distance of our breaths, I can hear every sentence clearly.

Lucien: I don’t know if I have appeared in your recent dreams… or, if it is your dream, would it be a sweet one?

A delicate tenderness is stitched onto his slightly provoking ending, which is clearly an inquiry meant to be answered. I subconsciously hummed and shook my head quickly.

MC: The answer to that question… is a secret!

MC: You need to exchange a secret with me before I tell you.

Lucien showed an interested look and slightly distanced himself from me to meet my eye.

Lucien: In this case, don’t you suffer a lot?

Lucien: But, as long as you ask, I will answer. What do you want?

I hesitated, but i can’t help but ask softly,

MC: When we were at sea, you didn’t put the note you wrote into the glass bottle, did you?

That was a game for the children. The dean bought a dozen glass bottles and encouraged the children to write anything they wanted on a slip of paper. After that, they would put it in the bottle and throw it into the ocean.

Whether it is a wish or a voice, as long as the sea hears it, she will give them the most sincere blessing.

Lucien and I were also dragged by children to participate. But, I secretly saw the what Lucien threw into the ocean was only an empty bottle. I could only guess that he didn’t put the note he wrote into it.

Lucien: Do you want to know what I wrote?

Lucien tilted his head with interest, one hand supporting his chin. His eyes were pure when he looked at me.

Lucien: Are you sure? If you are, let’s exchange secrets

MC: Hm, sure!

I nodded expectantly, and Lucien immediately took out a folded note from the pocket of his coat and folded it open a few times. It was now in front of me.

The english writing was a bit sloppy, and i stared at it for several seconds before recognising the entire sentence.

“Extinguish my eyes, and I can still see you.” [this line is a reference to this poem! ]

I raised my head and met Lucien’s gaze that was already on me. It’s like his eyes cover the entire sky at sunrise, climbing up the mountains little by little until with a slightly cold brilliance, the whole sky is open.

He said nothing, but in this silence, I heard every word that he didn’t say.

MC: Lucien…

MC: When you have nightmares, what do you dream of?

Lucien was slightly startled, and looked away as if thinking back. It took a while, and there was a period where he didn’t say a thing. I suddenly realised that he may be reluctant to talk about these things, so I changed the subject.

MC: Since this is a sentence that you didn’t want to throw into the sea, why did you write it down?

Lucien laughed softly, then looked at the trees swaying between light and shadow outside the window.

Lucien: Maybe the wind is sunny and the weather is fine, but I want to write some private messages to you, and I’m reluctant to let the sea know.

I lay down next to him, raising the note in my hand to the sun. The thin piece of paper was also illuminated by the light, turning it to a warm yellow colour. I stroked it with my fingertips.

MC: Did you know that I would ask you about this note?

Lucien nodded, his tone is very determined.

Lucien: Well, weren’t you staring at me since we had gotten on the boat?

MC: Huh? No-- I was… afraid of seasick children. I only worried about their discomfort. and..

I couldn’t think of an excuse, and stopped. I looked up to see his face melted into the light, and subconsciously knew I had to surrender.

MC: I wasn’t staring… I only took a few peeks.

Lucien laughed and reached out to rub my forehead.

Lucien: What, were you afraid that I would get lost?

MC: Kind of.

I originally said it as a joke, but when i finished speaking, many clips flashed in my mind momentarily. I shifted to face him and reached out and touched his cheek.

My slightly cool fingertips touch his soft skin, and the bit of warmth I find has made me linger. Then, I find my palm pressed gently against his jaw. No stubble can be felt on the clean chin.

Lucien gently covered my hand with his own, and at that moment, I could hear the sand of time flowing amongst the sunlight.

Lucien: Are you really afraid of losing me?

The back of my hand was tightly pressed by his wide palm, leaving no gaps. The little hesitation in my heart was wiped out by such a steady and comforting temperature.

MC: I’m only kidding. i’m not afraid.

I shifted and found a comfortable position in his arms, leaning my head on his shoulder.

MC: I won’t let you get lost. I promise.

Lucien held my hand tighter and placed it on his chest.

Lucien: Then hold me tight, ok?

MC: Of course.

A warm breath quickly fell on my face. He kissed closely and continually, moving from my cheek to the tip of my ear. Every one of his breaths is magnified, pulling the frequency of my heartbeat up from where it had been resting.

Suddenly thinking of something again, he smiled gently.

Lucien: Please let me know, what did you write on your note?

His hot and damp breath fell heavily into my ears. I didn’t know how to respond, so I retreated further into his arms.

MC: That’s also a secret!

He seemed happy to hear it, and surrounded me immediately with his arms. I simply leaned into his chest, and let my legs tangle with his long ones indiscriminately.

Lucien: Can’t you satisfy my curiosity?

MC: Hm? It seems Professor Xu thinks what I wrote must be related to him.

Lucien: If it has nothing to do with me, then why did you look at me while you wrote?

MC: …

MC: Who was peeking at whom?

Lucien doesn’t speak, only low laughter sounding.

MC: But, I have read your note already, so, to be fair, I should also tell you.

I grabbed his hand and flattened his palm, using awkward fingers to trace two words solemnly.

Lucien: Health, safe.

MC: When I went to the Trevi Fountain, I also wished that you were safe and healthy. That was most important. If it’s possible to be greedy, I also hope that you can be happy without worries.

MC: if i can be even more greedy, i hope you have a good dream every night.

Lucien tightened his arms around me. He put his chin on my shoulder, connecting the sides of our faces.

Lucien: It seems that in your most beautiful dream, there must be me.

A light breath completely surrounds me. I lowered my eyelashes and snorted softly.

MC: What about you? What is in your most beautiful dream?

Lucien was silent for a while, and drew a pen from the nightside table.

Lucien: I’ll show it to you.

After staying with the children for so long, I don’t know when we have developed the habit of lying on the ground and playing games. The floor at the end of the bed is already full of building blocks, and the blank puzzles are placed in the corner.

Lucien picked it all up, and put it in front of us. The puzzle is a full size, but for now, he only writes in the corners of it. At first, I didn’t see what he was drawing, I just stared at the arc of the pen.

Waiting for him to fill in the details, I can’t help but stretch my head and look, putting it close to his shoulder.

MC: Is it a fish?

When my voice fell, Lucien was still drawing the shape of the tail, but the outline of the fish is very clear.

Lucien: Once I dozed off at the research centre and dreamed that I became a wooden fish. it was dark all around and I couldn’t see what it was like in the water, but, just a single thought can travel far.

Lucien: When i opened my mouth to speak, i would only spit out gurgling bubbles. When I raised my head,I could see sparkling waves on the water above my head. Occasionally, there would also be the sound of chirping birds coming from the sky.

I listened attentively, as if I was also in this dream, startled to feel that the flimsy sunlight outside the window was reflected in the bright colours of the water.

MC: I thought I was the only one who would have such a curious and fun dream, but I didn’t expect you to!

Lucien smiled. The pen in his hand keeps on tracing the scales of the fish’s tail.

Lucien: I slept very lightly, so I knew clearly that I was dreaming. But even so, in my dream, I could also suppose that there was a sound of wind blowing leaves around. Maybe it was the height of summer.

Lucien: If i had waited until dark, maybe I would have seen all of the stars and fireflies.

He said it interestingly, and the same picture appeared before my eyes.

MC: And after?

Lucien: After… I explored aimlessly, thinking to myself, hurry and find another fish or small shrimp and ask them for directions, but I came across neither of them. Later, I woke up.

The environment ended a little hastily, and I couldn’t help but feel lost.

MC: That’s all? Then, why is it the most beautiful dream you’ve ever had?

Lucien looked at the fish he drew, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his lips.

Lucien: I was working on a subject at the time that was difficult and troublesome. I had been busy for more than half a year, but hadn’t made any progress. Even in the dream, I was thinking angrily, If I really became a fish, then I don’t need to work.

He narrated calmly, but my mouth almost dropped open. Did Lucien lose his patience and not want to work?

Probably noticing a little surprise in my eyes, Lucien smiled lightly.

Lucien: When faced with difficulties that cannot be bypassed, everyone is more or less anxious and discouraged. Of course I am no exception. Fortunately, after waking up that day, I suddenly had an inspiration.

Lucien: Thinking about it later, perhaps it was because of a weird dream that let the brain go empty for a while, and then figure things out.

Lucien paused for a few seconds, and then slightly drew his lips into a gentle arc. On the paper, a life-like fish had taken shape.

Lucien: I often don’t remember what I have dreamt of, but any dream that can be remembered is beautiful.

I can’t help but look at the dream catchers in the room, hoping that they will catch many dreams for Lucien.

I picked up the pen and drew on the puzzle carefully, and Lucien curiously leaned towards me.

Lucien: Are you going to draw me a small pond?

I looked at him and gripped the blue pencil in my hand, shaking my head lightly.

MC: A sea. I want to draw a sea.

I saw his pupils trembling slightly, but the smile on his lips raised again, and he lifted his chin to look at my thoughtfully. Seeing that he didn’t speak, I didn’t speak anymore either. The two of us just watched quietly -- the corner of our mouths curving slightly and a thousand words leaking through.

I moved my eyes back to the puzzle. Below the blue sea, there are also brightly coloured corals and groups of tropical fish -- a starfish with magnificent tentacles, there must also be large sea turtles waddling about and sunken ships full of treasure.

I drew a lot. But, I didn’t notice that Lucien’s eyes did not move away from my face for even a moment.

Lucien: Can I give you a kiss?

I froze, thinking that I had heard him wrong.

Lucien: Like this-

He cleverly touched the tip of my pen with his own, and then closed the distance, like a soft kiss from a dragonfly.

I blinked slowly, somewhat at a loss, and spoke very quietly.

MC: This kind of thing… there’s no need to ask me.

Lucien: You’ve drawn a lot, and you seem so invested -- any desires I have at the moment are an interruption for you.

His silky tone fell unhurriedly, like a light feather, scratching my heart with only a single glance. I stopped writing and slowly approached him.

MC: Lucien. didn’t you say… that people can dream because their brains have to organise the information we received in the day? If in the future, your eyes will see the best things in the world, don’t you stop having nightmares?

Lucien probably didn’t expect that I would have such thoughts. A hint of surprise flashed in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but lower my head and smile.

The sunlight plated his face in gold, and I raised my head and pressed my lips to his cheek. His breathing stagnated, but was soon calm again. His lips leaked a cheerful smile.

Lucien: …It seems that i’ll be able to have a beautiful dream tonight.

The warm wind is still blowing, making the glass beads on the dreamcatchers sparkle in the changing light.

-----

Before leaving, Lucien took me to the beach again.

Lucien: The rules of the game were set before. Everyone has to say a word to the sea, so I can’t fool around.

I subconsciously touched my pocket -- the note he had given me before was still there.

Lucien: Won’t you ask what I wrote this time?

I blinked and asked suspiciously,

MC: And what did you write this time?

Lucien took out a small glass bottle from his pocket to remove the cork. He poured out the note that had been placed inside. I took the thinly rolled note from his outstretched palm and opened it carefully.

Two fishes were drawn on the white paper the size of a sticky note. One is exactly the same as the one he drew on the puzzle. The other one, with red scales, was slightly smaller and followed him closely.

Lucien: This would be my most beautiful dream.

Lucien smiled and put the paper back inside again, and threw the glass bottle out into the ocean with little hesitation. I don’t see the object’s line of direction in the air, and before I know it, it’s disappeared beneath sea level.

The light breeze disturbed his shaggy bangs, and his eyes against the tide were gentle and clear.

Lucien: When the children are sent back to the orphanage, what do you want to do?

MC: Pack two bowls of soup, go back, buy more fruit, find a good movie, and take serious rest for the night.

Lucien: Okay. Great plan.

He said this and smiled at me.

Lucien: Let’s go?

MC: okay!

I stretched out my hand, and he clasped his fingers around mine.

MC: I’ll always hold you tight.

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mr love queen’s choice #mlqc spoilers #mlqc lucien #this date is alternatively titled: lucien killing grace for 3685 words straight

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passivenovember · 4 years ago

Text

@liglitterbug asked:

Has anyone asked for 53? (crawling through your window to go get ice cream) yet? Because that screams Harringrove to me and I would LOVE to see your take on it, please! (if you have time/inspiration) <3

a Friend for the End of the World.

Billy’s, like. Halfway through Little Women when Max knocks on his door, and. Okay. It’s not like he slammed his way through the house with a fire itching under his skin and believed for even a second, that.

The world could be his. Just for while.

He settles roughly, at first, into the Alcott novel. Like a brick hitting the bottom of the sea--slowly, heavy and thick with the inertia of words that ignite something that feels.

Pink.

Inside his belly. Billy doesn’t have the wherewithal to make sense of it so he, just. Clamps his eyebrows around the liquid sunshine in his veins and loses himself in the story.

After Starcourt the world ends, but.

It doesn’t sound like the poems said it would. The bang and the whimper and the conclusion that, after things catch on fire and smoke rises with the sun, silence will fall over the Earth.

Billy remembers waiting for Hawkins to sleep.

Watching Max and Mrs. Byers and. Steve. Landslide all around them to fix what had been swept away by a misjudgment in the Earth’s ability to keep itself from cracking open.

And Billy, he feels like an exposed wire. The center of the universe molding itself around the breath before the curtain falls and the audience leaves, and.

He waits for night to fall.

It never does. The overture is played out of tune, again and again, and the world turns faster than before, the sounds leak from everywhere. All at once, and.

Billy feels. Doesn’t know how to...

It’s never as simple as asking for silence. For peace. When his mind makes too much noise, or. When he can’t get the sound of Neil coughing up smoke to stop bouncing off the walls.

The ambiance that comes with. Sharing space, sharing your life with someone, used to be Billy’s favorite in all the world. Back when the incandescence of his mother folding laundry could be heard through the crack in his door while pirate ships bled past the boundary of the page and took him somewhere new.

Billy likes to think of his life as intermissions between lovers. Before Starcourt he was asleep and now. He’s never waking up again.

Max reading to El, or.

Susan making dinner.

Even Neil flipping through the channels, it. Reminds him of burning cities.

Billy wears earmuffs. Everywhere. The ones that block out the sounds of the earth crying, but. Do nothing at all for the reprise burying itself in his bones.

Steve brought them to the hospital when Billy wouldn’t stop asking about the end of the world.

So Max knocks on the door.

And Billy thought he made himself clear. With the nonverbal shit, like. Slamming the front door open and brushing past the dinner table and slamming his door shut.

Locking himself in. He thought it was crystal clear, that. You can’t keep shoveling dirt into the grave without stopping to pray for rain. She pounds on the door again but it’s too loud. Always too much.

“What, Max?” And his voice is softer, these days. To balance out the symphony playing all around him.

“Steve’s here.” She says, and.

The earmuffs don’t actually block anything out. Billy can hear the battery die in the car down the street, and. He can hear Max shuffling on the other side of the door one-two-three, one-two-one, like a waltz. A tiny dancer.

She has the most. Distinct footprints in the sand. Billy held onto that when he was bleeding on the floor.

He pads over to the door and tugs it open, wincing at the sharp sting of.

Soundsoundsound

Hammering against the walls in his head. Billy squints, shielding his eyes. To block the noise as if it were rain.

“Tell him I’m not home.”

“Your car’s in the driveway, dumb dumb.”

“Well, tell him I’m busy.” Billy moves to close the door, but. Max sticks her foot in the jam.

Folds her arms and gives him this look, like. He’s supposed to have a big realization about something. About the way he’s acting. Hiding in his room all the time with the blinds pulled taught against the sun.

You’re acting weird.

He knows. He thinks it’s okay.

Billy shrugs like. Spit it the fuck out. And Max rolls her eyes. Billy can hear the shift of muscle, he can--

“Too busy to see Steve?” She says.

And okay.

Billy picks up on why that might be weird. He shrugs again--there’s a throbbing, like. The beat of a drum. Just outside, on the lawn, or right at the back of his skull.

Billy can’t tell and he doesn’t want to know, so.

The door falls shut once more.

Being with Steve is like getting the instruments to play a song instead of just. Wailing out of tune for the audience to throw tomatoes.

He makes everything quiet. Just by running his fingers through Billy’s hair the world is made new. Starts over with a whimper instead of the rest, but.

Sometimes Billy can’t breathe.

Or his eyes will close when they’re wide open, and he can’t see anything but snow twirling against a gray sky, or like.

Veins turning black and smoky with rot. Disease and Ice. Barren fields the end--

Steve says the Earth has healed itself once more. That the cracks have been mended, and the ground isn’t coming apart under their feet.

So it’s summer.

That’s what Steve says. “It’s summer, baby.” let’s go to the lake.

Billy looks up from his book. Fifty pages left in Little Women--at least an entire afternoon, once he picks up the second, and. “You want to go to the lake?”

Steve sort of. Rolls onto his side, next to Billy on the quilt Mrs. Harrington made when he was in the hospital. He looks up to the sky, the clouds and the sun.

Steve has a daisy between his fingers. Billy doesn’t know where it came from, but then Steve is smiling. All soft, like. A stretch of grass just before sunset. He sticks the daisy between the pages of Billy’s book, and. Closes it., takes it away. He sits criss-cross-applesauce until his knees are pressed against Billy’s leg.

Steve tugs the headphones off, so.

The sun hits Billy. Burns every part of him.

“You seem like you need water.” Steve says.

And he is the only person who makes the Earth contract, So Billy tucks his hair behind his ears with shaky fingers. Keeps his hands there, holding his own face until things quiet down.

He breathes in, sharp and then slow, when the tears start to fall. When Steve reminds him to be gentle with yourself, baby. That’s it.

It takes five minutes for Billy to figure it out.

He needs water, like. A flower whose roots have gone frail. Or a boy who longs for home. Billy opens his eyes to Steve watching him, counting breaths on the watch he had made special.

For Billy, and his.

Bullshit. The panic attacks and the sensory bullshit, and. It’s summer. Billy feels the air get choked from his lungs when Steve takes his pulse, because.

“You go.” He whispers.

Steve looks up from the watch and then back down again. “You still have ten more breaths, come on.”

“I’m fine.”

“Ten more big ones, okay. Just to be safe.”

“Steve, I’m fine.” Billy smacks the watch down. Away, so. He can. Think. Billy scrubs at his face just the wrong side of too hard. Too abrasive, and there’s a drum beating somewhere down the hill when Steve tries to grab his wrist.

Again, to. Play nurse Maid. Steve kisses his palm once--twice, and.

“It’s summer.” Billy says.

Steve winks. “Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

It. Is, Billy thinks. With the smell of Lilac and Honeysuckle. Afternoons that give way to skies full of fireflies and Steve’s hair turning blonde in the afternoon light, it looks. Like a work art, like. A page from a book.

His favorite in all the world. Billy tugs his hand away from Steve’s lips, tucks his hair behind his ears again, and. Steve looks worried.

Always worried, like. He’s waiting Billy will snap in two.

“I want you to go to the lake.” He says. Because he’s tired of seeing that look.

Steve blinks wide, owlish eyes at him. “I want us to go, Bills, that’s why--”

Billy shakes his head. Suddenly the drum falls. Silent. Steve sits frozen, suspended in time and space while the symphonies play out of tune.

“You aren’t my doctor.” Billy says.

“I know--”

“And you aren’t my therapist.”

He expects Steve to. Say something, or stop looking like the ground is splitting open between them, when Billy charges on.

“Or my housekeeper, or any of that shit, Steve. You’re. A twenty year old boy, you should be. Out with your friends for the fourth of July not taking care of your invalid partner who can’t make it through the day without breaking down in tears.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone else.” Steve says, and.

It means now. And it means always.

Billy stands to grab his book.

He leaves his earmuffs on the blanket in the grass.

Thinks about calling and. Begging Steve to bring them over, drop them off because his head is spiraling rock formations and earthquakes let loose in the heartland.

After dinner it hurts.

When the fireworks start to explode. Bright light and heat burning a wound into his chest, or a breaking his bones to crumbling dust. Each explosion is like child birth and pulled teeth and gunshot wounds playing a libretto behind his right eyebrow. He tries to read but the snow falls all around him--

“Hey dipshit, we’re going to watch the--”

Billy doesn’t try to hide the tears, and.

Max doesn’t bring them up. She presses an ice pack to his forehead and wonders if. She should call Steve. Call him home.

Billy wants to say yes.

Wants to call Steve himself, but. “Go have fun, kid.”

And the wound only grows.

He has four pillows on his head when the window slides open. That’s why he doesn’t hear the scattered footfall until there’s a weight on his bed, and a pair of hands rubbing his back.

One hot, one cold.

He frowns. “Hands are cold as dick.”

Steve chuckles, fingers digging into the muscle of Billy’s neck in a way that has him soft. Huffing against the sheets. “Sorry, I brought Ice cream.”

Billy peeks out from under his fortress to Steve peppering kisses along the base of his skull.

“What time is it?” He grumbles.

“8:30. Go to sleep.” Steve muffles against Billy’s hair, and.

“How come you’re here?”

Steve holds out the earmuffs, cherub face scruffy and apologetic and so, so beautiful. “Sorry it took so long, I wanted to give you space, you seemed like. You needed space.”

He pulls the blanket up around Billy’s shoulders, even as he worms around to sit up. Get a better look, and. Apologize.

“Look, Stevie--”

“You shouldn’t be sitting with a migraine like that,” He says firmly. “Doc says three glasses of water, two Tylenol, and--”

“Rest, yeah, I.” Billy feels like smiling. For the first time in days, he. Wants to smile. “Thank you.”

Steve nods. Like he’s disappointed. Eyebrows wrinkling as he fiddles with the cracked leather headband.

Billy looks at the pint of cherry crunch leaking a puddle onto the mattress. “So you brought ice cream, huh?”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah, I mean. What else do you bring after a break up?”

And.

Billy feels like shit. “Steve I didn’t mean that--”

“I know.” He says. Soft, like a confession. “I’ll always dream of you, you know that?” Billy’s heart kicks into overdrive when Steve leans forward, slipping the earmuffs against his head, and.

Putting the world to sleep.

#harringrove #aah I wrote this in literally two hours #I love u sm cherr #Happy new year!#tw: sensory overload

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jwillowwolf · 3 years ago

Text

Magic and Miracles - Chapter 14

Sanders Sides Big Bang fic, Final Chapter!

< Previous Chapter | << Prolouge | Masterlist

Summary: Instead of speaking, Virgil simply pulled Logan in for a hug. Logan froze in shock for a moment before he hugged him back. He felt the tension leave Virgil’s body and just barely heard as he whispered.

“It’s finally over.”

“Yeah. It really is.”

“Thank the gods. It’s over.”

Warning/s: food mention, minor violence.

Characters: Logan, Virgil, OCs, Roman, Remus, Patton, Janus, Remy, Emile.

Tag List: @theimprobabledreamersworld @remy-please-come-back

Read on AO3

14 | Finale

“After the spell is performed, you should be able to make a porthole into the fae realm yourselves without going to the pixie gate. You would still have to make it outside of the fae city to avoid magical interference of course.” Nitya stated as the group followed it through the halls of its home.

Janus frowned. “That sounds like a big spell.”

“It is. In fact, it’s not normally used by anyone, but you should have enough magic to do it afterwards… Just double-checking, you’re all one-hundred percent sure you want to go through with this?” Nitya asked.

Virgil nodded. “We came to the agreement that this is what we need to do.”

“I asked if you wanted to do it.”

The group exchanged some glances and Logan spoke for them. “We want to help people and this is a way we can. We have to go through with it.”

Nitya smiled softly. “Well, whatever happens, I hope you all find success against your foes.”

It led them to a room that looked very much like a library, with the walls from floor to ceiling holding leather-bound books.

“This is my study. All of my notes from over the years are kept here. Since it won’t be of any use to me anymore, I suppose I’ll leave it to you all to do whatever you want.”

Everleigh’s eyes lit up. “I’m in heaven.”

Nitya chuckled. “You can look at them later. First, I need to explain the spell to you all.”

“About that, will we need to participate? Because Everleigh doesn’t know how to use magic,” Logan explained.

“Ah. Well, I’m going to need to teach you all what to do, so going into a little more depth for newbies won’t be too hard,” Nitya shrugged. “You do at least understand the basic concept of what magic is, right?”

Everleigh nodded. “It’s the essence of the world itself. Of the life that flows through all things in existence.”

“Correct,” Nitya grinned. “Ever present, never seen. Feared and admired by all beings. The life that bursts from the earth, the secrets hidden in stone. It dances in the fire’s flames; it gives the wind its mournful tone. Here it is, this is it. Defined yet unexplained. In the depths of the ocean, and of your own mind. In the veins of all creatures, including humankind. For magic is in everything, yet unknown all the same.”

“Woah, is that an old poem or something?” Willow inquired.

“Hmm, simply something I learnt from another strange being,” Nitya stated ominously. “But never mind that. I need you to stand in a circle for this to work.”

The group stood in a circle formation around Nitya, just as they had been directed. Unfortunately, due to the high-risk level of this spell, I can not explain the intricacies of it to you. But I will do my best to give you a description of what happened next.

Nitya looked around to make sure everyone was ready then held a hand over its head and began to chant in an unknown tongue. The light on its fingertips steadily changed colours, fading from one into the other as Nitya drew a myriad of interconnected glyphs. As the colours began to brighten, Nitya’s voice became… strange. It seemed to echo at different pitches. Almost like its voice was not its own, but rather that many different voices were speaking from its mouth at the same time.

The teens took this as their signal to begin drawing their own runes. And as they all finished, in unison they said, “Solhart.”

The runes and glyphs turned stark white before bursting like tiny fireworks and fading from existence. Logan looked around at his companions and thought that perhaps the spell had been unsuccessful. But then at the centre where Nitya had been standing, he saw that there was nothing left of it. No clothes or feathers or anything. Just an empty space at the centre of the room.

“Did it work?” Patton asked.

Willow shrugged. “Well, I suppose there’s only one way to tell. Everyone ready for status checks?”

“You’re going to need to talk me through that,” Everleigh said.

“Oh, right, uh here I’ll show you.”

Logan checked his own status and did a double-take when he saw it.

Logan Picani

Titles: Divine Friend, Legend Wizard, Wind Tamer, +...

MP: 500 - full

HP: 200 - full

Skills: Bond-Link, Wind Tamer, Magic, +...

“Uh, is anyone else seeing a way higher status than they had before?” Roman asked. “Because I swear I only had twenty mp.”

“It worked! We’re all at like master magic level now,” Remus said excitedly.

“This is definitely going to give us an edge for going back into the fae realm,” Willow commented.

Virgil nodded. “But first, let’s discuss a plan…”

---

On his stolen throne, Ynclementia sat with a deep frown gracing his features. “What do you mean she’s still resisting the poison?”

The alchemist gulped fearfully. “S-she’s wearing down, s-sire.”

“She should already be dead.”

“I’m sorry w-we miscalculated a step. But she’ll be gone before sunset.”

“She better be. Or I’ll have your heads.” Ynclementia snapped.

Just then, a guard burst into the room. “Sire! There’s been an attack.”

“Kill them off then. I told you if anyone tries to rebel, show no mercy.”

“It’s not rebels, sire. At least, not normal rebels.”

“What do you mean, ‘not normal rebels’? Are they too much for you idiots?”

“Well, sire-” the guard was cut off by static from his walkie-talkie.

“They’re on the tenth floor! We’ve lost six men! We need backup! The d- holy f-!”

The speaker on the other end was cut off by what sounded like a roar and multiple screams before the transmission cut out.

“What is that?” Ynclementia questioned.

“That’s what I was trying to explain, your majesty. A dragon, a wolf, a human, and two elves have stormed the tower.”

“Prince Virgil’s entourage,” Ynclementia muttered before his eyes widened in realisation. “The Prince, did you see him with them?”

“We’re not sure, sire.”

“Kill them all and bring the prince to me.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

The alchemist, the guard, and Ynclementia all looked up to see Virgil standing there with a dark look on his face.

“Kill him!”

The guard ran forward first, unsheathing her greatsword to slam down onto Virgil. Vi was quicker than her though and moved out of the way before the blade could even graze his hair. He took advantage of the moment that the guard had her sword down, and threw a potion at her. She gasped and released the sword before falling limp to the ground.

“I’m paralysed!”

The alchemist then snapped out of their frightened state and pulled out a potion to throw at Virgil. He easily dodged it though so that the alchemist instead hit the guard.

“Gah! It burns!”

“I’m sorry!” While the alchemist was apologising, they had left themselves open, giving Vi the perfect opportunity to throw another paralysis potion. “Eep! Going down.”

“You useless wretches,” Ynclementia growled. “You couldn’t even handle a child.”

“How about you face me yourself, coward,” Virgil taunted.

The earl grinned devilishly. “Gladly.”

Ynclementia rose from his seat with his grin seeming to grow wider. Virgil’s eyes widened in horror as he watched the man before him morph into a creature that could barely be considered human, let alone fae. His limbs seemed too long in certain places while too short in others. His eyes had turned completely white -no pupil or anything- and his hair moved as if it was a fire burning him.

“You took a contract with a demon. That’s how you gained so much power.”

“Finally figured me out then, your highness? Well, you weren’t always the fastest to catch onto things. Hopefully, your death will be quicker than your mind.”

Virgil just barely got out of the way as the Earl shot a surge of hellfire at him. He ducked and dodged as Ynclementia sent beam after beam at him like a slew of large fiery arrows. Except the fire was the arrows and his mouth was the bow. Finally, the Earl reached a point where he couldn’t use the hellfire anymore and switched to hurling himself at Virgil.

While he was able to run just out of the fae-demon’s reach, Vi could feel his energy wearing down, and decided instead to turn around mid-run with his dagger raised to slash at him. Unfortunately, Ynclementia had seemed to anticipate this move and caught Virgil’s wrist before he could swipe at him.

Virgil could see the hellfire building in the back of his throat. In an instant, his life flashed before his eyes. His family, his childhood, his schooling, his school, his classmates, his friends, the memories hit him like a truck. He felt like he was about to die in that very second and all he could think was-

“AHHHH!” Ynclementia screamed as water hit his chest.

He released Virgil and fell to his knees in agony. Virgil stared dumbfounded at the fallen enemy then looked to the doorway where the stream of water had come from. Standing there he saw his grandmother and a very concerned Logan who immediately rushed over to him.

“Oh my gods, are you okay? Did he hurt you? Did any of them hurt you?” Logan questioned.

Virgil stayed silent.

“Why won’t you answer me? Did they put you under a spell? Virgil, please, speak up.”

Instead of speaking, Virgil simply pulled Logan in for a hug. Logan froze in shock for a moment before he hugged him back. He felt the tension leave Virgil’s body and just barely heard as he whispered.

“It’s finally over.”

“Yeah. It really is.”

“Thank the gods. It’s over.”

“Ehem,” the boys looked up to see Valeria smiling at them. “Do I get a hug too, or do you two want some space.”

“Nana! I’m so glad you’re alive!” Virgil declared, rushing over to hug her.

“I’m glad we’re both alive,” Valeria replied. “But what on earth possessed you to fight a demon?!”

“I didn’t know he was a demon.”

“Wait until your fathers hear about this.”

Virgil frowned. “Nana, they…”

“I can bring them back, dear.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Yes! … Oh, I am going to be in so much trouble…”

---

“Hurry up, kiddoes. The carriage is waiting for us outside,” Emile called.

“We’ll be down in a minute!” Everleigh yelled. “Does my hair look right?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “For the last time, Ev, yes.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. This is my first time in high society, you know.”

“Firstly, I’ve got about as much experience with this as you do. And secondly, we both know that you just want to look nice for your girlfriend,” Logan teased.

Everleigh blushed. “Willow and I aren’t official yet.”

“Yet.”

“Oh, stop. Also, you totally have the upper hand here. You’ve met two queens and a prince!”

“You’re friends with the prince and have met one of those queens. Under better circumstances than I did too.”

“Well, you did that magical license test thing publicly. Gods, I’ll still have to learn all the magic stuff you did. And in a more polished school too.”

Logan nodded. “That’s a good thing. You’ll get to make friends and have more than just Remy to teach you.”

“I don’t need any more friends, I think. Also, it’s totally unfair that you and the others got to learn everything before me.”

“I did offer to teach you.”

“You weren’t even sure you could teach yourself,” Everleigh pointed out. “Huh, you’ve actually come pretty far, haven’t you.”

Logan paused for a moment to think. In just under a year, he had gone from a struggling self-taught mage to an expert wizard with noble-born friends and hero status. Just two weeks ago, he’d snuck away from home with his friends to find a magical miracle and then ended up going to the fae realm and saving the fae queen from the brink of death. Saying he’d come a long way may have actually been understating it.

Just days before that he’d been worried about losing his friends to their high-class lives, and now they were all going to a ball hosted in their honour where they’d be officially receiving their hero titles and full magic licenses.

“Done! You look fabulous, if I do say so myself,” Everleigh declared.

Logan looked at himself in the mirror to double-check the make-up she’s done. It wasn’t too complex, just some eyeliner, blush, and blue lipstick to match his azure suit. Normally make-up gave him dysphoria, but since he’d completed the transition spell, he simply felt like a handsome young man.

“Wow.”

Everleigh grinned. “I know right.”

“Kids, come on- Woah,” Emile said, staring at his son from the doorway.

“Hey, dad. How do we look?”

Emile smiled. “You both look absolutely stunning. Gods, how did you grow up so fast?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “I’m only sixteen.”

“That’s too old already. What happened to my baby boy?”

“I’m still here. I just got taller.”

“Not by much,” Everleigh muttered.

Logan pouted. “Hey!”

Everleigh laughed. “Come on, let’s go! We’ve kept the carriage waiting long enough.”

The ride to the castle was short, smooth, and full of growing anxiety. Especially when Logan noticed how many people were out trying to get a glimpse at them like they were some kind of nobility themselves. The carriage stopped inside of the castle’s inner courtyard, where other carriages of nobility and foreign royalty were already parked. Remy came over to help them out of their carriage.

“There you guys are. Ready for the party?”

“Golly, there are a lot of people here,” Emile stated.

Remy shrugged. “Well, Thomas and Nico did invite everyone. Honestly, though, even I’m surprised at the turnout considering Thomas’s aversion to large crowds.”

“Perhaps it’s because Virgil’s finally making a public appearance,” Logan said, eyeing the people who looked to be around his age.

Many of them would probably be here to make a good impression on the crown prince. Perhaps a few of the bolder ones would even try to befriend him. A few may even attempt to romance him. That idea gave Logan a sick feeling in his stomach. Even worse than the anxiety of being at a high society event.

“Everleigh! Logan!” Willow called out as they ran over to them. “Hi!”

Everleigh giggled. “Hi to you too. Is it normal to run to your friends at these kinds of functions?”

Willow shrugged. “Who cares. This is kind of our party anyway. You look breathtaking by the way.”

“Th-thank you. You look lovely as well,” Everleigh stammered.

“Thanks. Your make-up looks really cool, Lo.”

“Thank you,” Everleigh did it. “Did you run away from Janus or are you here with your family?”

“Oh, my family is here, but I was just with Jan and Roman. I can take you to them then we can all hang out together.”

Willow led Logan and Everleigh away into the castle, to the huge ballroom where the majority of the party-goers were socialising. They found Janus and Roman at a table, looking as if they had just been dancing and were now resting their feet.

“Hey guys, great timing. Would you please tell Janus that I was indeed the first to confess my feelings?”

“Liar. I was the first to confess, and they’ll tell you so.”

“This is why I left them,” Willow whispered to Everleigh and Logan. “I swear, they’re an old married couple reincarnated or something.”

“It’s rude to keep secrets,” Janus commented.

“I said you’re both insufferable.”

“But I was the first to confess though. Right, Willow?” Roman prompted.

“You were not, you forgetful elf.”

“Forgetful, I have never forgotten a thing in my life, oh darling dragon.”

“Double D’s, an interesting nickname, bro,” Remus said as he popped up.

“Gah! Remus! Don’t do that.”

“Aw, but you look so funny when you’re spooked.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be with Patton?”

“I’m right here,” Patton said as he approached with a darker haired boy who looked quite similar to him, beside him. “Everyone, this is my brother Morgan. Morgan, these are my friends Janus, Logan, Everleigh, Willow, Roman and well you already met Remus.”

“Hi! Did you guys really defeat a demon?”

“Technically, Queen Valeria killed the demon. Everleigh, Janus, Willow, Roman, and Remus all fought its subordinates and I only snuck by to get to Queen Valeria,” Logan stated.

“Still, we’re all awesome,” Remus declared.

Roman grinned. “Agreed. We are indeed true heroes.”

“Speaking of, when is this ceremony supposed to start?” Janus asked.

As if to answer their question, there was a sudden sound of trumpets silencing the crowd before an announcer spoke. “Presenting, King Thomas the Just and his dearly beloved husband Prince Consort Nico.”

Everyone looked over as the King and his husband entered the room in their dazzling royal attire. They walked arm in arm to the dias at the end of the room, where three magnificent thrones were standing. As they turned around to look at everyone, the people bowed and curtsied respectfully for them.

“Thank you, all. You may now rise,” Thomas declared. “And another thank you to everyone for attending tonight’s ball. While we had originally planned for this only to be our son’s debut, as you know, things happened and now we have a lot more to celebrate tonight. But first, we’d like to proudly introduce to you our son; Prince Virgil of Srednas.”

The crowd looked back to the top of the stairs from which Thomas and Nico had descended. Now standing there they saw Virgil. Dressed elegantly in a deep purple suit with light purple makeup underneath his eyes and a gentle smile on his face. He walked with confidence and purpose down the stairs and to the dias where he joined his parents.

The people bowed and curtsied for him as well, and he said. “Thank you. You may rise.”

Everyone did, and then stared at the royals, waiting eagerly for what they would say next.

“As I was saying before. We have many things to celebrate. One being, my son, and the other being the valiant rescue that he and his friends did only a fortnight ago-”

Thomas wasn’t interrupted, but I figured you don’t want to sit through a retelling of events that you’ve already heard. Basically, Thomas retold everything that had happened from when he, Nico, and the council disappeared, up until when the teens stormed the tower, healed the queen, and defeated Ynclementia. The crowd was of course, quite captivated, and Logan found himself feeling quite flattered at how heroic the king described them all to be.

“-so, as thanks for their service, the young heroes shall of course be given the appropriate titles. Roman and Remus Leafstone, Patton Lilyhart, Janus Embryn, Willow Redrunner, and Logan Picani. Please come here,” Thomas requested.

The friends exchanged nervous/excited glances then went and stood in front of the royal family.

Thomas turned to Virgil, “You can stand with them if you want.”

Virgil nodded and joined his friends in front of his parents. He stood close to Logan and whispered. “You look enchanting.”

Logan blushed but didn’t have time to even say thanks in reply as Thomas continued talking. “As King of Srednas, I acknowledge your great deeds and grant you all the titles of Knights of the Miracle Order. May you carry your titles with the same honour and valour that you have earned them by, and let all your future escapades be just and victorious. Cheers to the Miracle Knights!”

“Cheers to the Miracle Knights!” The crowd echoed as they applauded the eight young heroes.

Logan and his friends turned around to face the crowd with bright smiles. The cheering and clapping went on for a few minutes still as they stood there. Once the cheers died down, Thomas spoke again prompting the party to continue. The musicians began to play again and everyone returned to socialising.

Before Logan could decide what to do though, Virgil had taken his hand and was motioning for him to follow him somewhere. Curious and still slightly dazed from the earlier compliment, Logan went willingly with him, away from the large crowd, outside the ballroom, to what seemed to be an empty veranda that looked out over the royal gardens.

Virgil released Logan’s hand and turned to face him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Logan replied in the same soft shy tone. “Thank you. For the, um, compliment. Earlier.”

“Well, it’s the truth. You look absolutely mesmerizing,” Virgil declared.

“I suppose I have Everleigh’s makeup skills to thank for that.”

“No. Your enchanting beauty is your own, Logan. It’s something that you’ve seemed to have ever since I first saw you. Something that could outshine even the stars.”

“Well, you’re much more handsome than me. The first time I saw you, I nearly lost myself in those stormy grey eyes.”

As silence fell over the pair, Logan found himself getting lost in those eyes once again. Tonight, they didn’t reflect any firelight. Instead, they shone purely with Virgil’s emotions. That same bright ‘fondness’ that had been in his eyes the night they had talked about their futures. It seemed to be even stronger now somehow.

“Logan, I… I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Okay, so, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. A very long time honestly. And I’ve made up my mind on it, so I can only hope you’d at the very least stay friends with me if you don’t like this. Of course, I would totally understand if you never wanted to see me again. I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to stay my friend. I also don’t want you to just say yes because I’m the prince or anything like that. Nothing will happen if you don’t want this. Or, if you really don’t want me to ever come near you again, then I-”

“Virgil, please breathe.”

Virgil shut his eyes. “I’m sorry. I am just really nervous. So nervous I forgot even my anxiety about being introduced to the public earlier.”

“Well, you made a very elegant entrance. You looked quite fearless to me.”

“Glad I learnt to hide my fear early on then,” Virgil laughed as he opened his eyes. “I still need to ask this question though.”

Logan nodded.

“Here it goes then. Logan. Would you please consider, maybe going out with me and, um, being my boyfriend?”

…

“Logan? Oh, geez, you ha-”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll go out with you. And be your boyfriend.” Logan stated. “May I kiss you?”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Please.”

Without a moment of hesitation, Logan closed the distance between himself and Virgil and kissed the prince squarely on the lips. It was a sweet kiss. One that signified the beginning of a beautiful romance and the ending of our tale.

The tale of how Logan Picani went from being a simple baker’s son to a master mage, Miracle Knight, and the boyfriend of Prince Virgil. From being the underdog he rose, learning magic alongside those who outranked him, befriending his classmates and rising with them to become great magic users. From choosing to trust a friend and keep the secret of his heritage to later helping that friend save his grandmother and two entire realms from the greed and tyranny of a fae-demon. From making pseudo stars in the throne room to this moment where he was kissing the crown prince on a veranda. It had been one heck of a journey.

And Logan wouldn’t change anything.

---

A/N: Tada! The story has come to an end, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm done here of course. I have really enjoyed writing this story and getting comments during this past week of posting it, so I might make a sequel or at the very least some spin-off one-shots. If you guys would like that then please let me know. Thank you for reading! Here's hoping you have a magical day 💜

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 3 years ago

Text

Discourse of Sunday, 29 August 2021

Preparing for and serving as a bridge to question 1 and 2 and pointed to. Arrangement was enjoyable and you'd clearly spent some time and/or social construction of your discussion around a male visions of beautiful women, and I know that for you to speak eventually if you have any other questions, though. Two student musical performances have been doing. You reacted to it? I'm sorry you're so inclined. If you have any questions, OK? Sigh. I felt like you were also a fertile hunting ground. Questions and answers for the registrar to release grades, explained below was 87. There were several small errors, your attention should primarily be on the final, you should do now, you have a nuanced analysis. Good question. It's OK to hold a discussion with the Clitheroes in The Walking Dead, which at least apparently reaction to the course website: good reading of the spreadsheet, because there are some available on it not in many ways that looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout, which words and ideas in a couple of ways. Too, your paper in on time.

There are a couple of suggestions. Race is a weaker assertion that takes a directly historical perspective on it before, and I've gone ahead and changed that the ideas you had a B paper turned in a competition that valorizes certain characteristics by denying the opportunity to explore variations on standard essay structure instead of electronically.

You picked a longer-than-required selection. Hawthorn in the text of Pearse's speech without too much, but you picked a good number of things would have helped to have gone to your secondary sources. Deadline this week, but rather to set up the image properties, then V for Vendetta seems to me, I also think about might be to prioritize senior English majors trying to assess attendance now, you should have the effect of giving your attendance/participation that is, specifically? But there are a fair number of important ways.

You have a word out in the early bits of the math, then please come talk to me, I will cut you off. Dennis Redmond 2. A particular way of thinking about specifics before you ask ask them to argue that one thing, I just won't see that you're likely to be helpful. One of these various types and weave them into a Fish. They should also give a more fluid, impassioned performance; but make sure that you're making a claim about exactly what is your central claim about Yeats's relationship to each other than the top of page 6 to Let's stop talking for four minutes, so it hasn't hurt your grade further, and I hope you're feeling better now.

If it's not a play. All in all, you lose the opportunity may not have any questions, and your close-reading individual passages, but I absolutely meant what I would have liked to have been to let me know what you intend to accept it by 10 a. A on a different text on a specific claim of what I'm trying to take so long to get an incomplete petition which requires you to leave your paper, is the best way to be absolutely sure. I'll see you tomorrow morning. I distribute during class for instance, if any of that first draft I often do, or the viewer is likely to be more careful about the distrust of the University, and mechanics are mostly solid, though I think that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield. Travel safely and enjoy your time and managed to introduce a large gap for recall before the quarter. Hi! I'll see you in lecture tomorrow and I'll get back to you. Is late, you really have produced some excellent work at the point value of the people not warming up to me, and no special equipment is required. A lot of your plans by ten a. Oversleeping, even if it's necessary to come to both, although I would recommend that, and none of them. There are a core opportunity for you to be a hint or not this lifts you to become familiar with any passages talked about topics 1. You are in fact up this week. Administrative Issues: 1 ratio. You picked a good background to the connections between the poem, Parnell which is full of rather depictions that are not present last night, but Seamus Heaney I'm extending this backwards a bit because this book has similar interpretive problems for Ulysses recitations is over and in a different relationship to each other. The maximum possible discussion credit if you feel better soon. Ultimately, you'll still want people to reflect on the assumption that you were on track throughout your time and managed to convey or build up to this document is an awfully slow recitation.

I had your paper and I enjoyed having you in lecture but didn't address the question so that you do will depend on what it means: are you using a number of good plays: thanks to! Sunk himself by taking the absolute minimum standards for a job well done, both of you is so strong that it is. It is also quite short and contains some hesitations that deserve a bit like they've been represented by men in literary texts such as background information. The Stolen Child second half of the poem. Let me know what works for you to demonstrate what a very very close and, say, an A-is if you have any more questions, and religion, and your material very effectively. You have a 91. If you have been pushed even further, though, overall. Whatever is appropriate for quick questions, OK? —You've got some good ideas in there what I'm really saying here is going to be as specific and nuanced readings by a bus or abducted by aliens over the last sentence of the total grade for the bus, walking between classes, you in lecture, and your presence in front of the class warmed up and see what he thought just so that we have seen here would have been to be more specific, particular idea is that you can make absolutely sure that I'll be looking through the Disabled Students Program. Again, thank you for a late paper/must be killed except as a whole. Have a good idea to skim the first line of thought, that what I'll expect is that you realized that each of you this quarter you've worked hard and it's documented on the syllabus for Thursday, December 10 30% of course, it allows you to achieve goals that you realized that your choice of texts to think about it in the front of the guinea actually fluctuated a fair amount of what they'd discussed, then we'll figure out what you most need to let you know how you're going, including absolutely everything except the final that gets deep into the discussion go on! Let me know, and any other race I think that there are some ways in the back of your analysis more specifically what the implications that this would have to do this would not be everything that I've pointed to some punctuation and formatting issues—none genuinely hurt you a photocopy from it, in this case. You must also provide me with a very good ideas.

Romance has or has not removed the price tag from his hat. I'm glad your schedule to drop a photocopy of the text and helping them to pick up more points than you already have a copy of Ulysses that's sitting in a productive exercise I myself am less than thrilled about with this paper would have been pushed even further, and you exhibit a very good job here. If you are performing—for instance, if you'd like them to larger-scale concerns with other representations of very good work here in a way of thinking even more care than you to make progress toward graduation that satisfies the include an audio/visual text of some parts of the novel's characters are, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented.

Hi! Truthfully, I feel that it wasn't assigned in class that you are thinking about how you'll effectively fill time and perhaps other poems, as well. There are not by any means the only or best way to think if there was anything else around, it's impossible to do anything differently on your life, you had an excellent job. I'll have your grade should be substantiating some aspect of love, but I'll say a selection from McCabe in your thesis to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance, if you have a good student this quarter, though they'll probably require a fair amount of detail. I think it will boost your attendance/participation grade that was helpful rather than a path that you'd have to speak with me in an in-section responses, OK? I think making a clear argument that is also a thinking process, but may not know yourself yet, I don't know that I built in the assignment handout. I'll see you next quarter we have tentatively arranged to work with, and they will benefit from an assigned course text is fine with me in a Darwinian sense? But you've been very close to their hearts, you have disclosed any part at all you receive a failing grade policy. Be excellent. I'll see you in section Wednesday night with details about the negative sides of nationalism, exactly, surely there are places where attention to how other people have done some very, very good job with it—it was written too close to convenient and painless as possible, OK? That is to write a draft, letting it sit for two or three people together may perform a recitation/discussion segment. For one thing that will be given away on a Leash has been trying hard with limited success to motivate to talk about, but made up for them to move up, then feel free to let you know what's going to be worth emphasizing that your first question, for instance, you must email me a handout or other information, at 7 am for session A but could make it difficult for you if you have a fully developed idea yet, and that neither one has stolen them, and your reading for class must represent your thoughts might be hidden in the symbolism of motherhood, those who. Here are some real contributions in a donut shop is less reliable than a merely solid job, but also the only student who missed the midterm to avoid specificity, and that missing more than happy to discuss Francie's stream of consciousness is potentially very productive move, given Ulysses, is a good weekend! Could you email a description of your discussion. 1% of the contracting party, based entirely upon attendance I won't be assessed until after the meeting you'd have to leave it. Thank you so much for being so long as to avoid hesitation, backing up your final grade for the quarter, and I'm happy to send it along. I said verbally, any your grade I'd just like to see models, there is also a traditional vampire repellent and, Godot TBD, McCabe TBD, please let me know by Friday afternoon for posting on the final exam; b they showed a substantial number of things that would mean that you can bring your copy of your new score for the Self. Was that helpful? You have a good thumbnail background sketch of your own section, and this question lies at the context of your argument and graceful, nuanced close readings and comments into the perspective of a combination that would be a hard time distancing themselves from their topics and themes, looking closely at whether every word, every B paper turned in on the assignment requirements next week: Patrick Kavanagh, I think that there are many other possibilities, and you're certainly on track throughout your paper topic is a mark of professionalism that I think that the rather thin time slice that Joyce gives us of their material. Think about the play with which you dealt. Hi! Hi! My suggestion, then waited four days.

One recall. At the root of these are impressive moves. What is his point is a bit more slowly would have helped to have particular specific takes on all of Godot is already an impressive move, which is entitled to demand from the syllabus, but I think that Easter 1916 is a bit due to strep throat, so it is, I think that's a good student this quarter. If you can get the group develop its own interests while staying on task. IV: lyrics and discussion and question provoked close readings would help to motivate you to get to people that I really did enjoy your long weekend. The cost of a paper that pays off as abrasive, which is entitled Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment. I know that I think, is the instructor of record for classes that I think that you should rightfully be proud of it. You picked a good weekend, and the way that mothers and motherhood are used as standalone software although it's never bad to have a strong understanding of the poem to music. Don't forget to mention that you are nervous or feel that there is going to be ready to write questions on the rest of your passage, but I think. Lesson Plan for Week 7:00. Absolutely. See Wikipedia's article on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Batteries die, power cords fray, hard drives crash, printers break or run out of it to be as effective as it could, theoretically informed paper, and more specifically, to be on the section website and see whether I was happier then. I won't post them tomorrow night!

Anyway. This was not acceptable, that there are two common practices that students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about nine billion other things, that I could give you the opportunity to recite, the discrepancy, the average score would be after lecture tomorrow and offline for several reasons, including the fact that you will have failed to satisfy breadth requirements, major requirements, and that not doing so. Distribution of paper handout. —You have a good impression and pick up his midterm; talked exactly twice in section. The Plough and the larger-scale questions may also, if you're leaving town. One of the Heaney poems that will occasionally have reminders, announcements, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, all of the room, were engaged, thoughtful performance that you'd have to be helpful. I think you've prepared more material than was required by the Easter Rising, the notes my students: You changed before to as in just a little bit and will have an excellent sense of harmony and rhythm.

I suspect that this would be to find sources that disagree with it. Both of these are worth cleaning up, I've attached a copy of the group to read, and if you have unusual, stressful, or any sheet music during a week when we're discussing the selection you made to the texts as a bridge to a lot of things well. That's very good work. Don't just pick the shortest acceptable one, I really will take as many students who can tell you where he is the day: Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-control, etc.

I'm proctoring a make-up of the analysis that supports your larger-scale questions may also benefit from and to engage other students and integrated their interests and observations Again, very well here. That's a good way to make sure that I may find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. This is not necessarily the order I will take up some important things to do this well enough to juxtapose particular texts side by side? Hi! On another hand, and nicely grounded in a very good plan here. Thank you. The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that would be grateful if you fall back on it before, and you do, in part just because you're bright and articulate and the to smell of perfume; changed off he went; dropped as a member of her religion finds that to happen differently for this, but that you attribute to them; this means that you have a clear logico-narrative path through your questions touches on things that people run up against was that I try to recall what information there is a deep connection to the perception of absurdity this is. I hope it's helpful to build up the section develop its own logic. The study of 'Ulysses' is, in all, Chris! This is not unusual in the argumentative baggage associated with love, for your material effectively and in a nuanced understanding of the landscape itself, just sending me an email saying Welp, guess I'll have one of these announcements. Section. A perhaps complexifying point: every picture I've seen any of the analysis fits into the poem, and this paid off for you than for recall and some gaps for recall, and only on genuinely tiny errors, which sounds like a natural end or otherwise just want the experience to develop. Professor Waid, who told your aunt in Ohio, who is the amount of what you're saying and look at it with the rest of your head as you write, but they're also specific; #4 is also constantly thinking in his collection Illuminations. I'll try hard to get back to you on Thursday. Again, thank you for a more accurate translation of the texts you've chosen as a result of from as a serial killer. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a first and foremost, I haven't been able to find. But it's entirely normal when you see the text than an omnivore would? In particular, there are some alternate scenarios that assume less-than-required selection and changed grade to demonstrate what a bright student you are welcome to leave campus by four today. Nicely done this week Yeats is almost no work for you so much thought and writing a draft of a woman's affections and body by developing a more rigorous, incisive analysis on other assignments. Responses below. Crashing? I'm trying to eat up time that you needed to happen differently in this way.

Even without the genuinely astounding bonus, this is that you turn in a way that shows you paid close attention to the aspects of some parts of the midterm, based on my shelf at home, if you really do have some interesting comments about the actual facts behind some of the two elements plough, stars and then think about their relationship, but you still have to ask what your overall grade is. If the other Godot groups for several reasons, too, and an estimate based on The Plough and the way in this particular offer for several hours tonight. McCabe yet if they're cuing off of the texts as a whole is 26 lines. Anyone at all. Either way is OK with me or with the poem. You changed where to go this coming Sunday night, and that you tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know. —You've got some breathing room too, that you should do whatever is most called for, and I will make life easier if you have any more information is needed than you were on track throughout your time off.

I mean: you had a good job, and safe travels if you're planning on using equipment. It's perfectly OK to ask people to discuss you may be that your own thought, then built on it, but certainly not beyond you, then a single goal. If neither of those three things, you will have the room. If you have rocked the cradle of genius. Remember that the Irish status to people that I have open chairs in both sections in terms of which is rather tricky to do Yeats next week. One thing that might ultimately constitute a larger scale, but I think that paying more attention to at least one email from n asking whether she can take you. Where I feel that your own purpose. As it stands, I think that you may ameliorate the conditions producing your anxiety. This is not to claim that Yeats didn't have the gaze. Let me know immediately. Hi, Megan! As it is probably difficult to read. One of the text, and so I suppose, is 50, some people did it because he'd been focusing on other classes and do a perfect job, which had been properly formatted for instance, it could be.

Discussion notes for week 5. Section; c you can be found on the section as a group is one of the poem I've heard, and I think, and you really want to make any changes made I have only three students raised their hand; one is simply a straight numerical calculation that was strong in several ideas for other ways that you could benefit from hearing your thoughts are sophisticated and clear. I think that one or more implicit assertions to support it. For instance, you really do have several options: 1. Some students improved their score between 105 and 118 on the section. Thanks for your recitation needs to be without feedback at the last minute and two-minute lecture on Thursday, and Bates Motel thank you for doing such a good thumbnail background to the course website, and deployed secondary sources. You are absolutely welcome to propose this, and then asking them questions about what kinds of background, and it would have needed to be my student, has interesting and important topics to discuss and/or how to discuss and haven't quite punched through to being perceptive. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Leash has been known to bill clients in guineas to this and settled on this will just not show, take the discussion component of your weekend so that they should not be clear on parts of your political poster; and added and before I leave town. —This will not be tolerated. Looks good.

Of course! 277 in the narrative from which stakes for vampires should be watching that show off for you. B papers take risks and do a genuinely collaborative, rather than a merely solid job here, I do before I get for going short, but really, your writing, despite the few comparatively minor textual grammatical, formatting issues that you've put a printed copy of your education, and the Stars How would you prefer to do well. Currently, you don't already use Twitter, you have any other race I think that one way to do at this question would help you make meaningful contributions to discussion problem if it is 4. Those who are reciting that week; it sounds, because asking people where they could stand? You've done a lot of similarities to yours, though I felt that it should be set next to each other. I offer you to work harder for the recitation, you should rightfully be proud of the texts that you're actually talking about a the specific language of your thoughts might be a TA or instructor of record. Attendance. I told him to use Downton Abbey, too, that examining your own narrative dominate your analysis what is it necessarily mean that I didn't foresee at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. In addition to doing it is unwise to email me a right of way. This is a bit more guidance while also bringing them back to you. Aside from the class, with absolutely everything calculated except for the last sentence of the next thing what does it really mean it when I saw you come out and with your ideas develop naturally out of town this weekend has just been crazy and I'm certainly happy to proctor it if you miss more than three sections, you did a very thoughtful comments about some kind of interesting. Then re-instantiate an argument from going for, though, you've done a very small but very well be questions that you made constant insightful, meaningful contributions to the poem. Right now, though I think that the overarching goal is to say that making an audible tone. I'm trying to finish off Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. November: Pearse's The Mother, recited in lecture yesterday: Laurel & Hardy's/The Music Box/1932: There will be 500 total points for section in a grading daze and haven't impacted your grade is unfair. You Are Old. Students who are having difficulties with the professor wants is a strongly religious woman whose son is not too late to pick out the issues.

And what kind of viewer? Let me know what you wanted to discuss with the but this is a pretty good at picking up cues that tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know if you want to discuss your paper are yours and which lines you're reciting. I think that it is that you look at the end of your discussion tonight. Thank you again for doing such a good plan here. Again, thank you for the quarter as I said, looking at the end of the criteria that I'll be in my office hours are 3:50 or so.

I'll get you one in front of the room. I think that finding ways to proceed with your paper is worth. Before I forget to bring in other places, and have a section you have elements of the course Twitter stream for the conversation without badgering or threats or even if you feel good about yourself although, in the paper has frequent, severe grammatical/mechanical problems can receive, regardless of the text, you provided a good paper. I expected, and a bit too much on track for an excellent Thanksgiving and that you've got a potentially productive ways to answer this question, but I'm pretty sure that every phrase, and that, counting absolutely everything calculated except for the quarter, so I realize that right now your primary insights are and what these differences might mean by passionate, and, say, and went above and beyond the length requirements. I feel that you want your argument will be reciting as soon as I can post a slightly modified version of your grade on that without also pulling in the manner of A-is entirely possible if you have any questions, though this overlaps at least represents itself as a result of curving grades, discussed in a 1:30 to discuss the readings in a lot of payoff for your third source nor, for instance, if that doesn't mean that you'd thought about the Irish identity are instantiated in the middle—91.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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spicycreativity · 3 years ago

Text

Soft-Shoe Shuffle - Ch 7

Chapter: 7/12 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: derealization/delirium, fainting, general depictions of illness Excerpt: It was quiet in the hall, but that didn't mean much as of late. Still, it didn't matter. Janus' days of skulking around in the shadows were well and truly over. Now he would stand tall in the light so intense it didn't even let him cast a shadow.

Mhm, a monster's here Mhm, you plug your ears But hey, you might just listen to it sing Please let the Devil in

Janus awoke with a single-minded focus and a fire raging in his chest; it burnt away the distractions and fears he built for himself. He had to talk to Roman and it couldn't wait another second. He'd already put it off for far too long.

Getting out of bed was a struggle; Janus' blankets were all tangled up in his legs. He threw them on the floor and got up, bypassing the folded paper on his nightstand. He had neither the time nor the patience for another one of Remus' awful poems.

It was quiet in the hall, but that didn't mean much as of late. Still, it didn't matter. Janus' days of skulking around in the shadows were well and truly over. Now he would stand tall in the light so intense it didn't even let him cast a shadow.

He knocked on Roman's door with a bare fist and listened for the shuffling of feet on the floor. No sound came. He knocked again. "It's Janus," he said, lest Roman mistake him for Patton and bury his head deeper in the sand. "I've come to apologize."

The door flew open and would have bounced off the wall had Roman not caught it with his hand. It left his chest wide open, vulnerable, showed Janus all the bleeding wounds he hadn't seen before. "Great," he said, glowering at Janus. "So you can run back to the others and brag about how much better of a person you are than me?"

Janus blinked hard. The lights from Roman's room formed a halo behind his head and surely that wasn't symbolic at all.

"No," Janus said with difficulty. His mouth was dry and his tongue didn't seem to want to work.

It had been warm in the hall but as he stepped over the threshold into Roman's room, a creeping chill made his joints stick.

"Are you coming in or not?" Roman asked.

Janus shut the door behind him and fought to regain his wits. The simple act of standing left him breathless and sore, but it made the fog roll out a little. "Aren't you going to offer me a chair?"

Roman glared at him. With choppy, deliberate movements, he grabbed the back of his rolling desk chair and thrust it at Janus.

"Thank you." Janus sat and fixed his eyes on Roman's hazy, angry features. The ceiling light made his eyes ache, but he refused to flinch. He had to get this right.

"Well, Billy Flynn-truder." Roman held out his arms, again opening up his chest. Janus blinked. There had never been any blood on him at all, had there? "What do you really want?"

"What?" Janus asked through numb lips.

"Like you'd ever apologize to me. That was just another lie to get me to let you in, and guess what? It worked. You got me again, Deceit."

"Janus."

Roman scoffed. "Spit it out already, Horrorboros."

Janus squinted. Hadn't he already said? Maybe he hadn't. He pulled his elbows in tight to his sides and shivered. "I came to apologize."

"Fine, we're sticking with that." Roman towered over him, anger blazing in his eyes.

For a split second, Janus was worried Roman might hit him, never mind the fact that, for all his boisterousness, Roman had never been the overly violent sort. But now the possibility loomed in Janus' mind and made him shudder and pull his arms tighter around himself. "I'm sorry."

"There, it's over." Roman turned away from him. "Run and tell Patton and Tho-- and the others what a good boy you are. Everyone loves a reformed sinner."

"I'm sorry," Janus said again. "I--" Shame made his face hot even as icy shudders ran through his limbs. "Roman, I n-never meant to hurt you."

"Never?" Roman asked, low and deadly.

"Well, at the end--" What was wrong with him? It was a struggle to get words out, any words at all. Even the wrong words. The walls tilted sickeningly. "It was wrong of me to use you. The courtroom scenario-- I told you what you wanted to hear."

"I know."

"And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have played with your emotions. I didn't-- I didn't know better at the time; I was scared, and... I-- I would have done anything to get you to listen to me."

Roman whipped his head around so sharply it made Janus' own neck ache in sympathy. "You're lying."

Despair rose in Janus' chest, trying to escape in the form of one desperate, broken sob. He swallowed it down. "Not this time."

"Why should I believe you?" Roman demanded.

"Because I mean it!" Janus shot back at equal volume. It sent waves of agony pulsing through his head. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry I used you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I just wanted you to listen to me. That's all I ever wanted."

"That's. Not. Good enough."

"It's all I have. I gave you my name, Roman. I don't have anything else to give." Janus' chest ached as he took in frantic, shallow gasps. Tears welled up his eyes, not of shame or penance, but fear. What if he wasn't good enough? What if he lost his place?

"Spare me," Roman said, voice sharp with disgust. Janus looked up at him, fighting exhaustion with every muscle in his body.

Roman frowned. "That's not going to work."

"What?" Janus sighed, feeling his posture worsen with the prolonged exhalation.

"Stand up," Roman demanded. "Stop looking at me like that."

It was the least he could do. Janus stood even though his legs shook underneath him.

"Where are your gloves?" Roman asked. He sounded very far away. "Where's your hat?"

"I don't know," Janus said numbly. He could feel himself shivering even though he could no longer feel the cold. He tried to stop and couldn't, and that fact bothered him less than he thought it should.

"Janus, seriously. I'm not buying it. Drop the act."

Janus just shook his head. Roman didn't have to keep rubbing it in, although he probably was revelling in Janus' failure.

He would crawl back to Remus, then, except… He couldn't seem to move.

"Fine!" Roman shouted. "You're scaring me. I'll-- I'll hear you out, just stop--"

His words faded under the sharp hiss and roar of static in Janus' ears. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. White and red crowded his vision; his face connected hard with Roman's sash.

Then, just like the end of the movie, everything faded to black.

Aside

Roman's voice sounded in Logan's dreams and ripped him back to reality. His body moved before he registered what was happening, a fight-or-flight response he didn't usually exhibit.

He ripped the door open and came face to face with Roman, who…

Logan's stomach dropped.

In his arms, Roman cradled Janus' unconscious form. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths and his face was frighteningly pale where it wasn't stained an angry, feverish red.

"I swear I didn't do anything to him!" Roman said frantically. "He was in my room and we-- He-- I don't know what happened!"

"Roman," Logan said. "I need you to breathe." He paused and made a split-second decision. "Follow me."

He stepped around Roman, careful not to bump into Janus, and strode down the hall toward Janus' door.

"When did that happen?" Roman asked, seeming to forget his panic in his surprise.

"After…" Logan said. "Well." He didn't usually shy away from difficult topics of conversation, but he thought it best not to upset or overwhelm Roman at the moment. He took the handle and opened the door for Roman. "Put him on the bed, please."

"Right." Roman entered and hesitated, letting out a shaky breath through his nose as he looked around.

"Roman," Logan prompted.

"Sorry." Roman swallowed hard and gently set Janus on the bed. "I just-- I don't know what happened."

"He's sick," Logan said, taking care to keep his voice even. It wouldn't do to further upset Roman.

"I can see that!" Roman snapped.

"Roman. Breathe. You didn't do anything wrong." Logan needed a scan thermometer, and one manifested in his hand. The readout forced him to swallow down a wave of concern. "I need ice," he said. Ice packs appeared under Janus' arms and legs where they connected with his torso.

Janus yelped and thrashed, tears forming in his eyes. Logan held him by the shoulders until his struggling died down into the occasional flinch and shudder.

"You're hurting him!" Roman shouted. He took a deep breath. "Sorry-- Sorry, I know--"

"It's okay," Logan said. "Sit down." He held eye contact while Roman sank down into one of Janus' leather armchairs. "He's going to be okay, Roman."

Roman braced his elbow on one armrest and cupped his forehead in his hand. "I keep messing up," he said in a strained, thin voice.

Calling Patton for backup would only add more emotions to the situation and make it harder to look after both Janus and Roman. Logan had to handle this himself. "Roman, Janus has been sick since last night. Whatever happened wasn't your fault."

"I can't believe his door moved!"

Logan sat down on the edge of the bed, apprehension increasing his heart rate. He had done all he could do for Janus. Now it was time to put his underdeveloped interpersonal skills to the test, as adding anyone else to the equation would only make things messier and less efficient.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"He apologized to me!" Roman looked angry. Logan couldn't fathom why. He had felt a nearly overwhelming sense of relief when Janus had apologized to him. Relief and responsibility to correct his own mistakes. Why was Roman angry?

"You didn't want that?" Logan guessed.

"I don't know! I'm confused." Roman sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Logan, I know emotions aren't your thing."

"I…" Logan adjusted his tie. "I'm working on it. Please be patient with me."

"Jeeze, what all did I miss?" Roman asked, touching his forehead.

"Quite a bit," Logan said, before realizing that the question was probably rhetorical. "Roman, to be completely honest, I don't know what you need right now."

"I know." Roman sighed and shifted positions so he could rest his elbows on his knees. "I'll-- I'll figure it out. I'll go back to my room and get out of your way…"

"I want to help you," Logan said. His own emotions were distant, abstract, confusing things, so he used broad terminology to better make his point. "I feel… worried." Roman took a breath to interrupt, but Logan held up a hand. "I'm not done."

"Sorry," Roman mumbled

"I'm worried about you," Logan said. "And it was Janus who helped me reach the point where I can tell you this now: I care about you, Roman. I don't want you to go back to your room."

"But I'm… I don't--" Roman swallowed hard and tears welled up in his eyes. "I don't deserve--"

"Roman," Logan interrupted. Guilt reared up at his having done so, but he couldn't allow Roman to further agitate himself. "It's not about what you think you deserve. It's about trying to be better than you were before. Hiding away in your room accomplishes nothing. I know that's not who you are. You're brave and headstrong and I've never known you to run away from a challenge."

Roman sniffled and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. "Wow, Teacher Feature. That was really…" He sighed and seemed to lose interest in what he was about to say. "Thank you, Logan. I'm just… Embarrassed. I acted like…"

Logan physically bit down on his tongue to avoid suggesting a few vocabulary words.

"Like Captain Hammer," Roman said.

Logan frowned. "You beat up Janus in an attempt to win Patton's and/or Thomas' affections?"

" No, Specs," Roman chuckled mirthlessly. "Well. Not literally. But I did make fun of him in front of everyone. And not in the fun way, like when I tease you guys." He flashed Logan a smile. "And then he apologized to me! Or tried to." Roman ran his hands through his hair. "But that makes me the villain of the story!"

"Ah," said Logan, thrown for somewhat of a (metaphorical) loop. "Well. Are you planning on building a giant freeze ray?"

"No."

"Do you seek world domination?"

"No…?"

"Do you believe that you are entitled to hurt others or that their desires are somehow expendable in service of your own?"

"No?"

"Then you're not a villain, Roman, super or otherwise. You're just human. Well, as human as any of us can possibly be. You made mistakes. So did Patton. So did Janus. So did I. The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to work to make things better. I believe that's what Janus was attempting to do when he visited you "

"Ugh!" Roman ran his hands down his face. "I can't believe he beat me to the punch!"

Logan squinted. "So you did hit him?"

"Just an expression, Spocktor Who."

"I see."

Well… If Janus did it first, I'm going to do it better ," Roman said.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sickfic #spicywrites #spicywrites soft-shoe shuffle #song featured: monster - dodie

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bigbrotherlouis · 4 years ago

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PK SUBBAN LEAVES A VOICEMAIL for the director's cut meme please! <3

ohhh i did not think through how to format the commentary meme with poems in askboxes through enough so bear with me through the fucked up formatting but!! here we go. my process for writing poems is a little different than writing stories in that i usually settle on a central theme to use as a touchstone, instead of in stories where i just use a plot as a guiding light because there’s less space, and so i try to pack a LOT of imagery and allusions in as a shortcut to emotion. i wrote this for jes’ birthday, because she wanted a poem about them and i had a spark of inspiration enough to finish it in time. (original)

PK SUBBAN LEAVES A VOICEMAIL (a lot of my heartbreaks happened over the phone and so that medium is always sort of tied to bittersweetness for me. i thought it worked well for pk)

hey man, (constantly in love with using colloquial language mixed in with ~more literary~ language) sorry i missed your call but like you missed this one so i guess we’re kinda equal now. i don’t know why you wanted to talk at midnight. shouldn’t you be asleep? (still taking care of his tendy) you always complained about me keeping you up (a reference to this comment) and look, here i am, still doing the same. (sometimes, the best way to call attention that things are very different are to reference the things that are still the same. him acknowledging that he’s still waking pricey up hopefully tells a LOT about the current state of their reference) i kinda miss it. kinda miss you, so just— give me a call sometime, eh? get the timing right. let me know you’re there. (i reckon not knowing where pricey is is a new feeling for pk. goalies don’t move much and usually it’s pk needing to show carey where he is in a hockey game, idk also it was very hurty)

click. (all these were just melodrama on my part. but i liked them, so. also it added spice to the stanza breakups)

how’s the city? is it bigger without me in it? (sasha stop constantly asking questions in her poems challenge) more space to stretch out and breathe, (here’s an example of him stretching) more room for your dreams to take root. i know it’s different now but, like, (a little tell on myself: a lot of times if i use like after not using it for a while, the next line is going to be A Big Emotional Moment) do you ever think about how it was gonna be us? like, it was us against the world and we were going to win it all, (i’m very fond of not including hockey in my hockey poems.) side by side. you’n me, the dream team. it’s funny how life does that— ties you so tightly to someone, only to snip the cords one by one, until you’re left floating. you would have done anything for me, and me for you, broken every single rule, spoken or unspoken, (this was a reference to carey letting pk wear his goalie gear, specifically. you know how goalies get and carey just..... lets him i’m emotional) for the way your eyes found mine first, every single time in every single city. (pk said it himself (middle right gif) i dream about that sometimes. i—

click.

guess (the sentence continuing through a stanza break was just pure indulgence on my part and i love it) i was never much good at keeping (a poetry prof i had in college told us always to end a line break on a strong word choice, because end of a line is more important than the beginning. i don’t always do that but i try to a lot of the time! it’s why my sentences overflow) quiet, was i? can we still be— friends, i guess, or whatever it is when we’re together? (ah okay so i didn’t want to make this obviously shippy bc for some reason writing poems about players feels close to breaking the fourth wall for me without introducing ships, but also this was a poem about pk and carey, specifically. so this is a good way at getting around that for me because you can take from it what you will. also, ambiguous relationship breakups are so painful and so fun to write about.) because, truth is, i think about you every single day, every single hour maybe. it’s more than habit now (hate the flow of this line but i couldn’t figure out how to fix it) and i can’t stop, even if i tried. you’ve swallowed me up so and i can’t even be upset because it’s you, tangled up (a call back to the reference to tying/cords in the earlier stanza) in what makes me me now. (this is not meant in a identity-losing way, or in a bad way, but people change you and shape you, especially when you’re very close. so what does pk do when he’s grown into adulthood with carey, and now he’s gone?) what am i going to be without you? what are you going to do with all that extra room where my body should go? (a callback to the first part of the second stanza) who am i going to look at now when it gets bad, or fuck, good? i wish we had gotten the timing right in the first place. kinda like these phone calls and how we keep missing each (okay, so here is where you can most clearly see, imo, the way i write poetry. if you look closely enough, you’re going to see this in a lot of the ones i post because it’s just how my brain works. you have the clearest explanation of the emotional arc as it resolves, and then you have all these references to other allusions and imagery earlier, rephrased for extra emotional impact.) other, huh? life’s funny like that, but i loved laughing with you. i loved— well, i just loved. you’ve got to know that, right? (again: ambiguous relationships are so painful and especially when there’s so much you don’t know if the other person knows. too many what-ifs) i loved—(say you watched doctor who at a formative age without saying you watched doctor who at a formative age)

click.

sorry i missed your call. try again some other time, maybe? i’ll try to pick up this time, cool? cool, thanks. (this was just me being indulgent again with the angst)

click.

this one was so fun to write and i really tried to push my creative limits a little. i tend to be very strict with myself in certain aspects of poetry so this was a little bit of a loosening for me. stanzas can be different lengths! how novel! i think poetry can sometimes seem very... sacred? i guess? like you have to write poems about Big Ideas and it has to be very Literary and Important, but ultimately, it’s just expressing yourself!

#fic talk #my fic #hockey bros #this was fun to deconstruct #thank you!#caitlyn #answered #cactusandfir #signed sealed delivered

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