#have written like 2k words in 2 days because of the pure energy from my birthday being Soon

[bedforddanes75]

what

[burningdarkfire]

tagged by @saturdaysky​, thank you! always very happy to talk about writing 🤠

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

36 on ao3, with many others left in the past on livejournal or ffnet

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

162k. it’s kind of a shame it doesn’t have the majority of my pre-2011 output as i never ported over my top four or five longest fics. i would’ve loved to see some genuine lifetime totals!

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

9 on ao3 (critrole, nier, hetalia, overwatch, trc, voltron, no. 6, star wars, tiger & bunny). if you expand trc to include anything clamp and throw in code geass then that covers everything i’ve ever published, though homestuck is by far the fandom i have the most WIPs for despite never finishing a single one and deserves a shoutout

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

take my hand / take my whole life too: critrole, 9k, how essek and caleb’s relationship evolves through touch

blue sky, warm sun: critrole, 3.5k, six mornings caleb wakes with essek

dark night, bright stars: critrole, 3k, six nights caleb spends with essek

kitty love: star wars, 1.5k, kylo ren forms a bond with hux’s cat millicent

the walls kept tumbling down: critrole, 2k, caleb spontaneously visits essek after a hard day

commentary and further answers are below the cut!

spots 1-3 on the list are gladly accepted, given that i also think they’re some of my best and most broadly-appealing shadowgast. kitty love gets its spot despite being pure, pointless crack because it’s for a huge fandom, which is fine and fun but i don’t have a lot of personal attachment to it

the walls kept tumbling down is a surprise! it was a self-indulgent “i want a fic exactly like this to fix my mood and instead of digging through the internet for one i’ll just make one up” that i only worked on for a couple of days. i’m glad it clicked for other people!

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i always try to respond to comments, although sometimes a week or two pass by before i can find the energy to sit down and do it

admittedly comments have gone unanswered during months or years when i’m not writing fic and then it feels too awkward to a) go back and respond, and b) respond to any further comments on the fic even if they come in when i’m active. so instead those comments haunt my ao3 inbox forever (oops)

i do appreciate every single one though, and there are some comments that i go back to read if i need a pick-me-up just because they were so nice 😊

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i’ll link my no. 6 fic forgive me because it still dominates my top fics in terms of hits despite being 387 words long. i wrote it in 2011 in less than half an hour, if i’m remembering correctly, and there are a few clever bits in it that i’m still quite proud of

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i don’t usually write or read “pure” crossovers but i do like fusion AUs where characters from one work are imported into the setting of another work

but it’s fandom-dependent. critrole has been an outlier in that i can count on one hand the number of AU fics i’ve read and liked enough to remember. some of my favourite canon-adjacent fics veer off wildly, but they’ve still got their roots in the universe

i’ve published 17 critrole fics myself and they’re all canon-adjacent. i’m only now working on my first fusion-type AU 🤷‍♂️

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i have one distinct memory of receiving criticism on a fic. in hindsight, it was constructive and pretty fair, but i was a young teen and so it still haunts me

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

i do!! and i’m excited about it because it’s fairly new to me!

i write to the characters, and what kind of relationship i think they’d have, but it’s probably true that my interests tend towards certain relationship dynamics

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i’m aware of!

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, actually! this was about about a decade ago so sadly the details have been lost in the haziness of memory and the inaccessibility of ffnet. i tried to dig it up last night but couldn’t find it again 😔

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i don’t ... think so? my current roommate and i tried co-writing when we were teenagers but none of that got published. it’s possible i’m forgetting something from my livejournal/early tumblr days because i remember doing a lot of ask games and challenges with other writers and fandom friends

now i’m just an introvert who avoids invites to discords because i feel like i simply Do Not Have Time so 🤡 not sure it’s anywhere on the horizon

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

i used to have shipping walls and pairing lists until 2015 or so but i have since accepted that i am changeable like the wind. my interests come and go!

i am a multi-shipper though as a general rule. i’ve never had such a loyalty to a pairing that it would bother me to pair one half with someone else, and i also don’t care at all whether or not a ship is canon. it’s just about what’s interesting!

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i’ve had remarkably sequential focus for my critrole fics and finished nearly every idea i’ve had so far. however, this ACME AU is testing me lol and i’ve spent so much time on it that my list of other ideas to write is only getting longer and longer. nothing is abandoned yet, because not much else has even been started, but i am starting to sweat a little

15) What are your writing strengths?

i love my writing style! i value simplicity and clarity: no flowery descriptions, easy words, few similes, little variance in sentence structures, etc. it can vary, based on my mood or the characters i’m writing, but i like doing more with less

i’ve spent years working at my own style and it is so satisfying to read something i wrote in 2011 and feel how familiar it still is while being able to pick out what i would change

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

recently, it’s been plot. if it can’t be conveyed by 2-4 characters talking to each other then i don’t know how to do it anymore 😭 i’m most invested in emotional resolutions, but it’s probably a good idea to have things happen sometimes!

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i really do not enjoy this when it’s used as a “character quirk”. this includes nicknames, common phrases even if they are spoken that way in canon, and .. everything, really, that’s in a different language

i’ve spent a lot of time in spaces where it seemed widely agreed that doing so was not welcome, and i’ve had considerable fandom “culture shock” reading critrole fics. there are plenty of reasons to have caleb speaking “zemnian” or to emphasize his accent, and those reasons don’t need to be lofty or deep, but i do think there should be a reason beyond “haha this guy says ja instead of yeah”

i promise, absolutely pinky swear, that i don’t judge anyone on an individual basis for doing this. it seems to be a deep-seated fandom trend in this case and i just wish it wasn’t

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

tsubasa reservoir chronicle (trc) all the way back in 2010. tsubasa, my beloved, how you changed my life 💕

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

i like different ones for different reasons, but the top contender might be such is the endlessness for nier automata. it’s a vampire/werewolf enemies-to-lovers fusion AU where i put 2b and 9s in an original universe of mine that i wrote about a lot when i was a teenager

i feel like i did a spectacular job of adapting the universe for nier and i thought i conveyed a lot about the world in a relatively short number of words (the entire fic is just under 5k). i’ve considered more than once that i should use this version of the universe going forward because i enjoy it so much!

-

thanks again for the tag, sky, and i’ll leave this open to anyone else who wants to try as i think most of my mutuals have already been included. don’t be shy about tagging me in your answer if you take my open invite as i love reading these! 💖

[potatoesandsunshine]

Campaign 2 Wrap Up: Anna Potatoesandsunshine Edition

Seemed like it would be fun to go through all the fan content I made for this campaign and try to find at least one thing I like about each thing! Kind of like looking back through a photo album. Under the cut because as it turns out, I wrote kind of a lot! (As in, 21 fics and 3 playlists kind of a lot!)

the sea, once it casts its spell (fjord speculation, what’s up with all this ocean stuff?? the fic)

The first thing I wrote for c2, wayyy in the beginning of things. We had no idea about Uk’otoa or Avantika or anyone at this point, it was pure ocean vibes for my favorite warlock. I really like how hard I leaned in on the “the ocean follows Fjord to land” idea.

so many things will fill my life (but only one will do) (post-campaign cali/jester fluff, written the night of the cali episode and so sweet it could rot your teeth)

This one is just good. I just did good with this one. I’m one of those people who hates their own work the night of posting and then when looking back at it goes, “Wow, this is great.” My favorite thing is the little gifts sent along with the letters! Cali was so fun and cute :)

when the dust does roam (Beau study up to Episode 42, 2k words of Beau poking at the idea of grief)

Best thing I did in this fic was have Caleb-through-Frumpkin bugging Beau about getting some sleep. They really... they’re siblings, your honor. 

“  “Fuck off, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Beau picks the bird up and sets him in the hood of her own cloak, out of reach of any weasels or startled monks in the morning. It’d suck to have to tell Caleb that his Frumpkin got eaten by Sprinkle.” C’mon guys, let’s do the sibling dance.

keep your swords out by your sides (the idea for this was, What If Fjord Has Nightmares From Uk’otoa Every Night and just doesn’t remember them)

Assigning everybody a word Uk’otoa had said for each nightmare in this was a challenge; I went into it knowing I wanted Caleb for Learn and Caduceus for Consume and had to guess the rest - for an angry eye snake Uk’otoa didn’t give us a ton of quotes. 

“ He reaches over and runs a hand along the wall of the ship. From his touch, mushrooms begin sprouting.” Caduceus starting to decompose the Mistake in the middle of cooking was maybe the best moment in this story for me. Like, yeah. Yeah. Ok you funky little grave cleric.

strange but not a stranger (Caleb & Jester, in the immediate aftermath of Caleb’s charm in Episode 55)

the first of my “the Mighty Nein won’t have these conversations with each other in canon so they have to be had in fic” ideas that turned into a full-fledged story. I still had not discovered the em dash at this point, so the formatting of this makes me cringe a little bit, but this fic was really about The Emotions Of Being Out Of Control which turned out to be a very big Thing for the Mighty Nein.

now this story was when swords were humble (fake academia mixed with a Yasha study)

Honestly I’m still obsessed with the AU I made here where Yasha was just awakening every sword she used without knowing it?? Why did I use that here only?? That might come back. But the best part about this fic is the citations; me at my most in-joke and ridiculous.

through the teeth of this tempest (Written in the immediate aftermath of Episode 69, Yasha internally trying to break Obann’s control over the course of a month.)

The most “I wrote this to cope with canon” fic out of all of them. I was crying writing this, I was so upset that Yasha was gone ugh just remembering it. Still waiting for past me to discover the em dash, I genuinely don’t know why I didn’t know how to do it and I’ve thought about going back and editing all of these but I’m just Not Gonna Do All That. Anyway, I really like how Yasha catches lightning with her sword in this. We all really manifested that happening.

nothing more than what the losers settle for (Time travel, a series of oneshots where each member of the m9 sans Caduceus went back to a different point in the timeline and murdered Trent Ikithon)

This was my longest fic for c2, so I’m mostly just glad it got finished. This happened somewhere around the time Matt released that set of notes that mentioned Trent in more detail and I hated him so much I just had to write him dying six times. That speaks for itself.

Revolutionary!Fjord was also a good turn. He could pull it off, I think.

we’re gonna show ‘em a thing, or two, or three (Jester growing up fluff!)

I really like how I did Jester & Artagan in this, even though he barely appears. Someone better at songwriting than me please write the Dragon Song. Em dash makes an appearance here but the formatting is still wrong. I Am Once Again Asking For Proper Use Of The Em Dash.

the best things (happen while you’re dancing) (Mid-Episode 97 Divergence, Jester taking the reins at the party + hints of jester/beau/yasha bc i still love my girls so much)

Jester’s a little out of character in this, but not wildly so, and it was for the purposes of a Trapped By Societal Convention plot that I wanted her to mastermind so I think it was fine in the end. I’m still fascinated by the way she unbalanced Ludinus Da’leth in basically every interaction they had, and while their scene feels pretty cliche in this... the cliches are there for a reason. They’re so fun to write.

Em dash my beloved, there you are.

plus thirty-one varieties of sacramental wine (The Galavant crossover that truly nobody asked for, Beau + the monks)

Yeah, this one’s just fun. Not much more to say about it. Critical Role and Galavant are both fantasy, but they’re honestly pretty different in tone, and it was fun to write Beau dropped into a comedy musical.

oh we were sea-bound and aimless at best (Purely angst, a What If The Fjord & Orly Resurrections Didn’t Work fic)

Made myself care about Marius with this one, y’all. What more can I say? Beau having to go from first mate to captain was just... deliciously painful, because she would.

lost my shape trying to act casual (Beau & Yasha during travelercon, another mid-episode fic, this time of 104)

Yasha comforting Beau, who feels guilty for not feeling guilty... That Mighty Nein wasn’t lying, Mind Control and Autonomy can be themes. Another in the  “the Mighty Nein won’t have these conversations with each other in canon so they have to be had in fic” tank. They really just... didn’t open up to each other for a long time, which made sense, but I wanted them to.

so long as you don’t mind a little dying (Beau & Caduceus, sometime in the peace talks arc)

Keeping with the Mighty Nein Please Talk To Each Other theme, I feel like I did a pretty good job with the late-night conversation energy of this fic. This was at a time when I was looking at Caduceus, can opener in hand, ready to make this firbolg open up about his feelings. Beau in this is prickly and confrontational but only in service of her friend’s well-being.

amber light, bending (Eiselcross speculation, Widofjord and all the messiness therein)

THE widofjord fic of my two widofjord fics. The blueprint. The better one. Finally I got the dynamic figured out. I maintain that the tower is an absolute expression of Caleb’s love for his friends. The way that neither of them have the braincell in this fic... yeah this one is just good.

and a blade between them (Widofjord happening... sometime.)

Okay so this is not as good as amber light and I will never be able to look at it and like it as much, but it was still fun to write. Anyway, the intimacy of shaving someone else. That is good. The tag “if they didn’t want me to think about the blood pact they shouldn’t have made the blood pact” is the most useful takeaway from this fic and is the driving force behind the Fjord/Jester/Caleb fic I’m working on now, so it wasn’t a waste of time or anything.

feel the ground beneath my feet turn into the sky (Post-Campaign Astrid-retires-to-Nicodranas, Astrid/Jester)

This is another one where I’m like “Yeah, this is just good.” Packed full of Wizard Fashion, Artagan making an appearance to rope Astrid into having a happier future, and the power of Going To The Seaside. Good for you, fic-Astrid.

spend your days biting your own neck (Role-reversal where Beau is the one mind-controlled this time and Yasha is the one chasing after her, set very early in the Tomb Takers arc)

So much of this fic is about not saying things aloud - Beau’s POV spends a good chunk on body language and Yasha writes multiple letters on paper and in her own head - but devotion bleeding through anyway because there’s nowhere else for it to go. The two of them go tumbling over a cliff together at the end but Yasha has wings, ugh. Yeah this was a good one.

and blow the dry leaves from the tree (Somewhere before the beauyasha date but otherwise timeline-nonspecific Nicodranas, Yasha & Yeza become friends)

Yasha & Yeza making pancakes together when neither of them know how to do so... is good. This fic is very much about grief sneaking in, but it’s even more about finding someone to share the moment with you. I think these two have more in common than we think.

oh, lend a mending hand (Caleb & Caduceus during Beau’s tombstone meditation in Episode 130)

I wrote this entire fic as an excuse for Caleb and Caduceus to hug and it does what it says on the tin. Got em.

it’s about the passing of measures (Beauyasha at the end of Episode 134, Aeor speculation)

This fic got extremely sidetracked because I rediscovered the marble machine during it and I do not apologize for that. I still really like the idea that Aeor as a whole, not just the Cognouza, is somewhat-alive. Too much magic and too much death for it to be anything else, in my mind. And I’m a sap for hurt/comfort.

the blumentrio playlist nobody asked for

If I think too much about how deep in each other these three people are I will cry. Made myself a soundtrack for those tears. 

the caleb playlist nobody asked for

what if this angsty wizard had a playlist of songs that mostly just... make me want to dance? that question was answered here.

the caduceus playlist nobody asked for

songs about home, leaving home, dying, changing, becoming someone new, coming home and finding it’s changed... this to me is caduceus.

yeah... this campaign has been fun!! I probably won’t stop making things about it; I still write about Vox Machina, for crying out loud, but... it feels good to lay it all out like this. It’s been a long few years, and it’s wild to be seeing the end of it now.

[thewritingstar]

Written In The Stars (Chap 2)

Nalu Zodiac AU

Okay another update!!! I know its taken a while but here it is!! I hope you all enjoy, its a longer chap over 2K!!!

This shall be WC #37 (idk I think it is)

In case you missed Chapter One: Here

Chapter 2: 

“Why are you so happy?” Loke asked as Natsu strolled into their dorm room. He hopped on to his bed and let out a huge satisfying sigh. His grin never left his face and for the first time in his college life, he was on cloud nine.

Their dorm room was typical. A bed on each side of the room and a huge window in the back. Posters of video games and cars lined the walls and their desks were littered with school supplies and an unnatural amount of paper.

“Cause I just got a date with the hottest and coolest girl in school.” Natsu stated.

Loke turned around in his chair to face him. “Who? Let me guess, Karen? Lexi? Brittany? Angel? No, no, it’s gotta be Zoe, or is it-” A pillow to the face interrupted him.

“Dude!” Natsu yelled “It's none of them, you really need to chill out, you fuck boy.” He pointed at the smug boy.

“Ladies man” Loke corrected him.

“Nah you’re a fuck boy. And I got a date with Lucy, the girl in my bio class.” Just the mention of the blonde’s name made him automatically smile.

“Heartfilia?”

“The one and only. Ya know her?” Natsu asked. Of course, Loke would know her, he knew every girl on campus and in a ten-mile radius, typical fuck boy.

“Hell, ya I know her! She's in the Celestial Club with me.” Loke said. This information made Natsu sit upright and he furrowed his brows.

“The Celestial Club? What the hell is that.”

Loke smiled and filtered through his desk, pulling open all the drawers until he found a pamphlet, tossing it to the confused boy. Natsu’s eyes gazed through the small handbook. Constellations and zodiac signs were displayed throughout including the room and days the meets were.

“It’s a club for astrology geeks. Basically, each week we discuss how astrology works in different situations, I’m pretty sure this time is about love connections. Lucy is the club president, and I represent the sign of Leo, ya know, since I am one.”  

Natsu sat there with a blank expression. This information was too much to comprehend. He didn’t know why a guy like Loke would be in lame club like that. Probably just to get into the pants of all the girls in the clubs.

“I can’t believe you are in this.” Natsu rolled his eyes.

“Trust me. It’s a lot cooler than it sounds. Plus, all the girls make it better.” He winked.

Another eye roll came from Natsu as he read the different properties of the zodiac on the back page. The sound of Loke typing filled the room and they sat quietly until he had to leave for his class. Loke’s head snapped to Natsu's as a realization occurred.   

“Wait. Aren’t you an Aries?” Loke called from the bathroom.

“How the hell did you know that?” Natsu questioned. It was Loke’s turn to roll his eyes as he tapped his head.

“Your birthday is in April Natsu, context clues.” Natsu let out an ‘O’ and nodded.

“I still don’t know why she would agree to a date...with you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean!” Natsu grabbed an empty can of soda off his bed stand and threw it towards him.

Grabbing it before making contact, Loke tossed it in the trash and picked up his backpack, ready to leave. As he opened the door, he turned towards the bruiting pink haired boy.

“You're not compatible.” He said before shutting the door leaving Natsu stunned.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Natsu yelled but the door was already closed. “That doesn't even matter.” He grunted to himself.

Lucy hummed a simple tune to herself as she opened the door to Charmed, Cana’s fortune and magical properties shop, the one where she worked and was very late as well. She loved working for Cana, especially because she got to witness her legendary card reading, her psychic abilities have drawn a lot of attention to the store.

Lucy herself does readings using the astrology principles and crystals scattered around the small store. Not to mention Levy and Juvia, her two best friends who also practice the reading properties. Levy's tea leaf readings and scribe deciphering is very popular as well as Juvia's flower picking, water signs and palm reading. No matter what you use, all the girls would be happy to read you.

“Good afternoon Cana!” Lucy smiled but the happy tone washed away when “You’re late.” was the response.

“I know I’m sorry, I got caught up in my chart making.” She said nervously and passed the middle-aged woman and took her seat at her desk. Cana just laughed and place a cup of green tea in front of her.

“You have a reading in 10 minutes.” Cana said and went back to her tarot cards. “Oh, today Juvia had a reading with a couple and she nearly fell off her chair at the sights of the guy. Poor thing could barely keep her head straight, she might have broken them up too.”

“Did she break them up or did the flowers.” Lucy giggled and brought the rim of the cup to her mouth.

“Well the flowers did have sadness and separating so who knows.” Cana laughed and picked up a card, a big heart was plastered on the front. “New love.” She said and almost like being summoned, Juvia walked in from the curtains in the back, a dazed look on her face and a love-struck attitude. Cana waved the card and Lucy smile, another prediction right.

“Juvia does not understand the universe sometimes.” She complained while placing her head on the table as a mug of tea was slid her way with the card.

“I’m sure the universe will sort everything out Juv. On another note, I have a... date.” Lucy said but making sure the last part came out quicker. This news sparked Juvia’s interested and before Lucy could blink, she was sitting in front of her, eyes widened and ready for the details.”

“Tell Juvia everything! Who is he? What’s he like? Where are you going?”

“Okay, okay. Its Natsu Dragneel, the guy from my Bio class.”

Juvia blinked and slouched in her seat, crossing her arms. “You don’t sound excited.”

Lucy let out a huff, blowing up her golden bangs. “I am, he's nice and funny, and yes, good looking.”

“But?” Juvia chimed in.

“He is an Aries.”

Juvia nodded. She knew how much astrology and compatibility mattered to Lucy. When they had first met, Lucy was thrilled to learn that the beautiful blue flower picker was a Cancer, their friendship easily clicked.

“Well...That doesn’t mean you can’t date him. Just because you may not be extremely compatible to the stars, Juvia believes that you can adapt to each other.”

“Don’t blow off some good dick for the stars Luce.” Cana yelled out.

“Thanks Cana” Lucy said sarcastically, heat rushing to her face.

“Juvia thinks the same, but in other words of course. What's the worst that could happen?”

“I don’t know throw the universe off balance.” Lucy complained and slammed her head onto the desk.

“Okay...wellll, let Juvia knows how it goes. Then you and him can come and do a flower reading! Juvia’s pretty petals will determine your love future. Now excuse me I have to get to class.” She giggled and ran out of the shop just in time for Lucy’s guest to walk in for their reading.

“Welcome! I’m Lucy and I’ll be your star reader today!” She smiled brightly as they took a seat, a sudden wave of energy entered the air.

“Gemini” Lucy thought but kept her smile as she pulled out a parchment sheet and star chart.

“Let’s begin.”

---

After two days of pure torture from Natsu, Saturday came around. He still had twenty minutes until he had to pick up the stunning blonde. He was busy doing pushups on the dorm room floor while Loke chilled in his bed, playing a game on his phone.

“Do you really think it’s going to end badly?” He switched to sit ups.

Loke looked down at him shrugging. “I don’t know man. It takes her awhile to warm up to other people in general, and when you're not compatible, it's even harder, almost like a warning. It took some time for her to warm up to me, not a lot of time but definitely some work.”

“Really?” Natsu sat up. Loke nodded.

“Leos and Virgo have a hard friendship line, its normal for them to have to warm up to each other. To be honest I wasn’t a big fan of her either, but now we are chill and she’s one of my best friends, almost like a sister. You just must be patient, she will come around. I mean you are already friends, right? That's a good start.”

“Yeah, I guess. Hey, how did your club go? Did she talk about me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. And it was fine, I got a sweet date too. And it's even better because we have maximum compatibility.” Loke smirked.

“Another victim of your fuck boy ways, good luck to her.” A pillow was smacked to his face.

“Just go on your dumb date. And by the way Aries is different than all the other girls.”

Natsu laughed. “Did you say Aries.”

“Oh yeah, she is apart of the club too. Her real name is Amelia Taylor, ya know, pink hair, cute sweaters, really big boo-”

“I got it dude! Don’t have to get descriptive.” Natsu complained and looked at the clock. Quickly he grabbed his wallet and keys and opened the door. “Good luck on your date.” Natsu shot him a finger gun.

“Right back at you” Loke laughed.

--

Looking over herself in the mirror, Lucy determined that her flowy white blouse and blue shorts were date material.

“Ooo, Luce, you look smoking.” Levy called. Levy was currently sitting on Lucy’s bed in her dorm, helping her pick out an outfit as she was reading a large book for class.

“I mean you could cover your chest more, don’t show him everything.” Lucy turned towards the voice. Her roommate, Cassandra Lakes had spat that out.

“My chest isn’t even out Aquarius.” Lucy replied using her celestial club nick name. “And you always wear a tank top or tube top.”

“I’m a swimmer, I worked hard for this bod.” She jumped off the bed and grabbed her bag. “Now I gotta go practice for swim, don’t fuck up your date Lucy, later Levy.” She opened the door to reveal a nervous looking Natsu. “Oh, your date is here.” She said and passed by him.

He placed his hands on the door, keeping it open. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” She let out, a smile framed her face and she yelled a ‘bye’ to Levy.

“Have fun you two!” Levy called out.

--

“That movie was incredible!” Lucy gasped. “Nice choice.”

“Thank you, I checked the ratings beforehand.” Natsu laughed which made her giggle. “Now its time for a good dinner.”

She smiled and as they walked towards the burger joint at the end of the strip, she linked her arm around his making him blush slightly. For a moment she forgot about the stars.

--

“And that’s how my buddy Gray got his bare ass stuck to the ice rink.” Natsu smirked and Lucy let out a loud laugh, trying not to let her strawberry milkshake spill as her hands hit the table. Natsu couldn’t help but smile as he watched her laugh. The evening light mixed with the windows reflection gave her a soft glow. Her giggling died down as she caught him staring and placed her hair behind her ear blushing.

She had to admit that he looked casually handsome. His button up shirt was rolled to his elbow making her slightly drool and his pink blush hair was poking out from his black snap back.

“Soooo, why are you so into the stars and stuff?” Natsu asked while taking a bite of his burger. He watched as her smile and eyes soften.

“My mother. She was an Astronomer at the planetarium, always did the most fascinating lectures about the stars. She’s the one who taught me about all their properties, physically and spiritually. I’ve always been intrigued by them, the stars ya know? They are so beautiful and mysterious. When she passed, I leaned onto the star, embracing everything she believed in. it makes me feel like she’s still here. She was a Virgo too, she was my best friend.”

“That’s amazing Lucy.” He smiled.

--

After getting ice cream and taking a stroll through the park, they arrived in front of her dorm hall.

“So?” He asked.

“So?” She repeated.

“Did I change your mind, about Aries?” He smirked, nudging her shoulder

“Hmm, maybe just a little bit. I guess you’re not too bad.” She teased and bumped his shoulder back.

“I’ll take that.” He smiled.

“Thank you Natsu, I had a nice time.” Quickly she kissed his cheek and rushed into her dorm room leaving him stunned.

Turning around he fist bumped the air.

“Fuck ya! Take that stars. Natsu one, stars zero.” He pointed to the sky.

His grin never left his face as he walked back to his dorm, ready to rub his success into Loke’s face.

----

I hope you all enjoyed!! Thanks for waiting! 

[impromptu-manifesto]

what-I’ve-learned after five years and 20 novels.

1. Writing Advice Is Bullshit And Largely The Product Of Survivorship Bias

Writing advice is bullshit. That’s not to say it’s not useful — as I’ve said in the past, bullshit can also fertilize. But writing advice should always, always, always be read through the lens of, “This is what worked for me, maybe it’ll work for you.” Problem is, a lot of writers treat this stuff as HOLY GOSPEL, as if they’re the ARCHONS OF AN ANCIENT AUTHORIAL ORDER emerging from the fog of history to give you SEKRIT TROOTHS. This shit isn’t baking muffins. You can’t just say, “Put it in the oven at 350 and 20 minutes later, yumminess will emerge.” Writing as a career is an unholy tangle of threads, from how you publish, to your style, to your process, to when you write, to how often you write, to what precious liquor you quaff to celebrate a book release. None of us get here via the same route. As I an fond of saying: we all burn the map afterward. And none of us know what the fuck we’re actually doing, not really. I sure don’t. Even the list below is just me… spouting off. They’re lessons that apply to me, not to you. Maybe to you, it’s gold. Maybe it’s a sack of angry raccoons, I dunno. The only writing advice you can count on is: you gotta write, and you gotta finish what you’re writing. Everything else is variable. Everything else must be swirled around the mouth to determine whether it tastes like honey or it tastes like shit.

2. Learn First To Say Yes, Then To Say No

This is a hard one to learn, and one I’m still endeavoring to put into practice. Early in your career, you seek opportunity like a truffle-addicted pig. Later in your career, those opportunities will come to you — they’ll stick to your ass like burrs. Earlier, every opportunity is legitimately that: an opportunity. But later on, you start to see that not every opportunity is equal. You need to start being judicious about your time and your energy, because this thing we do is work and you only have so much of it you can give out to the world. Inevitably, people want a piece of you. Not to be mean. It’s usually (though not always) coming from a good place. Just the same, you say yes early in your career, but then you gotta start practicing that big word: NO. HELL NO. FUCK NO. Can’t do it, won’t do it, don’t wanna do it. Practice it in the mirror. Shake your fist. Scowl and sneer. Urinate aggressively. I’m urinating aggressively right now. Like a territorial bear.

3. The Muse Doesn’t Hunt You, You Hunt The Muse

Waiting for inspiration is a fool’s game. You hunt it. You summon it. Writing is an act of laying traps for the Muse. Writing does not follow inspiration. It goes the other direction. You become inspired through the act of writing, of telling stories. Just sitting down and doing the work lays bait. It’s an alluring trail Reese’s Pieces meant to draw the extraterrestrial Muse into your house.

4. Ideas Are Easy

For a long time I thought ideas were everything. I thought them precious pearls, when the reality is, they’re just driveway gravel. I got a hundred ideas whipping around my head every day, and the majority of them are sounds and noises — grunts in the dark, a gibber, a wail. I used to write them all down. I’d hoard them like a crow hiding colorful strips of ribbon in its nest. Now, I let them go. I shove them back out the door with not a moment’s interest. Then I wait. If those little bastards come back, if they sneak in through the vents like John McClane, if they creep in through the boltholes like a mouse — well, okay then. That’s an idea that wants to haunt me. That’s an idea whose grunts and gibbers might turn into a song. They’re all still driveway gravel, but maybe once in a while one of those pieces of flinty limestone has some quartz buried in there — something crystalline, with depth, with shine, something worth looking at. At the end of the day, though, no idea is worth anything but the work you give it. You still gotta polish that stone. You still gotta write it all down and make it shine.

5. Find Your Damn Process — Then Challenge It

I often tell a story about how it took me five years to write — or rather, figure out how to write — Blackbirds, and that journey involves me learning I needed to outline my books before I write them. Some folks take that lesson as me telling them: “You have to outline.” But that’s not it. I have to outline. I don’t know what the fuck you need to do; you have to figure that out. You have a process. So go find it. Maybe that means writing 2k every day, reliably. Maybe it means writing 15,000 words every other weekend. Maybe it means you write in coffee shops, or in the crawlspace under your house. Maybe it means you eat a handful of bees before you begin. I dunno. That’s on you to figure it out, and while it’s important to figure out what you write and why you write, it’s also incredibly necessary to figure out how you write. You may think how you write is the way others have told you it must be, but that doesn’t make it true. Also important: when your process isn’t working, you need to evolve it. Your process isn’t one thing forever just as you aren’t one person forever. Challenge it. Change it. See the river and go with it.

6. No One Book Is The Same As The Next

Every book for me has been different than the last. Not just in content — I mean, that’s obvious. I’m writing different books, yeah, duh. I mean, how I write each book is different every time. Some come faster, others slower. Every outline I do is different than the last — some are just tentpoles, others are cuckoopants flow-charts like the nutball wall of a conspiracy theorist, others still are hastily-scrawled manifestos on ragged bits of notebook paper. The books are chimeras. They shift and change. They’re different beasts that demand different food. And that’s okay.

7. Do Not (Over)Prioritize Money

I have made decisions in this career based purely on money, and turns out, that was not always the best way. Don’t get me wrong, I like money. I need money because oh shit we live in a capitalist society and I have this thing called a “mortgage” for this box called a “house” and I don’t want to have to live in the “woods” like a “bear.” And if there’s the choice between taking LOTS OF MONEY and NO MONEY — yeah, take the cash. But I’ve had a couple situations where… I wish I’d maybe gone a different way. Where I looked at an overall strategy instead of a dollar sign. This career has to be more than just the dollar signs.

8. Publishing Is A Long Con Demanding A Long Strategy

Have a one-year-plan, a five-year-plan, a ten-year-plan. Keep it flexible, but always be casting your eyes not just to the book you’re writing but to your career down the line. If you wanna do this thing — not just put a book on a shelf but put your writing pants on for the duration of a whole damn career! — then you can’t just be looking down at your feet. This is a long game with many moves against an invisible opponent. Where do you want to be? Who are you as a writer? This is also about what you can control versus what you can influence. You can control what you write. You always have that. For everything else, you have varying degrees of influence. You’ll never control awards. You’ll never control the audience. But you look ahead anyway, and you say, how do I get to where I want to go? If you want to be writing comics, or thrillers, or sexy Gremlins fan-fic, then plot that course. Plot multiple ways of getting there. Talk it out with agents and editors. Diversify your path. Then it’s like what Dory says in Finding Nemo: JUST KEEP KILLING YOUR FOES AND EATING THEIR FLESH AS SACRAMENT wait I’m pretty sure that’s not right. But it’s close enough, I guess. P.S. “writing pants” are metaphorical as writers do not wear pants because pants are a tool of the oppressor.

9. You Can’t Do It Alone (And Yes, That Means Selling And Promoting)

Writing is not a solitary career. That is a myth — worse, like the starving artist myth, it is a romantic one that is valuable to everyone but the fucking writer. We are given this meritocratic lone-wolf ronin-ninja claptrap about how it’s all up to you, you wily pioneer, you’re out there on the frontier of the Weird and Wordy West, just you and your shooters against the world. And you’re routinely told how you can do it all yourself. Self-publishing schemers want you to think you should do everything from designing your own covers to editing your own books. Tricksy traditional publishers — and yep, this includes some of the Bigguns — want you to think you can sell and promote the book all by your lonesome, too. And you can, provided your entire scheme and strategy is just the words GOOD FUCKING LUCK written on a crummy index card. Sorry, you need help. You need agents and editors. You need copy-editors and designers. You need marketers and promoters. A traditional publisher may want to convince you that you can do it yourself, but you can move 10s, maybe 100s of books by yourself — and they need you to move 1000s. You need other writers, too. We’re good for each other when we try to be. This is a community. We’re all stowaways and impostors. Don’t feel alone, and don’t be alone.

10. Cover Your Ass, Keep Your Rights

Read your contracts and keep your rights. Own the work. You will make money not just from selling the book the first time, but also selling foreign rights and other licensing opportunities. You give them away to a publisher, know that you’re giving them to a non-invested, not-necessarily-capable party. Be smart. Be strategic.

11. Give The Proper Amount Of Fucks

This is a point I make again and again, and it’s one that was really important for me as a writer — I learned to care less. I figured out that I needed fewer fucks in my fuck basket. This serves a lot of purposes. First, it gives you confidence — because if you’re not so concerned with what everybody else thinks, you start to command your own work more comfortably and assertively. Second, it makes sure you’re not trying to chase a market or not trying to mimic someone else’s idea of what your book should look like. It’s yours alone and if your attitude is a little bit punk-rock, a little bit middle-finger, you find yourself more willing to write the book you need to write rather than the book you think other people want. At the end of the day, even if the book doesn’t work — you know you did what you wanted with it. And you can do it again with the next one and the one after that. Note: you still have to care. Your fuckgarden cannot be fallow. But when you learn to moderate how many fucks you’re willing to give to this, you find a measure of freedom somewhere between PROFESSIONAL CLAUSTROPHOBIA and CHAOS REIGNS.

12. The Opposite Of ‘Kill Your Darlings’ Is ‘Know Which Hill To Die On’

Early on you learn to kill your darlings. Your work has these precious, preening peacocks who strut about for their own pomp and circumstance. These darlings are like chairs you can’t sit on, food you can’t eat — they’re just there to look pretty and take up space. So, you kill them. You learn to kill them. You get good at killing them. And then, one day, you realize maybe you got too good at it. Maybe you went too far. You started to think of everything as expendable, everything as negotiable. But it isn’t. It can’t be. I learned this writing Star Wars: yes, those books are not purely mine. They belong to the galaxy, not to me. Just the same? It’s my name on those books. If they fail, they fail on my watch. If there’s something in there you don’t like, it doesn’t matter if it’s something Mickey Mouse his-own-damn-self demanded I put in there: it lands on my doorstep. That’s when I saw the other side of the brutally execute your peacocks argument: some peacocks stay. Some peacocks are yours, and you put them there because that’s where you want them. Maybe they add something specific, maybe you’re just an asshole who demands that one lone peacock warbling and showing its stuff. But you own that. You have to see when there are battles to lose, and when there are wars to win. There are always hills to die on. It can’t be all of them. You want to die on every hill, then you’re dead for no reason and the book will suffer. But some things are yours and you have to know which ones to fight for, and why. You have to know why they matter and then you have to be prepared to burn the book to ash in order to let it stay.

13. Don’t Give Plot The Keys To The Story Car: Let The Characters Drive

You and me, we make our own decisions, mostly. We have autonomy and agency and that’s what makes life interesting. It’s also what makes stories interesting. Characters are everything, and I’ll tell you, for me this revelation is what helps a book begin but even better, is what helps a book grow and push on through the middle to a satisfying end. When you design a book from the top-down, beginning with plot, you are creating a structure that you have to force everything into. But that’s not interesting. The small story is what’s interesting, not the big story. And the small story is always about character. Even the biggest pop culture touchstones are about character: Die Hard works because it’s about McClane’s marriage. A New Hope works because we understand Luke’s desire to get off-planet. Buffy works because we see a character who wants to be a normal teen girl but who can’t. You can tell when a story feels like it has a plot and it’s just cramming characters into it, like it’s a traveler who swears they can fucking hammer their big-ass suitcase into the overhead compartment. Look at it this way: if you can replace all the characters in your story with objects, you done fucked up. If the plot keeps chugging on even if the protagonist is a toaster or a literal cinderblock, that’s a good sign that external plot has taken over the organic narrative. Characters are not architecture — they’re architects. They build plot. So let them build.

14. Originality Is Fucking Overrated

We worry about being original but fuck being original. No one element is truly original. What’s original is in the arrangement, and what’s original in that arrangement is you. You, the author, are the single, singular unique aspect of the work.

15. Sometimes Writing Days Are Not Days In Which You Write

This one’s fucking hard for me. I grew up with a father who instilled in me a hard-nose, ass-to-the-grindstone attitude — wait, you’re not supposed to press your ass against grindstones, are you? Actually, pressing your nose to a grindstone sounds bad, too, because I’m pretty sure that’s how you lose your nose. Maybe that’s how my father lost his pinky finger. Hm. Whatever. Point is, I grew up with a WORK YOUR ASS OFF attitude, and that’s mostly paid off, and it’s not entirely inaccurate that the work is the work is the work. What I missed though, was that sometimes the work wasn’t always just the work. Some days, yeah, writing is digging ditches. Other days, it’s designing UNICORN BONDAGE DUNGEONS OUT OF THIN AIR, and that requires more than just sticking a shovel into loamy earth and moving soil around. Sometimes it means thinking. It means moving around. It means experiencing life. See, that’s one of the hangups I have — one of the chiefmost pieces of advice you get about being a writer is that the two essential components are READING and WRITING. Yes, those are essential. They’re just not the only ones. You gotta live. You have to experience things. You have to travel and talk to people and examine everything and live both inside your head and outside of it. And that means that sometimes this gig leaves you with days that aren’t about reading and aren’t about writing — they’re about a third thing, a nebulous and unprotected thing that feels unproductive but that is necessary just the same. (But you still have to do the damn work. You can’t live in that interstitial space forever. You have to come back from the adventure with lessons and magic beans for the village. Or at least lessons on how to properly hog-tie a unicorn for sexy times.)

16. Don’t Be A Jerk, Because You’re Not That Important

For the most part, this industry is filled with amazing people who want to be here because they want to be here. Because they love it. It’s not so fruitful or lucrative an industry that people are attracted to it for the money, so that means you get a lot of people who are here just because they fucking dig it the most, baby, and that’s rad. Still — still. You get jerks. Because all of life has jerks. Jerks permeate. Ant colonies probably have jerks. I’m sure at any given time, any ant colony has a bare minimum of 13% jerks. So, you get them here, too. Some can’t help it. Others can. For those who can: don’t be a jerk. We’re watching. And the industry has a long memory. It’s not to say it’ll end your career. Plenty of jerks have done well for themselves. But it’s not worth it.  The people here are awesome, so be awesome in return. Help more than you hurt. Try to give back. Make friends. Don’t be a fucking asshole, asshole.

17. Every Book Is A New Day

Last book didn’t sell as well as you wanted? Or it didn’t land with a publisher? Or you didn’t like it? That’s the way the pages turn. We all fail, and the only time the failure sticks is when you stop learning from it. But remember: there’s always the next book. This doesn’t need to end with one. Your career never needs to end with one. Keep going. Keep writing. I view my life as a series of books written and unwritten and that excites the hell out of me. In some cases I’m making a pile out of my failures, and sometimes I’m making a ladder out of my successes. Either way: every book is a new chance, a new day, a new path.

18. Every Book Is Just As Scary As The Last

And yeah, every book is just as scary as the last. Scary when you’re writing it, scary when you’re editing it, scary when you’re releasing it. It never gets easier. It sometimes gets harder, in that sense that Jenga is easy when you pull the first piece out, and a whole lot fucking scarier when you go to pull the 21st piece out…

19. Your Audience Is Wide…

Inclusiveness in fiction is not about political correctness but rather about ensuring that book is a big tent ready to accommodate and reflect those who may read it. Stories work when we can see ourselves in them. So let a lot of people see themselves in yours.

20. …But Also, Your Heart Matters The Most

This was another lesson that was hard for me to come to — the fact that at the end of the day, I’m accountable to me. I write for me. At least, I write that first draft for me. Once upon a time I thought I needed to write it for you: the market, the editor, the audience, the whoever. But in the story, in the book, I need to make peace with me, first. I need to take what’s going on inside my heart and my head and I need to mash them into a gelatinous, seminal, blood-pulp paste and brew ink from that hellacious emotional-intellectual slurry. And from that inkwell, I write. I write the story from my blood and my gray matter. I write the story I need to see. I tell the story I have to tell, obsessively and anxiously.

21. A Writing Career Has An RPG-Like Progression

You start out some n00b punk sling-shotting rats in a tavern cellar, and then one day you level up and you go out into the world and you think it’s easy from here. You get new skills. You get new loot like shoes that help you jump really far or a feathered hat that  calls birds to come dress you or regurgitate into your mouth or whatever. You get a new weapon: THE FANGBLOOD ELFSLAYER DRAGONSDONG BLADE. Then you go out into the new realm, into an uncharted land, and you find that your problems just have bigger teeth now. The rats are giants. The giants become dragons. The slaying must continue. As you get better, so too do your problems get better at being problems. As a writer, I find they’re all good problems to have — it’s just, it doesn’t really get easier, it just gets more complicated. You must make choices. Harder, trickier choices. What I’m saying is, it starts as a Bethesda RPG, then it becomes a goddamn Bioware one, oh shit.

22. It’s Also A Little Bit Jazz

It’s RPG, but it’s also improvisational jazz. It’s a riff here, a fill-in there, it’s syncopation and swing. Every paragraph, every page, every story, every book, even the whole damn career — it’s about rhythm, and changing rhythm, and it’s about composing the tune as you play it. You plan what you can, but the rest is experimentation. Sometimes it’s got that orgy-like component: you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you do know it’s time to take your pants off.

23. Storytelling Is The Art, Writing Is The Craft

Writing matters. It has rules. It can be artful or utilitarian, it can be languid or merciless. But it’s just the vehicle. We keep coming back to the authors we love — Atwood to Gaiman, King to Morrison — not merely because of the quality of their prose but because their stories are engaging. It’s the stories that matter. The art lives in the story. It’s the hardest and most essential part — you can write beautifully, but if the story there doesn’t sing, fuck you. The opposite is also (usually) true: the writing can be execrable, but as long as the story grips us by the nipples, we’ll buy the ticket and take the ride — and we’ll beg you for more when we’re done.

24. You Know A Whole Lot Less Than You Know, And That’s A Good Thing

Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. I’m convinced of that. We’re all just collaboratively guessing. And that’s a good thing. This isn’t math. You can’t plug numbers into X and Y and get a steady result. Every day of a writing career is exploring a new planet. All the truths you hold are likely half-truths or even cleverly-costumed lies. Embrace that. Every day I know less than I knew before, and I find that oddly and eerily liberating. It means I don’t have all the answers and neither do you. It means we’re all just drunkenly careening and caroming our way up the publishing mountain. Not just up the mountain — but we’re also navigating peaks and valleys, because the middle of a writing career involves the mitigation of cliffs. You always know one is coming: a year from now, maybe three, because at some point your contracts end and your deadlines are vapor and it’ll be time to write a story anew. And that requires reinvention big or small every time. New questions haunt us. New problems, too. We’re all navigating this weird, goofy-ass path over uncertain topography. And we’re doing it together. And did I mention we’re drunk? OMG we’re soooo fucking drunk. DRUNK ON THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. DRUNK ON STORY. DRUNK ON PROBABLY ALSO GIN IF YOU’RE ME. THAT’S ONE TRUTH THAT’S SELF-EVIDENT: DRINK MORE GIN. IT GIVES YOU WRITER SUPERPOWERS. ALSO EXPLAINS WHY I DON’T WEAR PANTS. WHERE AM I. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE. DON’T DRINK MY GIN. *punches you*

25. Some Writers Have It, Some Don’t

Some writers have what it takes and others don’t. No, I don’t know what separates one from the other. I could make some guesses and I’d be right sometimes, wrong other times.

One thing I know: it isn’t talent. Talent may or may not exist as a character trait, but those with it will fail if they don’t put in the work, trampled beneath the talentless mobs who do put in the time and the effort.

Writing as a career takes a certain kind of obsessiveness and stubbornness, I think: the willingness to put a tin pail on your head as you run full-speed into a wall, hoping to knock it down. Again and again. Until the wall falls or you do. Sometimes I think maybe that the thing that separates those who have it from those who don’t is simply those who decide, “Fuck it, I’m a writer,” and then they do the thing. They choose to have it, to count themselves among that number rather than those who don’t. But I have no idea. I don’t know what the hell is going on. And neither to do you. What I know is this:

writers write, so go write. Finish what you start.

The rest is negotiable.