#i feel like it would be more interesting if someone else got chosen over bramble and he had to be at peace with that

[waywardsalt]

ive been rereading tnp and it’s bothering me so much i need to mention it here; it’s kind of insane how much the erins bend over backwards to make brambleclaw deputy, it’s kind of just nonsensical.

not even him not having an apprentice when he’s picked, though that is kind of wild, he just… there’s basically no good reason other than him being a main pov character and tigerstar’s son. literally any other thunderclan warrior who’s had an apprentice (barring maybe ashfur) would have been a better choice. thornclaw dustpelt sandstorm cloudtail brackenfur- brackenfur is one that firestar explicitly considers and the reasoning why he decides not to is so incredibly weak ‘oh i dont think he’d be right for leader’ number one what are you talking about number 2 then use him being deputy as an opportunity to help him become right for leader are you telling me firestar thinks the cat he once considered letting die in a fire is a better fit for leader than the cat he half mentored. dustpelt is clearly an experienced warrior, sandstorm is someone firestar obviously has faith in, thornclaw is experienced and i’m pretty sure you even see firestar consult him a few times (cloudtail is iffy bc thats cloudtail but he’d really be a better choice, just how he treats daisy and her kits would be an interesting justification for firestar making him second-in-command) but honestly besides the narrative jumping through hoops to act like the other very viable options are either secretly bad choices or otherwise ignore them (why is bramble the only cat we ever see jump to help firestar with stuff they just wrote everyone else to be silent or w/e) but in twilight where he arguably acts the most like de-facto deputy in leaf and squirrel’s pov he’s framed as a jackass half the book??? why would you do that if you intend to make him actual leader?? in his trial run of being kinda-not-deputy you just make him use his semi-authority to be cold and fucking mean to his friend and her buddy??? like i see him being qualified due to having experience being the travel group’s leader and whatnot, but barely anything else is done to make him realistically more qualified than anyone else- he just angsts about his ambitions and gets handed the position because starclan vouched for him for some damn reason even though by his society’s laws he should not be in that position

[maplewind-au]

Retrospective Author’s Notes

I just crossposted this note to the Wattpad and AO3 copies of Maplestar’s Light, but I’m going to post it here, too.

Hi there! My name is Razeru. First of all, thank you very much for reading my story!

I think, if you've read my story, you can surmise that I love Mapleshade. She's grown to be one of my favourite characters in Warrior Cats; her story, narratively, is written the best - in my opinion - out of most of the super editions and novellas.

Keep in mind, these words are coming from someone who grew up with these books, and also gets big mad about the things the Erins have pulled on other characters, like Squirrelflight (specifically Squilf, actually. They keep doing my girl dirty, and I'm so angry).

I took a read through my story again recently, and passed through the comments both on this Wattpad copy of the story, and the AO3 mirror. I really and truly appreciate all the love, but some people did seem to misunderstand the intention behind some things in my story, so I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation to you, my readers.

I offer this explanation because I've chosen to abandon the MapleWind AU entirely. There's too much in retrospect that I'm unhappy with, too many story ideas that don't connect narratively - it just makes a poor story. So, this is basically a big spoiler chapter for what would have happened, if I continued.

The remainder of this letter is just going to be me giving a word vomit about this story, so feel free to skip down to the bottom if you're only curious about closing remarks or projects surrounding other upcoming warriors works.

Alright. First and foremost, I want to address something specific. Mapleshade's story, as it was in canon, is a multidimensional story that a lot of people see as black-and-white. I, personally, see it as a fantastic narrative where not a single character is in the right, at least not in the context of the Clans - or morally, in some cases. This being said, a lot of the arguments about Mapleshade are usually "she's absolutely terrible and deserved what she got" / "she did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else should be suffering" - both of which are... Very, very dangerous views to take on any person or character. When I wrote Maplestar's Light, my intention was to explore the idea where a few cats stepped out of the norm that seemed to affect this specific generation of the Clans and offered sanctuary.

WindClan has always felt like the most lax Clan out of the four, to me. With their history of welcoming in strangers and making kindly bargains with the other Clans in their times of need, it made sense to me that if a wandering cat passed out on their territory, they would reach out and help them. I chose Heatherstar specifically for this story because she was such a revolutionary, and wasn't afraid to shoot down any cat's words if she felt someone was going to get hurt.

Moreover, this AU explores the idea that instead of sleeping in Myler's barn and then going on her rampage, Mapleshade simply collapsed into grief - so Ravenwing, Frecklewish, and Appledusk all survive. Temporarily.

While Mapleshade is taken into WindClan, Mapleshade's kits are restless, and it's their turn to be angry - assuming StarClan spirits know everything (and it's heavily implied, in the first series, that they do), they pull strings just like the canonical iteration of their mother would. Ravenwing, Frecklewish, Appledusk, and - moreover - Oakstar, all suffer painful deaths as a result of the angry StarClan kits. To add insult to injury, all four lose their lives to the river while patrolling it - or are tricked into falling in. The kits drag them down until they drown.

Ravenwing and Oakstar are the only two who are able to make it to StarClan themselves, if only because of the good acts they've done to balance out the karma. The kits, however, are able to swing judgement on Frecklewish, who attacked their mother, insulted them, and was fine to watch them die, and Appledusk, who was willing to have them to begin with, who failed to save them.

This is unhealthy point of view, but they died as kits. All they know is the anger and betrayal.

On to the future.

Maplestar and Palebird have the three kits; Finchkit, Larkkit, and Firekit. Some people didn't seem to get it, and I thought I wrote it to be obvious, but Firekit is supposed to be THE Firestar in the future. With Maplestar at the helm of WindClan, ShadowClan is unable to drive them out. ThunderClan, however, is much weaker after their constant battles with RiverClan and the loss of not only Redtail, but many other great warriors. ThunderClan is driven out instead; WindClan, in their graciousness, would allow them to share the territory until something can be done about ShadowClan's terrible leader, and three Clans would unite against the one to protect their way of life.

During their time in WindClan's camp, Firepaw would grow close to the ThunderClan apprentices Ravenpaw, Graypaw and Sandpaw. Following the battle against Brokenstar, not only do Firepaw and his siblings get their warrior names, but so do the ThunderClan apprentices who participated (Sandstorm and Dustpelt included). Fireheart realizes during the night of his vigil that he doesn't want to lose his ThunderClan friends, and while meeting his family on the battlefield would be painful, he would feel worse fighting Graystripe or Ravenflight - the latter tom being the only cat Fireheart has met that makes his heart flutter.

The following day, as ThunderClan returns home, Fireheart goes with them. Yellowfang, in turn, has joined ThunderClan, having been a crucial asset to getting them in and out of ShadowClan. In return for the WindClan warrior, Spottedleaf stays; Spottedleaf had been attacked by a ShadowClan warrior the day before the battle, but Hawkheart protected her with his life. Feeling indebted, she swore to finish training Barkwing and serve WindClan just as she did ThunderClan.

The rest of the story would have gone similarly to canon, with a few minor changes; for one, WindClan and ThunderClan would forever have a close bond, not only through the blood of their Clanmates, but also through Bluestar and Maplestar, who exchanged each other's stories and bonded over how similar they were. Cinderpelt would have still gotten disabled, but through saving the ShadowClan apprentice Littlepaw from a monster; while she picks up healing from Yellowfang, she remains a warrior in spite of her leg. Swiftpaw narrowly survives, and Brightpaw lives with her scarring still, taking inspiration from Cinderpelt. Fireheart and Ravenflight become mates and have kits - Squirrelflight and Gingerpool.

I had further plans for TNP and PO3, but they're sort of lost to time at this point. The general ideas surrounded Brambleclaw - renamed Brambleflower - taking after his mother instead of his father, and being close friends with Squilf, but not mates. Gingerpool and Crowfeather do have kits, and Squilf does take them, but claims they were loner kits that she chose to raise. Bramble was their nursery parent, having chosen to be a queen instead of a warrior, and took care of them while Squilf went about being a warrior, only tuning in to feed them and sleep with them. Jay would have become a warrior named Jayclaw and Holly, an albino in this AU, would go on to be Gingerpool's apprentice and become Hollysnow. Jay is blind, and Holly is a selective mute. Lion would still have his powers of strength, but use them unwisely, and he would be the one to wind up having a crisis and revealing the secrets of his origin before disappearing into the caves.

The general idea for the OOTS arc of this AU was to give Ivy powers and still have her train in the Dark Forest, under Lionblaze - who is very much still alive, but misaligned. Dovewing would be given the opportunity as well, and only take it when she learns Tigerheart is also training there. Their struggles would surround a constant sibling rivalry, one that would deepen once Jay and Holly figure out Ivy is the third cat. I also threw around the idea of a deaf Ivypool, either from birth or caused by something much later - just to complete the "See/Speak/Hear No Evil".

The underlying, long plot to the AU was that Petalkit, Larchkit, and Patchkit effectively replaced Canon Mapleshade. Maplestar recovered, then seemingly forgot about her previous kits and replaced them with Fire, Finch and Lark. Petal, Larch and Patch want stupid, special Firestar and his bloodline to suffer for being their replacements. Technically, they were still spirits of StarClan, but pulled the strings in the Dark Forest.

Oh, boy. Those sure were a lot of words, huh.

I hope I'm not disappointing anyone by discontinuing this story. Again, looking back on it, I'm very unhappy with the way I was handling certain subjects and aspects of the story - and I'd rather kill it before I get carried away again. I've always held the belief that taking time and writing a more consise and well-placed narrative is much better than writing it quickly and breaking characters and morals. Mapleshade is a character I do want to do justice by, and Warrior Cats is a great sandbox to play in!

All that being said, I am still writing Warriors works. On AO3, I've published a couple smaller one-off stories that explore the idea of Tigerclaw not getting twisted up by Thistleclaw, and getting Scourge to join ThunderClan instead. You're welcome to read them if you haven't yet!

And I'm not done with Mapleshade, either. I'm currently working on a new, seperate Warriors rewrite based on the same time (with better allegiances); the working title for it, right now, is Falling Petals. I don't want to give too much away, but if there's enough interest, I might post a teaser excerpt to this story! There's no telling when I'll be finished with it, but I would much rather publish a finished work in full than post it by chapter and run the risk of losing interest or being unhappy with what I've put out.

A final project I'm working on is a personal Warrior Cats story called Rising Storm - it'll surround some OC Clans and Characters instead of rewriting canon material, and I'm looking for a main platform to post it on when I crack into it! If you're interested, I could use some beta readers when I start working on it, so please get in touch if you want to help out! If you know any non-Wattpad or AO3 websites I could publish the story on, please do let me know. I'll likely crosspost here, but I don't actively post on here too often, so I'd rather it not be the primary host.

I think that's everything I wanted to say! Again, thank you so much for your continued interest in my work. If you'd like to see more of what I do, look for the user 'ghastimafrix' on Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, deviantART, AO3, and toyhou.se! I do a lot more than just write Warriors, and I'm always happy to chat.

Stay frosty, y'all!!

[shardclan]

Soft music wafted out over the spathiphyllums flourishing on Carnelian’s balcony. From the darkened streets the occasional rowdy hoot or drunken song answered, but mostly it was quiet. The witching hour had it’s time, even in Bramble Step. Only the mellow plucking of Gethsemene’s harp and her melodic humming blurred the space between the silent night and the sleepy, candle-lit warmth inside.

Castel already knew Carnelian could be surprisingly tender–Atsushi didn’t spare details like that–but it was fascinating to see first hand. 

Carnelian had opted to try a glass of the old imperial’s favored elderberry wine, and was melting into the cushions of his couch. His head was nodding faintly, and he kept murmuring soft, velvety notes of Gethseme’s song. He was seemingly hypnotized by the red depths of the wine and swirled the glass in slow circles.

Arcanus was curled up like a child beside him, his head in Carnelian’s lap, and Carnelian in turn combed his fingers through the sleeping knight’s hair with an idle intimacy she would not have expected him to be capable of.  In spite of the evening’s games going poorly for him and having to walk Arcanus through the pain of puking up too much alcohol, he looked like there was nowhere he would rather be.

Not with anyone he wasn’t in bed with, anyway.

She turned her attention to Arcanus instead. He was much more than she had suspected. Simple, but not half as much as she’d thought he would be. The more she knew him, the more she wanted to know what was in the center of him. But every time she thought she was on the right path there, it turned out she was rarely getting anywhere he hadn’t knowingly opened the door to. She had expected more resistance, but for all that he struggled to reconcile his responsibility and political position with his feelings he was almost…welcoming Castel in.

She remembered their promised drink together on the outskirts of House Perihelion. How his eyes stayed on the western sky, but his attention wasn’t there. He seemed to be looking inward, at something that only held weight inside of himself.

How she’d asked if he missed Telos, and he had responded that she wasn’t his to miss. 

His face had been so straight she’d mistaken it for a gut reaction of respectful knightly distance. “Did you say that to me because you really feel that way, or because you can’t admit you miss her?”

“Not…” He didn’t blush, but there again were the wistful eyes that had first ignited Castel’s hunger to know him. “Not to you. I don’t know you well enough.”

“You realize that’s very telling, right?”

“Yes. But working me for answers is not the same as being trusted with the truth.” He looked aside at her innocent face and half-rolled his eyes. “You aren’t half as duplicitous as a guild merchant with wounded pride.”

Somehow it was even more charming that he hadn’t been completely under her paw the whole time.  "So why’d you let me drag you around?“

"I didn’t have a reason to tell you no. And it’s…nice. Talking to someone who doesn’t know me. Someone who doesn’t know anything.”

“You should be more wary. I’m from Bramble Step, after all.” She reached up, and shamelessly curled a loop of his hair around her finger. “Who knows what I might be after.”

“With all due respect, I don’t believe you’re after anything you genuinely expect to get.” Gently, he extracted the coil of his hair from her talon. “I’m an interesting game you’ve chosen to play, nothing more.”

“If you think so,” she said flippantly. “Though I gotta wonder… Why let me approach if you think I’m just toying with you? You can’t be hurting for company.”

“Because I’d like to invite more people into my life, and Carnelian let you in his house.” He had smiled with a hint of mischief that was glaring on his naturally serious face. “You’re practically a mutual friend.”

In hindsight, Arcanus had told her everything he was after from the start. She just hadn’t believed it could really be so simple. And yet, there he was, laid out because he’d overdone it at his own game the moment he tried to play it.

There was something cute about that, Castel thought. “He’s sweet looking when he’s asleep.”

“I think you like him a lot more than you think you do,” Carnelian answered in a husky murmur.

“So do you.”

His eyes flicked up at her, glimmering faintly in the dark. “Don’t get it in your head that you know me just because you’re in my house and you gossip with my lover.”

“Your…I’m sorry, your what?”

“Atsushi,” he said impatiently. “Only one I’ve got eyes for, and you best remember it.”

“I wasn’t implying you had…e-eyes,” she sputtered, biting back an outburst that absolutely needed to be saved for later gossip. “I just think you’ve got a stronger attachment to Arcanus than you think you do.”

“I know exactly how attached I am to this idiot,” Carnelian bountered, throwing an arm almost defensively over his friend. “And it’s enough to give a shit about keeping your fangs out of him you she-devil.”

Castel smirked over her crossed arms. “I don’t blame you. But he’s also not so defenseless that he needs that kind of protection from you.”

“He’s not defenseless at all,” said Gethsemene, still plucking gently by the windowsill. “Y'all only think he’s defenseless because you don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit you for free unless it’s someone you care about. He’s just a kinder type of selfless these days, that’s all.”

Castel and Carnelian glanced at each other, and gave similar yielding bobs of their heads. They were on home turf, so there was no point pretending Gethsemene was wrong.

“I don’t believe in selflessness,” Castel mused. “Everybody wants something. Selfless is just a fancy spin for repressed.”

“Black and over-simple view if I ever heard one.” Gethsemene’s fingers stopped, and she looked at Castel with a sort of sad reproach. “You can’t have everything you want and really love someone else, girl. Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself a little. And he’s a knight. If he went around doing what he wanted all the day long, he wouldn’t be the best guardian on this side of Sornieth.”

“S'why this goody-goody fuck is a good friend,” Carnelian mumbled. “Sometimes he loses his cool and does something other than what he should ‘n you see him and like…you can’t not know how much you mean to him…”

He trailed off, squinting suspiciously at his glass, and shot a surprisingly harsh glare at the bottle of wine. “I don’t think I like this stuff.”

“Cause it’s making you tell the truth,” Gethseme cackled, and took another deep drink from her own cup. “I heard all about it. He left Telos’ side for you at one point… he must cherish you quite a lot.”

“I don’t fuckin know, you’re the one he drank with when she went to exaltation and then that thing with the re-naming.”

“No need to sulk over it. Loving a woman like that brings people together.”

“If Atsushi had someone else who…” He glanced again at wine bottle and sat his glass down to pour more gin instead. “Anyway, I’d never willingly hang around someone I was second best to. The way I hear it, you at least got a kiss.”

“Hot damn I did.”

“How was it?” Castel asked, kicking her legs up and crossing her ankles. “I don’t get many chances to ask if a queen was a good kisser. Call it professional curiosity.”

“Lips softer than a newborn bogsneak’s belly and enough barely restrained desire to have killed a lesser woman on the spot,” Gethsemene answered with a nostalgic grin. “Keeps my cockles warm at sea to this very day.”

Castel shook her head, and looked back at Arcanus. “A hainu will come to resemble the dragon who raises it, they say…”

“Come on, that one’s not fair,” Carnelian contested. “Her husband was exalted, not dead. And she clearly had every intention of going to him the moment the opportunity presented itself.”

“And yet the truth stands she clearly wanted to move on and refused to acknowledge those feelings for…what, 3 full cycles?” Castel shrugged. “I got nothin’ against her, but my point is like… Would anybody in the clan really have said anything if she had re-married? Would she have been less happy having a new life with Gethsemene than pining for the old one for 3 cycles?”

“You didn’t know her,” Arcanust murmured from Carnelian’s lap, freezing all of them like caught children. He didn’t seem upset, just sleepy and a bit disoriented. “You have… no idea why she made the choices she did.”  

“But you do, I bet.”

Carnelian lit a cigar, and slid Arcanus a tall glass of water. “You don’t have to tell anyone anything. You have no obligation to defend Telos, least of all to Castel.”

A faint smile touched Arcanus’ lips, and he sat up. “I know. But it never…occurred to me that Telos didn’t ever tell Gethsemene why she pushed her away.”

Gethsemene laid down her harp. “It isn’t her fault. I made myself scarce when I heard she was leaving.” She smiled wryly. “Probably for the same reasons you did.”

“I know that she…” He grimaced, and took the cup Carnelian offered. He drank slowly, but his hands shook persistently. “I would like to confess. I’ve… I’ve spent–eons looking for a way to move on. Shed my feelings like scales. But the more I try to put her out of my mind, the more sharply her memory persists. And part of the problem is that I always…tell it from the wrong angle, I think.”

He took another nervous drink, and wheezed as it went down wrong. Even as Carnelian slapped him on the back, he sputtered. “It’s always been–cough– about how foolish it was. All the ways it was wrong and the reasons I shouldn’t have. How she was my charge, a widow, the widow of my previous charge, grieving, the queen, how I knew enough to know better–to know that all those feelings could ever do was endanger her–”

“Slow down,” Carnelian growled, taking the glass away. “If you puke on my table I will put you out, and you can have your emotions on the godsdamned street.”

Arcanus wheezed again, this time with laughter, and leaned gratefully into the barking imperial. The wine had not passed quite as much as the detective must have hoped–it was a prickly one, but he surprised Arcanus with a hug.

Arcanus shot a baffled look at Gethsemene. “How long have I been asleep…?”

“Long enough for us to find out your boy is a friendly drunk when he’s had wine.” She swung her lengthy legs from the sill and popped Castel’s ass until the nocturne made room on the loveseat. “You were saying?”

“I was saying–” He reached past Carnelian’s unsettlingly persistent embrace to get another glass of water. “That I have hundreds of thousands of hours filled with Telos filling my mind. And the more I try to forget, the more every single moment I spent at her side feels blessed and perfect. Unless I do something different, they will stay there and keep…keep shining. Brighter and brighter until I can’t see anything else.”

“You’re looking to get over her by talking about her?” Castel asked.

He looked quizzically in Castel’s direction. It was hard to tell if he was puzzled or irritated in the dim light. “Why do you talk about it like it’s so strange?”

“Cause we’re the kind of dumb fucks,” Carnelian rumbled. “That just burn the good memories when they end, and then spend the rest of our lives trying wash the ashes off.”

Silence answered, broken eventually by a faint whistle from Gethsemene. “That wine turning on you, is it?”

Carnelian growled something non-specific, and melted back into the cushions. He patted Arcanus’ back roughly. “You loved someone worth loving. Those hours you had with her? They’re– they’re fading faster than you think. Talk em out. Tell the whole fuckin world. She deserves it.”

Castel dropped her face into the arm of the loveseat. Gods, she couldn’t wait to tell Atsushi about this.

Arcanus didn’t look quite so amused, or surprised. He wanted to ask, quite badly, if Carnelian was ever going to share his memories. But he had confessed his feelings about Telos to them. Carnelian, even with the curious effect the wine was having on him, had not so much as volunteered her name. 

Maybe he had burned the memories so thoroughly that only ash would come if he tried to speak of her at all.

“I so want to share her,” he went on eventually. “The way I knew here. The drink made me a bit quicker to the line than I wanted, but it’s been on my mind a long time. Even if it still feels out of turn to tell her secrets… I think it only binds me to keep them.”

He looked to Gethsemene, with both respect and great empathy. “Especially when I know the woman I loved wouldn’t want the woman she loved to spend the rest of her life not knowing why it couldn’t happen.”

The three dragons were quiet. Castel swaying her legs and re-calculating her understanding of him; Carnelian busily smoking off intense envy, both of how quickly Arcanus had grown the ability to just bare his heart to people, and that he wasn’t the only one he could bare it to anymore; and Gethsemene. Who stared into the shadows to hide her face.

“Piss me off to the heights of the sky and the depths of the sea,” she grumbled. Her voice was thick, and she didn’t bother trying to control the shake of it. “Some whelp who didn’t even know what to do with her is gonna tell me about the one that got away.”

“You still got the kiss,” Arcanus offered with a dry, placating smile.

After a stretch, Gethsemene chuckled, and leaned back. “Yeah… hot damn I did. Come on then, greenstick. Spare an old widow some of those happy hours of yours.”

@boyonetta

[fashiontrendin-blog]

My Not-So-Secret Recipe for Cultivating Adult Friendships

http://fashion-trendin.com/my-not-so-secret-recipe-for-cultivating-adult-friendships/

My Not-So-Secret Recipe for Cultivating Adult Friendships

I

t’s 8 p.m. on a Friday night and my husband is cursing at a pot of pasta. A few feet away, perched on a sagging IKEA couch, my ex-roommate’s ex-lover is planning a backpacking trip with my high school theater camp buddy’s husband’s college friend. Behind them, a drag king comes in late from “genderqueer jiu jitsu” and hugs a 10th grade English teacher, returning her copy of The Body is Not an Apology. An ex-coworker from who-knows-how-many-jobs-ago is pouring more wine for the previously mentioned high school theater camp buddy while asking to join her blacksmithing class, while another ex-coworker is snuggled up in an armchair with an actor I once directed in a touring production of Romeo and Juliet. I am setting the table with my grandmother’s good silver and all is right with the world. Welcome to Frambly Dinner.

“Frambly” is the term we came up with to describe our family of chosen friends and the brambly way we all ended up entwined, but trust me, this shorthand is the only formality. I’ve been hosting this dinner party with my husband for nearly three years now, and what started as a “writers group” (guess how much writing we did?) has morphed into something I think many people, millennials especially, find as elusive as the rest of the American Dream: warm, reliable community.

My grandparents — all four of them — were friends for years before they got married and started having kids (two of which would eventually marry each other and have me). When you look at pictures of my mother’s Bat Mitzvah, my dad’s parents are there, dancing in the background. I remember one of my grandfathers giving me a hug at the other’s funeral and saying, “You lost a good friend, Kiddo,” which struck me as odd, even at 10 years old, since they had known each other far longer than I’d been alive. He was the one who had lost a good friend.

When I moved across the country after college graduation, I took many of my grandparents’ things with me — things that belonged in other kitchens, in other eras. Even though I knew almost no one in California, table service for 10 still felt like a necessity. It was a way of carrying their legacy with me, even though I didn’t yet know how to bring it to life. When I met a red-headed bartender who loved to cook as much as I did, I decided to stay. We cooked our favorite recipes for each other, and many of mine (the desserts, mostly) came out of inherited old cookbooks that were peppered with advice to the wife, the hostess, for whom every meal is an opportunity for social graces and tabletop diplomacy.

Now, if you ever happen to move to a new city and worry about making friends, I can promise you this: If you date a bartender, move in with a burlesque performer, and get a job at a Shakespeare theater, you will quite suddenly be surrounded by a wealth of interesting people. And if you feed those people regularly and well, you will sit down to dinner one day and notice that not only do you now have actual friends, but they feel a bit like family, too. And although this wild assembly of bohemian roustabouts is hardly the stuff of a Rockwell Thanksgiving, you might realize what I did: those pearls-in-the-kitchen Bettys from the cookbooks were on to something.

The friendships that buoyed my grandparents’ lives were founded at their synagogue. By the time my brother and I came along, they’d been known as “The Card Club” for several decades. The group was eight couples in total, that got together once a month and had dinner before the husbands played poker and the ladies played dominos. The hosting rotated from house to house, but both my mother and I have strong memories of ironing napkins, polishing the good silverware, and arranging trays of nuts and candies for when The Card Club was coming over.

But much as I admire The Card Club, I worry that it’s not a replicable model for modern friendships. In fact, millennials report feeling lonelier than older generations and, if the myriad essays on the topic are to be believed, making and keeping adult friendships hasn’t come as easily as many of us expected. Perhaps because an economy reliant on freelancing, gigs and side hustles doesn’t exactly encourage workplace friendships; or because we’re less likely than any previous generation to belong to a formal religious organization. And since we’re waiting longer to have kids, if we have them at all, we’re not making PTA alliances or bonding over a shared flask at the elementary school rendition of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” either.

To put it bluntly: No one is going to make our friendships for us. But if we’re as anxious, broke and lonely as the internet suggests, battling our imposter syndrome in increasingly tiny apartments (as the stats say we are), then maybe that’s exactly why we need to resurrect and reform an oft-forgotten social relic: the dinner party. It’s time to stop letting an antiquated idea of “the perfect host” get in the way of our ability to create space for our community and nurture lifelong friendships.

When asked what brought me to California, I often quip that moving across the country for no reason seemed like the kind of thing one should do in their twenties, but the truth is, I was grieving. The price paid for such a close loving family (my dad’s parents lived two miles in one direction, my mom’s two miles in the other) was that after burying six people in ten years, there wasn’t a street I could drive down or a place I could go that didn’t remind me of someone I had lost. I had grown up with a minimum of 13 people around my grandmother’s table for Shabbat Dinner every Friday night, and I didn’t have any faith at the time that I would ever feel that same sense of joy and peace as those nights brought.

The first few times hosting were stressful. I worried that the food wasn’t good enough. I worried that the apartment wasn’t big enough. I worried that my goal of being a good host wasn’t feminist enough. The first time felt like I was playing dress up in someone else’s heels, but this weekly time set aside for sharing food with friends is something I now cherish beyond measure, and I slowly realized that the feeling I was missing from Shabbat dinners and that I envied from The Card Club nights was something I could create for myself, but not by myself. So I invited people in. And even if it sounds cheesy, I want to invite you in too. I want to invite you to create your own Frambly Dinner, and I’ve outlined my best tips below to help get you started. You don’t need matching napkins or a spotless house or even a dining room. All you need is a few people you’d like to spend more time with, and a willingness to invite them in.

Just Try It Out

You don’t have to commit to hosting a weekly or even monthly dinner party. Just try one and see how it goes. Think of it less like a “dinner party” and more like just having some friends over. If you can get over this first fear, everything will come easier.

If You Plan It, They Will Come

I work three jobs and so does my husband. But Friday nights are sacrosanct. The beauty of hosting regularly is that we never have to worry about when we’re going to make time to see our friends. Celebrating birthdays, promotions, holidays, etc., are all simple and genuine: just add a toast or a cake. No one has to stress about FOMO because if you miss it this week, there’s always next week. But I’ve found that the people who value this like we do continue to block out their Fridays for the Frambly.

You Don’t Need a Table

Our apartment features one room to serve as kitchen, living room and dining room. It’s not big. Most of the time, we set out platters of food on the kitchen counter and everyone helps themselves to a plate before perching on the couch, armchairs, footstools or on pillows around the coffee table. If you wait until you have a proper dining room table to try your hand at hosting, you will miss out on years of friendship.

Keep It Simple

Give a half hour window for when folks should arrive and then forget about the clock. Serve everything family style. Pad your menu with lots of veggies — they’re inexpensive, colorful and hardly anyone is allergic. Don’t let the last minute cancellation or additional guest ruffle your feathers. Don’t make a seating chart. Don’t plan dessert if you don’t want to — you can always just offer tea or send someone to the corner store for Ben and Jerry’s.

Let People Help

Ask them to bring drinks, or something to contribute to a cheese plate in case dinner is a bit late. Or to pick up some cookies on their way over. Let them come early and help cook if they want. Let them tackle some the dishes. Let them pitch in. Remember, you’re building a family, not running a restaurant.

Just Clean the Bathroom

You can fake everything else and no one cares anyway.

But here’s the biggest secret:

It’s Not Actually About the Food

I’m a good cook. My husband is incredible. But what I’m reminded of on nights when we tell the Frambly that we just can’t handle the cooking that Friday and we all pitch in for some pizza instead, is that the food is just the excuse for getting together. The real nourishment comes from knowing that there is a time and a place where we will be welcomed and loved no matter what. And carving that space out in this world is the true art of hosting.

Molly Conway is a playwright and writer living in Oakland, California. You can follow her on Instagram @moxiequinn for periodic updates about her garden and Frambly Dinner. She has yet to finish a cup of tea while it is still hot.

Illustrations by Alec Doherty.