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kingkirkwall · 2 years ago

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My mentor John Hughes taught me how to write. Then he plagiarised my work.

Joseph Earp

In 2022, the acclaimed Australian author was found to have plagiarised whole sentences from Leo Tolstoy and F Scott Fitzgerald. When a former student discovered he was among those greats, his reaction was complicated.

Ten years ago, I was living in Coventry, England. Though I had a room in a sharehouse, I barely used it. I preferred to live and sleep in the freezing cold shed out the back. I’d sit there chain-smoking, trying and failing to decide what I was going to do with my life.

Then, one day, a fox appeared in the garden. He spent a few days testing me out, evaluating me. Eventually, following whatever strange whim it is that guides the business of foxes, he came into the shed.

During the day, he’d sleep in there. I would sit and watch him. He didn’t like me smoking – he would leave as soon as I sparked up a cigarette – so I stopped. He’d rouse around dusk, give me a quiet, gentle stare, and then saunter out into the yard. And every morning when I awoke, he’d be back, curled up in the corner. Until one morning he wasn’t. And I never saw him again.

He was a strange, tender, beautiful creature – unexplainable, the servant of no master. He was just this thing that entered my life, shared a little room with me, and then moved on, leaving the tiniest scrap of beauty behind.

I have written these paragraphs before: they appeared word for word in a 2016 review I wrote for a small Sydney music magazine called The Brag. I had been tasked with writing about the new album from Lubomyr Melnyk, a continuous pianist, who makes strange, elliptical music that contains no human voices.

I had no idea how to describe what his music did to me, so I took the story of the fox, and I linked the line in the last paragraph, about the “strange, tender, beautiful creature”, to Melnyk’s music. I was paid $40.

"John Hughes met me when I was a battered teenager and gave me the skills and the care to make me a writer."

I published hundreds of reviews in The Brag. Many have been lost to my memory, but that one sticks with me, for three reasons. The first, because I am unusually proud of it. I think it captures something about Melnyk, and about a small streak of grace in a time where there was little of it.

Secondly, because when I shared that review on Facebook, my mentor – the man who saved me, who shaped my life, who met me when I was a battered teenager and gave me the skills and the care to make me a writer – told me he liked it. His name is John Hughes.

And the third, because recently, a journalist got in touch with me. She would not tell me over messages what the call was about. When I pushed, she mentioned the Melnyk review, but would give no further details. So I called her. She was audibly nervous. She made light, confusing conversation.

Eventually, she said the words I should have expected, but hadn’t. “I’m writing a story about John Hughes,” she said. “Can you talk to me a little about how you know John?”

–

I met John when I was 13 years old. I was a student at Sydney Grammar School, a private institution that I hated from the very first moment I stepped through its gates. I didn’t fit in; never properly found my people, or my place.

I had been a confident child, but that confidence had slowly drained from me. I started getting nosebleeds, constant nosebleeds. I had known since I was six years old that I wanted to be a writer, so I read a lot, and wrote a lot, but these activities gave me less and less pleasure. I grew very thin. I did not sleep.

I don’t know how I heard about John’s creative writing class. He was an English teacher at the school, and held a small, informal gathering of students in the library at lunchtime – a time I usually spent in bathroom stalls, reading poetry alone. I started going to his class instead.

‘I am still, in so many ways, that little boy, bringing my work to the quiet room in the back of the library, asking what he thinks.’ Photograph: Isabella Moore/The Guardian

John was then, as he is now, a man with an impossibly kindly face. He has short cropped black hair, and wears glasses. He does not stutter, but he gesticulates in a way that seems like a cousin of stuttering, nodding his head when you are talking, maintaining eye contact. He smiles frequently. He leaves a lot of room for you, in conversation, and has a sly sense of humour that takes a while to reveal itself. He always struck me as a man without ego, which is a way of saying that he is a man with endless curiosity. He sublimates himself into the things he loves, and he understands that he matters less than these things.

If it seems like I can’t write about him without revealing that I love him, it’s because I can’t, and because I do.

John told us early that if we wanted to be writers, we had to write. So that’s what we did. We brought in pieces of our work, and he, smiling, told us what he liked about them. He had recommendations for everyone. There was a library in his head, and when a line struck him, you could see him browsing that library, and pulling out something he thought you’d like.

Through John, I was introduced to Sylvia Plath, one of the central figures in my literary and personal life. He showed me the beauty in The Great Gatsby, a text that I had unfairly dismissed – under his guidance, it bloomed. He told me about Cormac McCarthy, Mark Rothko, Walden. And, as I grew older, I recommended things to him. I became obsessed with cinema, and would lend him DVDs. We talked Herzog; Haneke; von Trier, hanging around each other in the halls of the library, delighting in the conversation.

It wasn’t just that he recommended specific writers. It’s that he took me seriously. He knew I needed to write, that I was lost without it. What he probably didn’t know, immediately: that without the comfort and care he provided I would be in much worse shape emotionally.

So I wrote, at a blistering pace. Every week, I brought in a new piece of work. Some struck John more than others; these were like gold to me. When I was 14, I wrote a story about a young girl caught up in the Dresden bombings of the second world war . John was unusually quiet while I read the piece to the group. Afterwards, he hung by the door. It was just me and him.

“You should do this,” he said. “Be a writer. You are very good at it.”

Later, with an irony that is not lost on me, John revealed that he initially assumed I had plagiarised the piece – that my parents had written it for me.

But I have never forgotten that moment. Someone had looked at me, when I felt least seen, and told me what I wanted to believe, but lacked the conviction to do anything about. It was akin to the moment in the shed with the fox. Only this fox – John’s kindness, his support – never left. It’s in these words, too.

–

For me, as for most writers, there are people I write for. They live in my head always – little fictionalised versions of themselves, who I’m constantly in the process of showing things to, and testing things against.

Some of these people I write for are dead. Some of them I’ve never met. Plath is one. So is the poet Robert Lowell. Another is John Hughes. I am still, in so many ways, that little boy, bringing my work to the quiet room in the back of the library, asking what he thinks.

John never told us he was a published author, until his first book, An Idea of Home, won a major literary award. During my last year of high school, his second book, Someone Else, was released. I attended the launch with my parents. Someone Else is my favourite of John’s works, a series of “fictional essays”, in which he borrows the language and lives of the authors he adores to tell you something about himself. At the launch, one of John’s university friends described John as “fox-like”, moving through the world with cunning and wit.

I bought a copy of Someone Else that I took around the world with me as I spent the next half decade trying to be a writer. John and I would email each other; when we were in the same city, we got coffee. Each time, he revealed something that gave me the strength to keep going. He called me the most natural writer he’d ever taught; he got excited when I told him of my literary successes, and consoled me when I discussed my failures.

He always had recommendations for me. He put me on to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, a short, strange, dark novel that inspired me to write my own short, strange, dark novel, Cattle. He believed, as I did, that reading is an important part of writing – that we are shaped by the books we love. He was the first person I sent Cattle to. He liked it.

One day in 2017, while sitting at a Redfern coffee shop, he told me about his next book. It was called No One, and he described it as a murder mystery in reverse. After we shook hands and parted ways, I watched him walk up the street – and then I turned around, and went home.

–

John never got the success I felt he deserved for the books I believe he wrote on his own. They were scantly reviewed. If you know of him at all, you probably know him as a plagiarist.

Earlier this year, John’s most recent book, The Dogs, was discovered to have featured whole lines and passages from a number of sources – The Great Gatsby, which particularly stung, given the way John had brought it into my life, as well as Anna Karenina, All Quiet On The Western Front, and more. Entire sentences were lifted and not cited, with only occasional words changed; the book was removed from the longlist of Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin, as a result.

John apologised for plagiarising Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s work “without realising”, but defended his process in the Guardian, saying he was not a plagiarist. He said that he was shaped by the writers who had influenced him; that he had, in a sense, little versions of them and their words that he kept in his head. He claimed that he saw all writing as a lineage of homage, and pointed to famous artists who have limped after the work of other artists – in particular Bob Dylan, who I know for a fact that John has loved for years.

This defence was not well received. On Twitter, I saw people anticipating that John might have a mental breakdown. They were waiting for him to be discovered “wanking on street corners”. Hoping to get some relief from my extremely complicated relationship with what was happening to a man I loved – something that I firmly believe came as a result of his mistakes, which were mistakes – I attended a book launch. John was a punchline within the first five minutes.

–

When No One came out, I skim-read it. I was in the process of getting sober, and my head was in a fog. But I liked it. What I missed, however, is this section, which occurs halfway through the novel:

“When I came of age, as they used to say, and was no longer a ward of the state, I moved from Cessnock to Sydney and rented a room in a boarding house on the outskirts of Windsor. I preferred to sleep, however, in the shed at the bottom of the garden. It was winter when I moved and very cold, but I’d sit and chain-smoke and drink from a goon of tawny port, trying and failing to come up with something I could do.

Then, one day, a fox appeared in the garden. I’d seen foxes before, in my last foster home in Cessnock, but never this close. She spent a few days evaluating me. Eventually, following whatever instinct it is that guides the business of foxes, she came into the shed.

She started sleeping there during the day. I’d sit and watch her. She didn’t like me smoking – would leave as soon as I struck the match – so I stopped. She would rouse around dusk, give me what looked like a gentle stare, then saunter out into the yard. Every morning when I woke she’d be back, curled up in the corner.

Until one morning, she wasn’t. And I never saw her again.

In retrospect, I think that’s what the Poetess was. A strange, uncalled-for, beautiful thing – inexplicable, the servant of no master. I like to think sometimes that she might have loved me, but it doesn’t feel like love. More something that entered my life, shared a small room with me, then moved on, leaving behind the tiniest scraps of what even now I cannot name.”

These paragraphs were brought to my attention by the journalist. The structure is identical to my Melnyk review. Many lines are the same.

Over the phone, the journalist asked me a few questions. Distressed, confused, I told her that I loved John, which remains true. After we hung up, I picked up No One from my bookshelf and read and re-read that section. I felt a number of things. The strangest, most immediate was a version of pride. The man whose approval I had always wanted had decided I was good enough to rip off. I was sitting, with Fitzgerald, in the library in his head; my writing, like Tolstoy’s, had stuck with him, somewhere deep, and he had turned to it when he wanted to say something that he couldn’t say.

"He had, I felt, failed me as an author. But he had not failed me as a man."

I was also fascinated by the lines that John had changed. Some of the changes are merely structural, and made sense in the context of his story. But why the addition of tawny port? Is that what he would have drunk?

What was wrong with my line – “as soon as I sparked up a cigarette” – and what was better about his line – “as soon as I struck the match”? Why “inexplicable” over “unexplainable”?

Some commentators have suggested John changed lines to “cover his tracks”. But he is an astonishingly smart man; if he wanted to cover his tracks, he would do it much better than this.

Instead, I felt that I was encountering some essence of the nature of writing and reading – another lesson from John. Writing is a series of choices. Reading John’s words – which are not really his – and then reading mine – which are not wholly mine either, because they come from my life, which is made up of other people, and which are shaped by those authors who I admire – was a process of watching those choices happen, in as close as we get to real-time with literature.

It hurt, and I was angry for what had happened to me and other writers – the way our labour had been co-opted, and not appropriately cited. Lots of people can imagine that hurt, I assume. But I can’t imagine that many other people understand the way it felt good, too.

–

John’s defences are not insane, or deluded, in the way that they have been characterised by some. Yes, all writing is homage. Yes, we need other writers in order to write. But no, that does not mean we can take their words wholesale. There is a spectrum, from plagiarism to homage, and all works fall somewhere across that spectrum. Some of John’s work, obviously, falls on the plagiarism end – and being shaped by others doesn’t justify not citing your sources.

John and I spoke after the first instances of his plagiarism had come to light. I had told him some of the things I hope he already knew – that he had changed and saved my life; that Someone Else came with me everywhere. I said little about the plagiarism itself. That is because I had decided, privately, that John was two things: a man that I knew, and an author. He had, I felt, failed me as an author. But he had not failed me as a man.

This was, I feel now, an arbitrary distinction, and the ways he plagiarised me make that clear. Perhaps I made that distinction for another reason: I didn’t want to hurt John. I still don’t want to hurt John.

Also, at the same time: he hurt me. He hurt me because I was a young, struggling writer, who got paid $40 to write about a significant period in my life, in a review that basically nobody read but him.

He then took those words, and my life, and put them in a book that – while not successful, per se – did get the kind of glowing reviews I have never received. He was rewarded for my labour. He did not cite me. He did not send the people who were moved by his words back to their source, which was me. He did not alert me, himself, to the ways he had taken from me. I had to find out from someone else. So, in fact, did many of the readers who enjoyed his work: they too were also left out of an important part of the writing, and they had to discover that through people who weren’t John. I am angry that he did that to me, and to the other authors whose labour he did not attribute. I am angry that he did that to his readers too.

If John Hughes ever publishes another book, the first line of any review will make reference to his plagiarism. He has done that for, and to, himself, and everyone who he has affected is entitled to feel how they want to about that. I have my own relationship with what he has done to my words, that involve me – on some level – having forgiven him.

But the fact remains: he hadn’t understood the context of what he was doing; he had not done his homework. I feel some cruel satisfaction, writing those words. What student hasn’t wanted to say to their teacher: do your homework. It’s my lesson to him.

John Hughes declined to comment for this piece.

…A deeply uncomfortable read. (One that immediately sparks the reaction “Ugh, what would it be like to have this happen to you?” …Except the writer makes all too plain exactly what it would be like.) :/

(h/t @neil-gaiman )

#plagiarism #john hughes #joseph earp #long post

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swaps55 · 4 years ago

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Eulogia

With MELE imminent, sharing a scene I wrote a long time ago, in which Kaidan Alenko mourns Ashley Williams after Virmire, and discovers he isn’t mourning alone.

From here.

The cargo bay was quiet when the elevator doors opened. Most of the crew had dispersed to the Citadel, leaving Kaidan mercifully alone in the cavernous space. Slowly he made his way towards the lockers, the scar tissue and healing sinews in his abdomen like a knot that someone had doused with gasoline and set on fire.

But still healing.

(This is it. This is how I’m going to die.)

Kaidan exhaled.

If he closed his eyes he could still see the numbers in his HUD, always hovering right above zero, a perpetuating terminus never quite reached, never quite avoided.

When he reached the lockers he stopped, hand halfway to the one marked, Williams, A.

If he went by the book this should be Gladstone’s job. There was no reason it shouldn’t be Gladstone’s job.

(You know it’s the right choice.)

But it wasn’t Gladstone’s job.

The click of the locker door echoed loud enough that he flinched before drawing in a deep breath and pulling it all the way open. She hadn’t lied about her uniforms. Every shirt hung crisp and straight on its hanger, in sharp contrast to the chaotic pile of belongings tossed heedlessly on the ground below it. The pile was so impressive he was actually afraid to take anything out, for fear it would cause an outright avalanche. In spite of himself he shook his head and smiled a little.

“Somehow this is exactly what I expected from you,” he said under his breath. He heard a creak behind him and whipped his head around, heart rate thudding as though he expected to find her peering over his shoulder, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. A flush crept up the back of his neck.

Of course there was nothing. Ashley was dead.

His gripped the locker door until his knuckles whitened, leaned his forehead briefly against it. The metal felt cool and hard against his skin. He swallowed once. Twice.

Eventually he straightened with a sigh, tugging at his uniform and rolling his shoulder, as though he could somehow shake Ashley off like working out a crick in his neck. By the time his fingers brushed the cloth of her fatigues their subtle quiver had been swallowed up by the hard-earned discipline he’d practiced so diligently ever since Jump Zero.

(Kaidan Alenko. Always looking for the sure thing. Everything needs to be perfectly defined and spelled out for you, doesn’t it? Sometimes the unknown can be a little exciting, too.)

A static spark stung his finger as he emptied the hangers. He jerked his hand back, muttering, used to the burn, never the timing. Slowly he reached back in, painstakingly folding each shirt with precision he hadn’t employed since Basic.

(You find a wrinkle in my uniform and I’ll clean your pistol for a month.)

He made each crease razor sharp. Not a wrinkle to be found.

Once the clothing had been stored, he began taking apart the pile she had accumulated in her locker. Datapads with poetry. She liked Cummings and Yeats, Plath and Elizabeth Bishop. He remembered Joker saying something about Heinlein. Kaidan hadn’t intended to look through them, but shortly he found himself cross-legged on the floor, skimming through lines and verses. It was easy to tell her favorites – she’d annotated them heavily. Underlined phrases, personal reflections. In some cases she’d made notes that he didn’t understand, such as the one beside a line from a poem by Elizabeth Browning that simply read, Josh, and in parenthesis (the little shit).

She also had a copy of the Bible, which gave him pause. It wasn’t a datapad either but an actual book, pages dog-eared, corners bent and turned down, small makeshift bookmarks such as scraps of paper, paper clips, even a hair tie, sticking out at all angles. Like the datapads it was covered in notes, but all of these handwritten, in scripts of multiple hands. Some tiny and neat, others broad and flowing. Though he didn’t think he’d ever seen a sample of Ashley’s handwriting he immediately found one he thought had to be hers – small but hurried, with the occasional loopy flourish. It tended to start out neat, but quickly deteriorated when her hand couldn’t keep up with her thoughts, until it was nearly illegible.

The inside cover contained four handwritten paragraphs, each in a different script that he recognized from the subsequent pages. Each a note from parent to child, passing the heirloom on with messages of faith and love. Four generations of Williams, right there on one page.

Kaidan ran his fingers across the script, tracing the shallow grooves the pen made against the paper. General David Williams, of Shanxi infamy, bequeathing it to his son Matthew Williams, with a note.

Our faith is our legacy. We keep to it and carry on, no matter the cost. And when that task is difficult, remember those who’ve walked a harder road with lesser reward. We are blessed. I am blessed. Because I have you.

Serviceman Williams then wrote to his daughter, There’s a great wide universe out there waiting for you. I hope you explore it to the fullest. If you ever get lost, look here and see if you can’t find your way. Remember, kiddo. Ad aspera per astra.

Kaidan’s hands loosened, allowing the book’s spine to droop. A few pages whispered past his thumb. The hair tie bookmark fell out, ghosting to the floor without fanfare.

He snatched it up with a hot flash of guilt and held it aloft. What page did it come from? What place had he lost? How important had it been?

He didn’t know.

There was so much he didn’t know. So much he’d never learn.

He stared at the hair tie. Nothing more than a simple strip of dark blue elastic, still twined with a few strands of long, dark brown hair. She probably had a few dozen just like it. She’d worn two in her hair, at all times. One to pull it back into a ponytail, one to wrap around the thick twist of her bun and secure it in place. Usually she kept a third around her wrist, just for emergencies.

But they were never enough to hold back those few stubborn, errant strands that inevitably pulled free to waft about her face.

Moisture burned the corner of his eyes. His fingers curled around the small token, and he put his newly formed fist to his mouth to stifle the sound brewing in his throat. One choked sob got through before he swallowed the rest back, chest aching from the effort. He wicked a thumb across his eyes, hastily tucked the hair tie back between the pages and set the book aside.

This wasn’t his. The grief and memories trapped within the Bible’s covers were for her family, not for him.

But it shouldn’t be for anyone. It should be his things exposed to the harsh light of the cargo bay, meticulously sorted and stored, itemized on a manifest and marked for shipping back to Vancouver, care of Marc and Lora Alenko.

His throat tightened, hitching breath loud against the silent backdrop of the cargo bay. Not even the sound of the engines to provide some white noise.

Nothing like this would be found among his own belongings. He spoke to his folks a couple of times a year. Hadn’t been back to Vancouver in almost three. When he did it tended to be strained small talk and careful avoidance of anything to do with the mutated eezo nodes lurking under his skin. He’d actually thought running off to the Alliance might help. Follow in his father’s footstep. Give them something in common. That, of course, and he’d had nowhere else to go.

Would his own family have mourned him the way Ashley Williams’ would mourn her?

Would she?

Stop.

He raked a hand through his hair, fingers eventually coming to rest against his forehead. His head felt heavy. Too heavy to hold up, like a lead weight.

(They’re more important. We’re as good as dead up here anyway.)

He wondered who would inherit the Bible now that Ashley was gone. One of her sisters, maybe. Sisters who probably had yet to learn about what had happened down on Virmire.

(Kaidan, what the hell are you doing?)

(This bomb is going off! No matter what.)

No matter what. 0.00. He’d been ready for it. Ready for anything. Except Shepard’s hand, grabbing him by the arm.

Further down in the pile he found smaller items. Toiletries. A stuffed hanar, of all things. A bottle of liquor she must have picked up on Noveria.

(Just for the record, I’d look damn good in a dress.)

He swallowed against a lump in his throat, chest constricting. He could see her so clearly, standing at the railing in Port Hanshan, alternating between slouching and gripping the rail with her hands and leaning back on her heels.

(I’m not most people.)

No. She hadn’t been.

He found some packing material for the liquor. It was scotch, an asari brand, maybe purchased to share with Liara. Why it hadn’t been drunk he couldn’t say. Maybe she just ran out of time.

Next was a holo album containing a few photos. People he didn’t recognize. A woman that looked too much like her not to be her mother. A young girl with a grin he recognized from those brief moments in the comm room. Before…

Stop!

Kaidan put the holo aside, then rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. Took a deep breath in. Let it out slow. Clamped his eyes shut. For a moment, everything shook. His hands. The air in his lungs. His skin felt hot, but prickled with gooseflesh.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Eventually he opened his eyes. Went back to the pile. Finish it, marine. Don’t leave her hanging.

In all her possessions were scant, just what she’d been able to obtain or accumulate since they’d picked her up on Eden Prime. In fact, how the Bible and holo album had even managed to catch up with her struck him as a bit of a mystery.

But when he got to the bottom of the pile his hand froze, mouth dry as a shock of white hot cold strummed the length of his spine, numbness dulling his fingers until they felt thick and clumsy.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, she’d died in her combat gear. Not her fatigues. Of course they would be here.

This time no amount of discipline could overcome his shaking hands as he picked one up and turned it over in his palms.

A neon green boot with matching laces, so bright they nearly glowed in the dim light of the cargo bay.

His gut clenched, chest so tight he couldn’t breathe, the edges of his vision blurring until something hot and wet spilled over onto his cheeks.

(Come on.)

(Whoa, where are we going? Anderson said to wait here.)

(Come on, LT. Think we’ll ever get to poke around here again? Live a little.)

Only he hadn’t. She’d been right there. Right there. And he hadn’t.

(Tell me you haven’t thought about this.)

(Thinking’s not the same as doing. Maybe, once all this is behind us…)

He dropped the boot, back slamming against the lockers as he buried his head in his hands, the grief that he’d stored down deep in his chest ever since that timer reached zero breaching the damn in a flood of hot tears. He wept himself hollow, hot, swollen and aching, exhaustion creeping in until he felt it laying heavily over his skin, behind his eyes, in the pit of his stomach. Then he just sat silent, eyes red and heavy, arms resting on his knees.

A hulking shape appeared above him. Had he not felt so drained he might have cared more about discovering he hadn’t been alone after all. But when Wrex’s red, horny crest came into view he met the krogan’s fierce stare without shame. Whatever the krogan had to say, he was beyond giving a damn.

“She was a warrior worth mourning,” Wrex said.

Kaidan straightened his posture with mild surprise, but said nothing.

“Shepard chose his companions well. Even those I at first didn’t give him credit for.” He offered a scaly hand, which Kaidan accepted warily. Wrex hauled him effortlessly to his feet, and gave him a brusque nod.

“You are krantt.”

Kaidan wasn’t sure how to respond, but Wrex saved him the trouble by ambling away without further comment. The krogan had been nearly invisible since their return from Virmire. After finding him here Kaidan wasn’t even sure if he’d even left the ship.

He hadn’t considered the possibility that a krogan might mourn a human soldier. But Ashley…had that effect on people.

With a wipe of his eyes Kaidan began piling Ashley’s things into a crate. Once the locker was empty he sealed it, then closed the crate up as well and entered it into the ship’s inventory for the requisitions offer to offload and send to her family. By the time he finished, his grief had been replaced by grim, dogged resolve.

We’re coming for you, Saren. May God help you, you bastard.

#mass effect #kaidan alenko #ashley williams #ashley x kaidan #not quite willenko #but almost #my fic #me legendary countdown #i'm so used to writing in present tense #that reading my own stuff in past tense is WEIRD

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scarletjedi · 4 years ago

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Untitled Untamed Time Travel Fixit AU but make it Mingcheng

@piyo-13

Part 1

Part 2A

PART 2B: GUSU UNLEASHED

Nie Huaisang immediately grabs a piece of blank paper to write a message back to Nie Mingjue, leaving Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian staring at each other. “Well,” Wei Wuxian said after a minute. “Aren’t you going to write to him, too?”

Jiang Cheng startled, he’d been too caught up in Huaisang’s words, “He’s alive!”. He had been prepared to go through the process of meeting Nie Mingjue again, of hopefully catching his attention, of watching A-Jue fall for him the way Jiang Cheng had fallen years ago — that his lover was here, alive, and *knew him* had not had time to process.

Trembling, Jiang Cheng moved from his bed, weak limbs pouring him like water until he was sat up against the table, taking the paper that Huaisang handed him. He stared, blankly. What to *say*?

“Tell him you love him,” Wei Wuxian said from his bed.

“Tsk, he knows that,” Jiang Cheng said with little snap.

“Then tell him you want to fuc—”

“Ah, la la la la!” Nie Huaisang said, covering his ears, and Wei Wuxian fell back laughing. Nie Huaisang winked at him. “Be honest,” he said. “But be short,” he looked down at his own missive. “All of this needs to fit on the bird.”

Nodding, Jiang Cheng picked up his brush. After a moment, he put ink to paper, writing in quick, sure strokes. He fanned the paper back and forth a few times to dry the ink faster, and folded the note to hand to Huaisang. Huaisang took it with a grin and ran from the room to send the message back.

“What did you write?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“None of your business.”

Two days later Nie Zonghui would bring the messages to Nie Mingjue, who would open Huaisang’s note, only to have a smaller note fall free. He would pick it up with a small frown before reading Huaisang’s note, smiling — blinking, then reading the note again. “If he put nearly have the effort into studying...” he muttered and Zongui would hide a smile. Then, Mingjue would open the smaller missive, nearly dropping the paper in shock, scrambling to catch it. “Sect Leader?” Zonghui would ask, and when Nie Mingjue looked up, he would be beaming.

Now, Nie Mingjue, who had fought, lead, and won a war, lead a sect, and died a slow, agonizing descent into his greatest fears, finds himself once more at 19, newly made Section Leader, and the clearest minded he’s been in years, without the damage caused by cultivating a war and...well. He wasn’t actually sure *how* Meng Yao managed to kill him, just that he knew he had.

Which was another problem. By this point, Huaisang was safely in Cloud Recesses, but Meng Yao was on his way back to Qinghe. It would take him most of a week to return, traveling on horseback as he was, and Nie Mingjue wasn’t sure what reception Meng Yao should receive.

Meng Yao, long before he was renamed by his father, had acted in ways that were counter to the values of the Nie sect. Even if Nie Mingjue were to overlook the crimes he committed as Jin Guangyao, or the atrocities he participated in as a torturer for Wen Ruohan, his crimes began in Qinghe.

Crimes that, as far as Nie Mingjue was aware, had not yet happened. Even before Meng Yao had used the chaos of an attack to kill the captain of his guardNie, Mingjue was never sure how much Meng Yao spoke was the truth — just knew that at one point he was sure Meng Yao had never lied to him, and then was never sure Meng Yao was not lying.

In his previous life, Nie Mingjue turned most often to Lan Xichen for council, particularly wher Meng— Jin Guangyao was concerned. Then, as years passed, Xichen would turn ever more towards Jin Guangyao first, and Nie Mingjue found himself turning to Jiang Wanyin as their wartime sparring turned to tent-side comfort, to comraderie to courtship.

A-Cheng.

For all that Mingjue had more years of experience leading a sect, Wanyin’s experience was a similar enough trial by fire to grant him insight, and an outsider enough to the triumvirate to offer an outsider’s clarity.

Truly, his love possessed an uncanny wisdom hidden behind brusque words and toothless threats.

He wished for Wanyin’s council now. He wished for his presence. It had already been too long since they had last seen each other before Mingjue made his last, fateful visit to Jinlintai. It would likely be several months, if not years, before their paths would cross once more.

And— he missed his lover as a lover. Wanyin was a beautiful man, strong and proud and fierce and so sweet in private. A joy and a challenge.

Getting Huaisang’s letter was bittersweet because his didi had already suffered so much: even the first time, Mingjue had wanted Hauisang’s youth to be as worry free as possible, to have the freedom to be careless in a way Mingjue never had. And sweet, because it meant that Mingjue wasn’t alone in this.

Getting Wanyin’s message was a blessing and a curse. He had already resigned himself to wait, to reach out to the Jiang Sect in support to save Wanyin his own heartbreak, to court him properly from the beginning. To know that his love was here, and yet still so far out of reach...

Huaisang’s letter boiled down to “plan in motion. Do not engage.” Which...

“Didi,” Nie Mingjue muttered. “What are you doing?”

Because, the thing is, Mingjue would *like* to listen to Huaisang. Mingjue was tired, and doing the right thing was an increasingly difficult and murky task....but Mingjue was also a just and righteous man. Certain actions he would take no matter what...and certain actions he would not.

The facts were thus:

Meng Yao had killed him in a way that was both intensely malicious and duplicitous. (Nie Mingjue was unsure as to his motive. What did Meng Yao gain aside from petty revenge? No, the method was revenge. The act...the act was something different).

Meng Yao had not, as of yet, committed any crime, nor was he currently capable of the technique that had been used to kill Mingjue.

Nie Mingjue could not in good conscience kill a man who had committed no crime, nor could he stand by and allow another to fall off the righteous path when it was within his power to prevent. (Was it within his power?)

So, Nie Mingjue could neither punish Meng Yao for crimes he had not yet committed, nor could was he able to relax in Meng Yao’s presence the way he had the first time around.

...Maybe Huaisang had ideas.

[later] “I can’t believe this!” Huaisang glared at the letter from his brother. Jiang Cheng’s own letter sat in his pocket to be perused later. It felt almost hot, the way his focus continually drifted towards the folded paper, but he knew better than to read his lover’s letter in front of Huaisang. Not if he wanted to keep any pretense to dignity.

“What is it?” he prompted when Huaisang fell silent, re-reading furiously.

“He wants to rehabilitate Meng Yao! His own murderer!”

“Meng Yao didn’t come back with the rest of us,” Jiang Cheng offered. “He’s not the man who killed your brother. Not yet, anyway.”

“You didn’t see—” Huaisang cut himself off, looking away and biting his lip. Jiang Cheng shifted, focusing on the letter to let the heat of its presence chase away the chill of the reminder that when his lover had died, Jiang Cheng wasn’t there.

“A tiger can not change his stripes,” Nie Huaisang muttered, and hid his face behind his fan.

[The discussion over what happens to Meng Yao plays out thusly:

NHS: I don’t want to kill Meng Yao, Da-ge! I just don’t want him alive. Anymore.

NMJ: Didi, no.

NHS: Didi, yes!

Ultimately, NMJ pulls the big brother/sect leader card and says they have time to deal with Meng Yao, and since Meng Yao was currently NMJ’s problem, he would deal with it. NHS threw a tantrum that reminded everyone that yes, NHS is related to NMJ by blood, but finally went: “fine! It’s not like the *whole reason* we came back wasn’t to fuck up all of his shit!” and adjusted his plans again.]

When he goes back to his room, Jiang Cheng finds himself alone. He can bet that Wei Wuxian will be off with Lan Wangji (and no, Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why Wei Wuxian hasn’t just moved in with his boyfriend, considering how often he comes skittering into the room just on the wrong side of curfew, mussed and bruised in a very specific way that Jiang Cheng a) wants to know no more about and b)isn’t jealous of, fuck off.), so he has time to read his letter.

Cheng-er,

We never were a pair for letters, you and I, preferring to steal time for each other like a pair of romantic thieves. I regret, now, not making more time to woo and court you properly then — though I fear I already had all you could give — not desire, you showed me your hunger for me readily enough, matched only by my hunger for you — but hours of the day.

I think very fondly of our nights.

This second chance makes me desire to do better, to build you a place in my life from the start, as I hope you build a place for me. We are young, yet, and have time to hope.

I miss you, Wanyin. Cheng-er. Please write to me. A letter is a poor substitute for your fire, but I will cherish even these scraps above silence.

Yours,

A-Jue

Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure how long he was there, re-reading the letter, when Wei Wuxian tumbled in, only to stop when he caught sight of Jiang Cheng.

“Jiang Cheng! You’re pink!” Wei Wuxian crowed, pointing a finger and laughing at the way Jiang Cheng startled. “Who wrote to you to make you blush? What did he say?”

“None of your business,” Jaing Cheng snapped, tucking the letter away.

A-Jue,

Who gave you the right to write such a letter? Who would believe the NIe Sect leader to be so shameless? You can take a lesson from your brother in poetry if you are planning to continue!

Building a space — as if I did not rebuild my piers with a place for you. As if you had not already crawled into my heart to live.

I lost you once, A-Jue. I will not lose you again.

I await your next letter,

Yours, always,

Cheng-er

Jiang Cheng hands the folded paper to Nie Huaisang, face burning. For once, Nie Huaisang doesn’t tease, doesn’t give him a knowing smirk. Instead, his eyes are kind, and he takes the letter with little fanfare, tucking it neatly into his own missive to be sent off at once.

When the next letter comes, Jiang Cheng doesn’t even bother waiting, taking the letter and retreating to the sound of Nie Huaisang’s laughter.

Cheng-er

You want poetry, do you?...

Jiang Cheng’s eyes skip over the page and he gasps aloud, face burning as he looks around to see that no one else is near. To write such things! Shameless! But...oh, how it lights a fire in him, and he’s breathless with his, dizzy with sudden, frustrated want that he cannot satisfy.

In the end, Nie Mingjue was right. The words are a poor substitute, but Jiang Cheng would not trade this letter for anything.

The next morning, Jiang Cheng approaches Wei Wuxian with an idea for a long-distance communication array, one that could be personally powered and used. The reasons he gives are all to do with military strategy, but he needn’t have bothered. The challenge to create something new has Wei Wuxian distracted immediately, and he wanders off to the library mid-sentence.

The next free afternoon they have in Caiyi, Jiang Cheng purchases a wooden box, cleverly built with locking compartments and false bottoms. It is perfectly sized for folded letters.

Time passes. Now that Jiang Cheng has thirteen years of lived experience - and hard years of war and cuthroat sect politics and rebuilding his sect - the lessons aren’t easier, per say, but they have context that he missed the first time. HIs understanding is more in depth, which quickly makes him a favorite of Lan Qiren to call on — even if his actual answer (usually “threaten them with Zidian”) wasn’t the answer he provided in class. Wei Wuxian was also a calmer presence in class - still questioning, still pushing limits, but when Lan Qiren calls on Wei Wuxian to answer his questions, Wei Wuxian’s answers are thoughtful, inventive, but within the bounds of conventionality. Surprisingly, it’s Lan Wangji who suggests solutions that boarder on the heretical — solutions that Jiang Cheng knows come to pass, such as the spirit attraction flags.

It’s enough to make Lan Qiren change colors, and judging by the tiny smirk on LWJ’s face, it’s absolutely deliberate. (The one class that Lan Xichen sits in on is, actually, hilarious, as he seems consistently torn between laughter and exasperation at his brother’s small rebellion).

Nie Huaisang, however, seems to be *genuinely struggling* with the material. So much so that Jiang Cheng takes pity and drags him (and Wangxian) into the library one afternoon to actually study rather than their usual spot by the river where they would refine their plan to keep everyone alive that they actually cared about keeping alive, and killing those who needed killing as efficently as possible. (“That’s a rather blunt way of thinning about this, Jaing Cheng,” WWX said to him. JC had just shrugged. He didn’t see the reason to couch the truth in political double speak when he didn’t have to”)

After an hour or so, Nie Huaisang slumped forward over the table, thumping his forehead against he lacquered wood. “It’s no use. I’m going to have to repeat this year again, *again*”

“I don’t understand it,” Jiang Cheng said. He knew that Huaisang was smart; he figured out Jin Guangyao’s plot, he successfully modified the time travel array — Jiang Cheng was pretty sure he ran Qinghe’s spy rin duing the war, though that had never been confirmed. “I know you know things.”

“I don’t,” he wailed. “I don’t know anything. Don’t ask me.”

“I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” Wei Wuxian said, leaning in and keeping his voice low. “But we have a spy in our midst.”

“Those rumors were never proven,” Huaisang said, sniffling.

“Not you,” Wei Wuxian said, and angled his head in a way that he only thought was subtle towards where Jin Zixuan was sitting, stiff and imperious, with an exasperated Luo Qingyang. “He’s been doing that a lot,” he said.

Jiang Cheng watched him for a long moment, trying to remember the frustration he felt with a young Jin Zixuan who hadn’t yet unlearned the smug superiority of Jinlintai...but all he could see was little Jin Ling, awkward from growing up alone and desperately lonely (except Jin Ling had picked up Jiang Cheng’s bad habit of expressing any emotion as anger, and it seemed Zixuan had chosen...smug silence.)

“Aw, crap,” Jiang Cheng muttered, because as soon as he realized it, he knew what he had to do. Pushing himself up, he stalked over to Jin Zixuan, ignoring the hissed complaints of Wei Wuxian, and stared down at him, arms crossed.

“What do you want?” Jin Zixuan sneered. Behind him, Luo Qingyang rolled her eyes, and Jiang Cheng huffed.

“Cute. But you got nothing on my mother.” Jin Zixuan blinked, surprise loosening some of the stiffness in his posture. Rolling his eyes, Jiang Cheng snapped. “Look. You’re not subtle. We see you. So do you want to sit with us or not?” He looked between them. “Both of you.”

Jin Zixuan nodded, then blinked as if surprised at himself. Luo Qingyang stood to salute, but Jiang Cheng waved it off.

“Great, come on,” Jiang Cheng said, and turned around, not waiting to see if they. He sat back in his seat, shifting books to make room. He didn’t really want to sit next to Zixuan, but with Nie Huaisang sprawled over his books and Wei Wuxian practically in Lan Wangji’s lap, it was the only safe place for them.

Nie Huaisang sat back, looking at Jiang Cheng over his fan. “What?” He snapped.

“Softie,” Nie Huaisang said softly, and Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes.

“He needs to learn, and Luo Qingyang is the only one at Jinlintai right now that I trust,” he muttered.

Wei Ying squinted at Jiang Cheng, as if trying to figure something out, but when Jin Zixuan and Luo Qingyang appeared, he blinked at her, surprised, and perked up in recognition. “Mianmian!”

Which, of course, was the wrong thing to say. Jin Zixuan puffed up, and Lan Wangji hissed a pained Wei Ying, and Nie Huaisang was being no help. So, Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes again and translated.

“No offense meant, Lady Luo,” he said. “My brother’s memory for names is notoriously bad, but he means no disrespect by his over familiarity.”

Thankfully Luo Qingyang smiled. “No offence taken, Young Master Jiang. If your offer is genuine, and we are to be friends, then you may call me Mianmian.”

Jaing Cheng smiled. “Then please join us, Mianmian. I am Jiang Cheng.”

That caused everyone to look at him, and he glared. “What?! I have manners.”

“Jiang-xiong is quite a gentleman,” Nie Huaisang agreed, mildly, and Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes. That tone always meant mischief.

“And you’re a pain in my—”

“No excess talking in the library,” Lan Wangji interrupted, staring placidly back when Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng both glared at him. Well, Jiang Cheng glared. Nie Huaisang pouted.

After a moment, Jin Zixuan grunted softly, as if someone had elbowed him in his ribs. He cleared his throat. “What are you working on?” he asked woodenly, as if speaking from a poorly rehearsed script. Out of the corner of his eye, Jiang Cheng saw Mianmian nod encouragingly.

“We’re trying to help Nie-xiong pass the next exam,” Wei Wuxian offered.

“Who’s we?” Jiang Cheng muttered, flipping his book open once more. “Unless sitting in Lan Wangji’s lap is a new study method.”

Nie Huaisang giggled behind his fan as Wei Wuxian squawked, reaching out to smack Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, only to be hauled back with apparent ease by Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji who, arms wrapped securely around Wei Wuxian, stared square at Jiang Cheng and said. “It is an advanced technique.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian protested, going pink in the face, and Nie Huaisang’s giggles turned to outright laughter.

Jin Zixuan leaned into to Jiang Cheng. “Is it always like this?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged. “Pretty much. Those two decided shame was for other people a long time ago.”

“I...have questions,” Jin Zixuan said.

Jiang Cheng turned and looked at him. “You know, so do I. But mine might involve yelling, so the library probably isn’t the best place for them.”

(It takes a while to build up to the conversation, a few weeks until Jin Zixuan is comfortable enough to sit with them without Mianmian as a social buffer. He’s still insufferable, but more and more Jiang Cheng sees the kid he remembers from childhood visits, and even shades of the proud yet just man that he almost had a chance to fully grow into being.)

Meanwhile, something is shifting between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, the simmering tension between them boiling over, and Jiang Cheng is both sure that they’ve actively started fucking and and sure that he wants *absolutely nothing to do with it.* He does not want to hear it, see it, smell it — which makes it difficult when Wei Wuxian proves that he has no filter, and Lan Wangji proves he has no shame.

What had actually happened was Lan Xichen had approached Lan Wangji and said that he was glad LWJ was making friends, and hey, haven’t you been spending an awful lot of time with that Wei Wuxian kid? Don’t worry, little brother, I’ll keep Uncle off your back.” LWJ was unsure if Xichen knew that LWJ and WWX were together, but was unsure how to clarify. Every time he tried, LXC seemed to double down on his interpretation of their relationship as being the same as his with NMJ (and while NMJ thought LXC was pretty, he was more interested in Xichen’s swordplay than his *swordplay*) - and LWJ decided that the best course of action was to kiss Wei Wuxian as much as possible as often as possible.

For the record, Lan Xichen was well aware of his little brother’s inclinations, and was quite enjoying his own spot of harmless rebellion by encouraging Wangji’s shamelessness. Besides, Wei Wuxian was a good match for Wangji, and it was a relief to see Wangji smiling. Perhaps it was time to begin drafting some marital paperwork. It wouldn’t do to be caught unprepared, afterall.

He hoped they married in the spring. He always loved a spring wedding...

Somewhere, Jiang Cheng felt a chill.

NEXT TIME - THE RETURN OF THE MAIN PLOT

#mingcheng #mingcheng notefic #my fic #the untamed

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flowercrown-bard · 4 years ago

Text

Birds Still Sing When They Fall From The Sky

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 belongs to this

Content warnings: memory loss due to old age. Yelling. Not being able to deal with other people’s memory loss. Guilt and feeling selfish for not being able to handle things.

this is like 4k

Geralt had been prepared for a bad day. He had known one would come eventually.

For a while everything had looked up. Jaskier had blossomed with the flowers, his mind and hands occupied with something that brought joy to his now so monotonous life and a smile to his lips. It had been good.

It had been too good.

Of course, it couldn’t last; it never did. Geralt should have known. He should have prepared for – but he had hoped. Foolishly, he had pushed all thought of what could happen to Jaskier to the back of his mind. He had built a wall around that thought – that fear – with flowers and laughter and soft smiles. He had thought the wall was made out of stone; steadfast and able to keep the raging monster at bay.

He had been wrong. The wall had been made of glass, filling with cracks while Geralt was too occupied and too blind to see until one day it splintered.

Geralt had known there would come a bad day and that would be fine. After all, it was nothing he wouldn’t be able to deal with. He had done it before, had guided Jaskier through the fog in his mind, had taken walks they had taken countless times before, watching as Jaskier took it like it was the first time.

A bad day was nothing to break over. This, however ….

It hadn’t just been a day, not even a week. Almost a month went by and Geralt had to stand by helplessly, as Jaskier retreated farther and farther into that void where he couldn’t find him, where he wouldn’t be able to hear Geralt call his name.

Geralt couldn’t be helpless. The whole reason for his creation was that he would be able to better help people. And Jaskier needed him. He needed him. Even if sometimes it seemed like he didn’t even notice that Geralt was there at all. Geralt felt it in the way, Jaskier’s hand would tighten in his, before his eyes found Geralt and after a brief furrow of his brow, his confusion would smooth out into relief.

Geralt knew Jaskier needed him by the way he sometimes called out for him, when he was out of sight, in a voice that bordered on panic. I am here, Geralt wanted to say. I am here, I am not leaving you. I’ve got you. Most of the times, he never even got the chance to say these words. Jaskier’s cries broke off as soon as he caught sight of Geralt again, laughing as though he had never fallen into this blank panic that was rooted too deep in Jaskier’s frittered head for Geralt to understand.

Geralt knew that Jaskier needed him by the words that kept repeating over and over in his mind. The words Jaskier had said to him while waiting for a gathering storm to break over them.

Geralt had promised him he would try to open the windows that Jaskier had shut, whatever that was supposed to mean. The words were just starting to make sense to Geralt, their urgency making his heart clench uncomfortably. He promised. So he would try.

By the gods, he was trying. He was trying so hard, but damn it, it hurt. No matter what he did, Jaskier only ever escaped this place in his head for brief moments. He was calmer when Geralt was near, he was happier, when Geralt read to him or listened to Jaskier talk about some adventure or other, as if Geralt hadn’t been there every step along the way.

Jaskier knew he was trying. But Geralt knew that wasn’t enough.

He had thought he would be fine. He had thought he’d made his peace with Jaskier getting old.

What a fucking lie that had been. There was no peace in this, nothing about this was easy. It was painful and it gnawed at him like a griffin playing with its prey, making it seem like it had a chance of escape only to tear its claws into it once it felt the air of freedom. This shouldn’t be so hard for Geralt. It didn’t make sense. After all, he had gone through much worse; had been on the brink of death and desperation time and time again and had seen others succumb to it. So what made this so unbearable? What made this so different?

Jaskier. Back then, he had always had Jaskier by his side, reassuring him that everything would be alright and giving him the strength to push through with his softly hummed melodies and gentle touches.

He just needed Jaskier back, needed him like a drowning man needed air, but every breath he sucked in, filled his mouth with water. He reached out for Jaskier again and again, desperate for him to tell him that they would get through this, but all Jaskier had done for the past days as Geralt was looking at him for a sign, was stare out at the sea and forget Geralt was even there. Even his lute remained untouched these days.

It was like Geralt had gone off to the coast with a shell of Jaskier, leaving his mind somewhere on the way. He needed it back, just a glimpse of it. He needed his music, his eyes on him, his chatter, his touch. Anything Jaskier could give him, but lately it seemed like there was nothing left to give.

And yet, Geralt tried. Because as much as he needed Jaskier, Jaskier needed him in turn. He had promised.

As they sat in their living room after dinner, Geralt pushed the lute into Jaskier’s hands.

“Won’t you play me that song about the cockatrice?” He said, as Jaskier turned the instrument over with a thoughtful look. “I always liked that one.”

Filled to the brink with innuendos and puns, it was one of Jaskier’s most inappropriate songs and the one that never failed to bring laughter onto Geralt’s lips and mirth into Jaskier’s eyes.

“Cockatrice?” Jaskier plucked one string. It was out of tune. Confusion seeped out of this one word, but his eyes were clearer than they had been in a while. A tiny seed of hope took root in Geralt’s chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever written one about those. You were always far too stingy with the details. Maybe you should tell me about it some time?”

Geralt’s throat became tight, like a garrotte was laid around his neck; like a djinn was punishing him for being foolish enough to wish for a peaceful life with his beloved.

With a shaking voice, Geralt began to recount the hunt he had been on years ago. As the tale went on, Jaskier’s eyes filled with laughter and the hope in Geralt’s chest began to grow, almost blooming, when Jaskier’s fingers twitched on the lute, instinctually finding the placement of the chord he had chosen years ago to begin the song. His fingers lingered like that, not quite playing, but hovering, as though somewhere deep down his body still knew what it was supposed to do even though it couldn’t breach the blockade in his mind.

Jaskier didn’t play the song that evening. Instead, he sat down at the table and wrote down scraps of lyrics as though it was the first time they came to his mind, while Geralt felt the burning presence of the notebook nestled somewhere between an old bestiary and a book of poetry, that already held this song inside its pages.

He could just pull it out and show the finished song to Jaskier. Instead, he sat down close to him, soaking in every concentrated furrow of his brow and every time his tongue would flit out of his mouth, as he thought of a fitting rhyme. Geralt gave suggestions and felt his heart tear, when Jaskier’s eyes lit up as though Geralt had come up with the most wonderful thing, when really, all he did was recite something Jaskier had thought up himself.

It hurt, but at the same time, it filled Geralt with relief he hadn’t known in weeks. Jaskier was back to composing. He took notice of Geralt and spoke to him like he had done before.

The next day, Jaskier was watering the flowers, talking excitedly about how maybe he would make them into flower crowns for the next market.

Geralt smiled. Jaskier was coming back. Slowly, he rebuilt the glass wall, with flowers, with songs, with gentle touches and kind words.

He should have been prepared for it to crack again.

The first thing Geralt noticed when he came from his errands was the scent of flowers. Something was off about it, though he couldn’t quite put his fingers on it. There was none of the sweetness of a flower in bloom that should have been there. It was more akin to the crisp sharpness that came from a freshly cut plant or of the foul stench of a rotten one.

“Jaskier?” He called out, but received no answer.

Dread pooled in his stomach, as he rounded their cottage. His eyes went wide, his feet suddenly rooted to the ground.

There sat Jaskier, amidst their bed of flowers, clearly careful not to crush any of them, surrounded by clipped stems. Around him lay hundreds of petals as if a rainbow had decided to rain down on him.

“Jaskier,” Geralt breathed, when his heartbeat had calmed enough to give him his voice back. “What happened? The garden is destroyed, what – are you hurt?”

Jaskier didn’t answer; didn’t even turn to look at him. An icy grip clawed at Geralt’s heart and his blood ran cold.

“Jaskier?”

Still, he didn’t look up. Instead, he reached for another flower, one of the few that were still left unharmed. Geralt’s breath hitched, when Jaskier plucked it and ran his fingers lovingly over the petals before ripping them out one after the other, all while muttering to himself.

“He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me – “

Geralt could do nothing but watch, as Jaskier’s shoulders sagged when the last petal fell with a “He loves me not.”

With grim determination, Jaskier reached for the next flower. Geralt reacted faster than he could think, grabbing Jaskier’s wrist before he could get to it.

There were so few flowers left. Jaskier finally lifted his head. Geralt met the cornflower eyes of his buttercup and he felt something break within him.

This was – this had been theirs. Together they had worked on this, poured time and their hearts into this garden. It had helped Jaskier, it had made him happy.

And now it was gone.

Geralt couldn’t speak. Could do nothing, as Jaskier cocked his head, confused, maybe surprised. Nothing in him seemed to understand what he had done. What he had just lost.

“Geralt?”

“Why are you doing this?” Geralt’s voice shook and he could feel something hot rising inside him.

“I need to find out… I just want to be loved.” He sounded so small. So insecure. So lonely.

I am right here, Geralt wanted to scream. I am here and I love you. You are so loved. But the words wouldn’t come out.

Jaskier didn’t feel loved. After all Geralt was trying to do for him, he didn’t feel loved.

Geralt should have known. He should have known that he wouldn’t be good enough. He had tried. He had done everything he could think of and still it wasn’t enough. All they had left was a torn up garden and Jaskier sitting amidst shredded flowers, desperate for them to tell him that he was loved.

It shouldn’t hurt like it did. Geralt had gone through worse. He shouldn’t feel anger bubble up inside of him. None of this was Jaskier’s fault. It was his own damn fault. For hoping. For thinking that some flowers and notebooks could make this right.

Geralt’s hand started to tremble and Jaskier’s hand slipped out of his loosened grip, breaking the next flower.

Something in Geralt snapped.

“Damn it, Jaskier!”

He didn’t know what else he was shouting. The words didn’t matter. His tone was enough to tear at Jaskier like Jaskier had torn at the flowers, at the fragile life they had. At the oh so breakable glass wall around Geralt’s fears.

It was too much. The walls crumbled to dust and everything came crashing down on Geralt. Nothing he would do could stop this. A good day, a good month. Flower arrangements and fragments of songs. What was it all, if Jaskier was going to leave him again?

Geralt needed to get out of here. He couldn’t stay here a second longer, looking at the shards that their lives had become littering the ground like flowers strewn at a wedding.

His body wasn’t his as he stood up and staggered backwards, away from Jaskier who was still staring up at him with wide eyes, so small and so hurt.

The desperate anger vanished within a heartbeat, leaving only a hollow helplessness. Moments before he fled, he watched Jaskier’s mouth move with silent words, a familiar farewell, before he dropped the flower.

The last He loves me not was still hanging in the air as Geralt’s feet carried him away.

The fact that Geralt had enough presence of mind to go to Kris did little to soothe the crushing guilt he felt.

But quite obviously, Jaskier wouldn’t want to see Geralt again, so soon after his outburst. He had thrown away his privilege to be the one to be able to comfort Jaskier. And even if he still had it … Geralt couldn’t bring himself to turn back quite yet. He couldn’t see Jaskier like this. Maybe his state would be even worse once he returned.

He was no help to Jaskier like this. Being close to Geralt when he was so lost would do him no good.

The only thing he could do now was give Jaskier his space, get him into the care of someone who wouldn’t fuck this up.

The conversation with Kris passed in a blur. Back during the storm that now seemed so long ago, they had said they’d help should Geralt ever need it. He had never let himself need that help. Now, there was nothing else he could do than beg for it.

One look at Geralt had been enough for Kris to turn serious and after a rushed explanation, they had left their home to make sure that Jaskier was alright, only turning back once to give Geralt a strange look, almost worrying, as though Geralt deserved such a sentiment. There was no contempt in Kris’ eyes, no anger at how he had treated Jaskier, though Geralt knew he deserved nothing less than to be scorned for what he had done.

Before Geralt could figure out what exactly that look had meant, Kris turned around and left him alone.

Geralt didn’t know how long he just stood there in front of Kris’ home, not knowing where to go, now that he didn’t have Jaskier to tell him where he would like to take a stroll.

Without thinking, Geralt’s feet carried him along a familiar path, the one that lead to the part of the shore where they had gone to before they had entered their new home together for the first time.

Geralt stared blankly at the water. There was so much emotion that had laid dormant beneath a blanket of denial and naiveté, so much that now threatened to break through, if only Geralt deserved to feel it. But how could he let himself feel like his world was collapsing around him, while Jaskier was the one who at times didn’t know where he was? How could he allow himself to spill tears, when Jaskier was the one feeling unloved and alone? Geralt wasn’t the one who had all those horrible things happen to him, all he ever did was witness them. He had no right to be so selfish and break down. He should be strong. For Jaskier. That was all he had to do, so why the fuck was he not able to?

Geralt pressed one hand against his face, dragging it down, as though it could wash away all those unwanted feelings he shouldn’t be having. All it did was remind him of the way Jaskier would always caress his cheek, hold his face tenderly in his hands like he was the world and tell him that it was alright.

But Jaskier wasn’t here and nothing was alright. There was nothing Geralt could do to make it alright. He had failed him. He couldn’t even be with Jaskier right now, making sure he didn’t get hurt.

A sudden spike of fear pierced his chest and sent poison through his veins. Anything could be happening to Jaskier right this moment, while he was away, sulking.

Damn it, how could he have been so stupid to leave Jaskier alone? There had been a reason why Geralt had given up hunting. Because Jaskier needed someone to be there for him, now that he was lost in his own head, he needed that more than ever. Sure, Kris was with him, but that changed nothing about how Geralt had abandoned him. No, not only that, he had yelled at him, flung poison words at him he didn’t even remember.

Gods, what if those words were the last thing Jaskier ever remembered of him?

The way back felt like an eternity, despite Geralt running as fast as the slippery sand under his feet would let him.

He never should have acted so selfishly. He needed to get back. He needed to make sure Jaskier was alright. Please, let Jaskier be alright!

Geralt slammed the door to their cabin open, uncaring of the noise it made, as it hit the wall. His heart was hammering against his chest and his eyes darted frantically across the room, scared of what he would find.

All air was punched out of him in relief, when his eyes landed on Jaskier, who was sitting comfortably next to Kris, showing him his latest notebook.

At the unexpected noise, Jaskier looked up, startled. Fear seized Geralt’s heart anew, when their eyes met.

“Jaskier.” The name a broken prayer on the lips of a man who had done too much wrong to deserve forgiveness.

He wasn’t prepared for Jaskier’s eyes to light up like this, like he had just seen the sun after a rainy day.

With help from Kris, Jaskier stood up and walked towards Geralt, a grin splitting his face.

“Geralt, you’re back!”

Arms embraced Geralt, holding him close like he had been gone for months. The tender touch burned him. Uncertainly, Geralt lifted his own hands to lay them to rest on the small of Jaskier’s back.

When Jaskier finally pulled back, he looked Geralt over critically, as if assessing something. His expression fell, when he reached Geralt’s face.

“You look like shit,” Jaskier said and reached out to hold his face in his hand.

Geralt couldn’t breathe. It was too close to the comfort he needed. The comfort he shouldn’t have to need. “Did something go wrong on the hunt? Some arsehole tried to swindle you out of your payment again?”

“I – what?” A thumb brushed over Geralt’s cheek and he was so tempted to just lean in and let himself get lost in the sensation. But he couldn’t. “Jaskier,” he said, carefully taking Jaskier’s hands off his face. “There was no hunt. There hasn’t been one for months.”

“Oh?” Jaskier titled his head to the side. “Where were you then? You’ll have to tell me all about it. Wait, just let me get my quill.”

“Jaskier.”

He stopped in his tracks and turned back to Geralt. He looked almost content, excited at the idea of getting another story from Geralt, when he should be asking for something else entirely.

It shattered Geralt’s heart that he would have to crush that excitement. But he had to tell Jaskier about what truly happened. Any other day, he might have made something up, told Jaskier of some hunt he had gone on years ago, but this was not something he could ignore, even if Jaskier didn’t remember. Jaskier deserved an apology. Geralt had made the mistake of not giving him one in time once before and he had sworn to himself that it would never come to that again.

Jaskier had been angry then. Rightfully hurt after what Geralt had hurled at him on that mountain. Jaskier’s fury had stung, but somehow it was worse that now Jaskier didn’t even know what Geralt was asking forgiveness for.

The words tumbled out of Geralt’s mouth with no way of stopping them. He begged, pleaded with Jaskier; told him that he wouldn’t let him down like that again, that he would keep trying, that he would rebuild their garden and that it didn’t matter how often Jaskier would tear it down again.

He knew he was rambling and that his words didn’t make sense to Jaskier - they barely did to his own ears. And yet, Jaskier looked at him attentively, his searching eyes never leaving Geralt’s.

“I forgive you,” he said finally.

Geralt scoffed and squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look into Jaskier’s sincere expression any longer, lest he actually believed his words. “You don’t know what you’re forgiving me for.”

A hand in his hair, so gentle, so fucking comforting. “No, but I know you.”

And somehow after everything, those simple words were enough to break Geralt.

The first sob escaped him without him noticing, his mind still too preoccupied with the total conviction in Jaskier’s words that was so sweet but cutting into the pieces of his heart.

He knew Geralt. Despite all the things he didn’t know or couldn’t do anymore, he knew him.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Jaskier whispered into his hair, as his arms encircled Geralt once again. This time, Geralt wasted not a moment, before holding Jaskier tightly against him and pressing his face into the crook of Jaskier’s neck.

Whoever had said that witchers didn’t know how to cry had never been more wrong. Geralt barely registered the wet trails his tears left on Jaskier’s shirt, as Jaskier rubbed soothing circles onto his back.

“I miss you,” Geralt said, his broken voice muffled by Jaskier’s shoulder. Was is possible to grieve for someone who was still alive? “I miss you so fucking much.”

“I’m here, love.” How? How did these words that had gotten stuck in Geralt’s throat so often over the past days come so easily to Jaskier? “I’m here, like I’ve always been. I won’t leave you.”

“I won’t leave you either. I promise. I promise.” His fingers gripped Jaskier’s shirt, desperate to hold as much of him as physically possible. “I love you. You are so loved. I swear I will do anything to make sure you never feel unloved again.”

He didn’t know how long they stood like this, just holding each other, never wanting to let go.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Geralt whispered, the sobs having ceased, but his throat still raspy from crying. “You need me. You shouldn’t have to see me like this. I shouldn’t be the one breaking down.”

Jaskier’s hand crept up to settle between Geralt’s shoulder blades, but it was Kris who spoke up.

Geralt very nearly flinched. He had gotten so lost in the comforting warmth of Jaskier’s arms around him that he had almost forgotten that they were still in the room with them.

“That’s not how this works.” Geralt lifted his head to look at them, but not ready yet to give up his safety in Jaskier’s arms. Kris came closer, an open expression on their face. “Don’t ever think you’re not allowed to feel, only because someone else is being hurt as well.”

“But Jaskier –“

“Is comforting you now, isn’t he?”

As if in answer, Jaskier nuzzled his head against Geralt’s cheek.

“I don’t-“ Geralt’s voice broke off. “He needs me.” To be strong. To be here for him. To not break down crying, angry and hopeless in front of him.

A frown creased Kris’ face. “And what do you need?”

“I need –“ I need no one. And the last thing I want is someone needing me. And yet here they were. “I need help.” The admission came out as little more than a breath. Geralt’s body went rigid, waiting for his masters to tell him that witchers didn’t get help. A witcher who couldn’t face monsters on their own was a dead witcher. But this wasn’t a monster he could fight. “I can’t do this alone.”

“You don’t have to.” A tiny smile cracked on Kris’ lips. “I meant it when I told you I would help if you asked me to.”

Geralt was asking. Not with words, but with the desperate way he clung to Jaskier. Kris seemed to understand.

So did Jaskier. Lips brushed against Geralt’s wet cheek. Geralt wasn’t alone in this. Never would be again.

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muesliforbreakfast · 4 years ago

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Pilgrim’s Trail

Sometimes I write... As y’all have seen. I’ve put two pieces up on HFY. A subreddit which I guess celebrates aspects of humanity. This is the first – It's based on an existential nightmare I had a few years ago and wrote about, but with a HFY flavour. Little bit of trivia... I gave the original writeup a conventional ending - this is much closer to the way the nightmare ended, but Ratel the Mercenary made some fucken lemonade.

Setting – Not really important, but if you insist... Picture a bastardized amalgamation of Kirill Eskov's version of Middle Earth, and Novigrad/Velen then you have the right idea.

- - - - - - - - - -

Years after his first quest he sits at the spring of the hawk under the white tree. He sharpens his silver sword, holding it across his thigh, as he watches the travellers on their journeys. A tall young woman in a weathered cloak approaches him.

"You look familiar to me, have we met?" she asks, with no other greeting.

"I have travelled far... it's possible."

"What is your name, if you will? I am a collector of stories, and I would have yours."

With a weary sigh, he replies "They just call me the Mercenary, call me that, if you like."

"Mercenary... How did you become a mercenary?"

He looks at her now and sees an elf, not a girl. She is only young in elf years.

- - - - - - - - - -

The caravan had stopped. He jumped off the cart to stretch, and admired the view of the mountain range, from the shade of the valley. Purple in the distance, it would take them another three days to reach it, and having reached it, the tunnel that would take them to the other side of the range. From there, it is another month until they reached the stronghold of the Assassin king known only as Tzerlag.

It was his first quest, and he was excited and apprehensive.

The command to walk the perimeter came from Brother Edmund, the heart and brains of this quest.

He took up his sword and began to walk the perimeter.

~ ~ ~

He had wanted to find his true love. "Eat the fruit of the white tree, and you shall find your true love." The book had said. His people had confirmed this decree, so he had sought the tree at the spring of the hawk, but the tree bore him no fruit. He had waited for three days, and on the fourth a wise man had said that an offering was necessary.

"But I have nothing, sir." He replied. The wise man had advised him to crusade. "Crusading will grant you a reward in this life." So he had walked the Pilgrims trail, to the first outpost. There he had waited for a group of crusaders, so he could begin his offering.

~ ~ ~

The very first group of crusaders to take the Pilgrim's trail had been the group that he had joined. According to the Master of the Guard, their mission was the most important one they had coming through there in years. A thief had stolen codex pages from the Assassin king Tzerlag, and to prevent continued skirmishes between the kingdoms, a group of crusaders were returning the codex pages that had been found.

He had been there when Brother Edmund had put the codex pages into a basket woven of cables, and he had been there when Brother Edmund and the Master of the Guard had discussed the route, and the dangers along the way. Their caravan numbered four hundred strong. Four hundred strong was more than enough, even for a mission of this importance.

~ ~ ~

The ambush had happened at the entrance to the tunnel through the ranges. The soldiers and crusaders had circled Brother Edmund's carriage, and they had all fought to the death.

Only he had survived.

While the battle had raged outside the carriage, he had smashed the lock on the cable basket with the pommel of his sword, and stuffed the five codex pages, wrapped in wax paper, up his gambeson sleeve. He had then tied a piece of cord around his wrist and sleeve to seal it, and then, outside, he had joined the melee again.

The bandits had outnumbered them almost two to one, and had quickly slaughtered all but the best fighters; the professional soldiers and seasoned men at arms. Under the weight of numbers, the best fighters would fall too. But not before he reached the entrance to the tunnel, his pursuers dead by his sword, and the sword of the four deceased comrades who had followed him.

The tunnel was unlit, and he had no torch, but he knew that it was dead straight with no branches, and so he stumbled into the darkness.

~ ~ ~

Torches in the darkness behind him warned him of his pursuers. They were too far to see him, so He took refuge in a crag in the rocks of the tunnel. As they passed, their quiet conversation made his blood run cold with fear.

The bandit Warlord, in his fury at having had the codex pages taken during the battle had ordered the wounded crusaders be piked to death where they lay. Meanwhile he had sent a dozen of his remaining men into the darkness of the tunnel, to reach the end and then hold the exit, as his main force scoured it thoroughly from behind. All this he had learned whilst following them through the tunnel. He had considered waiting for them to pass in his hiding place, but now was glad he had not.

~ ~ ~

The tunnel was long, and the scouts had set a fast pace for hours. When they stopped for a rest, they were exhausted.

So was he, but to rest was to die.

They made camp in the middle of the tunnel, and had posted two sentries for the night; one facing the entrance, and one on the other side facing the exit.

He had stealthily made his way past the first sentry, into the camp. He had killed both sentries and then killed the ten remaining men in their sleep. By his estimate, he would have six hours to make it to the other end of the tunnel. He hoped it would be enough.

~ ~ ~

Near the end of the tunnel he had encountered some traders. He looked like hell.

"Don't go that way." He had told them. When pressed for information he told them what he could without giving too much away. They had decided to take him to the stronghold of the Assassin king, and he had been picked up by Assassin scouts not four miles away from the tunnel.

The scouts had taken them all to the court of the Assassin king, and he had given the king the pages.

He had refused his reward.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Those were my first kills, my first crusade."

"Then you're Ratel... Ratel the Mercenary... The last time I heard this story you singlehandedly cutting through swathes of outlaws and delivered Tzerlag's daughter yourself."

"Hah. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. What happened was trial enough."

"The march through the desert, Seven years in the Eastern Marshes, The Marshal of Umber? Are those stories true?"

"It just depends on which version you've heard."

She pauses to think for a moment. He begins to sharpen his sword once more, and then speaks.

"I spoke to a man, a middle aged man, but scarred, withered to the bone by sorrow and hardship. He was gored by a boar, but killed it in return. It took him weeks to crawl to help. When he ran out of water, he drank out of muddy puddles and filthy holes. He ate raw fish when he could catch them. Insects and moss when he couldn't. When help found him he was weak and feverish; his recovery took months, his experience took years from his life. He's been tried far more than I. I've travelled and fought but I am paid, and well, for it. These passing peasants - I've seen and lived their lives, but briefly. Backbreaking labour for their feudal lords, and they receive just enough to scrape by in return."

"Losing everything but your waterskin, boots and a sword when you crossed the desert... Turning the tables on the Marshal of Umber and his hundred men as he tracked you through the forest... And they've suffered more?"

"The Marshal didn't even have twenty... Yes. My life is easy; I travel, I fight, I'm paid. Occasionally I am hurt, but I don't go hungry, I don't wake before the dawn and labour until after dusk, day in day out. This life is dangerous, but I know naught else. I will die before I'm forty; an early death is the price I will pay for never tilling the soil and toiling for every scrap of food I eat. If anything I am fortunate, aside from this."

The she-elf pauses to consider his words once more.

"Then I don't know how you humans do it. Live your lives I mean, day after day."

"I don't know how you elves came into this world. By all accounts you weren't here, and then you were. And the elements always bent to your will. It's not so for us; If we build a house from wood we cut down the trees for lumber. We carry the wood and saw it and nail it into a house. Whereas I've seen your treetop cities grown from the trees themselves."

"I still remember when my kind thought your kind were primitive brutes for doing so. Some still hold that we were bested because we became too civilised."

"Whereas our historians will tell you that your kind never needed steel until our kinds met in battle, which is why you never sought it, and didn't have it until you needed it."

"Please don't take offense! Your species is relentless, but that is admired by my kind!"

"Relentless... Did you know that our first hunters were persistence hunters?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Before we had steel, or fire, or even stone tools, we would chase our prey down. We would run them to death."

"Chase down... A deer?"

"That's right... You see they can run faster than us, but we can walk all day. We would chase just slowly enough that they could get away, but just fast enough that they were never out of sight. We would chase them until they were so exhausted that we could kill them with our hands. When we had nothing we still found a way. Now we have... Steel... And writing, and poetry. We've traveled the oceans. Maybe one day we will travel the skies. My ancestors survived a history of suffering because we were made to endure; the ability to suffer has been with us from the very beginning. No matter what it takes, no matter the cost."

#HFY #Humanity Fuck Yeah #Fiction #An Exercise in Writing

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captainlordauditor · 5 years ago

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300x3 7:02

300 words 3 times a week etc

I wrote this Tuesday and then just..completely forgot to post it. This is I guess the thing I’m gonna be poking at when I need a break from earth 988 but I’m staying in Batman? It’s basically the same concept of messing around with the timeline by moving up a character’s birth several years but with Jason, so I’ve labeled it earth 488. Timeline’s not super worked out so the ages are subject to change. 1729 words.

Warnings for brief mentions of drugs, CSA, etc, standard Batman warnings I guess

The kid’s in college when Bruce first meets him, or rather he should be; instead he’s hotwired the Batmobile and taken it for a ride, and Batman finds him several streets away from where he left it, grinning fit to burst, classic rock blaring out the open windows. He slams the brakes when he sees the local cryptid in front of him and stops just short of hitting Batman, but he doesn’t lose that grin the whole time.

“You gonna turn me in or what, Batsy?” His eyes are a rusty blue green like the water in the bay in the summer, and Batman sees a reckless storm in them. His eyes are like justice; his eyes are like liberty.

He should be angry, should be fuming, especially tonight, but he’s not. He laughed himself stupid when he found the car missing and it’s a struggle to keep himself from laughing again when confronted with the thief. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He tilts his head, easy, like he’s having the most casual conversation in the world. “Wanted to see if she drives as pretty as she looks.”

Batman sighs, watching him. “You must be very good, to get past the security measures.”

He shrugs. He’s too thin, too small, his jacket hanging off of him like Batman’s cape. “I do alright.”

The Bat glides over to the drivers side door. “Show me.”

He tries to drop the kid off at the only group home in the neighborhood, but the kid laughs his head off when he sees the building. “That’s my grandma's place,” he says. “Taught me all I know. She’s running a museum heist tonight, you know that?”

Batman’s heart stops. He turns his head, watches the thief in the seat next to him, his head rolled back against the seat. His red-black hair is mussed from the wind, his eyes are sparkling with laughter. He looks godly; he looks obscene. Batman wants to see him like this again.

“Goes to show, right?” says the thief. “Everything good in Gotham rots.”

Batman releases the parking brake. “That’s not true.”

“Sure it is. What’s rotting you, Batsy?”

“Which museum?”

He sees the thief again the next week, walking the Bowery without a shirt under his jacket. He saunters over to the Batmobile and drapes himself against the door, displaying his skinny bare chest for Batman to admire. Batman thinks of what it would be like to wrap him in the warmest blanket in the manor. “You finally here to rot with the rest of us, Batsy?”

“I thought you were a thief,” Batman says.

“I’m whatever you want,” he replies, and Batman doesn’t know why he was so much more attractive stealing a car than when he’s openly flirting. “I can even be your Robin for the night, if that’s what you’re after.” He tilts his head, smile fading. “Is that what’s rotting you, Batsy?”

Batman’s jaw twitches as he clenches it. He’s heard the insinuations before, and he’s never liked them. “I’m looking for Two Face.”

The man’s face turns from contemplating the edge of anger to a hard determination. Batman decides he likes it. “Yeah, I know where he is.”

Batman doesn’t know what it is that makes him unlock the door and say, “get in,” but he does.

“I’ll miss work if I do that,” he says. He leans in closer. “Or I could give you a discount. Call it two hundred for the whole night.”

In this area, Batman’s sure that’s not his usual pricing. “I’ll pay you after we catch Two Face.” Last week he ran off before Batman could talk to him; he doesn’t want to lose another chance for conversation.

He opens the door and settles in the car, sprawls on the seat, opens the window, lights a cigarette. Virginia slim. “Heard his guys talking plans two days ago. Were in the next room over from mine for the night. Said they’re hitting the Lucky Dollar Casino.”

“That’s in Bristol.” Bristol has looser gambling laws. It’s an effort to control vice, send it out of the city. Batman can’t say it works.

He shrugs, watching Batman through heavy lidded eyes. Batman thinks of what it’d be like to take that cigarette from his mouth and kiss him gently. Instead he says, “If Robin smells that on the seats, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

He laughs, a quiet genuine snicker of amusement, nothing like the shrieks of thrill and irony he gave last week. Batman wants to hear that sound again. “Where is he, anyway?”

“It’s a school night.”

He gets his wish. “You’re a wonder, Batsy. Didn’t know you cared so much about that punk.”

“He’s not a punk.” Alfred used to say he spent too much time in the past; maybe so, because this is still his reflex when people use that word, even if he knows it’s not what they mean.

“He’s out here running around with you, isn’t he? Beating up robbers in a pair of booty shorts.” He takes a drag on his cigarette and Batman looks at him and wonders that he knows what he just said.

“It’s a leotard. Acrobat’s gear.” He ignores the thief’s snort.

Two Face gets away, but Batman gets the hostage he took, so he considers it a half successful night. He comes back to the car where the other man is waiting, his feet up on the dash. He finished his first cigarette around the time they got here, but he’s already halfway through another one.

He taps his knuckles against the window, bounces his leg. “I know you said you’d pay me after you caught him, but I’m not waiting until tomorrow.”

“I’ll pay you tonight.” Batman starts the car.

His name is Jason; he’s nineteen years old. Batman’s glad of that, because from his height and build, he thought Jason was younger. He feels less guilty about looking at him now.

He eats steadily, watching Batman like he knows the food won’t disappear but thinks Batman might. He doesn’t, not yet; he’s finding he likes Jason when he’s not acting a part, or at least when he’s toned it down. He has a good brain and a quick wit, even if his humor is a little raw.

“Can you only steal cars?”

He shakes his head, licks ketchup off his thumb. It’s not sensual at all, just a habit gained from starvation, eating every scrap of food, and that makes it all the better. His eyes meet Batman’s over his hand. “M’not so good with safes, but I can do windows and pockets fine. ‘M a pretty good shot. Can do explosives okay, if you give me a gun I can probably fix it. I know how to dilute coke and what to do if someone ODs on Harry.” He takes a long drag of soda through his straw, not looking at Batman. It’s the first time he’s avoided eye contact.

After a moment, he looks back up. “I can conjugate German and translate Latin. Read the Odyssey a couple times. It’s better in Greek.”

His brain, unbidden, supplies him with the image of Jason laid out before him like a god, Bruce and poetry against his mouth. He would do for this Jason what Medea could not do for hers, he hopes, and win his loyalty.

He banishes the thought. No, this is not Jason; this is Ganymede, and Batman will not be as Zeus. “Why work the streets then?” He asks instead.

He pauses, looking at his food and then back at Batman. He’s leaning forward over the table and there’s barely a foot between them. “I like it,” he says. It has the straightforwardness of honesty. “If I do drugs or enforcement I’d have to work for someone else. There aren’t any gangs here I like enough to sign away my soul. Not yet.” He slides his leg forward to brush up against Batman’s under the table, so lightly Batman’s not sure he’d notice it if it weren’t for his training. There’s no shock, no static, but it feels electric nonetheless.

“There are options,” he tells Jason. He doesn’t dare move his leg.

“I haven’t been to a proper school since I was ten,” Jason retorts. “What options do you mean? Drown in debt to get through college so I can get a job above the table? A corporation’s just the same as a gang, except you can’t snitch and send them to jail when they treat you like shit. Besides,” he leans back, doubling the distance between them, stretching it into an infinity, slips his leg away from Batman’s. “You arrested Maroni. You took apart the Blackgaters.”

Batman looks away. Those eyes are piercing him, bearing down on him like the god of justice come down to judge him. It’s a rude reminder, that he doesn’t always do good; a stab in the gut that his choice removed that of somebody else, somebody with greater stakes in the game.

But Jason is right; Batman did arrest Maroni, and he did take apart the Blackgaters, for the most part. It’ll be a month or so before the void is filled where the fence was before, when the rest of Gotham is sure he’ll lose the trial. The Blackgaters will follow, only once they have a place closer than Penguin to sell the parts off the cars they steal.

And in the meantime, Jason will walk the streets. In December.

Batman never thought he’d feel guilty about arresting someone for a crime he knew they’d committed, but here he is. How many other car thieves are in the same boat? He almost wonders if he should let Two Face go, but then he remembers the shots fired and the hostage held tonight, and scolds himself for thinking such a thing.

Maybe Jason’s right, everything good in Gotham rots. Sometimes there are no good choices, no good answers.

He gives Jason his two hundred, in eight twenties, so it’s easy to break, tucks the lone fifty in his wallet over it and calls it a tip. Bruce Wayne may carry hundreds to give to the homeless like candy, but Batman doesn’t. He leaves it on the table beside the wrapper for a burger and when Jason goes to throw out his trash, he vanishes.

#brujay #fic writing #300x3 #arsonist's lullaby #make the night ours #batcest

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ev--writes · 4 years ago

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Hypocrite Update #3| So the editing begins

Not to be Angsty, but this book is kind of the only thing going well in my life!

I am flying through the self-edits on this book. I’ve already edited 12 poems, or about a quarter of all the poems (I’ve also written a new poem already, but that’s not for this update). However, I wanted to use the editing updates to introduce all the poems I wrote before I started blogging, so I’m only going to talk about the first four in this update.

Hypocrite (a found poem):

This is the titular poem, as it inspired me to pick up writing poetry again. The situation behind this poem is a bit...messy. About a year ago, a friendship of mine fell apart. She sent some really hurtful texts (and to be fair, I wasn’t exactly gracious about it), so I reacted like any normal person would and turned it into a found poem. Because of the nature of this poem, I didn’t have to do all that much to edit it, just trimming down a few more words to make it punchier.

First Date:

Unsurprisingly, this poem is about a First Date. I’m having a hard time making this one work. I really like the concept, but I feel like the imagery is too specific,to the point where you can’t understand the message. I guess I’ll just need a critque partner for this one.

Royalty:

Inspired by the mirror in my bedroom I litterally have never cleaned. I ended up cutting a few lines that I thought weren’t really doing anything for the poem, but other than that I basically left it alone.

Growing Up in a Lion’s Den:

The old version of this poem was so cringy I almost cried reading this (I handed this in to a workshop once oh my goodness). I ended up having to scrap the second half of the poem and rewrite it. There’s still an underlying cringe to it, but it’s an improvement.

That’s all I have for you today! I’m hoping to do weekly updates on Hypocrite as I speed run through the self-editing process (might have to go up to two updates a week though).

See you around,

-Ev

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@peachyln @feathered-inkling @incipientdream @charles-joseph-writes

#writing #writing update #my writing #poem #poetry #my poetry #my poems #editing #revising #revising poetry #editing poetry #poetry collection #poetry update

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stuckwith-harry · 5 years ago

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hey you, i only followed you recently and I really like your hinny fanfics and your poetry. Would you mind telling me about your process when you write? I really wanna learn how to write properly and you seem to take your craft so seriously. How do you built a story, how often do you edit, how much time do you spent on your work, what do you try to go for,...? Thanks xxx

Anon, this is the coolest ask I’ve EVER received, and I’m hanging it on my wall next to all the colour-coded flashcards with poems on them. This is going to be LONG, and by no means exhaustive - I’m gonna jump around and ramble a bit and if there’s anything specific you wanna hear more about, please ask! I fucking love talking about writing!

I’m gonna put most of this under a cut, but before we dive in: yes, I tAkE mY wRiTiNg sErIoUsLy in the sense that I’d like to publish some original bodies of work in my life and to have physical copies of them exist on a bookshelf that’s not my own. I don’t need it to pay the bills, but if you googled my full name I’d like for, like, a poetry collection to show up and not, I don’t know, the two poems I got published in a regional newspaper when I was eight.

(And please let the record show that they’re fine poems for a primary schooler. The cringe years came way after that, kids.)

So, even having some ambitions in the industry, the reality is that I’m a 19-year-old kid with a keyboard and a dodgy internet connection who discovered fanfiction when she was twelve and got hooked for life. We’re going to retire the idea of “writing properly” for now, because writing is supposed to be fun and I haven’t actually gotten accepted into that Creative Writing Bachelor’s degree I so desperately want to do. YET. Don’t let the fancy writing blog (@jessicagluch) fool you into thinking I know what the heck I’m doing. But, okay, with that out of the way, let’s get into what I’m personally doing right now, yeah?

Fanfiction

You asked about process, and the truth is, I don’t … really have one. For the Muggle/FWB AU called “Let Me love” I just published, I actually wrote a pretty detailed outline that I then filled in, which was fun, but it’s not a habit exactly. I’d written a lot of assorted scenes and pieces of dialogue for that one, too, so I had a lot of material and just had to put all the scraps and pieces in order and stitch it all together. After the brainstorming, word-vomity part of writing Let Me love, my #1 task was figuring out where everything went, and making sure it’s all there.

As soon as I’d written a full first draft, no gaps, and the anatomy of the whole thing had somewhat clicked into place, I moved away from it for a while. Wrote something else. Came back maybe a week or two later, polished up the prose a bit very late at night.

Figure out when your creative hours are, if you can pinpoint it at all. Mine are precisely “I was supposed to be asleep two hours ago and I’ve got an important thing tomorrow” o’ clock. Sigh.

Just - leave it alone for a bit, come back with fresh eyes. I love writing Let Me love - I’m working on part 2 right now - but after you’ve fucked around with the same sentence fifty times, you get sick of it. And I did. At some point you have to decide to put down the pen and let it be.

Especially because fanfiction isn’t something you’re writing for a publisher - hopefully, you’re writing it mostly for you - no one is holding a gun to your head to get rid of every last adverb or stuff like that. I can do what I want, MOM. I am allowed to make the thing I’m writing as tropey and campy as I want and hold up a big old middle finger to the rules, if that’s what I want to do.

Fanfiction, to me, is this grand, batshit writing playground. That’s why I fell for it in the first place - it’s inherently self-indulgent and hedonistic and that you can write everything EXACTLY as you please is the primary purpose it serves as a genre. So go wild.

(Process-wise, the one thing I do very consistently is making moodboards and playlists. I like having some inspiration material to swim around in, which helps me figure out what the story looks and feels and sounds like in my head.

Every fic has a soundtrack. SOUNDTRACKS ARE IMPORTANT, PEOPLE.

Like, Let Me love is all coloured lights and night-time London and texts left on read. It’s neon signs and wearing somebody else’s t-shirt, messy bedsheets and hangover breakfasts and quarter-life crises.

This is the Pinterest board.)

What I pay most attention to is the stuff that gives the text depth beyond the surface. I look for metaphors - and I personally prefer the ones that carry through the whole thing, ideas we explore throughout the story and revisit at the end. I look for themes that hold a story together beyond the plot. I look for subtext and imagery and I want symbolism, goddamnit.

(That’s the poet kicking in.)

And of course, I’m a product of my generation, so I love referencing other bodies of work and subverting tropes and stuff like that. Hey kids, intertextuality is fun!

(Like, do you see what I did there? See how the phrase “hey kids x is fun” in itself is a reference to something? See??? I’m a fucking genius.)

I think we need some examples. Allow me to toot my own horn for a minute.

In the Halloween 2018 oneshot I wrote, which is about Harry grappling with the anniversary of his parents’ death when he’s a little older, he visits the graveyard with Ginny and Lily Luna. Ginny comments that “it’s freezing”, to which Harry responds with the titular, “you’re warm”. And yes, it’s October, it’s probably cold. They’re keeping each other warm. And yes, it’s maybe about comfort in harsh situations in general, a more metaphorical warmth, if you will. I get it.

But when you remember this exchange is taking place on a graveyard, you might start to wonder about warm, living bodies as opposed to cold, deceased ones. And then you think about how this whole story is about the living remembering - in a sense, living with - the dead. And how it’s about death as a part of Harry’s life. And you can probably guess by now that all my literature teachers fucking adored me.

(But he’s also choosing a side here, maybe. But I’m merely the author, you don’t have to listen to me at all. My words beyond the words don’t mean shit unless you decide they do and even then you’re going to find yourself knees-deep in a debate around authorial intent in record-time. In the age of “Nagini was a cursed human woman all along”, I’m not sure I want that.)

I also reference other pieces of work a lot. Often poems, and even more frequently, songs. The songs in Let Me love are VERY IMPORTANT and I can’t show you the full playlist right now because SPOILERS. But the chapters are split into sub-sections via song lyrics. Those are part of the playlist. There’s also a lot of referencing songs in general because Harry is a big music fan in this one, but that’s just indulgence on my part. If I want to make a 21st century Harry a Mitski stan, then I will. And I did!

(AND Let Me love has a Friends reference. For funsies, but also, for much more than funsies.)

“I love you / please do not use it” was inspired by a poem by Savannah Brown called “organs”. (It’s linked in the author’s notes at the beginning.)

“It’s two sugars, right?” borrows and/or references a ton of lines and phrases from T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men. Most noticeably:

Sublety isn’t my middle name, exactly. (The forget-me-not-blue sky in The Bride On The Train, anyone?)

In short: I like when my fanfictions are worth rereading. I like when you can come out the second read having found a little more than you did the first. I like when you can wander around a little, and, like a treasure hunter, make some strange new discoveries.

Lastly: of course, writing from your own experience helps. Spy on your own life. Collect all the ways in makes you feel, like a thief, write it down, memorise it, put it in the story. Reuse! Recycle! ✊🏻

I fortunately don’t relate to Harry’s childhood trauma, but the feeling at the beginning of “We’ll figure it out” - which is a story set shortly after him and Ginny find out she’s pregnant and he’s struggling to connect with everybody else’s simple bliss, because he’s terrified, and he’s terrified of admitting he’s terrified - that was real. That “wait a minute, this moment is amazing. I’m supposed to be the happiest person on the planet right now. Why am I not feeling it? What is this emptiness? Am I not happy right now? Why am I having doubts? I’m not supposed to have any doubts! What the fuck is wrong with me?”, that was lifted from a specific experience.

Side note, I’m really proud of that one.

Okay, poetry!

Where there is even less rules and more fucking around ensues!

I read and promptly lost a quote recently about how explaining a song sort of defeats the purpose. (I’ll link it here if I ever find it again.) In some ways, poems and songs work really similarly, and I think it applies here as well: if you could really explain the whole poem in one sentence, or a few sentences, if you could accurately and concisely summarise exactly how it feels, then you wouldn’t really need the poem. My favourite poems (or songs) tend to be the ones that outline a really specific emotion via a few powerful images, but I couldn’t precisely tell you what the emotion is. Like, I know exactly what this thing is saying, I know this exact feeling, I GET-GET it, but don’t ask me to explain the thing, just READ the THING, and you’ll KNOW.

Mitski does this really well. Like, I couldn’t explain to you what Last Words Of A Shooting Star makes me feel, but it does. I can tell you that “I am relieved that I left my room tidy, they’ll think of me kindly when they come for my things” cuts through me like a hot blade but I can’t pinpoint exactly why and I don’t want to. All I know is she Gets It, and that I want her writing chops, goddamnit.

Or, like, look at Laura Gilpin’s Two-Headed Calf. Yeah, I’ve read that poem a hundred times and thought a lot about all the themes it’s presenting me with. But I have zero desire to explain those themes to you, because I’d kind of be robbing it of its magic. I don’t want to tell you what it’s about. I want you to read it and I want to simply sit with the knowledge that we know, we Get It, that “twice as many stars as usual” kicked you in the shins, emotionally speaking, as much as it did me.

Few words, max impact, is key.

In Mary Oliver’s words, we want something inexplicable made plain, not unlike a suddenly harmonic passage in an otherwise difficult and sometimes dissonantsymphony - even if it is only for the moment of hearing it.

I’m realising right now that leading with these shining examples and then following them up with my own thing is nerve-wracking. But I like to think that I accomplished something like that with a little poem I wrote called Basements.

It’s is based on the prompt “back to nature” and follows that, uhm, somewhat loosely, a little subverted. I think it’s about impermanence and nostalgia and the fact that the places we lived in continue to exist even when our lives in them don’t anymore. It’s about that and a lot of other things. Maybe. The truth is, I don’t want to explain it to you: I just want you to read it, and then I hope that it made you feel something, and I’m going to trust that you Get It. Maybe you don’t get the same things I did, but that’s great. I’d love nothing more.

Before it was all those things, it was a poem about my life. The neighbourhood with the yellow house across the graveyard that I spent nine mostly happy years in. (The house, not the graveyard.) Every single thing in there is true: my sister really bust her lip and we both cried; wild lilac really grew there; we did spend most of our summers catching tadpoles, and yes, that neighbourhood was a construction site from the first day we lived there to the very last.

And I really sat in the driver’s seat of the family car about a year ago and watched it from afar. I didn’t come up with that - it’s my life. I only went on a scavenger hunt through my own memories, through the places and records and mementos of my life, and arranged a few specific anecdotes in a way that would give them meaning.

It’s kind of what I’m proudest of when it comes to my poetry - that I get to just live my life and see the metaphor and the meaning and symbolism as I’m experiencing it. I sat in the car and I thought, huh, that’s definitely making me Feel A Thing right now, that I’m sitting in the driver’s seat looking at this place I haven’t really been to in years, my childhood home, where I don’t live anymore. That I drove here myself.

I think that, when done right, specific makes universal. If you arrange a kaleidoscope of memories in just the right way, what it’s making you feel will speak for itself, and you won’t have to explain it. Most people who’ve read “basements” probably didn’t spend countless summers playing in literal holes, originally dug out for basements that were never built because no one wanted to move there. Holes that then grew full of weeds and wild lilac and felt like miniature jungles right outside our parents’ houses. It was perfect, it was specifically mine, but the feeling behind it is universal, I think.

Like, that’s how half of Taylor Swift’s RED works. That’s how most good Taylor Swift songs work. That’s why the bridge in Out of the Woods is so good and why I love New Year’s Day so much and it’s EXACTLY why All Too Well is considered her best song by so many people. Because she zoomed in on the details of her life and let the world take a look. Because “we dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light” is a line in that song. THAT’s why it MAKES YOU FEEL THE THING.

Back to poems? This:

So we tell them all about the dayWe planned revolutions on my bedroom floor, or how we onceSpent an entire Monday lunch break making life plans over ice creamAnd most of our parties talking politics over beerWe both paid for ourselves.About the days you drive me to school. In your carI am the girl, front-seat passenger of our lives,Who does not need reach for the steering wheel –The road is alright.

isn’t fiction. These are my memories, carefully selected and re-arranged for Politics at Parties Boy.

I didn’t make up these film stills of a non-romantic relationship that never became anything other than non-romantic because neither party ever made a move. What I did is look at my own life like it’s a piece of fiction. If these memories were a movie, you could pluck them apart and say, see, the screenwriters put this scene here to communicate that.

The truth is, I am the screenwriter and the protagonist and the actress and the director and the camerawoman. I looked at a teenage girl who refused to let her friend buy her a beer at a school party and decided “huh, I guess that tells us everything we need to know” because I was that girl.

And I did pay for the beer, so we’d never move into “let me buy you a drink” territory. He was already driving me to school.

That’s my best lesson on poetry, really. I look at my life like it’s a piece of fiction and then I make it one. I put personal memories in poems meant to be read by other people, I overinterpret everything that happens to me, am literally constantly thinking about how to work every knock-back and struggle into my narrative arc and look for symbolism in anything from the date, the weather, and the colour of my front door. I watch myself in third person all the time and thus become my own muse. I’m the painter and the painting.

It’s a somewhat narcissistic and masturbatory approach to poetry, but as far as writing about your own life goes, it’s what works for me.

As far as writing about not yourself goes - well, I’m a narcissist and I’m bad at that, but I wrote a poem about the Mars rover Opportunity that shut down this February called Spirit shuts down and Opportunity feels no tremble, no ache. For stuff like that, if you don’t happen to be Struck TM by a lightning bolt of inspiration (which is the exception, not the rule), a good old-fashioned mind-map helps. I just let my robot grief go wild on the page for a bit and what I ended up writing about was death and the human condition and being a teenage girl, maybe.

I really enjoy taking two concepts/ideas and juxtaposing them, watching a theme unfold in the overlap. Like, it’s a poem about a robot AND about being a teenage girl and in between those two lies a poem about the futile attempts to teach a robot human emotion. Maybe.

It’s a poem about how my mum always cries at the airport and about me making my own happiness my priority and it kind of ends up being about my intense guilt of making my parents watch me change and grow and leave.

It’s about the night I wandered through a quiet street in Central London at 1 a.m. and realised that the city of my dreams sleeps like any other place, that people wake up early and make coffee and go to work and have bad days here. That it’s not all dream. It’s some people’s lives. But it’s also about watching another person sleep - the way someone’s face changes when they do.

In the middle lay a poem about finding a friend in a lover. Not the daydream, but my life.

Lastly, I can’t talk about my own poetry without talking about my darling poem 5 disasters. It’s my pride and joy. Like, you could kill me write now and I’d be like, it’s okay, I’ve written the poem I want to be remembered for and it’s this one. I wrote it in less than a day and every time I think about the fact that I wrote

I cravedsomething more violent than death, somethingviolent enough to bea beginningand for my life to be thousands of themI wantednothingto remainexcept the girl that sentthe disastersand survived -may this wasteland bewhere I find her.

… I lose my shit a little bit.

(5 disasters was a rarity in how quickly I wrote it. It often takes me weeks. Sometimes months. There’s poems I’ve been meaning to write for years now and I still haven’t found the words. Take your time.)

5 disasters is a lot of things, but within the context of the poetry collection it’s hopefully going to exist in one day, it serves as almost an instruction manual for metaphors: here, the floods and rainfalls are always change and the forest fires are always my highschool demons and my friends and how they look the same. The colour yellow is always referencing the same love. Basically, I like pinpointing my symbolisms and then crafting a poem around them. You end up creating something like an in-poem universe that you get to navigate like a fantasy novel. Like you’re telling a story about a natural disaster, but it’s all a metaphor, Hazel Grace.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As I do.

I hope this serves as a starting point of sorts, anon. Most importantly, have fun, don’t concern yourself with all the rules too much. Experiment, be bold, read lots.

Again, if you’ve got any questions, I’d be thrilled to help. Thanks for the opportunity to toot my own horn to this outrageous degree, it’s been a blast.

#this is SO LONG i'm SO SORRY i was VERY EXCITED #jessie the writer #owl post #anon

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kinessie · 6 years ago

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i thought of you (so i didn’t have to think of myself)

[ao3]

I thumbed at the old wolf insignia on a metal coin I kept beside my bed. Cassie called me through to eat and I stared at her for a second before roughly throwing the past into a drawer.

I watch over Cassie a lot, I feel like it was my duty to keep an eye on her, after being the one to bring her in. I had bad memories associated with taking a mentor role again, Cassie changed my view.

She’s an amazing girl. She’s smart and friendly, always greeting me with a smile. Her combat skills are second to none, even without formal training. Cassie is absolutely an asset to the Resistance. Valera has commented on that fact many a time. I felt pride burn in my chest seeing her up front next to Valera during battles.

Through the time I’d spent with Cassie, I understood more about her quirks and personality. I’d picked up on most mannerisms of the Paladins as we were very tight-knit. Ying runs her hands through her hair when talking and talks to you like you’re the most important person in the world. Inara paces back and forth in the boardroom when she’s taking time to grieve. Cassie wears her heart on her sleeve, she expresses herself so clearly, her eyes were an open book of her emotions.

So it became apparent to me when she started acting… Out of sorts. I noticed it first around six months ago when she came back from a patrol with joy in her eyes and a smile on her face. I asked why. “Buck told me a great story earlier today!” Buck had been spending the last 48 hours up the mountain after he and I got into another Sentinels-themed argument. I chalked Cassie’s mistake up to a simple slip of the tongue.

Cassie had been keeping to herself recently, only slightly more than usual, only enough that I’d noticed. She’d talk and laugh with Zigs for long stretches or write much longer entries in her journal. One day she put her pen down after seven straight minutes of writing. I asked what was on her mind. “Guess I’ve just been more in-tune with my emotions, recently.”

I walked into her bunk the other day and she was no where to be seen, but I reached down and found a scrap piece of paper with long lines and looped words. Cassie wrote poetry. She wrote one for me, once, but that was short and uninspired. This, however, spoke of a place of peace and serenity. “Beneath the trees where my love is unchained and paints the night sky,” I’d never understood poetry, but I could almost see her soul in this piece.

Last week Valera had us all in the boardroom to discuss an upcoming rally in a village three towns over. It was simply another plan to encourage un-allied settlements to sway their opinions in the way of the Resistance. We all stood, nodding along. I noticed Cassie fidgeting. “How about we do this the week after?” Valera raised an eyebrow at her. “Well… Zigs noticed a storm upcoming. We’d be travelling in poor conditions and the village will be boarded up.” Valera told her that Magistrate occupied areas were creeping closer and closer, and we may not have another opportunity. Cassie dug her fingernails into the wooden round table but said nothing.

Valera agreed in the end to push the rally to the end of the week, although she showed distress in the question if the Magistrate had already sent their forces in this direction. I didn’t want Magistrate blood on my hands today, but I would fight with pride if I must.

We walked through the village which was almost sheltered by forest. I looked up and admired the sunlight peeking through the tall canopies. I could hear Inara behind me taking slower steps as she herself spent time with the nature. People of the village started to emerge from their homes as the Paladins made their way closer to the centre. Cassie was looking back and forth between the trees, not in a lingering, admiring way, her eyes darted.

The mayor of the town had walked up to Valera. His robes were expensive and long, his beard long but well-kept, his posture straight and attentive. He almost looked too regal to be from such a small settlement. Valera gave him a speech similar to ones she’s told to many before. While everyone else stood calm in this seemingly safe village, Cassie was almost alarmingly on-edge. Her hand gripped her crossbow until her knuckles turned white.

Something had to be going on.

That’s when it happened. The mayor took a step away from Valera and immediately a bullet shot through the air and through his skull. Chaos ensued. All of us drew our weapons and the villagers ran around in a frenzy. Ying and Buck tried desperately to calm them and get them back into their homes. Valera pointed her sword in the direction of the bullet, but Cassie piped up and stared in the opposite direction. “I see them! Over there!” That was enough for Valera to take off in the said direction. Sha Lin got himself onto a nearby roof and then into the trees ahead, giving chase.

Cassie was lying. I knew she was. She uses small, almost unnoticeable hand movements to direct Zigs. And as she spoke to direct the others, I saw her left hand curl backwards. Zigs had gone in the correct direction. I should have called her out then and there, but I didn’t, I felt like she was my responsibility. I rushed off with the others for a few seconds, then turned back to see Cassie running after Zigs. I followed behind and tried not to be noticed.

The huntress ran for a while until she reached a slightly open clearing that Zigs hovered over, I flattened myself behind a tree. “Nessa?” She yelled. “Fuck.” She hissed. I’d never heard her swear. A twig snapped and a thud sounded on the forest floor, my curiosity lead me to peek around the trunk and I almost got whiplash at the speed I turned right back.

Kinessa. We were in the Sentinels together. We trained together. Lived together. All of us. And now she was here, after five long years, standing in front of the woman I mentor now just like I mentored before.

“I’m here. You okay?” Spoke the voice that cut into my memory like a knife. “Me?” Spoke the other. “We were all there! They could’ve killed you! I covered for you!”

Things were starting to fall into place. I could only think of the obvious: Kinessa killed the mayor.

“Shit. I’m sorry. You don’t need to do that for me, I could have gotten away.” Kinessa spoke with a softness I’d never heard before. I remembered her tone as brash, always either excited or mad. I felt a pang in my chest at the unfamiliarity.

“Look.” Cassie audibly sighed. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

There was a moment of silence, I peeked past the tree once again and everything finally made sense. The solo patrols, the late-night monologuing, the long-winded journal entries. It was all for Kinessa. It always was. The two embraced and the once larger than life, reckless and dangerous bounty hunter almost looked small next to Cassie.

I didn’t know what to do in the moment. A part of me strived for justice, to confront Kinessa about the murder, to question Cassie’s loyalty to the Paladins. I wanted to raise my rifle at Kinessa and tell her we all felt lost without her. I wanted to see her face contort after telling her I put a bullet in Strix’s arm only two months after I pledged into the Resistance. I wanted her to feel the pain she had inadvertently caused.

But that wasn’t fair? Was it?

That all happened years ago. Now today I see Cassie smiling and writing poetry on scraps of paper. The neutral grounds she spoke so delicately of were never of a place but of a person. War had raised the hackles of everyone and if Cassie had truly found a place to exist comfortably for a while, then did I really have the heart to stop her?

Looking back just one more time I noticed the large scar across Kinessa’s right arm and remembered the face of the gorlock who cut it. The scars on my stomach told the same story. As if she could hear my thoughts, Cassie reached over and trailed her thumb over Kinessa’s scar. It was almost as if she was acknowledging she carried memories in the past, but that they, together, lived in the present.

War was messy, confusing. It bred grudges, anger.

Four years ago I wouldn’t have walked away from that clearing as I did, leaving Cassie behind. I fear I would have killed Kinessa there and then, blaming her for ruining the only hapiness I had. Cassie was a better person than me, I couldn’t pretend that I knew everything about her, but I knew that for sure. It was time for me to take my place in the present. It my have not been politically right, but protecting Cassie was morally right, it was something I wanted to do.

In the coming months, whenever Cassie came in late and I saw her giddy and grinning, I covered for her. Said to Valera she was on a patrol set by me. I talked with Buck, getting out into the open all the bottled up emotion I had of the past, and that was then settled. Tensions rose higher and higher, clashes with the Magistrate had left some of us wounded and angry.

One night, Cassie headed for the door with a bag slung over her shoulders. I spotted her and she looked at me like a deer in the headlights.

“Tyra! I-“

Go. I told her. And she went, seeking the comfort and answers we couldn’t provide.

I opened my drawer and picked up the metal coin inside. It was rusted, it’s status and dignity long lost. Buck found his freedom in worship, Kinessa and Cassie found theirs in love. I think I was about to find my freedom in a way unique to me.

I went to place the coin back but hesitated, I slipped it into my pocket and felt it press against a scar that I would carry with me, always.

A door opened.

#paladins champions of the realm #fanfic #alternative title: Was Going To Just Be Kinessie But Got Emo About Tyra Halfway #alt alt title: I Miss The Sentinels

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seoulscenarios · 7 years ago

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College AU! Seo Changbin

Sorry this one is out a little later than usual, but my laptop died and wouldn’t turn on so i couldn’t post it T__T but it’s here now. thank you for all your love and support for this series <3

-Major: Music (Vocal) and Composition

-Minor: business studies

-Sports: none,,, he likes sports but not enough to join in when he could be sleeping or writing music

-Clubs: contrary to his sharp image he could be seen frequenting the art department and literature department when the drawing club and poetry club held their meetings. He really liked drawing, deciding that if a music career was out of the question he could really say a big screw you to his parents and become a tattoo artist lmao. He didn’t go to the poetry club as much as he did the drawing club, he went to get inspiration for lyrics and new metaphors n stuff

-So Changbin a vocal major you say???

-Yes he did enjoy singing, he definitely wouldn’t say he was as good as the other students who were professionally trained from a young age but he had his own vocal colour

-Changbin did truly enjoy his course but he wasn’t,,,, passionate about it

-Unlike everyone else on the course who wanted to be singers or train people to sing,,, he just didn’t have that same mentality

-Which is why he chose to do composition as a way to do what he really liked

-Bc Changbin was a rapper

-And was part of the underground rap trio of 3RACHA with 3rd year Chan and fellow 2nd year Jisung

-They were extremely popular on campus,, it’s just a shame his vocal professors thought otherwise when he came in with a sore throat the next day to class

-They frowned upon rap, saying it wasn’t a viable option for Changbin to perform a rap piece about societal issues and that he NEEDED to sing in order to pass the module which needless to say,,, ended with him writing a few more rap tracks where he dissed the school system lmao (these ended up a HIT with the student body and Changbin frequently heard other students listening or quoting the lyrics which made him immensely proud uwu)

-One time he had to redo a module bc he rapped instead of sang at a recital, despite showing his teacher the song he was going to do and he even performed at rehearsal

-He just said screw it on the actual night and changed the track lmao

-Whilst it went down a storm with the students and his friends in the audience, his professors, examiners and the rest of the audience were extremely shocked and unimpressed

-His professor wanted to fail him but said he had too much potential as an artist that he made Changbin perform again in front of the department in order to give him a grade

-Okay so whilst Changbin did like to screw with his department a few times bc they were never lenient towards his ideas about rapping he did genuinely like his course and it meant he could pursue music, albeit different from what he wanted to do

-It was his minor that really gave him trouble

-You see,, he really hated business with a passion like he wanted to burn all his business textbooks n scream in front of the department building

-But he couldn’t bc it was the only reason he was allowed to study music at university

-His parents really did not approve of his career choice, citing how unreliable and unstable it was for the future you know the general consensus a lot of parents have about going into the arts instead of something safe like economics or bsiness or law

-It took countless months of arguing and persuading his parents that he didn’t want to do anything but music that the conceded only IF he picked up business as his minor

-Like,,, don’t get me wrong he could see where his parents were coming from but at the same time,,,, Changbin has such passion for the music world that he couldn’t see himself anywhere but a recording studio writing songs and lyrics, maybe even performing them himself

-He finally wore his parents down by showing them the feedback from his teachers in high school and online where he posted some of his self made tracks that they conceded

-But the business aspect of his course

-Made him want to die :)

-Changbin most certainly did not care for monopolies or business strategies that helped to improve profit margins for a corporate business

-This was exactly what Changbin hated and wrote songs about how it destroyed society but u know,,, it’s fine really

-Until he has to write three 2000 word essays on some business bullshit that he realises just how much he hates business

-Changbin was scarcely passing his business modules, praying to get at least 40% so he could pass instead of having to redo any of the work lmao (if that’s not me @ my modules)

-You could always see him when it was coming up to his deadlines at the library with Woojin cooing over him soothingly, as Changbin was trying NOT to cry about how much he hated business

-If Minho was studying there as well he would buy Changbin stress coffee and they would both sit there complaining about how awful deadlines were lmao

-Though,,,, Changbin was much better at handling the stress than Minho who just downed coffee after coffee

-Changbin just had a idc attitude when it came to his business stuff, saying if he failed it’s not much of a loss bc my parents think I’m wasting my time anyway (oof this hits a little close to home I wont lie)

-But anyway, Woojin would always help him revise for his business exams and would test him on case studies n vocabulary he needed to learn so he never went into them completely clueless

-Once,,, he literally ran to Woojin’s dorm after he got 68% on a business exam and he promised to buy Woojin all the chicken in the world for helping him

-Now, now that’s a tad excessive don’t you think?

-Hyung, I owe you my LIFE

-Changbin NO, just treat me to dinner once and consider it done

-Wow we don’t deserve Woojin

-Speaking of dorms,,,, Changbin rented out an apartment with Hyunjin and Seungmin and well,,,, their apartment was messy as hell

-Okay so first of all,,, they all studied different courses so their lounge area was just a mess of lyrics sheets, bits of fabric and law books strewn all over the place

-Law books served as coasters for left over coffee mugs and more often than not you could always find bits of scrap fabric in them if they’d be left out for too long lmao

-The three of them make Sunday cleaning day bc otherwise,,, well they’re apartment might become inhabitable

-So,,,, back to the plot

-You knew Changbin though it had been a while (read: middle school) since you had last seen him

-One could even say you were really close friends until you had to move away due to your fathers’ job and when u told baby Changbin this,,,, he cried and refused to speak to you and when he finally got round to the fact you were leaving,,,, you had already moved and even though you posted him a letter he didn’t read it out of spite (though he still had the letter uwu,, not that he would let anyone know)

-But ever since you moved away, you never got as close to anyone as you did with Changbin all those years ago and your heart ached a little every time you thought of your childhood friend

-However, you were grown up now and whilst you still got tinges of sadness you were over it and tried your best at your entrance exams so you could get into a good college

-You decided to major in psychology bc you really enjoyed the analysis of people and how the brain worked

-However,,, the uni you went to kinda sucked and you weren’t progressing as much as you thought you would be which made you,,, very frustrated

-So you began to look into other colleges and you contacted one that seemed to have an extremely high satisfaction and employment rate

-When you told your parents that you decided to move college they were apprehensive but when you explained why they did support you

-They were even more supportive bc it was the college that their friends’ son goes to and oh maybe they get in contact with them so their son could show you round campus

-Before you could protest they were on the phone setting up the arrangement

-So when your second year of college rolled round you found yourself at a new college and a new dorm with your stuff in boxes

-Your parents helped you move most of the stuff in but they had to leave early due to a business meeting (lol wasn’t that just ur life though)

-Without so much as a “goodbye sweetie let us know how it all goes” and a hasty kiss to the cheek they left you in the dust with 3 heavy boxes full of stuff you had to move in by yourself

-You sighed, heaving the boxes on top of each other praying that someone would see your struggles

-Luck was on your side that day it would seem

-As you struggled to pick up the three heavy boxes, you felt the weight lighten immensely and a voice piped up

-“You look like you need help, what room are you in?”

-“Uhh, 203”

-“Sweet let’s go”

-Something about the boy seemed familiar but you couldn’t quite place it as you followed him up the stairs to your dorm room

-Once you reached the door you told the boy it was fine and you could take it from here but he insisted on taking the boxes through for you

-Sighing, you fished the keys out of your pocket and unlocked the door, whilst simultaneously apologising for the mess ur room was in

-The boy just laughed, placing the boxes in an empty space as he observed the piles of textbooks and clothes thrown around your room and you froze

-You recognised that laugh

-Your eyes followed him as he took an innocent look around the stuff on your desk, watching him pick up a textbook and flipping through it

-Something seemed to have caught his attention, right at the front of the book and he turned round to look at you scrutinising your face

-“C-changbin?”

-“Y/N?”

-The two of you stared at each other, eyes wandering around the now unfamiliar curves and contours of your faces

-“My parents told me that you were transferring but I didn’t think I would actually see you so soon” changbin said warily, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck

-“Oh, um, yeah bad college for first year thought I’d try my luck some place different” you replied awkwardly, placing the box you were still holding onto the floor

-“Well,, it’s been a while”

-“Hmmm”

-The room lapsed into an awkward silence and Changbin traced the name in the textbook he was holding, in disbelief that he had finally found his childhood best friend again

-You, on the other hand, couldn’t believe how well Changbin had grown up

-Like he wasn’t a chubby kid but he had truly grown up,,, and well u felt ur throat well up in sadness at the fact you weren’t by his side as he grew up

-“I have to go back,,, it was nice seeing you again Y/N and I’ll catch you round?” changbin’s voice cut through your thoughts and you just nodded, not trusting your voice at that moment

-Of all the days to encounter to your old best friend, it just had to be on your first day at your new college you thought bitterly, glaring at the mess all around you before sighing, knowing it was no use being bitter about it before starting the lengthy process of unpacking

-Changbin, however, as soon as he got back to his apartment began to refile through trying to find the letter you had left him all of those years ago

-Hyunjin and Seungmin heard all the noise and decided to investigate

-Nothing could prepare them for the sight of Changbin with tears marking his face and a slip of paper with childish handwriting on, surrounded by hundreds of other sheets

-They just glanced at each other before leaving the doorway, deciding to confront him about it later

-Changbin didn’t notice his two flatmates, too busy tracing your childish scrawl

-“Binnie!! I know you are angry at me for leaving but I can’t help it. Dad got a new job T__T. I wish I could stay with you. If you are reading this, it means I already left. Ahh, what to do I’m crying. Please write to me Binnie, I wrote my new address on another piece of paper! Love your best friend, Y/N xxxxxxx”

-He reached into the envelope, pulling out another piece of paper where you had written your address as neatly as you could,,, obviously you had gone through much pain to get it as neat as possible so he could read it

-His heart began to ache, knowing that he had the means to contact you all those years ago but he had been an angry child

-Changbin wiped the tears from his face before putting the two pieces of paper back in the envelope and placing it delicately on his desk next to his lyrics book

-He sat on the floor, contemplating his options

-Like on the one hand, he wanted to really talk to you and get his best friend back but on the other hand, he was unsure if you wanted to or whether you had really moved on

-Throwing caution to the wind, he decided that he would try and talk to you again

-I mean he knew where you lived,,, he wondered if you still liked strawberry milk and jellies

-The next day you were surprised to see Changbin at your door holding a carton of strawberry milk and a packet of jellies

-You let him, secretly glad that he came to see you after your awkward encounter yesterday

-“I realised yesterday I was a complete ass, and I guess I was all those years ago for not opening your letter and realising that we still could’ve been friends if I just opened it” he said, standing awkwardly at your desk whilst you sat on the bed

-You laughed at how sad he looked, patting the space next to you gesturing for him to sit there

-His eyes widened before perching right on the edge of the bed,,,, you laughed again and just slapped his arm

-“It’s okay Changbin! Fresh start, we’re both ‘adults’ now so no hard feelings. Tell me about yourself and I’ll tell you what happened to me”

-For the next few hours, you found at everything about Changbin

-From how much he hated business to his new friends, all the way to the fact he was part of an underground rap trio with two of his other friends

-You were impressed, you knew Changbin liked to write lyrics from a young age and you were so proud he honed in on that passion to pursue a career in it

-Changbin listened raptly as you told him all about how much you suffered through high school, feeling like you didn’t have your life planned out like everyone else did and how you ended up taking psychology bc you enjoyed watching people and wanted to know more about how humans worked on a psychological level

-Without realising, the two of you fell back into your old rhythm like nothing hadn’t happened in the years you had been apart

-It had turned dark by the time you and Changbin had finished catching up with each other

-Changbin’s eyes widened as he checked his phone, both at the time and the hundreds of notifications he had gotten from all his friends including a concerned Felix (which NEVER happened)

-“Oh my god I really need to go before my friends send out a search party and they think I’m finally dead”

-“It’s fine! I didn’t think we had been talking for so long” you laughed at him, pushing him off the bed and towards the door

-Changbin’s hand was on the handle before he whipped back around so quickly you were worried for a hot second

-“I need your number. I won’t let myself screw this friendship over again” he handed you his phone and you felt your heart get all warm at the sentiment

-You put your number into his phone, with the contact name of “best friend, again” which Changbin smiled at before pulling you into a hug and running out of the door

-You smiled softly at his retreating figure, shutting the door and laying on your bed

-You hadn’t felt this happy in a long while, you finally had your best friend back

-Changbin on the other hand, got back to his apartment full of his 8 friends who all demanded to know where he had been without a single word to any of them for the past 11 hours which was very unlike him

-“Wait,,,, what’s with that look on your face?” hyunjin inquired, leaning forward to study changbin’s face

-“What look?” he asked confusedly

-“You never look this happy unless Felix is hugging you or you finished a particularly diss full track towards your professors or the government hyung” jeongin answered innocently, nestling further into Chan’s arms

-Felix looked particularly smug at this fact, but he too wanted to know what caused his hyung to go AWOL for hours

-“I,,,, met an old friend and we were catching up and lost track of time” Changbin shrugged

-“Hyung…. You never look this happy when meeting old friends? They must be special to you” Felix said, studying Changbin’s face closely and he was surprised to see his ears reddening slightly

-“Um,,,, you could say that we were best friends when we were kids”

-“hmmmmm”

-“……….”

-Suddenly Seungmin’s face cracked into a huge smile, piecing the puzzle together

-“Changbin hyung,,,, is the same best friend that, when drunk last year, told me that you were angry that they left you alone at school when they moved away”

-“………..”

-“The one you had a crush on?”

-“O K A Y PUNK LISTEN HERE-“

-Whatever Changbin was going to say,,, we will never know as Woojin threw a hand over changbin’s mouth before he could cuss out seungmin who was sat there smugly

-Changbin sighed against Woojin’s hand and slumped back

-Woojin released his hand warily, signalling for Changbin to explain

-“Yes this is that friend, their name is Y/N”

-The boys all smiled, knowing that you meant a lot to changbin and had been the subject of many of Changbin’s songs

-ANYWAY

-You and changbin quickly rekindled the flames of your friendship extremely quickly despite college starting, you always managed to find time to meet up

-Heck, you even found yourself joining him in the recording studio some nights helping Changbin with lyrics or just giving him some company

-The boys had taken an immense liking to you and quickly adopted you as the 10th member of their squad

-You were even a priority member of the underground club 3RACHA frequented at, much to the chagrin of the many fangirls who had been on the guestlist since last year

-Perks of being childhood friends with one of the members

-It’s here where you see Changbin in his true element

-You saw all his passion and rawness for the issues he spoke up for present themselves in such a beautiful and hard hitting way

-You couldn’t help but cry at one of the tracks he performed with Jisung about the effect bullying could have on students in school

-Changbin pulled you into a hug after the performance had ended, apologising for making you cry during the gig (the other boys began waggling their eyebrows at him suggestively and he had to physically restrain himself from throwing cusses at them, choosing to glare at them whilst hugging you)

-Over the next few weeks you couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment you began to look at Changbin differently than you did

-Sure,,, as a kid you admit you did have a crush on him but then don’t most kids crush on their best friends?

-But this,,, was more than a sweet puppy love

-You began to notice the little things at first, the way his eyes would widen when he had a spark of inspiration, the way his eyebrows would furrow when he tried to study for business and then the bigger things began to form with how he always had an arm slung around your shoulders when you walked across campus or when you had a bad day he would turn up at your dorm with hugs and a carton of strawberry milk

-You fell in love with him naturally, like it was almost fate

-Little did you know, Changbin too felt this way as well

-He noticed everything you did, how you fiddled with your sleeves when you were nervous about something, the way your eyes crinkled as you laughed at a story Felix was telling you or the way you clung to him when you watched a horror film with the boys at Jisung and Jeongin’s dorm

-He began to write songs about you, and decided that this was the only way he could confess confidently

-Every moment he spent with you he wouldn’t exchange it for the world

-Besides, the whole campus seemed to think you were dating anyway

-It was the end of first semester and 3RACHA were holding another gig to celebrate and naturally you had to go hype up your best friend and celebrate your psych essays being over

-Unbeknownst to you, Changbin was going to perform the song he had written for you that night in a hope that you would understand how he felt about you

-As the lights came up, you couldn’t help but be in awe at how beautiful Changbin was in that moment

-As the gig progressed, both Chan and Jisung had performed solo tracks and you knew that Changbin had to be performing one as well

-Just then, a spotlight appeared and your attention was captured immediately as Changbin began to rap about a close friend and how they changed his entire life for the better

-You frowned slightly, trying to figure out who it was

-Felix maybe? He does like Felix a lot

-Towards the end of the song the lyrics seemed familiar and you realised,,, it was the lyrics you had helped with all those weeks ago

-Your eyes widened as they met Changbin’s dark eyes, and moved closer to you table much to the delight of the boys

-As the song reached the end, Changbin was stood in front of you and reached out to cup your face gently

-You leaned into his touch, looking up at him with hooded eyes

-Without much prompt, Changbin leaned down and kissed you gently causing everyone in the room to holler and wolf whistle

-You break apart from him, a grin spreading across your lips and the thought of Changbin’s lips on yours as he goes to finish the rest of the gig

-DATING CHANGBIN:

-After that day, you and changbin became an official item much to the surprise of practically everyone on campus who thought you were dating already ooops

-Dude least we can stop hearing you pine about how perfect Y/N is

-Oh that’s what you think,,,, now I can torture you about how much I freaking love them

-hyUNG NO PLEASE NO

-Dating Changbin was very much just being best friends, with more skinship

-Bc Changbin LOVED skinship

-He always had an arm around your shoulder or holding your hand as you walked anyway and when you were talking to people he always had you in a back hug,,, which made it uncomfortable for the other person at times esp if they didn’t know changbin

-I mean he looked scary and you were completely unfazed that he was hugging you as you were chatting about some psychology case study you were both studying for Prof Kim’s class

-nOT that Changbin was a jealous or possessive boyfriend, as some were inclined to think, he just a RBF and liked to hug you whenever you were together

-You certainly didn’t have a problem with it, leaning into his touch whenever his arms were around you

-Though he did get a little jealous sometimes when people at bars tried to flirt with you even when he was RIGHT THERE and had his arm around your waist

-He was just more frustrated at the fact the other person couldn’t get a hint so 9 times out 10 he ended up pulling you in for a kiss before pulling away to smile smugly at the other person

-They soon got the hint and stopped trying to hit on you

-You just laughed, leaning in him to kiss again before dragging him home before he got jealous again

-You woke up the next day with Changbin tracing his fingers lightly against your hips and thighs, making random patterns whilst softly smiling at you

-This was your favourite way to wake up tbh, like it was so soft and so utterly intimate that you craved his touch even more

-When the two of you turned up late to a meeting with the boys they just shook their heads at changbin’s messy hair and your slightly swollen lips

-Most of your guys day was spent in the recording studio or music practice room as changbin was writing songs or practice for an upcoming performance for his course, you were there with your psychology textbooks feet in his lap if he was sat at the mixing desk or sat on the floor in the practice room

-The two of you spent hours there, working in relative silence just happy to be in each others presence as you prepared for your upcoming projects and stuff

-Sometimes you helped him with his lyrics if he was struggling with wording a certain phrase or he wanted your opinion on a particular beat

-You also helped him revise for business, which you knew he hated but you wanted him to do well so sometimes you had to bribe him

-Changbin for every right answer ill give you a kiss

-roGER THAT

-The helping out was mutual as changbin too assisted you when you needed

-He could often be seen in the library or campus café holding your flashcards and notes, quizzing you about psychology case studies and terminology for your upcoming exams

-Changbin also liked to reward you with kisses every time you got an answer right,,,, though sometimes he was feeling childish and purposely said that you got an answer right when u hadn’t just so he could kiss you more lmao

-Changbin you know you don’t need a reason to kiss me…. You’re literally my boyfriend??

-Yeah but reward kisses are good!!!

-Not when you purposely lie to me so you can get kisses!

-How did you know I was lying?????

-Babe,,, I’m literally a psychology student I KNOW when you lie. And we’ve been friends since middle school so I’ve seen you lie for a good long while. Also,,,, I purposely got this answer wrong to see what you did lmao

-BABE WHAT THE HECK WHY???

-You’re too cute sometimes

-ANYWAY

-You and Changbin are the type of couple to wear couple clothes without realising it

-Like,,,, you would both be wearing oversized black hoodies and black beanies when you go for bbq with the boys one day and Felix was like,,,,, u planned this and ur both like ???? planned what????

-Speaking of hoodies,,, and clothes in general

-Changbin leaves his stuff at yours a lot in the hopes that you wear it one day,,, esp his shirts and hoodies bc he is that kind of boy that loves this kind of stuff then gets all blushy when you do

-Like when you turned up to a date one day wearing his favourite hoodie he MELTED at how cute you looked

-For your 6th month anniversary,,, you decided to get official couple stuff but like,,,, u didn’t want a ring

-You settled on getting a couple earring,,, which was adorable and Felix literally screamed when he saw you both wearing it one day

-Also,,,, at first you didn’t know that Changbin liked to draw until you find his sketches on the desk in his room where he hastily put them last night after drawing club

-You were looking through them when he turned up with a bag of takeout and he began to blush

-BABE these are really good!?!”$”

-They’re really not though!!

-Yes they are wow what can’t you do

-Business studies

-Oh you’re right there

-He told you that night that he wanted to be a tattoo artist if the music career didn’t work out and you clapped your hands in glee

-I mean you always wanted a tattoo so what better way than get your boyfriend to design one for you

-He protested this at first, claiming he wasn’t a great artist that warranted you to have something of him tattooed permanently to your body

-You, however, managed to convince him to design something small that you BOTH could get

-Screw couple rings, you guys went straight for the couple tattoo ;)

-Safe to say when the boys found out they all screamed, Felix sobbed in the corner whilst woochan hugged each other claiming that their kids grow up so fast

-When you finally got them done you couldn’t help but run your fingers over it every day,,, and your fingers always found themselves finding Changbin’s and running your fingers over it softly

-Ugh it was so soft and Hyunjin’s eyes rolled whenever he saw the two of you laying on the sofa hands running over each others tattoos and kissing each other softly

-Baso,,, u and changbin were just best friends who fell in love

-Slowly,, then all at once

-And you wouldn’t change it for the world

again,,, thank you for giving this series so much love it means the world to us!!!

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids imagine #stray kids scenarios #stray kids changbin #stray kids seo changbin #seo changbin #changbin imagine #changbin scenarios #uwu thank u for ur support and love #college au #seo changbin college au

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abbysroad · 6 years ago

Text

2019

A month ago today I sat in Beacon Theatre, trying to discern the features on Bob Dylan’s face. The halo of curly hair I recognized, but it was hard to see that those were the eyes that peered at me from record sleeves, those the lips that curled around a cigarette in the back of some limousine.

I decided recently that my Dylan obsession must be a subconscious reaction to the Trump administration. On January 5, 2017, when I still found his voice grating and his lyrics pretentious, three weeks before Trump’s inauguration, I wrote a note on my phone: “Dream of Bob Dylan, discussing The Band.” I think I had resolved to start writing down my dreams. (That resolution never sticks. They’re always too convoluted to capture and too strange to want to face.) That was the semester I spent in Madrid, listening to Boots of Spanish Leather on repeat. This year, I cycled through each of his studio albums, viewing his whole corpus as a saga I have the privilege of experiencing in consolidated form, 50 years after it began. I picture plebeians in medieval Spain gathering around to listen to chivalric romances from the one guy who could read. I too distract myself from the mundane with tales of the king of the Philistines and Queen Mary (she’s my friend) and Shakespeare in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells.

But this year was much more than Dylan. I didn’t travel much, but I went to Washington, D.C., and I finally made it upstate. I read some books and wrote a thesis. I moved in with my boyfriend and interned at a newspaper and rode my bike to Rockaway and, on the Fourth of July, watched the sour smoke of firecrackers flare around my rooftop, as if the city were under siege. I like it here in Queens. It has everything I need. In some ways, it echoes the small town where I grew up. On quiet nights in Massachusetts, I could hear the commuter train to Boston whistle as it whizzed by on tracks half a mile from my house. Now, I hear the M when it rattles out to Middle Village, and I hear it again as it rolls back to the city, en route to the northern part of Queens. The church bell, like the one at home, rings every 15 minutes before going to bed at 10 p.m.

There is no way for me not to face the new year with trepidation, though. I don’t know how much longer I will live in Queens, or even in New York, because I graduated college this winter and I need to find a job. I feel like Esther Greenwood with the fig tree. I’m not afraid to choose a fig, though; I’m afraid to write. The prospect of a career — such a leaden word, “career” — has made me self-conscious, because I know that a potential employer may read anything I write online. Newspapers don’t want someone opinionated, I tell myself. I stifle my love for feminist theory with the conviction that no one will want to hire someone whose ideas about gender politics diverge from what is accepted. I cannot make my contempt for our objectively poor president known; journalists have no business expressing political opinions, and everything you write will come back to haunt you, someday.

So I stick to listening to Dylan records, bowing to a man whose brilliance no one can contest. Just look at the consonance in “Queen Jane Approximately,” I’ll call to my boyfriend from the living room where I sit with a book of Dylan Thomas poems, replaying Dylan songs in search of allusions to his namesake. Or, Can you believe he created an album so perfect that he had to scrap a song as brilliant as “She’s Your Lover Now,” which wasn’t released until 2015? I want to talk about “Fourth Time Around” and “Norwegian Wood.” I want to talk about which drugs Dylan was on when writing which songs. I want to talk about “Yer Blues,” and John Lennon screaming, “I don’t believe in Zimmerman,” and Zimmerman screaming, “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar. Play it fucking loud.” I want to talk about these things because even though they make me just another insufferable NYU girl who likes poetry and rock and roll, they can offend no one. I want to listen to “Visions of Johanna” until my vision blurs and the lights on the Empire State Building go dark forever. I’ll write more for you when I’m ready. Just know I’m studying the best.

#writing #new year's #bob dylan

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elegant-etienne · 7 years ago

Note

😷: Have you ever scrapped one of your ocs and used their backstory / interests / ect. for a newer one?

Character Creation Questions!

It’s pretty rare that I do this! One thing I taught myself to do is allow there to be leeway for big hooks I could address later if I wanted to fill them in, and that could also bring about radical changes if I wanted. In terms of interests, RP on Balmung is so hugely varied that I’ve found my characters getting into things that I never would have expected already - like Etienne getting into writing poetry, and taking singing lessons. If I wanted my characters to gain an interest in something specific I could easily arrange a way to run across it. After all, I’m not into all the things I was into a few years ago. In fact I’m on entirely different course of life - and that’s something that’s particularly pronounced in how Etienne has developed.

That being said, Etienne was originally conceptualized as an entirely different person. This would be around the time of ARR’s early patches, when I’d finished all the MSQ content on my main and wanted to do something else. Etienne was someone a lot closer to Clare as I described them. We didn’t have a whole lot on Ishgard at the time so Etienne was originally Gridanian. I was also in a very different space mentally and I was interested in having an innocent, bubbly character "just ready to be screwed over by life”. However, I wound up drifting from FFXIV before I ever played Etienne that way. I returned to Balmung about 2 years ago after having completed the MSQ through HW on another server, and did not feel up to touching my old main since I’d felt pretty miserable with where they were at when I left. I had by then fallen in love with Ishgard, but also felt very strongly about the presence of Charibert and the negative tropes he embodied. Etienne is very much a strong response to the things I liked - and disliked - about the story, characters and setting of HW.

I now think it’s more interesting to see how people get hurt without having the personality equivalent of a “kick me” sign on their backs. Personality flaws like loyalty have given Etienne and Kadin a lot of character development and heartbreak without me ever needing to intentionally engineer it. However, I wrote them as resilient characters who’d already suffered a lot, and could ultimately handle the stress.

The concept of “someone who’s going to be formed through their discoveries of the outside world and those relationships” did get reused in Adi. Adi has innocence in many aspects, but he’s not a wide-eyed, innocent character. The excitement of not being entirely sure who Adi might turn out to be after a stretch is fun in its own way, but he has more of a personality than what we would now call a “cinnamon roll.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that type of character, I just don’t think I’d actually be that interested in it.

My old main did receive a small backstory makeover, name alteration and a fantasia to a female avatar, though essentially the character herself is more or less as she was. Considering I would have otherwise retired the character I don’t consider it as big of a change. However, the character Pelhi used to be was a lot more femme and saucy - those traits got passed onto Etienne.

Currently, I have no interests or plans to do anything other than stay the course with my characters. All changes will probably come about organically. However, it’s hard to say what the future might bring. I just really love everyone as they are right now.

Thanks for the ask, @renofmanyalts !

#asks #ooc #ren-roelanberry

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caltropspress · 4 years ago

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RAPS + CRAFTS #3: Alaska

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

Hi my name is Tim. I am a rapper. You might know me as Alaska, but chances are you do not know me at all. I have been making rap music since the mid-1990s. I was part of a collective called Atoms Family and a group within Atoms named Hangar 18. In 2004 Hangar 18 was signed to the Definitive Jux label. We dropped two albums. One which was good and one which was meh. After the label and group fell apart I started a weird career as a solo rapper who teams up with different producers to form different groups (Crack Epidemic, Words Hurt). The most recent group is named Cargo Cults which is myself and Zilla Rocca. We dropped Nihilist Millennial approx. one year ago. I am currently working on a few projects including the follow up to Nihilist Millennial.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I am a husband and a father. I have a full-time job and I am currently enrolled in a Master’s program at NYU. I write whenever I have a spare moment. I usually write in the morning, it is when my mind is most clear and I can give the job the most attention. I have found that I am also the most creative at this time. I am usually writing with a project in mind. As I mentioned earlier I tend to work on projects with one producer. Usually they will give me a gang of beats. I will sit with them and start to write to them. I usually write 4-8 bars every morning. Which means I am usually writing a song a week. Typically I have an idea of what I want to say. I find that the words are always pouring out, but I end up throwing a lot of them out. At this point in my career I know when something is right. It is only at that point that I move on to the next line.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

I write on my phone. Sometimes I will write in my head but it always ends up on the phone because I am old and my memory is shot.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

I usually write in bars. Sometimes when I am just listening to music, cooking or doing something else a line will pop into my head and I will jot it down in my phone as something to use later. Most times those ideas get tossed.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

It depends. I have scrapped entire albums before because they did not work. Usually it is anywhere from a half a verse to a half of a song. I usually take that material and put it into a running file of ideas to potentially reuse. However, if I do not reuse the idea by the time the album is done I throw them out. I have found that sometimes you have to just let it go. Once everything is precious you can get stuck.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

I used to write for a few music websites including one that I founded called SYFFAL (shut your fucking face and listen). I have also attempted to start a book on a few occasions detailing my career as a failed musician. I do not know if this helped my writing, but I find that the more I write the more ideas I have.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I am editing throughout the entire process. By the time I get to the end of a song I usually have anywhere from 16 to 40 bars of material that did not make the song. This material ends up in the list I mentioned earlier. I tend to take whatever time is needed. Sometimes songs come together in a few hours, sometimes it takes a month to get through a verse. I view writing a song to be like working on a puzzle. You can force the wrong piece into a spot, but in the end the puzzle is not going to work. You just have to wait until you find the right piece. You know it when you find it. It clicks right in.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

When I am working on a project I write to beats. I want to make sure that the words and the flow match the soundscape. When I come up with random lines more often than not they are not written to a beat. If I end up incorporating it into a song I usually have to make edits so that it lands in the pocket.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

I usually have ideas of what I want to discuss going into a project. Once the project starts I usually let the beat pick what the topic is going to be. A lot of what I am writing is just me trying to figure out the world around me or a reflection of the inputs. For example, with the Rammellzee song. There was an exhibit of his work at Red Bull Music like two summers ago, I used to go to it all the time on my lunch break. So spending all of that time around his work, and watching the videos of him discussing his philosophy about art is what inspired that song. I added a line at the end about being someone who dons the mask, meaning the mask of Rammellzee. I thought of this idea about doing art for the sake of purity of one’s soul, which is what I always felt Ram was doing and it is what I wanted to do. I would never put myself on the same level as a god like Ram, but at the same time I was writing this song, I was watching all of these Star Wars YouTube channels and there was an episode about this Boba Fett story line. The story followed his armor as it was sold from one person to the next. I liked that idea and how it connected with Rammellzee’s obsession with armor and wanted to incorporate it into the song.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I do enjoy it but I am not really concerned with it. I used to be obsessed with it, but I realized that was just to cover up the fact that I didn’t have much to say. I started looking at artists like Andre 3000, who can do all of the technical stuff better than everyone else, but he no longer needs to. He is more concerned with what he is saying and the ideas. He still drops some flex in here and there to remind you what he can do, but ultimately he is serving the song and the vision. That is how I approach it now as well. I am more interested in making a good song than I am in showing people how clever I am.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

I really like “All Power to All People” from the Cargo Cults album. At the time when I wrote it there was so much chaos, it was shortly after Trump won, so the trolls and racist assholes were on full display and the resistance grift was at full force. There was a lot of blaming social media, free speech, and shutting down ideas. A lot of hand wringing about how it was the worst time in American history. I wanted to address those ideas head on because they are so wrong. I wanted to show how important maintaining these values is. I wanted to show all of the ways that the things that we were suddenly vilifying because they brought us temporary discomfort were essential to freedom and giving voice to the voiceless. I also wanted to examine how silencing ideas gives them more power. Moralists never seem to learn this. Once you let an asshole like Milo or Richard Spencer say what moronic bullshit they have to say they are exposed for the shithead idiots that they are. They become powerless. When you give them the power of your fear they win. They want the spectacle because the spectacle is all they have to offer. You do not defeat bad ideas by shutting them out, you defeat them by exposing them as bad ideas.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

There is a bar on the title track from the Words Hurt album Soul Music for the Soulless where I say “Watching stranger things and hanging upside down like Poppa Large”. It is a little line in a bigger song but it has been my favorite line for quite some time. I don’t really remember the origin of it, other than it has a few layers to it. Stranger Things has the mirror world called “the upside down” and in the video for the Ultramagnetic MCs song “Poppa Large,” Kool Keith spends a portion of the video hanging from his feet upside down. I don’t know why but it is still my favorite bar ever.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I punch in all the time. I have zero issue with it as long as you can perform it when you get on stage and the punch is not obvious. We are trying to make the best song we can. If that means a punch, so be it.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

I don’t spend much time with hip hop in general these days. I actively avoid it because I am writing so much. I find that when I am writing and listening I subconsciously bite what I am listening to. I tend to mostly listen to Jazz and podcasts. When I am seeking inspiration I will usually read.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

I used to when I was trying to impress others. After the second Hangar 18 album which was meh, I made a promise to myself to a. Only make music for myself, I don’t care if anyone else likes it as long as I do, and b. To only make music if I have something I want to say or if it is fun. From that point on I have had zero self-doubt because I was making exactly what I wanted to make and doing exactly what I wanted to do. There is a passage in this Carlos Castaneda book talking about self-doubt and how it is a self created and a construct of our ego. I think when you go into something without ego, even if it fails to achieve what you hoped, you can accept it for what it is and that allows you to be present and enjoy what you are doing.

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Shit, so many. Woods, Castro, Zilla, Alex Ludavico, Theravada, Blueprint, Moses Rockwell, it goes on and on. It is why I don’t listen to rap that much anymore. I mean I check it when it drops but I no longer obsess over it because too often it leaks into whatever I am working on.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

Outside of making myself happy there is no agenda or concern.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

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