#is this prose or poetry? idk! is it long and rambling? absolutely.

[gale-force-storm]

He refuses to fall for the first person to show him kindness. He may be feeling sorry for himself, but that's a bridge too far.

Even if they are beautiful. And kind to everyone, not just him. And brave. And clever. And strong. And they love animals, and reading. And they have a wry sense of humour that he adores.

He won't. He can't. Besides all else, this is decidedly not the time. A bomb in his chest and a worm in his head and a weight on his shoulders and a shame in his stomach and a shattered heart he's still trying to gather the pieces of. Desperately clinging to the cloak of his past, wrapping himself in his former confidence, pretending it hasn't been worn threadbare with time in isolation and eaten ragged by the moths of doubt and fear and past mistakes.

He fell from grace so far so fast, but he cannot beg affection off the first hand to offer him help up, even if it is the first time he's touched another person in months. Even if that hand did send a sudden warmth through him and feel so right in his own he could almost cry from it.

...This is getting out of hand.

He can just be friendly with them, surely. How does one make friends, again? Shared interests? He mostly just has the one, so he'll share what he can. They pick it up quickly, and the warm magic that surrounds them is a balm on his soul. Right up until they imagine kissing him, and his heart skips a beat. It can't be. It can't be. They can't want him back. It's not possible. And how, after it all, after everything, is he meant to resist the overwhelming temptation of being wanted?

They don't let up, either. Lingering glances. Warm smiles. All but propositioning him at the tiefling party. If there is a single positive thing to be said about his year of orb-imposed abstinence, it's that the willpower he had to build up and the practice denying himself were the only things that enabled him to decline their advances.

Well, that and the risk of blowing up the both of them, along with everyone else in or near the camp.

The warm smiles and lingering gazes and casual touches still continue, though.

This is fine. He's fine. He can't remember the last time he felt like this, someone cared for him like this, and he can't do a damn thing about it, but he's fine. Everything is fine. As fine as it can be, anyways, given everything else about the situation.

He supposes he should probably be more upset about Mystra's orders. At this point, though, it's hard to feel like it's anything besides a way out. A relief that he can be good for something. One more miserable experience, and then he's done with it, and all their problems are solved. There are worse things.

Except.

They're so angry about it. Everyone is, but them especially. Arguing with both him and Elminster the entire time, insisting there's another option. That they'll find or make one. Whatever they have to do to keep him around.

Gods help him, but he does want to stay with them. Stay for them.

He sleeps that night, and awakens with a jolt, a groan, and a realization. He's glad that prestidigitation exists to clean himself up without leaving his tent and risking the others' notice. His body had, apparently, caught up with certain implications before his brain. Though from what snippets of his dream he remembers, maybe it was only his waking mind that had been lagging behind.

He wants them, and he can finally have them. Can give them as much of himself as he's able, in the time he has left.

He had refused, at first, the idea of falling for the first person to show him kindness. And he hasn't. He's fallen for someone who is so much more that that. And he will not, cannot, die without letting them know. If he has to leave them, and he fears he will, then he will not leave them feeling unappreciated, or uncherished, or unloved. Not when he can finally embrace the full depth and breadth of what he feels for them. Has felt for them for what can't have been more than a tenday or two, but feels like a lifetime and a moment all at once.

He will not leave without showing them the full scope of his admiration and appreciation and sheer joy at their presence. The full scope of how impossibly deeply he already loves them. Not while he has any say in it.

[aurltas]

author interview tag (!)

aaAAAA ty to @backcountry-deltora for tagging me!!! much loveee <333 i haven’t been looped into a tag game for so so long and this is making me feel 10000% better about the fact that i have not written a single fic related thing in MONTHS o)-( but i love to talk about writing and myself so here we go,,

Name: i went by crystal silvera on ffn and here for the longest time so a lot of ppl know me as crystal but my Real(TM) name is dani and my ao3 name is auritas so like take ur pick haha

Fandoms: currently in mxtx hell (im a mdzs main, to the shock of no one) but my og fandoms that i am still very much attached to are deltora quest (the OG og), young wizards, the raven cycle, and yuri on ice

Where you post: ao3 alllll the way babey (but i originated from ffn and still have some stuff up there.......it’s Not Good tho)

Most popular one-shot: oh boy i knew this was gonna be a popular one bc i only wrote like?? rambly reflective thematic pieces(?) before this, my First Attempt At Fluff lmao. even then, But we’re alive (because we bleed) still exceeded my expectations by far in terms of reception, probs bc mdzs was such an up and coming fandom at the time and i posted it right on the crest of that cql wave

Most popular multi-chapter fic: obviously where the light goes, also known as my beloved CHILD !!!! i don’t write multichaps anymore but this is 2 long ass chapters so ig that’s Technically a multichap haha,,, yeah i knew this one was gonna be popular for the same reasons as the previous one + the very intentional tipping of the scale i did here with the balance of fluff and other things. like this is just pure distilled sugar it’s so so fluffy

Favourite story you’ve written so far: oh mannnn i gotta say where the light goes. especially that first chapter, just,, damn. what was i ON ?? its so good!! what the heck!!! quite proud of my metaphor work there, even if balancing prose/poetry feel is very stilted at times . in terms of that balance i think i did a Really good job with and neither did the both of us bc i went back and reread where the light goes for inspiration and i was like “oh god this is DROWNING in metaphors i need to lighten it up a little”

Fic you were nervous to post: i was nervous about where the light goes bc i had such high expectations going in, like i Knew people were craving what i had but i was like, did i do it right?? will this be my breakthrough in the mdzs fandom??? and it sort of was and sort of wasn’t, which,, fair. also SUPER nervous for astriferous bc i had written it all in like, one (1) day and it was for an exchange LMFAOOO (and you can really tell it was all written in one go......it was only when i hit the end that it got Good)

How you choose your titles: when i write fic i’m often scrapbooking a TON of different things together so titles are often just whatever it is i’m already drawing from. there are a few exceptions, like here, then, begins the mending, or and i need nothing more where a phrase popped into my head during the writing/drafting/brainstorming process and i was like OH THAT’S REALLY GOOD. TITLE IT IS

Do you outline?: usually only if it’s plot-driven, like my (incomplete for . Reasons) (ok i was being pestered bc i took it as a prompt and my promptee was. hm) YW multichap equilibrium, for which i outlined EVERYTHING. it was so annoying but i also lowkey liked it because these were MY messy outline notes and i could go as ham as i’d like

Complete: everything that’s posted !! except equilibrium ofc . that’s gonna stay where it is unless by some miracle of nature i get my momentum back for it

In progress: i am working on another jaslief oneshot!!! and for my mdzs folks i have been working on a rly long lesbian songxiao oneshot for a Very long time and it’s . mwah (i showed it to one of my friends and she lost her mind so i think i can say that with confidence)

Coming soon: probably nothing until i’m released from ochem/thesis hell hahahahahahahaaa but if anything were to come out this year it would be the songxiao most likely !

Do you accept prompts?: not after what happened last time !!!! ;o; until i’m done with school altogether, i really need writing to remain something For Me

Upcoming story you’re the most excited to write?: i wanna finish my jaslief SOOOO bad oh my god . i put in so much self-indulgence in there and used what i learned from where the light goes to make it REALLY good n thematic. like don’t get me wrong i am also so excited for my songxiao but i wrote it with some uhhhhh Influence from things i was going through irl and it feels weighty now?? idk i’ll work it out eventually,, i’ve also had oubing fic brewing in my head for literally a year and i REALLY wanna write some pynch in the barns/cabeswater content. let me write about dreamthings and nATURE

Upcoming story you’re most excited about?: bold of u to assume i read multichapters anymore HAHAHA i rotate through the same library of 100 one-shots i have bookmarked now......but back when i did read multichaps i was REALLY into the work of iruutciv + orchids_and_fictional_cities team from yoi, they were absolute LEGENDS and their fic and miles to go before i sleep changed me as a person lmao (i also did read part of their ongoing but monsters are always hungry, darling and i’m actually still in their discord for it but it is SO so intricately crafted and i fell out of the loop and didn’t rly get back in) . currently i follow megafaunatic aka etymologyplayground’s work the most closely for my mxtx fix (my fav from them currently is probably you, asleep and dreaming)

tagging: @lenawin4 and uhhhhhhh anyone else who feels like doing this?? for my life i cannot recall any other writers off the top of my head rn o)-(

[karamazovdmitri]

Ok so I know you love Dostoevsky but do you have any tips on how to read his books and just russian lit in general? I'm really interested but I feel like his or Tolstoy's or Turgenev's,etc. books might be very dense and complex and hard to understand and not relatable because they were written a while ago idk I'm just afraid I'm not gonna get them and enjoy them because of their complexity. Do you have any suggestions of where to start?

 ooooh boy ALRIGHT sorry i took so long to reply to that schools a binchso uh first of all im so glad the ruslit love is spreading! and alright yeah ok lets get right down to it, i’ll focus on dosto for now and yes his books seem complex and and i wont lie that they are, but theyre not necessarily complex in their writing or their prose, its in what it holds. like its hard to explain but its just. so packed with everything.i feel that theres not one way to “get” the books. though i see what you mean because i often say i dont “get” poetry, but i think that even if you dont unveil the secret of his books or something, its still such a good read. we did that in lit class with crime and punishment, kinda just like tryna unveil the mysteries of it and... you cannot just do it like that, you can get closer to it but like... i guess its kinda like that saying that says destination isnt as important as the journey. as for them not being relatable i got GREAT NEWS FOR YOU, the brothers karamazov was probably the most relatable book ive read in my whole life. like i know because its Classic Lit™ and all, it might feel distant and foreign and like its well, not relatable, but once you dive into it the characters are the same you’d find in other books, theyre all painfully human. like if you take evgeny bazarov from turgenev’s fathers and sons, sure hes that like complex nihilistic character but also hes a bitchass med student like you’d find in any university i swear alright, like... god i feel like i cant express my thoughts coherently but what i mean is even if the prose in itself seems complicated (once you dive into it, its really not that bad honestly?? to be fair i havent read tolstoy yet -yeah what a bad ruslit hoe i make- but dostoevsky, while not the simplest in appearance actually just boils down to feelings nd shit. like you’ll just FEEL it. and yeah for me it has made me reflect a lot on who i am as a person and who i want to be, but as you probs have guessed i do take ruslit quite to heart... maybe thats the secret to enjoying it so much? idk? like im not tryna read for 5 layers deep interpretation, i guess as i said... you just somehow feel it. AS for suggestions... if you want to go with dosto, my first read by him was personally crime & punishment, which i feel is a good start?? its always the one i rec because its part of the holy dosto trinity (aka C&P, the bros karamazov and the idiot) but i think its the most accessible one. like it has a clear plot, raskolnikovs character is complex but not inaccessible and the main ideas that want to be communicated are clear cut, more than in the huge rambles that you’d find in the brothers karamazov. i mean like i dont wanna spoil shit but like unless the brothers karamazov, when i read C&P i didnt find myself putting the book down every now and then to just. breathe and think about shit (i did however had to put it down to yell about razumikhin but thats just me)for other ruslit i kinda just like. go with whatever. i read fathers and sons because i saw it in the bookstore and just. bought it lmao and honestly since its like significantly shorter than one of the dosto bricks™ that might also be a good place to start. honestly i dont think theres like one Good Place to start but if youre 0 familiar with the russian culture and history and stuff, like dont start with the brothers karamazov (if you ask me, just dont start with TBK because its dostos best book and like you gotta gradually make your way to it, just keep raising the expectations higher and higher) (can yall believe right before i started reading tbk i was like “man can this really top C&P?” LMFAO) but anyway yeah, russian lit however is a good way to familiarize yourself with like Russia™ as a concept, and the russian soul, decent slav sadness and all that sweet stuff so just start with something and then the more you’ll read the more you’ll get what i mean by that russkaya dusha thinganyway uhhh youre probs fuckin tired of reading by here hopefully i was of any help??? basically dont be afraid anon, academics really like to brand classic rus lit as like some kind of extremely fancy and complex shit, and like its complex but not in the way you think. its complex because its depictions of the human soul so theres a lot packed in that. but even if you couldnt care less about like the soul and shit, theyre absolutely amazing psychology-wise. so yknow just pick up a book and go for it!! if it makes you more comfy, start with a short one! it can be fathers and sons, it can be even shorter and be Notes from underground (this ones kinda hardcore though, i gotta say) can be death of ivan illyich, could be a play by Chekhov like honestly... theres so much to choose from, treat yoself(also i want to thank you for that ask i feel like??? so honoured to be considered some kind of reference when it comes to russian lit, truly warms my heart and dont hesitate to come ask for more info bc i know this is kind of just a huge dump of whatever)