#it accidentally did become a little snippet/outline

[schrijverr]

I love your AUs! What about an AU where a nurse transfers to Maddie’s hospital from El Paso and when Maddie mentions the postcards from her brother Evan/shows a pic of him etc the transfer nurse remembers Buck and Chris from hospital appointments/surgeries.

Ahw thank you! And that's a very fun idea. I don't think I'm going to write it, since I already have so many other ideas and Maddie is just not one of my fave characters, but I can instantly picture that going down.

Like you're Maddie, her life is kind of shit, but she has these cards that are a pick me up. She has a new co-worker, they're nice enough, the two get along. She doesn't feel fully safe at work, but it's the best place she can be and she feels comfortable chatting there with her coworkers. So, she's just gotten a card from her brother and that puts her into a better mood than usual. Her new coworker asks Maddie about it and she tells them that she got a card from a brother in El Paso.

"El Paso? the new nurse says, "Hey, I'm from El Paso. What a co-incidence."

Maddie is now on high alert. She hasn't been responding to Evan, feeling too guilty for sending him out there alone, too unsafe to respond and she doesn't have anything positive to say and she doesn't want to worry him or pull him back towards Hershey when he has just escaped. But this person is from the town he's in. They probably won't know him, but they know the town he is, so she curiously goes: "Oh wow, what's it like there? I mean, I would say you know my brother, since he's a magnet trouble, but I don't think he's been in the hospital recently."

"I mean, you never know. Do you have a picture?" the new nurse says, wanting to befriend Maddie and integrate into the work place more (I mean, new city, little friends, demanding job).

And Maddie does and new nurse has to be surprised and go: "Oh, Evan!" and then proceeds to tell Maddie all about how good of a parent he is and how much him and his husband always spend time with their kid. How sweet her nephew is.

Only for Maddie to just explode and have an existential in the middle of the work day, while the new nurse just stands there awkwardly.

Maddie now had a plane ticket to go yell at her brother. This is important enough to break free about, she has a nephew to babysit.

[pauls1967moustache]

Hellooo!!! Could we have your dvd commentary on this snippet from my beloved ‘tomorrow I’ll miss you’ please?! (even though you already did such a good job at showing their feelings)

"You know, he didn't want me to come today," Paul tells him. He says it as a joke—to demonstrate the state of George's protective paranoia—but John doesn't laugh. A perplexed, little frown creases between his brows, instead.

"What do you mean?"

Paul feels embarrassed for a moment, his cheeks warming starkly against the cool autumn air around them. He's realises it might have sounded like a bigger deal than it really is, what with John going all serious on him.

"George thinks it's this whole thing like—" he stutters out, trying not to go too obviously red. He takes a breath, focusing on the burning end of his cigarette instead of John. "Well, he has this daft idea in his head like it's going to be Hamburg all over again or summat, you know. Like we're going to become best mates in an afternoon, and then you'll disappear, and he'll have to deal with me."

It's not exactly what George said, but Paul can tell it was what he meant.

Do you want me to come with you? George asked him, in that same conversation about the book event.

I dunno if I'm going, yet. I'll probably have to work, anyway, but if you want to see him you should go, Paul had told him.

And then George said: I'll go if you wanna go—his voice all gentle, like he was trying to reassure Paul of something.

George always fucking did that—talked about John like he was only ever Paul's friend. It frustrates Paul. Makes him feel embarrassed for bringing John up in conversation, when it isn't that he's desperate to talk about John, or whatever George seems to think. John's a thing they share. Paul brings him up because he figures George might like to talk about him, too, from time to time. But then George always turns sarcastic, or wary, and it ruins the mood of whatever story Paul wanted to reminisce about in the first place.

And really, Paul doesn't always want to deal with it; so he didn't say anything else about the book event, and he didn't say anything this morning, when he decided he was going to go.

"Why would he have to deal with you?" John asks, his voice even enough that Paul figures he—thankfully—hasn't noticed Paul's unplanned embarrassment about his flub.

"I don't know," Paul shrugs, taking another drag of his smoke. "He's not my bloody keeper."

He notices John watching him carefully, out of the corner of his eye. He holds out the cigarette in offering, not sure what it is John expects.

For the DVD commentary game

Ooh, I actually have lots to say about this one! For starters, when I was outlining this fic I was very precise about the reveal of information. I knew this scene was going to be the reveal of their relationships: first Paul's wife, then John's lover, then what happened in Hamburg with each other.

But I didn't originally have an introduction to that yet, they just went straight into talking about Paul's wife. I wanted it to be a bit more fo a shock than that though, and I didn't feel like the fic had addressed George enough up to that point (something I felt like John would've asked about, but didn't fit in anywhere else). So I wrote that they start by talking about George, and once Paul accidentally hints that maybe what happened in Hamburg had more of a significant effect on him than John believes, John gets curious/desperate enough to bring up the wife Paul hasn't mentioned at all.

The other thing is that later on in the fic, we learn just how devastated Paul actually was by what happened after Hamburg when we get that flashback to Paul crying when he realises that John's genuinely never coming back, and George finds him. This is like one of the first scenes I had for the fic, and again - I planned this very precisely - so I couldn't really get into just how upset he was yet, because it's going to come up later. I could only hint at it.

The good thing about this fic is that Paul is the denial king, so his POV is tailor-made for that kind of unreliable narrator nonsense. Paul never really acknowledges his feelings, but I could give an idea that they were there by using George's protectiveness. Paul says George had to deal with him, but we don't yet know what that really means.

And then, bringing George into it created this whole backstory of George as the one who had to put Paul back together after the heartbreak John caused him. Like, my brain went into detail about this. There's a whole mini-fic of George's post-Hamburg POV in my head. So George knows what seeing John again will mean to Paul, and he is rightfully concerned about how that will turn out given that from his POV John ditched them both and then Paul was so devastated he almost quit music entirely.

George kind of doesn't like John anymore because of this, which is why he doesn't join in on Paul's John stories the way Paul likes. But Paul doesn't like to feel judged, so naturally, he doesn't want to actually be honest about his desire to see John - even if George sees right through it. George is trying to leave space for Paul to be vulnerable about all the John-related feelings this is surely bringing up to the surface and Paul is going, no thanks! because he knows George won't approve, (and he just doesn't like talking about his feelings).

John is obviously not aware of any of this and is just trying to figure out what the fuck he'll have to deal with me is supposed to mean.

[myhusbandsasemni]

Returning Home

A Pinterest practice snippet (I picked three images and made a story out of them)

WC:564

......................

The sun was setting between the two cliffs in front of Vex. The feline man glared at the sun, putting a paw up to block the light so he could see if the bridge between the cliffs was still standing. It would still be another hour before he climbed up to the bridge and crossed it to reach the fairly hidden community built into the south cliff. Vex hissed to himself and flicked his tail, pulling his backpack higher on his shoulders and continued on, carefully navigating the slowly darkening road. He knew he should have left the last tavern sooner so he could get home before the sun set, but he just had to have that one last drink. 

Vex heard the soft sound of small hooves coming up the road behind him and turned to see a fawn centaur coming up behind him. 

“Vex!” the spotted centaur smiled, his large ears flicking. He wasn’t a very tall Centaur. He was about the same height as Vex and Vex was about a half foot shorter than a normal human. 

“Evan,” Vex said with a nod, moving to the side gracefully so the centaur could join him comfortably on the path. “What are you doing out here so late? You didn’t develop night vision while I was away, did you?”

Evan snorted, putting his hands in his trench coat pockets. “No way, man. I just misjudged how long it would take me to make some deals with the dwarves over on the ridge. I accidentally asked about one of their pillars and it took some serious work on my part to get away without offending them.”

Vex chuckled at that. “Sounds about right. You should probably stick with me for the rest of the trip then. Don’t want you getting lost on the way back. Your aunt would have my fur for a pair of mittens if anything happened to you on my watch.”

“I can take care of myself,” Evan said, slightly offended. “I’m not the little fainter I was back when we were children. But if I remember correctly, you were a bit of a scaredy cat yourself.”

If a human had said that to Vex, he would have considered getting offended, but since this was his best friend since childhood, he let it slide everytime.

“So,” Evan said with a smile, the last of the sunlight glinting in his piercings. “What have you been up to? It looks like you’ve been making some deals yourself to get that fancy new cloak of yours.”

Vex nodded, brushing a hand along the enchanted symbols on the cloth. “I supposed so. I managed to help an enchantress with a little problem she was having while I was selling my charms and she made this for me.”

“Ooooh!” Evan said, elbowing Vex. “And Enchantress?”

Vex rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”

Evan laughed, his pace becoming slower as he was starting to have a harder time seeing the road in the coming darkness. Vex smiled and put his tail over Evan’s back to help guide him as Evan began outlining the deals he made with the dwarves and Vex shared stories of the strange and wonderful people he had met on his wanderings, though, as always, Vex was glad when he got home with Evan and sat down to a warm meal and good drink.

Random Tag list Let me know if you want to be added

@thethistlegirl @merigreenleaf @doubi-ixi @oshi2413 @thepotatowriter

[strawstories]

WIP intro: The Severin Conspiracy (a working title)

GENRE: mystery, romance

POV: first person, past tense

SETTING: a fictional city, inspired by fashion & architecture of different time periods but mostly by the Victorian era

STATUS: planning & outlining

TROPES/THEMES: lgbt+, enemies to lovers, a shit ton of denial, pining, conspiracy, murder, noble families, political/arranged marriage, end of a royal bloodline, a secret order

Summary:

Caius Wellington is an accidental witness to the murder of Queen Amandalyn, the last member of the royal family. There are several problems with this. Problem number one: Cai may have gotten a little too drunk and he may have been making out with his long-time rival Blaine Velmont in the Queen’s closet at the time of murder. Problem number two: Cai recognizes the Queen’s killer as one of her very own advisors. Problem number three: Caius and Blaine are the only ones who know that the Queen’s death was a murder. And problem number four: Blaine Velmont is supposed to marry Octavia Wellington, Cai’s sister, in only a few months.

While the people grow increasingly more nervous without an official heir to the throne, Caius is forced to work with Blaine to figure out how to expose the truth about the Queen’s death without ruining their families’ reputation beyond repair. And then the real trouble starts when they discover that there is more to the murder than they thought: a group whose members had worked their way into the highest positions at the palace, calling themselves The Order of Severin, is conspiring to take the throne for themselves.

Can Caius and Blaine uncover The Order’s secrets and find a way to expose the conspiracy before it’s too late?

The main trio:

Caius Wellington: 19 years old, disaster gay, son of one of the Queen’s advisors, tired of all of the fancy people stuff, very good at making bad decisions

Blaine Velmont: 19 years old, he’s functioning but like barely, also the son of one of the Queen’s advisors, fancy people stuff is what he excels at, very good at ignoring his problems

Octavia Wellington: 18 years old, just a disaster, Cai’s sister, goes by Avy because she thinks Octavia sounds way too fancy, didn’t sign up to becoming Blaine’s fiancée but somehow that’s exactly what happened

Excerpt:

(this is unedited and just a snippet of a scene I quickly wrote down before I forgot it again - the final version might be different)

When Maria left the room to go fetch the florist, Blaine grabbed me by the arm and quickly glanced over at Avy.

“If you would excuse us, Miss Wellington, I'll have to borrow your brother for a moment.”

Avy looked as concerned as I felt, but she did not comment on the strangeness of Blaine Velmont wanting to talk to me, of all people.

“You know, you're going to have to start addressing me by my first name at some point, right?”, she murmured instead, but Blaine had already dragged me out of the door and into the long hallway of the Wellington residence.

I stared at the door as if it had personally betrayed me when it closed behind us and left us standing alone in the hallway. Blaine was still holding onto my arm.

“We need to talk”, he said now, inspecting the doors around us, “is there anywhere we will not be disturbed?”

I blinked at him. “If you would be so kind as to tell me what this is about first?”

I had an idea what this could be about. I didn't want to think about it. But Blaine just let out an annoyed sigh and said exactly what I was afraid he would say: “I think you know what this is about, Wellington.”

[golden-ariess]

° Next Move °

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Pairings: Stalker!Artist Steve

Based of this request: Aaahhhh!!! For “his muse” I’ve been thinking about Steve taking pics of her and recreating them through painting and eventually they get together and he shows her (but doesn’t let her know that he’d been watching her before) and she loves them and he thinks he did the right thing and solidifies his delusions

A/n: I’m finally writing for our favorite artist again. I loved this request and I’m already writing the outline for part two. I hope y'all enjoy this and it’s not a shit show!

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Art intimidates life.

That was a statement every artist had chiseled into their heads the same way Greek Goddesses and gods were sculpted thousands of years ago.

Art intimidates life. But not for Steve. Countless sketches of you, many more of you and him together. And this statement wasn’t true for him. He didn’t have you yet.

No number of pictures or brush strokes on a canvas of you and your beautiful body would appease him. If he wanted a conventional relationship with you, he was far past the point of that.

Being this patient. Waiting until the right time had been nothing but agony, but he would do it again just to be this close. He was ready. He studied you. He knew everything about you. He could write a thesis based on you.

He’d suffered for his art too long. He had to have you. You had to see his admiration for you in his work. You were his Muse. The person who brought the fire he once felt for art back into his soul.

You had to see. You had to know.

So he works on just that. He takes more photos of you. Some photos of you doing everyday mundane things and some of you in private intimate moments shared between you and Steve, of course. If only you knew. Steve thinks you look beautiful when you meet the height of pure euphoria. The glow you have after an orgasm is beautiful.

He couldn’t wait until he was with you up close. And know he’s the reason behind it. He made a mental note to sketch you out. He often thought he had obsessive tendencies when it came to the number of snippets he had of you. But he needed to see you at all angles, taking you in as much as he could.

His camera didn’t bring you a drop of justice. He stops by your apartment when you’re gone to work just to bask and lay in your sheets. He has the picture of you cumming in his hand as he stroked himself.

The small mics he placed behind your head board are slightly muffled. But it’s enough for his cock to slap against his stomach as he began stroking himself.

He replays the moment you cum repeatedly until he’s close.

Your little whimpers and huffs made him want to barge into your room and have you now. It’s when you moan deep and low; He cums with a roar of your name on his lips. He rolls over to your side of the bed, breathing in the smell of you on your pillow. He takes a new pair of panties that day. The ones you wore before you came.

He goes home that night and paints. For the first time in a year, he paints again. It’s nearly dawn before he’s finished. His trip to your apartment sparked something inside of him. He went back to his studio, grabbed his different media and painted and brushes and lost himself in you.

As he stroked the canvas with each move, he plotted. He knows how to get you, it just has to seem like an accidental meeting. Maybe he could run into you somewhere, strike up a conversation and invite you to an art show.

He didn’t want to reveal to you he was an artist. You would be sure to ask to see some of his work quickly. He would show you some of his meaningless work. Nothing he put his heart and soul into. Not the paintings and countless photos and drawings of you. Not yet. Not until he knows you’d accept him.

And when he does he instantly becomes hard at the image in front of him.

It’s you tangled in the sheets. The covering is not doing much to cover your naked body. Your face was soft with a small smile on your lips, your eyes are heavy, just like the photos of you from the other day.

This is how he wanted you. Laid out in front of him, spent from hours of pure fucking. He wanted to run his hands over your body like a sculpture molding clay. He wanted nothing more than to feel you around him. Will you cum with his name falling from your lips?

He stared at the painting a little while longer. It was time to make a move. No more watching from the sidelines, only admiring you. If he wanted you, he had to go after you.

Steve felt crazy at first. Many artists went mad for their Muse. There is the point of making art to begin with. He didn’t want to lose his mind or himself. But how couldn’t he?

He wanted to be yours and you to be his.

He lost himself again in your photos. He was on high, he couldn’t come down. He jerked himself off as he thought about cumming on the painting. But he didn’t want to like this. The first time he would, he wanted to cum on you like a canvas.

Marking his territory on your body. Making you solely his.

He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on his scalp. He convinced himself that this was needed.

Nothing in his way. No distractions.

[darkbluestateofgrace]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (a Taylor Swift Jukebox Musical)

So @thefuckingstory was saying that she should “drop out of school and write TSHOEH the musical” and I coincidentally have had an unfinished version of this saved in my notes ap for almost a year since reading the book over the summer- so I figured I’d finish it up a bit more post it for your enjoyment.

Disclaimer: I am by no means a professional musical-outliner (obviously), and anyone please feel free to add on to this with your own ideas!

The Seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo (a loose outline for a Taylor Swift jukebox musical)

Like the book, this musical could be a frame tale- I’m thinking maybe it’s Monique narrating the story (As if she’s writing the memoir/telling the story to the world)- And  I figure that she could be singing snippets of the Lucky One in between major events to set the upcoming scenes - sort of like in Hamilton where the narrator Aaron Burr sings a refrain that outlines what’s about to happen.

So we start of with Monique telling us about how Evelyn is gonna rise to fame:

New to town with a made up name

In the Angels city chasing fortune and fame

And the camera flashes make it look like a dream

You had it figured out since you were in school

Everybody loves pretty everybody loves cool

So overnight you look like a sixties queen

I Did Something Bad- Evelyn Hugo- this song is literally her ANTHEM, and I think she could sing snippets of it and the chorus throughout this musical. I think we’d start with the first verse/chorus  as she marries/manipulates Ernie Diaz and they move to Hollywood (So I play ‘em like a violin, and I make it look oh so easy...) And then after getting what she wants she divorces him. (I don’t regret it one bit, ‘cause he had it coming)

Style- Evelyn Hugo/Don Adler as they’re coerced into their showmance/ Become the it couple of Hollywood/ fall in love and get married.

Gorgeous- Celia would sing this about how she/literally everyone feels looking at Evelyn  (touching my hand in a darkened room!! Foreshadowing to the Dancing With Our Hands Tied- esque scene later in the book!!) Also on pg 137 Celia says to Evelyn “You’re gorgeous” so basically this is canon.

And then after speaking interludes during this song, Evelyn finds out that Don is cheating on her, and that Celia is gay, this song culminates in them kissing in the laundry room.

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things- Evelyn Hugo finds out Don is cheating on her, and she  divorces him.  (Because you break them, I had to take them away).

Dons gets her blackballed. Harry and Celia comfort her/ she hangs out at Celia’s house (Here’s a toast to my real friends, they don’t care about the he said she said).

Delicate- Evelyn Hugo after she’s ended her marriage, has had her reputation ruined by Don Adler and is trying to figure out her feelings for Celia while hiding out in her apartment… (This song literally fits them perfectly!).

Dress-  Evelyn and Celia.

Evelyn stops ignoring her feelings for Celia… And they’re both like yeahhh I don’t want you like a best friend…

Call It What You Want- Evelyn Hugo. She’s been blackballed (My castle crumbled overnight), and is alone watching Celia win an Oscar and chips her tooth … And then Celia comes home just to be with her (They took the crown but it’s alright… ‘Cause my baby’s fit like a daydream, walking with her head down, I’m the one she’s walking to).

Look What You Made Me Do- Evelyn Hugo

Evelyn films that kind of seductive, racy scene in Boute En Train, and becomes a star again. She sings this about how Don Adler blackballing her couldn’t keep her from being a star. (I don’t like your little games, the role you made me play) (Honey I rose up from the dead I do it all the time)

Dancing with Our Hands Tied- Evelyn and Celia.

After the French movie comes out, Evelyn’s more famous than ever and she and Celia are dancing at the concert.. And they accidentally hold hands and then pull away… This is SO Kissgate I literally cannot handle it. This song fits them perfectly.  And then they argue about what to do because the press is spreading rumors about them (people started talking putting us through our paces)

Blank Space- Evelyn would sing this satirically as she manipulates Mick Riva and they fly off for the weekend and get drunk and then married (We’ll take this way to far) (I’ve got a Blank Space baby, and I’ll write your name).

I Did Something Bad (reprise)- Evelyn Hugo

A short reprise after Evelyn elopes with Mick Riva in Las Vegas (I fly ‘em all around the world, and I let them think they saved me) just to get rid of rumors about her and Celia. And then she manipulates him into divorcing her. (They never see it coming… What I do next…).

Don’t Blame Me (First Verse/Chorus)-Celia and Evelyn

Celia finds out Evelyn slept with Mick Riva and is pregnant. So Evelyn would sing the beginning of the song/first verse (Don’t blame me, love made me crazy/ I’ve been breaking hearts a long time and toying with them older guys/ just playthings for me to use). And Celia would be like You ain’t doing it right.

I feel like we need an angry Taylor breakup song for Celia to sing at this point. Maybe Should’ve Said No? Or Dear John even, idk. She’s PISSED.

Getaway Car- Evelyn

Evelyn isn’t willing to give up her fame for her relationship with Celia. Evelyn recounts the sacrifices she’s made for fame/stability in the past and how Celia should’ve expected this (Think about the place where you first met me… In a Getaway Car). And how their relationship was doomed from the start (The light of freedom on my face, but you weren’t thinking, and I was just drinking). During the course of the song Celia and Evelyn part ways and Evelyn marries Rex (I put the money in the bag and I stole the keys, that was the last time you ever saw me).

Then Evelyn starts fake dating/marries that another man I forget his name:

Now it’s big black cars, and riviera views

And your lover in the foyer doesn’t even know you

And your secrets end up splashed on the news front page.

And they tell you that you’re lucky but you’re so confused

‘Cause you don’t feel pretty

You just feel used

And all the young things line up to take your place

Don’t Blame Me (reprise) - Evelyn and Celia

When Celia and Evelyn reconcile at the bathroom of the Oscars… And they kiss in a pretty public place “because we both knew what we were willing to risk. Just to be together” (231)- which is so reminiscent of: Baby for you I would fall from Grace, just to touch your face, if you walk away, I’d beg you on my knees to stay.

I Know Places: Evelyn/Celia/Harry/John

All four of them enter their bearding situation. (I know places we won’t be found, and they’ll be chasing their tails trying to track us down... They take their shots but we’re bulletproof, and you know for me, it’s always you). 

Honestly New Romantics could fit here too a bit with the whole: We team up, then switch sides like a record changer.

White Horse- Celia

After Celia finds out about Evelyn’s sex scene with Don Adler, and she’s so sad and she can’t handle it and leaves. (I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairytale… I’m gonna find someone someday who might actually treat me well).

So skipping ahead a lot here, but the next Taylor song I think that really fits is How You Get the Girl- when Celia and Evelyn meet up again years later and Celia tells Evelyn she’s dying and Evelyn says she wants to be with her anyway… (I want you for worse or for better, i would wait for ever and ever, broke your heart I’ll put it back together).

Wildest Dreams- Celia and Evelyn  

After Harry dies, Celia, Evelyn and Evelyn’s daughter Conner move away to Spain. Evelyn knows Celia is terminally ill (nothing lasts forever), but they drive out of the city, away from the crowds and get married. Celia dies (red lips and rosy cheeks, say you’ll see me again even if it’s just in your wildest dreams) Fuck this book!

New Years day could work at the end of the musical as a reflective song about all the hardships they went through and how sad Evelyn is about Celia’s death.

Then Monique would narrate one last time, now grappling with her own fame having written this bestselling memoir about Evelyn Hugo, and dealing with trying to forgive Evelyn for what she did:

They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere,

Chose the rose garden over Madison Square,

And it took some time, but I understand it now...

‘Cause now my name is up in lights...

But I think you got it right...

If anyone actually read this whole thing you are amazing, and I’m sure we can all agree that is literally crazy how well Taylor’s discography fits in relation to this book... 

[tunafishprincess]

The Roads We Take Chapter 2

art by @brothebro, writing by @tunafishprincess

First Chapter

She is twenty-six when they move into their new home.

Well, perhaps not home. Not yet.

The shingles are haphazardly thrown around the uncut grass in clumps, whilst the door barely hangs on its hinges. The inside is worse. Dust blankets the living room and kitchen. Even the closed off bedroom (only one bed, she notes), has dust bunnies scattered amongst the mess of clothes and blankets someone left behind.

And left behind they did. Whoever the original owners are, they left most of their valuables. Claire knows why, or at least, she thinks so. Most of the houses, especially this close to Arcadia, are abandoned. Another symbol of her past deeds.

But it would make due. It has to.

They have nowhere else to go.

She suspects Toby pulled several strings to get them such a place. Most humans these days live in a post-war era of poverty and disease, all brought upon by the witch queen herself. Morgana is dead, but her story will live on for centuries, if not millennia. Trolls and humans would not soon forget such a woman, nor will they forget the face she wore.

The first month of cleaning and tidying up the place are a godsend. Every day she awoke to the sound of Jim working on the roof and every night she knocked out, bone-tired from cleaning and fixing up the little cottage. When they finish up the major repairs, she starts her own little garden. Nothing like her father’s, but it is a start.

It is soothing in the beginning. No thoughts, just work. Her and Jim largely ignore each other outside of pleasantries and small talk. She is fine. Everything is fine.

Until it isn’t.

Toby and Darci visited when they could but for the most part it is only her and Jim here, no neighbors for a hundred miles around. She looks forward to them, desperately so, because what else did she have to look forward to these days?

The snippets of information help feed her imagination of the world around them. Her lack of internet made any outside news exciting, even the most dull kind. What she would give to have a newspaper or magazine subscription. But alas.

The Nuñez household came every few months, but even that wasn’t enough. Her family has their own lives, she knows, what, with Enrique’s schooling, her mother’s work—it hurts, but she understands. Even though it feels like it was just yesterday she was a teenager, outwardly she is an adult. Ten years is a long time. They have moved on, changed and grown without her presence.

Enrique sends her letters at least.

Jim is…She isn’t sure what their relationship is these days. One moment they are on the couch together and the next he’s somewhere else, leaving her for hours, sometimes days at a time.

The tension could only go on for so long. Claire is bored. Reading is nice, but it doesn’t fill the void within her.

The days turn to weeks turn to months and she is starving for something, anything.

An itch she cannot scratch, no matter how much work she does around the house or in the garden. It is as though there is a hole inside her chest, expanding with every breath.

Emptiness. Morgana hollowed her out, leaving her scrambling for purchase in this strange new world of familiar and not. No one could ever understand. Not really. She watched every atrocity the sorceress committed, like a figure behind a thick wall of glass. No matter how hard she screamed, no one could hear her.

Ten years is a lot to comb through. She knows she’s screwed up, mentally, emotionally, physically—take your pick. Morgana twisted her soul, shifted her body to accommodate the creature she originally was.

The creature Claire now is.

Humans didn’t levitate in their sleep.

Humans didn’t break glass without touching it.

The magic ebbs and flows, changing at the slightest change in her mood. No wonder Toby put her here. Society is better without her causing anymore havoc than she already does.

Still, the tightness within her builds.

She misses human contact—any contact. Stranded in the woods without much entertainment begins to suffocate her. Unlike the hospital she has nothing to distract her from her thoughts. Jim tries to help, but he isn’t much better. The sweet boy she remembers is a man now, strange and alluring; yet no matter what she does, he is always out of her reach.

It all comes to ahead one night, when Jim comes home much later than normal. She waits at the door for him to return, a bundle of emotions ready to erupt.

And how could they not? Look at me, she thinks. What a dutiful little wife she has become. Her sixteen-year-old self would be horrified at what she is now. No job, no education past tenth grade, no social life—it is a heavy blow to her self-esteem. All her dreams are dashed now, all because she didn’t seek help.

Dios mio, if only she sought out her friends before this entire mess. Even now she can recall the confusion, of how she kept forgetting things, of the endless cold that ate at her being. The cracks that wouldn’t go away. So many signs. And she was too stubborn to see them.

The door creaked open. Jim’s head lowered beneath the frame, horns lightly scrapping the top.

Her breath hitches. It is not so much the size that surprises her, but the power behind it. The thin beanpole boy that barely topped five and a half feet now towers over her, his entire body corded muscle, with impossibly large shoulders that tapered into a trim waist. No, trim didn’t cut it. Even with his shirt on she could see the outline of his abs and chest.

Could probably bounce a quarter of it, she reflects, cheeks growing rosy at the thought.

No. Almost immediately she reins herself in. Her fists clench. She is supposed to be angry. Jim is late. No, more than late, he was missing.

She knows he can sense her in the darkness, if not outright see her. The red of his eyes glow ominously. The scent of pennies is heavy in the room. As he heads for the kitchen, Claire moves in front of him.

“Jim, wait.” She adds, “Please.”

He turns his head slightly, ears lowering. “Can this wait till morning, Claire?”

Absolutely not. By then he would have an excuse and they would be back where they started, skirting around each other like always. Claire pressed on, “Where were you?”

“Work.”

Claire’s lips tug downward. Work. She hates his work. She may be trapped here but he is trapped out there, forced to do the very things Morgana used to impose upon him. He is the government’s dog, all because of her.

“You could have told me,” she says, voice level. They were a team, right?

“There wasn’t enough time.”

“There’s never enough time, is there?” She sighs, leaning against the wall. She rubs her temples, trying to starve off the headache forming. It is one of the symptoms of her magic. As if she needs even more things wrong with her.

His shoulders raise. “What?”

She throws up her hands. “Every time. You disappear without ever telling me anything. I have to get the information from Toby, and even he’s tight lipped about it because of some stupid “security clearance”. Can’t you at least have the courtesy to leave me a message? Even a text would do.”

With every word that passed her lips the frustration builds. They are supposed to be together but if anything they are further apart than ever before.

“Claire—” He whispers.

Magic crackles around her; the furniture around her shakes.

She knows she’s overreacting. Nevertheless, she cannot stop the frustration growing within her. These last few months have left her in a constant state of unease. It is now or never.

“No, I’m not finished,” she snaps. “You can’t keep doing this.”

His eyes flicker away from her steady gaze. He looks extraordinarily uncomfortable, like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “Doing what?”

She groans, rubbing her forehead. Is he serious right now? “Vanishing without a trace. What if something happened here? How would I ever get a hold of you? What if something happened to you?”

“The government has security detail on the grounds,” he answers, scratching the scruff at the base of his neck. “Besides, if something did happen to me, you would be cared for.”

“Cared for?” She bites out. What is she, some sort of puppy? “Are you for real?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Everything!” She yells, louder than she wants to, but the bubble within her has burst. Her hands grow hot in response.

Instantly, a picture frame dislodges from the wall. Claire startles then turns her head at the sound. It is a move that costs her.

When she turns back, the door is open.

Her boyfriend is gone once more.

“Mother—” She bites down the rest of the curse.

Cold grips her chest, spreading out to her extremities. Her teeth chatter. The glass windows sing, alerting her of how bad it has gotten.

Damn it. Every time. Every time she accidentally uses her powers he disappears.

Finally, the window behind her shattered. Shuddering, she begins to do the breathing exercises Darci taught her. Count to ten: one, two, three, four, five…

It takes her longer than she would like to admit.

Still, she does it. The emotions are balled up tightly inside, the freezing chill in her blood warming into an uneasy coolness.

Part of her knows this is her fault. She is to blame for Jim’s reaction.

But another part of her disagrees. Didn’t he say he would stay with her always?

What she wouldn’t give for a break from all of this. This stupid reality where she hurt everyone and everything. Is this how it is going to be for the rest of her life?

Is this her destiny?

God. She hopes not. That is almost as bad as the ten years with Morgana. Having no one to talk to and the only one that does fears her using magic.

Tired hands make quick work of the mess. It gets her mind off the inevitable, though not for long.

An hour later, he returns. This time, Claire doesn’t give him the luxury of an excuse. She bores into him, finger pressing into his broad chest. Her other hand tugs on the braid she made for him this morning. It is almost comical, her, small and fragile and him, large and indestructible.

“You’re a coward,” she remarks coldly. “You can’t talk about it so you just ignore the problem.”

“Claire,” he says, still not looking at her. “Stop.”

“No, I’m not going to stop. You can’t keep pushing me away.” She drags him over across the room, his mane a makeshift leash. He complies, albeit reluctantly.

It is childish, yes, but nothing else appears to get to him.

“I’m not pushing you away,” he reaches out, tucking a stray bang behind her ear. Part of her softens, before remembering the prior conversation. She swats the hand away. “I’m keeping you safe.”

“Bullshit. Keeping me safe? You’re running away,” she accuses. To add salt to the wound, she adds, “No wonder Morgana won.”

Her eyes widen.

It is the wrong insult.

She regrets the words the moment they leave her mouth.

The man wearing Jim’s face steels. Claire drops the braid. The golden pupils, normally rounded, slits, more animal than human.

His hunched back straightens. The muscles in his shoulders stretch against the confines of his shirt.

The Morgana issue is always a sore one between them (and probably will be for a long time). A rush of shame brushes against her heart. Nevertheless, she faces him head on.

She knows she should be afraid. This is someone who fought for her, killed for her, held her—warmth pools between her legs. It is involuntary.

Now, Claire theoretically remembers how and what they did together, but the actual is far different than what she saw through Morgana’s eyes. Her eyes fall to his chest, which appears to be expanding as he stretches out to his full size.

Holy moly he’s big, she realizes.

“What did you say?” He asks, edging her closer to the wall.

Bravery (or foolhardiness, it is hard to tell) grips her. She crosses her arms. “You heard me.”

He leans closer. “You don’t know anything.”

Claire can’t help her cheeks from burning. Did he seriously just say that? Anger flares up once more. She gestures her forefinger at his face. “I was there. I know about everything, Jim. Morgana was me, remember? I remember how she tricked you into drinking that potion. I remember the bathing room. I remember the time you tried to kill her—”

Her words get caught in her throat. Jim growls, his mouth close to her neck. She can feel his breath against her chest, hot and heavy.

“Then you remember how dangerous I am too,” he whispers, voice rumbling. “I am a monster, Claire. You don’t want to be around me…Not when I’m like this.”

She reaches out. “No, you’re not.”

Bad move. Her back smacked against the wall. She gasps. His arms lock her in, strong and unyielding, while his leg runs up against her—

Her chest tightens.

That isn’t his leg.

The heat within her builds. She is terrified and sad and angry and aroused and every other possible emotion. The scent of magic grows thick in the air. Her magic. Jim’s ears twitch in response. The faded marks on his face don’t glow, not like before, but the etchings appear deeper, darker, as if in response to Jim’s mood.

“I could break you. Here and now. Do you understand that?” He asks in a deep voice.

Her breath catches as his hand snaked around, grasping her from behind and lifting her up. His entire palm encompasses her backside.

He draws close, inches from her face. His pupils grow large, nostrils flaring. A soft rumble erupts from his throat. “This isn’t a game. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

She licks her lips. This is a dangerous situation.

But this is the most alive she’s felt in months too.

Finally, she resolves to end it.

“You’re not.” She grasps his shirt. “I need you, Jim. Please.”

The vibration in his chest grows louder. He lowers her to the floor once more (she almost feels a tad disappointed by that).

She can read the swirl of emotions on his face, from the lowering of his ears to his hitched shoulders. A soft smile emerges on her lips; he’s embarrassed.

Despite the changes, Jim is still there. Just as broken as she is.

And that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Two broken people, looking for the other to make them whole.

“You could do better,” he says.

Seizing the moment, she presses a kiss on his forehead. The tension in his shoulders ease. “You’re not the only monster around here, Jim,” she admits.

She makes a move for his lips but he stops her. There’s a softness in his gaze, but there is hesitancy too.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not ready.”

“Alright,” she concedes. It hurts, but she understands.

He brings her closer. She wraps her arms around his neck. He is warm and firm and smells of the outside world.

“This is all so new. I’m afraid it’s a dream,” he confesses, voice breaking. “I’m so scared of losing you. You’re everything to me.”

Claire chokes down a sob. Her lip trembles. The angry, frustrated part of her begins to wash away.

“I can relate.” Even she wonders at times whether all this is something she made up, brought upon by the insanity of being with Morgana for so long.

“I missed you. I missed us. I just didn’t want to screw it up like I did with everything else. I want what we had before. It was perfect and real and—”

She presses a finger to his lips. He gives her a familiar lopsided smile.

“We were never perfect, Jim,” she answers truthfully. “We both had our flaws.”

Her arrogance and his self-sacrifice. She lets out a soft giggle. What a pair they are.

“I missed this,” he says.

“Me too.” She pauses, pulling a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. “Can we cuddle? Like we used to—Wah! Dios mio, qué haces? Jim, oh my gosh! Stop, you doofus! Put me down!”

The princess carry is unexpected, to say the least. He spins around, making Claire break out into a fit of laughter. It is the most fun she’s had in months.

“You wanted to cuddle,” he replies cheerfully.

She rolls her eyes, cheeks reddening. “You’re impossible.”

They settle into the couch. It creaks under them, largely because it wasn’t meant for someone of Jim’s size, she suspects. Slowly, she crawls onto his lap. Her hands caress his hair, over and over, hypnotic in its rhythm. The tension in his shoulder ease, melting away. She leans forward; he shifts to accommodate her. She digs her face into his shoulder, taking in his scent, a warm encompassing presence.

“We can’t keep doing this whole ignoring the problem thing anymore. We need to talk. Real talk. About everything,” she says. “I know it’s scary, but I’m going insane over here. You’re the only one around I can really talk to.”

“You’re right,” he mumbles into her hair. His head tilts back, eyes closing. “I guess I’ll start then.”

“Are you sure?” She says.

He nods, pulling her closer. “Sure? Heck no. But you’re right about the talking.”

It’s not much. The conversation only lasts half an hour before Claire nods off.

But it’s a start.

[wamawamachihuahuamama]

1. Favorite place to write.

On break during school or work.

2. Favorite part of writing.

The exciting, vibrant, fuzzy feeling I get when something comes out really good.

3. Least favorite part of writing.

Writer's block.

4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?

Not writing but still holding onto the someday mantra.

5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.

I don't really know, I read a lot. Like A LOT a lot.

6. Favorite character you ever created.

Justin Gabe Leon of The Consequences of Beth. He is supposed to be like the good guy, but he is way worse than anyone realizes.

7. Favorite author.

Stephen King.

8. Favorite trope to write.

Hurt/Comfort.

9. Least favorite trope to write.

Anything with a bad ending.

10. Pick a writer to co-write a book with and tell us what you’d write about.

l'd write a story with my middle school best friend that shall not be named. Likely a romance because we both are reluctantly prone to writing them.

11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

I write like crazy and professionally for like a week and then I get busy with something else and the inspiration disperses and I only write sometimes. Like only when I get an idea or something. A lot of fanfictions to be honest.

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I tell myself it is in my head. Most everyone who had read my stuff thinks it has a lot of potential.

13. How do you deal with writers block?

I try to write through it. If I'm really stuck, I rewind and rewrite already written scenes until I get a further idea of what to do with it.

14. What’s the most research you ever put into a book?

Probably when I wrote a fanfiction of Soul Eater and I needed some information about some secondray characters. Most of the time i go by a write what you know mantra.

15. Where does your inspiration come from?

My inspiration comes from other writers works.

16. Where do you take your motivation from?

My motivation comes from nothing except random feelings of "what the hell am I doing with my life."

17. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

On average, I write very little. It's mostly whatever I have to write for class.

18. What’s your revision or rewriting process like?

I rewrite as I go. Then again at the end. Then repeat. It just keeps going.

19. First line of a WIP you’re working on.

“I was woken by the gunshots.”

20. Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on.

Amidst a dreary fog, a young woman finds herself disoriented by looming lights, becoming closer and larger by the second. Her vision glares and the few paces she could see in front of herself fade away. She blindly throws her arms out to keep upright as she continues towards her destination and, more importantly, away from the glowing orbs behind her. Just as her vision begins to return, it is enveloped in darkness again. Had the lights dispersed? She glances over her shoulder for a moment. They are still there, but smaller, and concealed by the trees. She sighs relievedly and turns back around. A cold chill rushes past her. Annoyedly, she tugs at the strings of her hoodie. The thick fabric falls over her eyes. Before she can even reach up to move it out of her view, she kicks herself in the heel. Flailing about wildly, she stumbles forward. Long blades of grass grab at her ankles. 

A strangled yelp escapes her as she finally hits the ground. Her palms burn, sending worse tingling sensations up her arms until they give out completely. She fights to sit up again, flailing backward and landing on her butt. Cold rainwater soaks through her jeans. She grimaces. 

Then, she gasps. Little shards of rocks cover her palms, trapped in tiny cuts. She brushes them away the best she can. Most of the pebbles fall onto her lap while others remain deeply embedded. Cursing to herself, she looks around for something to work them out with. More of the same tiny rocks surround her. They stretch far in front of her and even farther to her left. It’s a driveway.

Scrambling to her feet, she begins to dash down the road. Nothing appears in front of her or changes around her. She slows to a stop, breathing heavily. It’s too dark to tell if she is heading in the right direction. Everything is either black, gray, or disguised by scattered, glittery orbs. The lights begin to form into one, brightening the path in front of her. Not too far away is a house.

Despite how long she has been looking for it, it’s nothing extravagant. A simple trailer hidden by trees and lined by bushes. It’s hardly visible at all in fact. As she gets closer though, she notices good elements to the structure. A small porch leads up to the door, beside it is a bush, and between the two is just enough space for her to slip between.  

Crouching down, she pulls dead leaves and other muck over her like a blanket. Another sickening feeling moves through her as the moist goo makes contact with her bare skin. Or maybe the twists through her gut are caused by the sound of gravel crunching under the wheels of a car. The vehicle stops and the lights go out. 

A door flies open and someone steps out. He wanders cautiously towards her without shutting the door. Of course he saw her and of course he is going to be smart about confrontation. She closes her eyes and listens to him walk. Each stomp is closer than the last. Then it stops again and her eyelids turn orange. 

The yellow circle from a flashlight luminates the siding above her head. It rests there for a moment before dashing across the house. It reaches the woods and turns around again, following the same path before landing on her. Their eyes meet and he drops the flashlight. 

A minute passes and neither makes  an effort to retrieve it. It’s all so overwhelming. He anticipated a startled racoon; or even a deer; not the cowering eyes of his highschool sweetheart. Her name and everything else he wants to say attempts to seep between his lips, but he bites down before his thoughts become verbalized. If he allows himself to say, or do anything for that matter, he’s terrified of what he would do. 

The light was on them for merely a second, but that's all it took for him to recognize her and hear him. Six years should have been more than enough time for them to become strangers, but with her expression it is obvious she had no trouble identifying him as well. Picking up the flashlight and redirecting it to her, he takes in her aged form. Her hair is the same length and she bares the same expressions. Her name fights at the tip of his tongue again, the only thing he can think to say. “Beth?”

21. Post the last sentence you wrote in one of your WIP’s.

Not again, not again. 

22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

Yeah, haven’t figured that out yet. 

23. Single or multi POV, and why?

Single, definitely single. It can get confusing and I find it to be a bit of lazy writing... don’t come after me. 

24. Poetry or prose, and why?

Definitely poetry. I write a lot of it to decipher my feelings and it just sorta sounds cool. 

25. Linear or non-linear, and why?

It depends on the story. I definitely have a habit of writing non-linear. I’m not the type to start with a whole bunch of background, you learn as you go just like when you meet someone. 

26. Standalone or series, and why?

Standalone. I don’t like it as a reader because I want the conclusion within reach and I have a feeling a lot of my readers feel the same way. I can live with torturing with a dead character or two but I cannot make them die of anticipation. 

27. Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished? 28. And who do you share them with?

I used to share rough drafts with people, but now I don’t even share polished stories. I don’t want to upset people or make them worry about me or get a bad review or to have my ideas stolen and done better... yeah, they are kinda for my eyes alone. 

29. Who do you write for?

I write for my future readers and for my own enjoyment. 

30. Favorite line you’ve ever written.

My favorite line I have ever written has to be “Don’t let the probable be more important than the definite.” 

31. Hardest character to write.

The hardest character to write is someone very positive. 

32. Easiest character to write.

The easiest character to write is Madeline from The Locket. 

33. Do you listen to music when you’re writing?

Sometimes. It depends on where I am when I am writing. 

34. Handwritten notes or typed notes?

Handwritten. It’s more memorable based on some studies I’ve read on studying and I have an addiction to notebooks. 

35. Tell some backstory details about one of your characters in your story

 Bethany is the accidental baby of a successful business women who abandoned her and an abusive, alcoholic father. She pushes people away to avoid being hurt and doesn’t really want anyone around anyways. Then she befriended the new boy at school and kissed him during a spur of a moment, last minute spiteful action against her late father. An orphan, she must trust the one person who doesn’t let her push him away. 

36. A spoiler for story 

Peter dies at the end. 

37. Most inspirational quote you’ve ever read or heard that’s still important to you.

“It’s not the absense of fear, it’s over coming it.” - Emma Watson.

38. Have you shared your outline of your story ________ with someone? If so, what did they think of it?

No, I’ve never shared an outline. I shared verbal ideas with my friends in middle school and “finished” stories with friends in elementary school. 

39. Do you base your characters of real people or not? If so, tell us about one.

No, I don’t base my characters off of real people. I think it is wrong. It is a way to deal I’m sure, but it is also hurtful. 

40. Original Fiction or Fanfiction, and why?

Both. I write fanfiction for practice and fiction as the “real deal”. 

41. How many stories do you work on at one time?

I work on one and will do random little prompts in between. 

42. How do you figure out your characters looks, personality, etc.

My characters are the first thing that comes to me. I don’t really know how I think of them, they mostly come from my dreams. 

43. Are you an avid reader?

Yes, I read and read and read and read some more. 

44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

The best piece of feedback I’ve ever gotten was from my 5th grade teacher after just I started writing and finished my 1st “novel”. I still have the sticky note hanging on my wall she stuck on the inside of my notebook. 

45. Worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

The worst piece feedback I’ve gotten is when my media teacher (I write articles) told me I’d make a good librarian because I’m organized, punctual, and love to read... but wouldn’t make it as a writer. 

46. What would your story look like as a tv show or movie? 

My story would definitely be a movie. It would have a cloudy, depressing filter on it like in Tim Burton films, but be live action and happy in parts. 

47. Do you start with characters or plot when working on a new story?

I start with the characters. I get attached and I form the world around them. 

48. Favorite genre to write in.

Realistic fiction. 

49. What do you find the hardest to write in a story, the beginning, the middle or the end?

The middle of the story is the hardest to write. When I begin I know how I want to start and end and am “faking it till I make it” in the middle. 

50. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.

The weirdest story idea I’ve ever had was definitely based on some dream I’ve had. There has been a lot of odd ones, but the one I actually made into a book idea was about a dystopian family with a father who is a part of a cult who kidnaps children and chemically manipulate the brains so they appear different then they really are. Or feed them to a giant, invisible man to keep them from killing the entire cult. 

51. Describe the aesthetic of your story in 5 sentences or words.

My stories are dark with a sarcastic overtone. 

52. How did writing change you?

Writing has made me more sensible to myself. Like, I understand me more. 

53. What does writing mean to you?

Writing is a way of living and of communication. 

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

To just do it. You don’t have to do it now or for the next twenty years. Having a colorful language and huge imagination is what makes you one, not how many words you have written. 

[rebellingstagnationblog]

For the author asks: one through twenty-five!

OMG 😂🙈 Okay, all 25!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

I’ve wanted to write a fantasy series, but I can’t get it off the ground for some reason. I have the characters, but not the plot. Maybe someday.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

I wrote under another pen name in my youth and all the stories under that account are ones I don’t talk about or even think about.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

I tend to write the scenes I imagine the most clearly first then I fill in the gaps in between. As I fill in the gaps, I do it chronologically so… both?

4) favorite character you’ve written

Stellar. Still.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing 

Taurus Bulba. He always intimidated me, but when my friend Ellie mentioned that he’d be a great villain to bring Darkwing and Negaduck together, I saw she was right and started researching him.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

The build of “Let’s Get D-D-D-D-Dangerous.” Negaduck and Gosalyn’s journey was all over the map and I would have liked to see something more linear. Maybe a more deliberate/intense betrayal on her part? Something Negaduck shouldn’t have to forgive her for but does?

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

Oh, nobody knows I write. But I have told a few people and I get excited about it when I tell them.

8) favorite genre to write

Surprisingly, action/adventure. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I’ve had the most fun with it.

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Talk to Ellie and listen to music. All my stories come from songs and Ellie’s questions.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I need background noise when I write, mostly music. When I edit, it needs to be silent. I prefer to write alone because I tend to make the same expressions the characters are making, or I’ll speak the dialogue aloud to see if it works. But I can write with others in the room.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

My descriptions. I’ve managed to have an ear for dialogue, thank goodness, but I couldn’t describe anything to save my soul. I like to think I’ve gotten better.

12) your weaknesses as an author

I still don’t think I’m good at describing things even if I’ve gotten better. There’s no metaphors or foreshadowing or any literary devices that are done on purpose; if any exist, it’s completely accidental. I’m really clumsy with the plot and getting from one point to the next. Romance. God, it’s so bad. I know what I want to read in romantic scenes, but I can’t write it.

13) your strengths as an author

I can write dialogue pretty well, especially banter. I research the crap out of whatever I’m writing, so the details are real.

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

Always. I can’t start writing until I have a completed playlist.

15) why did you start writing?

I honestly don’t know. I had ideas and I started putting them on paper when I was really young and I haven’t stopped since.

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

Negaduck’s/Darkwing’s mother.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

The skills come with practice; write everything your imagination is coming up with and you’ll figure out how to say it along the way.

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Markus Zusak’s books, specifically “I Am The Messenger.” He writes so beautifully and he was the first author I saw who didn’t pay attention to the rules of grammar and let the story tell itself how it wanted to be told. I re-read his stuff often.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

A lot of sticky notes 🙈 And re-reading what I wrote the day before. But I still have details that I don’t remember putting in there that I only recall after I’m editing and I realize, “Oh, my God, he’s supposed to wear reading glasses.” or something like that.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both. On my weekends, I write until the chapter is done. But on the weekdays, I either don’t write at all or just a small snippet of a scene that occurred to me at work or while I was out.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I cringe. I try to avoid my older work.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Any and all romantic or sweet scenes. I don’t want them to be too sweet but I also want it to be cute and realistic. It’s a struggle. As are life events like weddings or birthdays or anniversaries; I never know what to DO with anyone. 

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I was homeschooled for a few years and I visited the library a lot. I think experiencing all those stories pushed me towards writing so that I could tell my own stories.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Oh yes. I knew nothing about weaponry, but Negaduck had to, so I bought a manual on weapons to help get the details right. I also vividly remember a night where all my roommates were asleep and I was still awake, looking up dry ice and liquid nitrogen to figure out how to use it against Isis Vanderchill in a scene.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

“If you tampered with any of my stuff, Dorkwing, I swear I’ll—”

“I didn’t touch anything!”

“Boys, please!” Gosalyn snapped.

“He started it!” Darkwing and Negaduck said at the same time. They both stiffened and whirled to glare at each other. “No, I didn’t, you did!” they said, again, simultaneously.

[shadowsboxer]

@dolgelo deserved far more than this.

there had been a heavy atmosphere when they'd met, high at the top of the tokyo skyscape, for sushi and celebration. Perhaps it should have been expected, something natural of a group of people with burdens so much heavier than blessings. Still, the reunion had been something bittersweet. After all, the select number of them had moved to scattered locations around Tokyo to combat a threat. They remained a cohesive team, but had yet to unite without the pretense of work looming over them. They had so little time, after all, and that day was no different. And she, certainly, would not permit their responsibility to be pushed to the background.  

still, they had insisted; Akihiko, and the other longest and remaining (or returned) members of the Shadow Operatives, on one outing to celebrate the one who had brought them all together in the first place; regardless of any tragic or pressing circumstance. She'd sighed, when he'd proposed it, took a long and silent sip of her tea, and gave in.

 And they had smiled, forced themselves to, talked and laughed and reminisced about times that none would admit were predominantly bad; Any lull in conversation, filled with more food then they should be eating, with laughter scarcely too loud to be spontaneous.

He hadn't arrived early enough to get a seat near her, kept late at work. He'd toasted to her regardless; to her health, to her happiness, to a year better than the ones which had come before. And he'd returned home with the setting sun at his back and a thousand intentions left as simple thoughts.

It wasn't long before he left his apartment for a second time that evening, then nearly night, and wandered, winding through the crowded subway after just a brief stop. Such visits had become quite nearly commonplace by that point, but the unexplained anticipation remained even then; waiting at the starting line before the gunshot.

The concierge knew him by face, had for quite some time, after enough trips to the same location for the same reason, and waved him up with enough implication in his eyes to make Akihiko pause, scowl, and rush off towards the stairwell. After 41 flights, he may have been too sweaty for such a visit. So he detoured to the elevator after only 12.

Before he could knock a second time, the door opened and all of the words he had saved were immediately lost. The effect she had, only when he wasn't expecting it, remained still even after so many years. After a quick survey of the room, it was obvious that she'd gone back to work promptly upon her return. Even after all this time, a day off was not something in the girl's repertoire, after all.

"--oh" muttered under his breath, beneath a knowing smile softened by the familiarity of such a sight. "you're still at it?"

She too had bathed since the party, washing off any air of festivity and, returned to her natural and intense state. But the boy wouldn't be in such a place as private as this had he expected anything different. Mitsuru was looking at him still, so strangely, as though deciding whether to treat him as guest or intruder. More than anything, she probably wanted an explanation for his sudden and unannounced appearance at her doorstep. He stepped aside, let he lock the door. It was, after all, too late to be expecting guests.

"I know I just saw you but--" he'd mulled over everything, apparently, except how to actually express it all. His hands gestured in the space between them, attempting to fill in the innumerable gaps in his eloquence. 

"It wouldn't feel right being in the same place and not--" He bit his lip, fingers curling around the pathetic excuse for a gift still sitting in his pocket. Perhaps it was overly sentimental of him to wonder if she remembered too.  Had he really been about to suggest such a thing? For the sake of posterity or old times or something idiotic like that? Another sign of how many years had passed, in a way, that he hadn't blurted such a thing out alongside an apology in the same breath. "just take it."

His meager present was tossed towards her as casually as it had always been, caught with as much grace and assurance as always, her actions a reflection of her being. The soda fizzed when she opened it but bubbled down quickly as though obeying her whim. He'd tortured himself for so long trying to find something suitable for the occasion, but the girl seemed to want for nothing, Or at least for nothing he could provide. So the boy had settled on the memory, on the sweet taste of soda late at night in a silent room on the fourth story of the dorms.

At the small and relatively unused table in her suite, they had sat in silence and in the absence thereof for minutes which melted into hours. These chances to catch up, to speak of that space in between confessions and empty words were moments so valuable, so cherished. Their value had remained although the frequency of such opportunities had recently increased. He'd never told her, not aloud, how much he prized such chances, those snippets of her time offered to him alone. 

He'd moved to sit beside her at the table, not across from her like a business partner, but beside; thigh brushing thigh, whispering memories both recent and long past like school children confessing their deepest shames. Her laugh, as it always had, penetrated any guard he’d feigned holding. 

She'd finished her soda, so he'd brewed her tea. And he'd warmed his hands on the porcelain cup, fingers twitching with a reoccurring and nagging thought of something more.

The gap where the dark hour used to rest passed long ago, and the lights outside the imposing windows were flickering out with increasing pace; like shooting stars begging him to make his wish. This was the point where they would both excuse themselves, hesitate in the doorframe, both motioning for the other to go first. He'd say goodnight on the 3rd floor, listen to her steps above as he pretended to sleep. But with so many years in-between the current and the last shared evening in may, with so many secrets kept and promises made, Akihiko summoned the courage he only lacked around her.

No excuses were made, from either party, but instead of parting they had drawn closer in anticipation of the absence of that closeness. For how long had his hand hovered just beside hers, skin touching skin, before he'd acted? Such minimal contact still remained uncommon to them, something only for the most private and sincere of moments. His hand rested lightly on the back of her palm, fingers curling around the cold skin but not quite grasping it. Akihiko's breath hitched, caught in his throat when Mitsuru's on digits welcomed his amongst them.

Beyond such a negligible and inconsequential sound, neither acknowledged any change in their position, just as neither would recognize the recent change in their relationship, the physical intimacy that had grown falteringly with their reunion as though straining to catch up with their closeness in every other regard. At first, he'd been ready to dismiss it, happy to see a dear friend once again. No matter how many times they met, however, the pull of her gravity on him only multiplied. No matter how often they'd agreed upon such friendly and business oriented meetings, he'd always find their fingers locked by the end. And there had been that accidental and monumental error when their lips had met with both of their full intent… Like the first time and all others in between.

She'd caught him staring again, asked why so innocently as though she had never encountered those same thoughts. Such simple actions would cause the rapport between them to evolve. All they had to do was agree that it was in the manner they both desired. 

"Mitsuru--" he murmured, his free hand brushing a long, stray curl away from her eye, the pads of his fingers barely grazing her cheek, so soft and so warm. "I want--" he'd stopped there, eyes widening to mirror hers. He felt her fingers start, felt his squeeze them so lightly in response.

That other hand remained there, cradling her jaw as though it were composed of the same fine porcelain of her complexion, thumb following her bone structure, tracing her outline. Urgency swelled in his lungs, surely that was why the boy was short on breath; for even he didn't know truly what he was going to do.

The part of him that had known, however, the part that had known for an eternity, coaxed her towards him with a soft tug of fingers on her skin. Her eyes, once so wide, were narrowed, trusting, letting him guide her. And he did, attention focused on the faded red of her lips, until he could no longer see them, his own eyes fluttering closed.

"Mitsuru, I want to--"

It had been the same years ago, during that first and unacknowledged kiss whose ghost still lingered on Akihiko's lips even now. It had been the same on all the others in between, never premeditated, never regretted. This time, however, his parted, breathing her in as though she were something he'd needed to survive. Her breath was cold, always was, the air after a fresh snow and sweet, fresh dew on morning blossoms. And though Akihiko rushed into many things, he didn't rush this, as always, letting the embrace overtake his senses in waves of tenderness, of desperation, of complete and innocent acceptance of what they both were. Their entwined hands twisted, now together unabashedly, grasping one another with considerable force, holding onto that brief and delicate embrace knowing full well that their grip on it was sure to slip.

When it did, it had been her voice, low and breathy, that had finished his earlier thought. "stay." 

Not a question. She wasn't asking if that had been his request but had rather granted it, skipping over a step so unnecessary for two souls entangled for so long. He rested his forehead against hers, enjoying the sensation of her skin against his own, warmer now than before.

"Yes." He drew a shuddering breath, eyes shut, every uncertainty he'd held in his chest until that word exhaled slowly, replaced by her air. He'd wanted so many things, had sought them out at her side. For that moment, they were indistinguishable from her, one and the same. "I want to stay with you, Mitsuru."

[aroberuka]

Evens for writers ask meme?

2. Where is yourfavourite place to write?

Either the kitchen table, which is the perfect height for my laptop & the only place in the house that gets sunlight in the morning, or my bed tbh.

4. Do you have anywriting habits/rituals?

Not writing habits so to speak but I do have a getting ready to write ritual that mostly consists of dragging myself out of bed and going for a walk.

6. Favourite characteryou’ve written?

Mouse!Surana, hands down. I kinda just made her on the spot for that one oneshot and as a result she ended up radically different from my usual OCs (they’re not usually this… driven xD), which made her such a blast to write.

8. Do you have anywriting buddies or critique partners?

@coppercaravan​ has been both for a little bit over a year and they’re such a pleasure to work with tbh.

10. Pick an author (orwriting friend) to co-write a book with

1) @coppercaravan we should stick our OCs together and see what happens, y/y?

2) That being said it’s super easy to get me to write with you literally all you have to do is drop into my inbox like “hey we should write a thing” and be very patient with my spoonie ass.

12. Which story ofyours do you like best? why?

Honestly it’s the quasiplatonic solavellan fic. I love Tathas, I put a lot of work and also a lot of me into it, I have a lot of thoughts about what’s coming next and I really wish I could finish it already esp since it wouldn’t be that long (like. 8-10 chapters tops, not counting a potential Trespasser sequel) but I haven’t been able to get in a DAI mood for forever x_x

14. What does it takefor you to be ready to write a book? (i.e. do you research? outline? make a playlist or pinterest board? wing it?)

Ideally I’d need the stars to align perfectly on a week with two Mondays, but more realistically what I need is:

-a playlist, or at least a couple artists that’ll put me in the right mood

-character sheets with some basic info + relationship charts + their stake in the plot

-a rough chapter by chapter plan that will inevitably fly out the window by the time I finish chapter 1.

16. Cover love/dreamcovers?

Not really, no.

18. Tell us about thatone book you’ll never let anyone read

So back in January there was that self-insert month thing, and I figured why the hell not, but b/c I’m apparently unable to write self-indulgent fluff and also I was in a Mood it turned into a writing as therapy thing and now I don’t know what to do with it b/c on the one hand I do want to write it & I think it would help me deal with some stuff but on the other idk that I would ever be able to let anyone read it, let alone post it online.

20. Any advice foryoung writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on?

Length is overrated, short chapters are fine and the only good piece of writing advice is that there is no such thing as universal writing advice.

22. Tell us about thebooks on your “to write” list

… I’m not gonna give you a full list b/c it would be ridiculous but the ones that are on my brain atm are:

-- Présages aka The Novel aka that one story about ghosts that turned into a story about the importance of healthy communication & a good support system.

-- A novella about an aromantic protag that was supposed to be a subplot of the previous but is now its own thing so I can give it the attention it deserves.

-- A fantasy novel that started with me listening to too much critical role and is basically a thinly disguised metaphor for fighting against depression.

(All of them are depression books tbh and I’m not even a little bit sorry.)

And then there’s the fics:

-- A post Akuze longshot feat. Leo, grief and politics.

-- A Leverage/HP crossover feat. pre-canon Eliot, wizards and poor attempts at dragon smuggling.

-- A CCS/Naruto crossover that I’ll probably never write tbh b/c the sheer size of it is terrifying to me, but I like to dust it off every other month anyway b/c I put a lot of thought into it.

24. Do you remember themoment you decided to become a writer/author?

I don’t remember the moment I started to write – that was a long long time ago – but the moment I decided to become a writer I’m pretty sure was when I read The Princess Bride, b/c I very distinctly remember closing the book and going “I wish I’d written that”.

26. What’s the mostresearch you’ve ever put into a book?

It’s kinda hard to tell tbh b/c my research, like everything else, tends to be scattered in short bursts over months/years, but my most recent research-heavy project has been the Leverage/HP crossover, which has led me to a lot of reading on poaching/smuggling as I tried to figure out how one would go about smuggling a dragon.

Turns out there’s no actual book on dragon smuggling but I ended up learning a lot about butterfly smuggling, which as it turns out is

1)a thing

2)very serious business.

28. How do you stayfocused on your own work and how do you deal with comparison?

I don’t. I don’t stay focused on anything, ever. I also deal very poorly with comparison even tho the only one doing the comparing is my own self.

30. Do you like to readbooks similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick to non-fiction/un-similar works?

I do! I find it very helpful esp. when I’m writing in a genre/style I’m not used to. I try to avoid it with fanfiction tho so as to avoid accidentally absorbing other people’s headcanons into my own work.

32. On average how muchdo you write in a day? do you have trouble staying focused/gettingthe word count in?

Tbh I usually count in ‘pages’ (quote/unquote b/c I’m using my own format which is considerably shorter than what you probably think of when you hear ‘page’), and I’m trying to get myself to two pages a day for The Novel but I’m considerably slower when I’m not writing in French b/c language is hard.

34. Unpopular writingthoughts/opinions?

-- Character death is overrated.

-- The idea that conflict is necessary to tell a good story is highly subjective and even if it wasn’t a good conflict shouldn’t just boil down to ‘characters being horrible (or downright abusive) to each other’/‘characters being forced to commit or witness atrocities’ over and over again.

-- Romance is boring and so is smut.

-- Young/aspiring writers need positive feedback way, way more than criticism, constructive or not; constructive criticism overall is overrated (which isn’t to say that it’s never useful but like it’s not The One True Way For A Writer To Improve that a lot of ppl try to sell it as).

36. Post a snippet

She’s always been lucky is the thing.

Lucky to find the Reds when she needed them, lucky to lose them when she no longer did, lucky to get caught by the right people at the right time, lucky to be offered military service instead of prison, lucky that Anderson had seen something in her no-one else ever had.

Lucky to survive doesn’t feel so special.

38. How do you nailvoice in your books?

Honestly that is one thing that comes p much naturally to me? Like whenever I write in a character’s voice I can usually ‘hear’ what I’m writing so to speak, which makes things considerably easier tbh.

40. Do you look up toany of your writer buddies?

What kind of question is that I look up to all of y'all??? I’m not even kidding here y’all are amazing and talented and I’m so thrilled I got to meet all of you?

42. How many drafts doyou usually write before you feel satisfied?

I’d say 2-3 though it’s kinda hard to tell b/c I don’t strictly speaking work in full drafts, I tend to go back and forth between paragraphs instead.

44. Why (and when) didyou decide to become a writer?

I must have been like 16 or something. Hell if I remember why except I love stories and it seemed like a good idea at the time?

46. Past or presenttense?

I actually prefer past tense despite my current inability to write it (idk why all my fic end up being present tense but I suspect English).

48. Do you prefer towrite skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut it back?

I mean most of my fics are already under 500 words long can you imagine if I actually cut stuff from them? :p

50. Do you share yourrough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished?

I tend to wait until everything is polished but also, again, it’s super easy to get me to share rough drafts or even outlines with you b/c I am weak and crave validation.

52. Who do you writefor?

Me. Always.

Like listen the fact is actually talking openly & honestly about personal stuff even to people who have been there for me in the past is literally the hardest thing for me to do and I got so damn good at avoiding it I don’t even have to think before I do it anymore, and sometimes it feels like writing is the only way I can actually properly communicate anymore. So yeah I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about ppl loving what I write but it will always be first and foremost something I do for myself.

54. Favourite firstline/opening you’ve written?

already answered here

[williamalderwick-blog]

Love in the age of Facefuck: Iphigenia Baal’s Merced es Benz

Original unedited text; a poorly edited version appeared in Real Review issue 4, Summer 2017. I guess I always was a little bit in love with Iphigenia Baal. I remember seeing glimpses of a whirlwind careening through parties, pubs, gigs, the backstages of shows with all of London’s seedy nightlife scrolling behind her as if the rolling backdrop of a private theatre, moving like a comet burning its own path through the heavens, a singular orbit governed by laws all its own and beware all those that fall within its thrall.         I recall a hazy cloud of curling hair, gap toothed, cheekbones, eyes that I now want to say were green, deepest hazel green flecked gems. Eyes that burned right through you, unforgivingly. Contemptuously. They had an intensity, a holding you to something, whatever it was. That’s what I remember most, a kind of smouldering raging intensity to truth — the kind that no one can really live with.         She was staff writer at Dazed at a time when, on the dole in a band and sleeping on friends couches or at the studio, I thought being on staff to write was just about the greatest job anyone could have. Somethings never change. And she was simply beautiful. Beauty like in a Greek myth, with something timeless to it, otherworldly, at once raw and serene. All carried with such attitude, an always more hardcore than you kinda attitude. I guess I was struck. Intimidated.         From afar, a distance. I never really knew her, of course, friends of friends of an acquaintance, the occasional party, a couple of words here or there, nodded acknowledgement outside an opening, doorways, corridors, street-level passings by. Stories and rumours and gossips…I guess I was a little bit in love with the idea of Iphigenia Baal. I’m probably wrong about the eyes.         And so a decade later, in another life, Miss Baal’s second novel arrives in a package for me at the office sent by her publisher. Merced es Benz is a love story, a non-fiction novel charting the relationship between the author and one Ben Thomas — seemingly the love of her life.         Bookended by Baal’s own reflective prose, we’re witness to the relationship through a little over eight months of Facebook posts and chats, SMS, BBM, email, and google searches. It’s an exhaustive record of every digital exchange between them. From SMS setting up a date or time to meet, likes on each other’s posts or updates, arguments raging across different handsets, emails, sponsored posts, Merced Es’ google search results into drug networks, police informants, flights to Australia. A transcript of all the links and communiques between them logged in the system run out in chronological order. Objet trouvé. Print All.         It’s all text-speak dialogue, slanged abbreviations, the ping-pong chat messaging we’re conditioned to now. Bite-sized fluid snippets. Situated in the media that now frame our social exchanges, it feels utterly modern. And it reads quickly. Pages are scanned, scrolled rather than read. The layout echoes user interfaces — like the wireframes used to blueprint a webpage design. And yet it’s also antiquated, a rolling-back to an archaic version — Facefuck v1.3.2 circa 2011.         The drama is often in the details. You find yourself checking the timestamps of text exchanges, noting the gaps, the jumps, the ellipses. Merced Es traveling across London to meet Benz, only to be stood up, the messages repeating, ten minutes, twenty minutes, two hours no response, ‘where are you’s turning to anger then rage towards the other who only resurfaces the next morning. Everything feels real, and these are conversations, relationships, exchanges, acts of dickishness and inconsolable rejection that everyone can relate to, has been, played out. It’s London love baby, utterly relatable stories as old as the hills and bitched across spilling pints in pub corners across the capital forevermore.         As a teen, Baal was nicknamed ‘that Mercedes chic’ by her friends for wearing one of the iconic three-pointed-star-in-a-circle emblems snatched from the hood of a fancy MB motor around her neck. In Benz, she finds her completing half. Star-crossed lovers, a real-life Romeo and Juliette for the digital age. Merced es Benz has that touch of fate about it.         Love is a fiction, a story we weave, to entwine us together.         After opening with their first exchange online, Benz responding to a characteristically disdainful ‘Facefuck’ status update from Merced Es, the book jumps ahead to the immediate aftermath of Thomas’s untimely death from a drug overdose in July 2012.         Everything unfolds under the shadow of this tragedy — a death that perhaps if not accidental, if not a suicide, might awfully be wilful. Heartbreak even. A deep sadness pervades the reading of the couple’s exchanges. A constricting fatality born of the knowledge of what is to come. The whole book is a looking back, involving both a deciphering and an occlusion. You read searching for clues why, as well as vainly attempting to forget what you know so as to experience the couple’s shared moments in something approaching an authentic innocence. But death shadows, a constant companion inexorably pulling us back towards the curtain closed.         It’s a story of a doomed love told from the surviving half. A story of survival, of the telling required to ensure the other half lives on, can become full again once more. No longer simply that Mercedes chic.         There is of course the gap here between the author and her avatar or handle, between Ben Thomas and Benz. Merced Es both is and is not Baal. They elide, and this layering, merging, pulling away, leaving out, this différence, is dynamic.         In the same way, all the events and action of their relationship are absent. In between texts or emails we have to guess and imagine what transpired. Read between the lines, and project our own experiences into their exchanges, in order to make sense of the trace. A deciphering of what-must-have-to-have-happened to provoke this.         Thus as one looks for the source, for the reasons why, all we have are the traces of events that have always already happened elsewhere. Events that have been removed, isolated, quarantined. What we read is reductive — reduced to a trace that itself is raw, it’s copy itself, a copy of a copy, and we’re left with the bare bones. We see the outlines of rich media, image boxes with no filler, YouTube links vacant. Absentia in media res. Just like the object of love (Benz) himself.         Severed from both real life and the interconnecting digital web, the printed page is a mausoleum, but doubly here, triply even. Perhaps the only true archive or resting place of our online conversations is precisely offline — otherwise they are still live, active, full of potential to change, be rewritten, re-skinned.         I toy with the idea of looking up the video links on YouTube, copying the URLs out verbatim, for veracity, to establish the mood, to listen to the same track by The Rutts. But somehow that’s not the point. Memory, clouded and somewhat made up, filled in over the gaps, feels more authentic to this story.         Across the transposed Facebook group patter names are scratched out, effaced for anonymity but still recognisable, half legible, if you know what or who you’re looking for. Photographers, stylists, former colleagues from one magazine masthead to another, public house heroines and pinups. It’s a familiar world, that London of the turn of the decade.         Perhaps always in negative, Baal captures the nihilistic decadence of modern urban twenty-something living. Our protagonists are neurotic, directionless within a drifting affluence, never short of a party full of people they loath who are their best friends. Alienation for the trust-fund generation at the end of history. All this… and nowhere to go, nothing to do. Baal’s unforgiving cynicism and rejection of this scene shines through. The tawdry sub-gossip milieu of rich kids idling the world from party to party to beach to island to who cares where next with the touch of overly perfumed Louis XIV court intrigues in their drama and tousling themselves up with all the braggadocio of a rap promo. This centrifugal star-lit social scene is contrasted with hints of stunning dawn views from her 15th floor flat in a Bow housing estate tower block out in deepest East London.         But how much of all this is true I ask myself, is this real? I certainly remember seeing some of these posts on Baal’s Facebook, the letter that got her fired from Dazed, the ‘I fucked… and all I got was this petty vendetta’ t-shirt. Maybe one of those anonymous likes is mine.         Who was Ben? Did the author make him up? If not, what would his friends or family make of who you read about here? Did she write/ make all of this up? Within a couple of quick searches Benz is revealed in the tabloid daily reports of his death. But even these always by a kind of second degree, headlines that the friend of so and so rock star kid it boy died. His death simply isn’t the story, isn’t the news, it’s his associates. Even here we miss him.         I think perhaps Merced es Benz is an attempt to reclaim part of this person lost. A way of saying it did happen, that for all of everything else he was/is/was this, at least to me. The idea and love of a person is surpassed on all sides by them, until that love is all we have left.         How much of this is a transcript? Untouched, unedited, unwritten? To read is to be invited in to be a witness, but of what? All the events here, everything that happens, happens elsewhere, IRL somewhere, off read, off piste, off script.         Merced es Benz is an account from the aftermath of a cataclysm. It’s the act of piecing together how we got here, a looking back and re-reading of archives. It’s the act of the bereft that Baal puts us as readers into, into her shoes.         It’s also the act of writing today. Through technology tracing our every move, thought, exchange, calorie burnt, website visited, link clicked, the great book of being is being written by machines in a language we can’t read. What we mean is our trace, the trail we leave behind through the systems we traverse. In this way the writer is effaced from the writing. Baal tries to take herself out of the equation, effacing herself, by instead reaching towards becoming a pure conduit to this trace of her past. It’s an act of carrying that trace forward — an act of not acting, of not writing but rather of reading — the writer in negative. In absentia.         But in this way we become her — recalling and returning to the aftermath, trying to make sense of the event(s) of our lives. This non-writing — this archaeology, this digging up — this is ours, perhaps all that we have ultimately.         There is a great vulnerability and honesty in Baal’s non-fiction novel. It pulls no punches, about anyone, least of all herself. If we’re sympathetic to her characters, they’re not faultless. We’re welcomed inside the expressions of their neuroses, doubts and rages to each other just as much as any love between them.         And here’s the thing, thinking back I wonder if there is really love in this story, in so far as it’s a story of a failed, doomed romantic encounter. Almost as if the love each of our protagonists held for the other, living outside the book, the traces of its expression and thus their ability to communicate it to each other, couldn’t navigate these mediums between them — perhaps it’s a warning about love being innately atrophied in the age of Facefuck. You’ll only find love in the real world.         Recently I’ve been seeing clips of scorpions and crabs shredding their shells recur on my social feed. There’s something strangely satisfying in watching the disconnecting, withdrawing and pulling away under the hard surface, the reveal of the soft vulnerable pink fresh skin exposed underneath and then the empty husk left behind. The hollow shape of the thing, there but without substance, without content.         I think of this husk in relation to Merced es Benz. There is bravery in letting oneself be so laid bare, opening out the vulnerability and shape of oneself. An affirmation to say a kind of, I once was this.         To be a writer is to share of yourself, invite others to step inside this externalised piece of you. You can only really write what you know, or write to unlearn yourself. Perhaps in reaching for an already externalised trace of herself at the intersections with another person, Baal finds something that enables an authentic intimate encounter with an other for a reader, a kind of genericity that everyone can reach towards.         Ultimately, I think Baal suggests that writing today is neither simply the digital trace nor using that trace as a medium of expression, but lies beyond, within a composition or choreography that primes the possibility for encounter. And against the comforting alienation of our self-reinforcing media bubbles, her book asks how one can encounter the other, perhaps even how can one love today?         Told almost entirely through social media posts and digital communications, about love and about death, Merced es Benz is an uncovering of the past and a trying to come to terms with it; it addressing the nature, and thus future, of writing itself as confronted with technology and the mediations of today; and, for the old Badiouian in me, it is about fidelity to an event, twice over, that of their love encounter, and that of his death; the one nested in the other, for only by faithfully expressing the truth of the first can one face that of the second.         I guess I’m still a little bit in love with Iphigenia Baal, but not in the way I was before. Now, perhaps on her terms, in the way that she invites us readers all into a love that is forever lost, to step into these moments, and feel and watch and recall through the moments of our own lives, what it is to know, to love someone — if not the writer then perhaps her Benz.

Merced Es Benz by Iphgenia Baal is published by Book Works as part of the Semina series guest edited by Stewart Home. Order a copy here.