#michi writes

[michis-peaches]

It’s 3 am and I’m feeling nostalgic for the time in which I used to write so here, have something I started but never finished for Larissa Weems.

[twstchaos]

🚪

11. covered in confetti

Knuckles tapped the wooden door.

Tonk. Tonk.

Silence.

Tonk. Tonk.

More silence.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Peri opened the door to be met with a very pouty Missy Chievous. Her face and hair was covered in sparkly shreds of paper, glitter, sequins, and everything else shiny under the sun.

"Wha-"

"Ester shot a confetti cannon at me, and now I need help plotting my revenge.

[melissaschemmentisglasses]

I love this “forever stuck with this Meredith Blake x Melissa Schemmenti one-shot” state I’m in currently

[lady-loveluck]

Werewolf AU-

Prank doesn't work on Max, someone else falls, and after drunk driving and running over a mysterious creature, Max now has much more to think than the nerd who saved his life.

[hyakunana]

Sponsor Switch!

[howtofightwrite]

Is it possible for a character who is 18cm shorter and not as muscled as their opponent to pin said opponent to the ground in a few calculated moves? Both characters are fit and exercise regularly, but the shorter character has trained in various martial arts (with and without weapons) and the taller one is more proficient in sword duelling. My intent is to write a sparring scene where the shorter character humbles the (overconfident) taller one. Any specific martial arts I should look at?

So... being shorter doesn't matter. In fact, in this situation, it is an advantage.

I'm going to point out here that if you're not careful, your character that you want to have a badass moment is going to look like an complete asshole because they are humiliating another character who they actually are better than. If they haven't been trading off humiliations to build tension (safely so no one gets hurt) then you're going to have a lopsided “sparring” session. Or, you will, if you haven't been building up your narrative to support the humbling. (And there is a lot that goes into these scenes to make them work, which, if you're not familiar with how martial arts training works then you'll approach it from the wrong mindset and hit Starke's pet peeve.)

Let's hit the ground running with the high points:

Sparring is not dueling.

Sparring is not play fighting.

Sparring is not so you can humiliate your opponent.

Sparring is not about fighting anyone or anything.

Sparring is a training exercise so that both of you can work on improving specific techniques.

Do people in real life get carried away sparring? Yes, they do. Are they complete competitive idiots about it? Yes, they are. Do they get punished for it? Absolutely, they do. This is especially true where they'll be expected to put their lives on the line. Treating violence like a game is detrimental, and leaves the trainee ill-prepared for dealing with real danger when in the field. Make no mistake, that is exactly the mindset you are describing in this question. Your characters (at least your minor ones, the trainers in this situation if your leads are too young or too dumb to comprehend their reality) should care about stomping this attitude out. And you as the author should to. Why? Because if you don't take the violence in your narrative seriously neither will your audience.

There are rules, as a writer it's imperative you establish the rules (and there no rules means you haven't established them for violence in your setting and therefore won't be able to establish the baseline that can be built upon later) and one of the rules is that you're not going to spar someone with a weapon (wood or otherwise) unless you both have weapons. There's not a lot of value in having one character spar with a weapon and one spar without one unless it's a knife, and the point is learning the dangers of knife fighting. And knives make sense because they are in the same distance range as fists. Swords are in a completely separate distance category. They are mid-range weapons.

You don't practice disarms by sparring, you practice disarms by practicing disarms in a controlled setting where you're repeating the motion over and over. Can you humiliate a person by being good at practice disarms? Yes. You do it by being a complete dick. It also requires the character in question to be better at the moves in question than the other character performing them because they need to be able to confidently, or at least believe they can, counter the other person's growing anger while taking the move a step further or two than they're supposed to. It also means they can get away with it without arousing the suspicions of their instructor (or act with their instructors approval) and no one gets hurt. (We hope.) For a character to do this is a sign of overconfidence, FYI. As is trying to humiliate someone in a sparring session. The characters that are good enough? They don't do it.

In fiction, good sparring scenes serve one real purpose. They establish a baseline of skill in safe setting so the audience becomes comfortable only for that to be disrupted and thrown into chaos when the characters encounter real violence. There's two paths for this. Either the character is a big winner only to be brutally beaten later, or they get dumped on their ass to find that they're actually much better prepared than they thought later when it matters. That's why so many stories with these scenes dump their MC on their ass, especially in any Wuxia or Shounen manga. This is because the authors of these stories understand that sparring has no reflection on how well a person will do when they're allowed out of the training safe space. If your baseline is: my character is awesome. Then it's all downhill from that point on.

Say it with me, Losses Create Tension. If your character is winning all the time, you have no tension and your fight scenes will be boring. The goal when it comes to creating a character who is good at fighting is to make other characters look better. Or, from an antagonistic/mentor point they exist to establish the height our MCs must eventually reach/how much further they have to go in their journey. Kakashi's fight with Zabuza or the first fight between Itachi and Sasuke in Naruto are both great examples of how to do this well.

I'm not saying you can't write a sparring scene like the one you intend. I can't tell you to do anything, what I want to you to start doing is considering the implications of the scene, what it may say about your world and characters that you didn't intend, and it's overall impact on the whole of your narrative. Narrative gratification here is work you'll need to do to build back your tension later. Is it a win your MC can afford?

Now, you can look at any martial art that has a ground fighting component for what you want to do unless you're planning on having the duelist spar with their sword. If you want that, you're going to have to do a lot more work with a smaller pool. This will be doubly true if your characters are of European descent and you want to avoid the East Asian martial art styles.

Type: “how do you knock your opponent off balance?” into Google and you'll find a lot of variations.

The basic concept behind putting someone on the ground isn't strength, it's balance. The key is disrupting your opponent's balance. If you're skilled enough or your opponent's footwork is bad enough, it can be done in a single move. In fact, it can be done a variety of different ways from a variety of different moves from countless different martial arts. The question isn't can it be done, the question is how does your character want to do it? The fact they are short only helps them because their center of gravity will be lower than their opponent's, they don't have to work as hard to maintain their balance, their stance doesn't have to be as deep, and they will have an easier time knocking a taller person over. Most people who've never practiced martial arts have no idea how foundational the footwork is or how important the feet are to staying upright.

I personally like reviewing Silat for studying balance, not necessarily for techniques, but because I find their instruction on the concept easy to grasp/digest. They do the string on the top of the head and the balance triangle, which if you can wrap your mind around that you'll be able to conceptualize fight scenes where the character focuses on knocking an opponent off balance better. 

The above is a more advanced video, but if you have no martial arts background or even a sports background whatsoever then you want to aim for instructional videos that focus on concepts over techniques. The advice is always write what you know and if you don't know learn. Copying techniques onto the page won't create a great fight scene. Understanding the concept, philosophy, and basic body mechanics behind the techniques will get you much further. None of them are stand ins for real experience or doing it yourself. If you really want to be good at it, find a martial art you like, find a school nearby, and invest the time.

All of your characters' martial arts moves (whether they are dueling with a sword or fighting hand to hand) function around the body's center of gravity. Your center of gravity is slightly above your hips and in your core muscles i.e your abdominal muscles. They will be trained so maintaining their balance is second nature. When martial artists talk about overextending, they're talking about putting your weight past your balance point which puts you in danger of losing your balance/falling over or being grabbed, kicked, etc and getting thrown, tripped, or forced into a fall. This can happen when you're throwing a punch, doing a kick, lunging with your sword, or doing any other sort of movement. You end up in a position where your balance between your front and back leg is destabilized, which creates the opening for your opponent to throw you. Or when you fall over on the ice, because that happens too.

Some other martial arts to turn to:

Judo

Jiu Jutsu

Aikido

Baguazhang (Seen in Avatar the Last Airbender as the basis for Air Bending)

Tai Chi Chuan

Northern Shaolin

Taekwondo (if you want to do it via kicks, all kicking martial arts innately focus on balance)

Krav Maga

Ninjutsu

The list goes on.

I also recommend dipping your toes into live action martial arts flicks to start getting yourself accustomed to more complex choreography. This is getting yourself out of the animated space (like in anime) and into the space where you have to watch a live person perform the techniques. Asian cinema has a different choreography style than the US does, because there are different cultural expectations. Overall, the choreography is more intricate and they break the action down a lot more (as opposed to American media where they zoom out to cover for the stunt double.) It's easier to see how the bodies are working and they put a lot more focus on destabilizing balance as part of the fight sequences. Hollywood doesn't get into the weird martial arts shit unless it's an actual martial arts action film. You can also do an Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra deep dive because the action there is also usually on point, but I'm a proponent of going to the source when you want to learn something. So, you know watch Alchemy of Souls instead.

-Michi

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[im-not-a-l0ser]

I want to read a fic where Max starts flirting with Richie as a joke after the near death experience and becoming friends, and eventually it turns serious but he never tells Richie that. Meanwhile Richie is slowly falling in love with him and is very upset about it, and eventually they get together. Pretty please.

[overdue07]

In Michie fanfics with supernatural stuff, Max is always the monster. He is either dead, a werewolf, or something else.

But, hear me out, we wrote fics were Richie as the monster. No a ghost, but an actual monster.

Like after or before the prank on Max's happens, Richie gets attacked or injured by a big monster with Max being the first person to find out.

Bonus if Richie getting stronger/scary then Max, freaking everyone else out, while Max finds it hot as hell.

[randomsufff]

Ok, to the like 5 Michie girlies (I see y’all, I appreciate y’all 🫡) I’ve cooked a bit hear me out:

In Literal Monster one of the nerds says “I once was his tutor, then I regarded my future”- so that implies he needs a tutor/ is academically failing, right? But it seems he actually needed and valued it because the tutor seemingly worked for, at the very least, a day before quitting on her own terms… (DO YOU GUYS SEE THE VISION)

So- everyone lives/nobody dies AU where Richie is the one who saves Max, Max- who thinks the gang threw him this party+Richie saving his football season (cause he would totally value that more then his life come on)- is like, on neutral/ friendlier terms with the gang, bla bla bla something happens and Max asks (basically forces lmao) Richie into tutoring him. (Reasons why Max can’t just cheat off of Richie can range from him sitting next to Grace to Richie gaining a bit of confidence seeing Max ask him for help and saying no (but plz don’t kill me I’ll still help you)).

Bing Bang Boom, redemption arc for Max as he falls for the cringe ass failure of a anime weeb. Very slowly! but surely.

(Plus you get so many funny scenarios- The gang finding out Richies helping their bully-turned-maybe friend????(at least he thinks so), RUTH FINDING OUT (I KNOW that girl reads/writes hardcore smut fanfic), Max slowly getting into anime via osmosis (would he like Attack on Titian? I feel like yes.) etc. Endless possibilities here.)

[mmmichyyy]

Hi Michelle!! Let's try #43 for the new Drabble challenge

#43. "pick up lines only work when i'm drunk."

"ian. are you listening to me?"

"mhm."

"...i'm thinking of leaving tami and the kids so i can ride off into the sunset with joaquin. thoughts?"

"sounds good," ian says vaguely, eyes glued to the dark-haired man sitting at the bar. "i'm sure she'll understand."

"man, you've got it bad." lip shakes his head, amused. "just go over and talk to him."

ian doesn't even turn his head. "who?"

lip rolls his eyes. "the guy you've been staring at for the past hour, who looks like he's part of a biker gang and one second away from smashing a bottle over someone's head. "

"i haven't been staring," ian says defensively, finally peeling his eyes away from the bar. "casually looking, maybe. at his tattoos. and his leather jacket. and his ass."

"and here i thought you wanted to catch up with your dear ol' brother." lip sighs. "how naive was i to think we could have family bonding time."

ian sighs. "grow up lip, we're in a gay bar. the only reason i called you and not carl is because for some reason he manages to pull more guys than me and well, you're... you."

"what the hell is that supposed to mean?" lip asks, slightly offended. "are you saying gay men don't find me attractive?"

"are you saying you want men to hit on you?"

lip shrugs. "i'm just saying, if i really tried, i can definitely pull a dude. y'know, hypothetically speaking, of course."

"okay, mr. i'm-ninety-six-percent-straight," ian snorts. "so, you think i should go and straight up flirt with him? or should i buy him a drink first? or maybe wait for him to come to me?"

"i think you should walk out the door and douse yourself in holy water because homosexuality is a sin and you're going to hell," lip replies solemnly.

"you're no help," ian sighs, sliding out of the booth. "i should've brought carl instead."

"okay, now i'm offended."

ian waves him off and struts over to his target at the bar, tapping the man on the shoulder.

"i think," he starts to say, leaning up against the counter, "you owe me a drink."

the man raises his pierced brow. looks ian up and down and smirks. "do i now."

"because when i saw you from across the room, i dropped my drink on the floor, so."

the man takes a sip from his glass, shaking his head slightly. "pick up lines only work when i'm drunk, and i'm not even two drinks in yet."

"i'll cut to the chase then." ian holds out his hand. "i'm ian. and you are...?"

the man looks down for a moment, before pressing their hands together and shaking. "mickey."

"so, mickey." ian leans forward, still gripping mickey's hand, ghosting his mouth close to mickey's ear. "you want to get drunk, or you want to get out of here?"

lip sighs as he watches the guy immediately throw a twenty on the counter and both of them leave out the front door together without a backwards glance. just as he's about to leave as well, he sees out of the corner of his eye someone checking him out from the next table over. a man, specifically, with tan skin and dark brown hair who, if he's being honest, kind of looks like joaquin?

lip contemplates, for just a teensy moment, whether he should go over and talk to the guy. you know, strictly for scientific purposes - only to prove a point to his stupid little brother who ditched him at a bar to bang some random dude.

but then again, he doesn't think tami will appreciate him flirting with a man - or anyone really - just so he can prove ian wrong and shove it in his smug little face. so he leaves quickly without looking back and thinks it's best, perhaps, the other four percent inside of him is better left unexplored.

[ameriewadiasbangs]

found a new ship i'm obsessed with. it's not canon. the media it's from only came out free to the public about two weeks ago. there are 17 fics in the tag on ao3. i've read them all. i know what i have to do but i don't know if i have the strength to do it.

[twstchaos]

Missy Chievous: Birthday Bloom / Bloom Broom Birthday SSR - Happy Birthday

Do not mind me, just casually a day late for the birthday post.

The Magical Pendulum has decided Missy’s birthday fate. 

Sonne Clemens belongs to @twstwhisper. 

“Happy Birthday” vignette and the random urge to write dialogue solely in the Harveston accent under the cut. 

Happy Birthday (Part One)

INT. DIASOMNIA DORM - BIRTHDAY PARTY VENUE

MISSY: It’s gettin’ late. Ah sure hope the Magical Pendulum didn’t forget about me this year... 

???: Sorry that it took me a while, the dorm leader wanted to make sure my appearance was in order. 

SONNE: Joyeux anniversaire, Missy!

MISSY: SONNE BESTIE, HI!

MISSY: Ah really lucked out wit havin’ ya as mah presenter this year!

SONNE: ...could you be any louder?

MISSY: Hmm? Didya say somethin’?

SONNE: Nope, nothing at all. Let’s just get this interview underway. 

MISSY: ALRIGHT! Fire away, Sonne!

SONNE: Okay, your first question is “if you could use flight magic to go anywhere, where would you like to go?”

MISSY: Hmm, that’s a good question. Lemme think... 

MISSY: There’s this country off the coast of the Queendom of Roses. Ah’ve always wanted ta go there ever since Ah was little.

SONNE: Country off of the coast... 

SONNE: That’s Albion, right?

MISSY: Yeah! That’s actually where mah mum’s from, well, her ancestors that is. 

MISSY: Ah mean, Ah don’t need flight magic ta get there, so Ah guess it’s just somewhere Ah would like ta go. 

SONNE: Though, since your mum’s family is from Albion, why hasn’t she taken you there herself?

MISSY: Uhm, Ah’ve never really tried ta ask her ‘bout goin’. It’s just somethin’ Ah’ve always thought ‘bout. 

MISSY: Honestly, Ah dunno much about Albion ta begin wit.

MISSY: Ah just know that the family has a HUGE estate there. 

—

Happy Birthday (Part Two)

INT. DIASOMNIA DORM - BIRTHDAY PARTY VENUE

SONNE: Alright, time for the second question. 

SONNE: “What is your best class?”

MISSY: Ha! The all-powerful me has got two answers for that!

MISSY: Ahm pretty good, if Ah say so mahself, with the more “do it” classes like flight in PE and Practical Magic. 

MISSY: Ahm more of a hands-on learner than a “read about it in a book” learner. 

MISSY: When Ah do somethin’, Ah do it flawlessly. 

MISSY: Magic just comes naturally to me!

SONNE: Okay, I get what you mean.

SONNE: How about from those two, which is your favorite?

MISSY: Ah bet yer thinkin’ it’s flight, but ya’ll be surprised to know it’s Practical Magic. 

MISSY: Ah don’t really know why Ah like it more, but Ah just do.

MISSY: Ah just feel such a rush whenever Ah complete a spell perfectly. 

MISSY: Also, competing and beating both Epel and Roche at seeing who can do the spell first is always the highlight of the class for me.

MISSY: So yeah, Ah love Practical Magic. 

—

Happy Birthday (Part Three)

INT. DIASOMNIA DORM - BIRTHDAY PARTY VENUE

SONNE: Okay, time for the final question. 

SONNE: “What would you like to do in the coming year?”

MISSY: Honestly, Ah’ve never really thought ‘bout this much.

MISSY: Ah guess like any first-going-ta-second year on the Magift team, Ah’d like ta be first string but not much else. 

MISSY: Actually, there is another thing Ah’m hopin’ ta get better at. 

SONNE: Oh? What’s that?

MISSY: Ah’ve been workin’ on mah Unique Magic to transform inta a lot more. 

SONNE: Ah, yes, your Unique Magic.

MISSY: Once we say what Ah could potentially do, Ah put in the effort ta get there. 

MISSY: And with the help of Néné, Malleus, and everyone else in Diasomnia, Ah have finally mastered “kitty form!”

SONNE: ...oh, good grief. I’m sensing more pranks in the future.

MISSY: Ehehe, ya know it!

MISSY: But since it is a very drastic transformation, Ah can only sustain it for a few minutes right now. 

MISSY: BUT AH WILL OBTAIN MAXIMUM KITTY POWER! 

MISSY: NOW THAT IS MAH PLAN FOR THE COMING YEAR!

—

SONNE: As much as I would love to hear more about how you plan on terrorizing unsuspecting members of the student body with your “maximum kitty power,” our time together for your birthday interview has come to an end. Please accept this broom. 

MISSY: Aww, Ah wanted to chat more with mah bestie!

MISSY: But Ah guess we can continue this later! 

MISSY: Now it's time for me ta show off mah flying prowess!

SONNE: You got this, Missy, and happy birthday!

—

MISSY: Shoulders back, chest high, head up, and FLY!

[lastwiltedflower]

Grace: We're nerdy prudes. We're going to have unsolicited sexual fantasies about the star quarterback Richie: I was gonna use that one! Grace: What Richie: Just kidding *to Steph* I'm not kidding Steph: Dear God

[themadwomanherself]

Ok. I’ve recently had a thought that is super depressing (for me) and I need to share. Don’t care how improbably this is, I’m just a sucker for depressing ideas.

So, we know demons can sometimes meet those important to them before going to hell. And though we never officially see what Kokushibo experiences before going to hell, we all want him to meet Yoriichi for a final reconciliation.

But what if Koku meets no one?

What if Yoriichi already moved on?

We see in the fandom that Yoriichi is portrayed as someone who deeply loves his brother, given he kept the flute long after Michi became a demon. But he also didn’t hesitate to kill him, even though his love prevented him from doing the final blow.

We often think he would stay behind to wait for his brother, wishing to be with him, but…

What if, after he died, he just… accepted his brother’s decision and moved on? What if Kokushibo is the only one obsessing over the other, and thinks Yoriichi will greet him in death but finds no one?

Everyone has moved on. His mother, his father, his wife and kids and even his twin. No one waits for him before he goes to hell and all the future lives he is reborn into, he is alone.

They’ve moved on. Only he’s trapped obsessing over the past. And when they have long left the cycle of suffering and reached nirvana, only Michi remains clinging to his grief and jealousy and desires.

His desire to remember. His desire to repent. His desire for forgiveness and his desire for their love. To see his twin again and make up for all the wrongs he’s done to him.

Yet, he never sees any of them again, in any life. And as he obsesses over this, the guilt and his desires clawing at his heart, he finds himself the last man yet to escape the cycle of suffering. The last soul to remain in the hells.

Cause to reach nirvana, you have to relinquish all your attachments and desires; including relinquish clinging to people.

In the end, he knows he was the only one thinking of the other. His parents moved on. Yoriichi moved on. But not him. And he can’t.

Just… I find this idea to be so heartbreaking, but it might just be me.

[writtenbyme-c]

It's heeeerrrrrreeee

25k of Michie for you lovely lot <3 I hope you enjoy!!!!!

[itsdefinitely]

richie really wanted to be max's friend. he really wanted to be max's friend. he. he wanted to be max's friend. nobody talk to me i'm having a moment