#not because of the prompt itself but because i wrote the story in chunks over a couple of days

[bbyboybucket]

1, 3, 13, 18, & 24 for the ask game 😁

1. I write in default but I don’t think the notes app has fonts to chose from actually 😭

3. I don’t really have a ritual 😭 but if we’re talking about cursed ways to write, there’s been 10000 times where I’ve been driving and I’ll have an idea for whatever I’m writing so I’ll just pull my phone out and start typing out like an entire scene or chunk of dialogue. No, I do not wait till I pull over. I think it’s self explanatory why this is so bad.

13. I feel like missions and action scenes are my hardest area. I’m not very good at coming up with them nor describing them, so I try to avoid it. I actually have a genius fic idea that I wanna write but I prolly never will bc it’d require all that mission stuff. Maybe I’m just bad at it because I have no experience, since most of my fics are mundane, random, little life moments rather than actual stories with plots lmao.

18. Honestly I had a hard time picking a passage bc most of my fics are so old that I don’t remember writing them or I straight up just think they’re cringe now 😭 so basically I just chose one from the last thing I wrote

Nakajima didn’t get the joy of having more holidays with his family. Collins didn’t get another Christmas. Weaver, Hudson, Gannod, Hauser, Whitaker; not a single one of them saw the light of Christmas morning again. The nameless faces didn’t either. They all got nothing ever again and their last breathes were filled with terror as his own merciless form stood before them. Bucky had no right to complain as his heart was still beating, his windpipe wasn’t crushed nor was his brain matter splattered on the walls.

The reason I chose this one is because I spent soooooo long looking, like literally scouring the whole internet, for a clear picture of Bucky’s notebook so I could use the actual last names written. The paragraph itself was nothing special and mainly just to play up his guilt some more, but the process of finding those names in his book was weirdly difficult. Like I swear it took me over 20 minutes.

24. My prep work is the bare minimum. I’ll have an idea for dialogue or a prompt and I’ll write it down, then I’ll make a really really shitty outline. Honestly idek if what I do qualifies as an outline. But then 99% of the time I won’t even end up following it.

[avyssoseleison]

Funnily enough I was going through a lot of your old fics yesterday for nostalgia reasons and now can't stop thinking high school enemies to lovers deancas ideally with some punk!cas nerd!dean maybe? Fully understand if that prompt doesn't tickle your fancy though

Please enjoy these 3.2k of enemies to homework buddies!

“Winchester.”

Dean will ignore him.

“Hey, Winchester!”

Dean will most definitely ignore him. Just keep on walking. If Novak thinks he can’t hear him, surely he’ll leave him alone. He’ll go bother someone else, and Dean will finally be free of him.

“Winchester!”

Dean hears, but doesn’t listen. He starts humming to himself when there’s suddenly a hand on his shoulder, ripping him out of his thoughts.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, you assbutt!”

And there he is, of course: Castiel Novak. With his dumb boots and even dumber leather jacket, and, dumbest of all, that small little frown that slowly morphs into a way too pleased smile the longer Dean glares at him.

Christ.

By the time when Novak’s smile turns into a full-blown grin, Dean finally musters up the strength to look away. The soft rustle of tree crowns in the distance reminds him of what a great morning he has been having, and what a perfect day it could have been, had Novak decided to leave him alone. As it is, his day might turn out a bit marred, after all. A bit more normal, perhaps.

“‘Assbut’?” Dean quips, way too late. “What kinda insult is that?”

“What kind of delayed comeback is this?” Novak counters. 

“It’s not as delayed as your…” Dean doesn’t really know enough about Novak to be able to insult him in any meaningful way, and what he knows of him, he doesn’t want to use. So, instead, he finishes lamely with, “...development.”

Novak could not look any less impressed, especially because the raise of his eyebrow alone continues their little banter in a manner that clearly suggests that if anyone’s development is delayed, it has to be Dean’s. However, that level of insult is apparently not one Novak deigns to lower himself to, as he continues to look smug while busying himself with lighting a cigarette and blowing out a lungful of smoke with obvious relish.

Dean makes a face and pointedly waves his hand in front of his face. “Smoking’s bad for you,” he simply states, making Novak chuckle lightly.

“So’s a lot of things, if society is to be believed. I am not much of a believer, though, and I do enjoy the small pleasures in life.”

The small, self-satisfied smile Novak shoots him sends a strange feeling through Dean’s body, from his lips down to his very toes, and everything in-between.

Dean swallows. “What do you want, Novak?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Novak takes a drag while trotting along Dean who starts moving again, trying to put some distance between himself and the self-proclaimed anarchist. “I just have a small favor to ask you,” he says, sounding as though whatever he is asking for is actually not that small at all.

“Again?” Dean grumbles, thinking of Novak quickly copying his homework last week, secluded in that small parking lot that no one but Novak and some people in the know ever seem to use, and of what Novak did in return. “I’m not doing you any more favors, man,” Dean scoffs, and stomps on.

Nonetheless, Novak stays hot on his heels.

“Why not?” Novak presses, “I’m not asking for much -- I just need today’s Math homework. I didn’t hear Mr. Singer give us any, but Meg just told me he wanted us to solve like 15 fucking problems, and she didn’t do them either.“

“Of course not.“ Anything else would’ve been shocking enough — if Novak has a bad reputation, Meg Masters‘ is even worse. All kinds of rumors are going around about her, ranging from drug use to prostitution to downright witchcraft. Although Dean cannot confirm nor deny any of the rumors, he is inclined to believe most of them. And Meg Masters herself would probably laughingly accept any accusations -- she is that kind of person. And although Dean cannot help but grudgingly respect her for her attitude, he also resents her for it: and how could he not, when he works so hard to do what is asked of him, and stick to the rules? Yeah, the only way someone like Meg could shock Dean would be to actually do her homework for a change.

“Now, now,“ Novak chides playfully, even if it doesn’t seem like he cares all that much about it. “Meg does her best.“

“Just like you do, huh?“

At that, Novak‘s grin turns darker, a bit more dangerous. “So harsh, Winchester. I think you know better than most how sometimes, things are not as easy as they seem. That circumstances are different for everyone.“

“Yeah, yeah,“ Dean dismisses, with a pang in his chest, though he gets it. Unfortunately, he really does. “Anyway, I won’t give you the homework.“

“Why not?“

“Because why would I? I don’t like you and you only hit me up when you need stuff from me. Besides...“ he begins, then swallows back a proper explanation. “You know why.“

“Oh, I do?“

“You damn well know you do.“

“Hmm, alright.“ Novak takes another drag, unbothered. “Listen, if you give me today’s homework, I’ll make it worth your while.“

“Not interested,“ Dean says, already having a hunch of where this is going.

“No? Could be something similar to last time. You liked last time’s payment, didn’t you?” Novak asks, and it’s just like Dean expected.

Dean avidly fixes his gaze on the school building, still hidden behind some trees, but not too far off anymore. He will be safe there -- Novak would never dream of bothering him where anyone else could see. 

“I fucking did not,” he argues, already feeling heat creep into his cheeks.

“Really? I could’ve sworn you did, what with all the blushing and squirming and your pants going--”

“Novak!” Dean barks with a swelling sense of despair. His entire face feels hot by now, and is probably as red as a tomato, “I sure as hell did not enjoy whatever you call ‘payment’ for last week. Besides, I wouldn’t even call it ‘payment’ so much as fucking ‘harassment’.”

There is a beat of silence. Then, “Are you serious?” Novak asks, in an unidentifiable tone of voice.

“‘Harassment’, ‘molestation’, ‘taking advantage’,” Dean recites, enjoying this now that he is gaining momentum. “You call it payment, I call it an affront, and--”

“Is that really what you think, Winchester?” Novak cuts in at the same time he stands still, his eyebrows drawn together in an unfamiliarly serious way. “That I harassed you?”

Dean stops as well. He looks back at Novak, his straight back and straightforward face, the way that he seems not just annoyed by the accusation, as Dean would have expected, but unsettled. As if he were taking Dean’s half-joke seriously, and reconsidering his own course of action.

Guilt wells up in Dean, and he holds his hands up in reassurance. “I didn’t--” he doesn’t know how to actually finish that sentence, so he just leaves it hanging.

There is nothing to say there, not really. What Dean said was half in jest, and half in… half in what he knows anyone else would think of the situation, or should think. It’s what Dean himself should think: that it was unexpected, unwanted, unreciprocated. That his animosity towards Novak just grew over it, that he truly hates him now. That there was no part of Dean that enjoyed any of it, no part of him that longs to do it again.

Novak keeps staring at him, though, reassessing. His stillness is as unnerving as his little smiles and contemplative looks usually are, even if in different ways. Regardless, he seems to come to some sort of conclusion as he takes in Dean’s still figure, the flush in his cheeks and whatever else there is to see, since he suddenly steps forward, closer towards him again.

“Harassment, was it?” Novak says, now with cold fire burning in his eyes that takes away Dean’s breath for just a moment. “Because I do seem to remember that you were the one who not only told me it was okay if I gave you a kiss on the cheek, but turned it into something more. By turning your head, parting your lips, not letting me go. You were the one who slipped me the tongue and kept going and going. You were the one who begged me to do more, kiss you more, touch you more, fu--”

“No!” Dean interrupts him, with burning cheeks and a stomach that has already dropped all the way down. “S-Stop making shit up, Novak. You know I’m not like that -- I’m not like you --, so I’d really appreciate it if you could leave me out of your fantasies. You were the one who harassed me--”

“--I just said--”

“--who pushed me to give him my homework in the first place--”

“--I asked you if it was okay to--”

“--and who made me do something I sure as hell neither enjoyed nor wanna do again.”

“Oh, really?” Novak asked, raising an eyebrow, in what might constitute a challenge or a feeling of false imputation, or both. “So, if I told you I’d love to kiss you again if you let me copy your math homework, you’d tell me no? Would what, cry harassment again if I dared touch so much as your wrist or even came close to you again? Or,” he continues, voice dropping into a darker tone while he does indeed inch closer towards Dean, close enough to touch him, and who remains where he is, rooted to the spot, “would you tell someone about it? Mr. Singer, perhaps? Or the counselor? Hmm, one thing’s for sure, though.” He laughs, but there’s no humor behind it. It sounds pained, even to Dean’s ears, knowing. “You wouldn’t tell your dad, would you? That you made out with a guy, and liked it? That you wouldn’t mind doing it again, given the right circumstances, some good excuse? Such as taking the long way to where you’ve parked your car, past the small parking lot you know where mine is and where I usually hang out? So that, I don’t know, perhaps I might come over when I see you, and all you had to do was bat your long lashes at me, bite your pretty lips, and wait for me to make a move again?”

It feels as if all the air is sucked out of Dean’s lungs. Standing there in front of Novak, feeling the heat of both his words and his body, he feels seen-through, known; and as lacerated and repugnant as an open wound.

Dean  wants to draw back into himself, into his safe shell, but he can’t. “You’re ridiculous, man,” is all he can mumble out in return as he twists his gaze away from Novak.

They remain there like this for God knows how long. Dean, looking somewhere between their feet and Novak’s almost heaving chest, and Novak, with his face hidden from Dean’s view, but his hands clenched into fists.

By the time Novak’s hands open again, it feels as though an hour has passed, though it probably were mere minutes.

“Alright,” Novak blows out on a breath, “let me make you a deal. Just so we’re on the same page, and we’re both absolutely clear on what is okay and what might be harassment or anything of the sort.”

Hearing Novak say that word again revives the feelings of guilt in Dean, but he knows he’s made his bed, so now he has to lie in it. So, he swallows and nods, feeling all of his body tense. “What kinda deal?”

“It goes like this: you either refuse to let me copy your homework and I won’t ever touch, much less kiss, you ever again. I’ll leave you alone. Or, you allow me to copy today’s homework at the very least, so Mr. Singer won’t call my foster home again, and you can choose whatever payment you want, as long as it’s somewhat reasonable. Money, cigarettes, beer, anything you want me to do, you name it. As long as you name it. I won’t give you what you’re not explicitly asking for.”

Dean frowns. “What? How is that a deal? It’s either you win or I do, no in-between. I mean, fine by me, but you get nothing out of it, so what gives?”

“It’s not that bad of a deal,“ Novak says, finally flinging his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out. 

He gives no further explanation, though, which gets on Dean’s nerves even more. “You suck at coming up with deals, you know that?“

“Not really,“ Novak says, shrugging a little. “As I see it, it‘s win-win for you and win-lose for me. Which, for me, too: is fine. It all depends on what you want.” There’s something strangely soft in the way he is looking at Dean, something almost wistful. “And on whether you’ll actually express it.”

Put on the spot yet not, there isn’t much for Dean to do but nod in acquiescence. He’d like to pretend he still doesn’t get what Novak is going for, but he does, deep down. It’s both an in and an out -- what he was hoping for, but couldn't have asked for. Now he has to ask for what he wants, and if he doesn’t, he won’t get it. And he’s not sure he can. Not when there’s rules and expectations and the shadow of a man larger than Dean, larger than life itself, endlessly looming over him.

“Okay,” Dean says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Novak keeps staring at him in that stiffly intense way of his. “Alright. I mean, it probably would be pretty bad if you turned up without homework again, huh? Last I heard, you got into some pretty dire straits when Mr. Singer called your foster home, right?”

Novak huffs out a sound of amusement, his shoulders sinking in what looks like relief. “You’re well-informed.”

A furious blush threatens to stain Dean’s cheeks again. “It’s just what I heard. People talk. About you. And, uh, everyone else, I guess.”

There it is again, that soft expression. And Dean thinks he might recognize it now, impossible enough: Novak looks fond.

“They do,” Novak agrees, showing no offense at any possible implications of him being the talk of the school, which he most definitely is. “And yes, it was ‘pretty bad’, as you’ve said. I’d much rather not have a repeat performance.”

“Easy way to avoid it.”

“Yes, I’m working on it at the very moment.”

In spite of himself, Dean huffs out a laugh. “I meant doing your own damn homework. I know you’re smart enough to do it, even if you barely show up in class. You ace all the tests even when you weren’t there, so I don’t believe you couldn’t just as well hand in your homework if you fucking wanted to.”

Novak hums in open amusement. “Is that your own observation or people talking again?”

Feeling as though caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Dean just lamely stammers out a, “It’s-- it’s common knowledge, okay?” before setting into motion again.

Novak’s laughter follows him the first few steps, then he is beside him again.

“Who knows, maybe you’re right and I could take care of my own homework. But maybe I like not doing so, and asking certain other people for it instead.”

It’s obvious what -- or rather, who -- he means by that, that Dean is pretty sure his skin will never be anything but pink again. “Oh yeah?” he needles, “You got many people doing your homework? Giving them the same payment, too?”

“No,” Novak replies surprisingly quickly, “there’s only one person, and only one time I offered that type of payment.”

For a minute, they walk in silence as they almost reach the stairs of the school house. There’s few other people around, most of them just entering the building or looking at their phones, unheeding of the pair.

“So, we have a deal?” Novak eventually asks into their waiting silence.

“You can have today’s homework,” Dean relents, holding out on what he knows Novak is actually going for.

“Thank you, Dean,” Novak says with a gummy smile.

The sound of his name stirs Dean him up a bit more, reminding him of the only other time when Novak called him by his first name: when he was crowding Dean up against a wall, removing his glasses, and kissing his cheek so softly that Dean needed more, needed to be closer to this other guy, to this enigma of a person.

“Don’t mention it,” Dean mumbles.

“As for your payment…?” Novak probes, though with his voice in a whisper as they are close enough to other people now that they might otherwise be overheard.

“Don’t know yet,” Dean says, his voice clipped.

“I’m sure you already have something in mind.“ It’s completely uncalled for Novak to say this in such a low and heady way.

“Maybe you do, but I don’t.“ He doesn’t know, he thinks. He can’t, is why. He won’t, he tells himself.

“Dean,” Novak says, using his first name again, as if they were friends or something more, sounding intimate in the most casual way, and that does it.

“Damnit, Novak, I want—“ Dean bursts out.

Novak looks at him in expectation, all of him turned towards Dean, listening.

He won’t, he won’t, he can’t.

Can’t he?

“—time,“ Dean finishes lamely.

Novak pulls a face that clearly says, ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed.’

Which is all the worse.

“Listen, Novak, you… you might be right.“ Dean pulls a face. “I can’t believe I just said that. But yeah, I might have an idea of what I want, what I’d like to have,” he pointedly does not look at the other boy or anything else but straight towards the school. “But you’re also right in that my dad wouldn’t— I can’t--” He swallows, tries to shake the thought out of his head, but it unfortunately stays stuck. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll think about it, okay?”

“You will?” Novak asks, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah, sure. Maybe.“ He blows out his breath, scrubs a hand through his own hair, and continues, “Might take me some time, though. Maybe a long time. Maybe forever.“ He laughs mirthlessly. “So, today’s homework might actually turn out to be a freebie for you.”

The expression on Novak‘s face is hard to read, but undeniably one he usually does not show in public. For a second there, Dean thinks Novak wants to reach for him: his hand lifts and opens just so, swerving in his direction. Before anything comes off it, though, he drops his hand again, burrows it in his pocket and says, “Take all the time you need, Dean.“

He might have to, Dean thinks. Probably nothing will come of this, not right now, maybe not for as long as he is as young as he is, dependent on his father’s will, bound to him for freedom. Perhaps, though, some other time, in some distant future, or hidden behind some bleachers, he might find a taste of liberation, or the touch of Novak’s lips again.

Dean turns away from the other boy as the school bell rings, the call-back to the present not quite as oppressive with blue eyes and a soft smile still impressed on his mind.

[brynnmck]

J/B Exchange Recs Round 1!

I have not been around Tumblr much lately because I was so preoccupied with stuff for @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange, but I am trying to get back into the swing of things, and I figured what better place to start than with some recs?

These are currently skewed a bit toward my amaaaazing gift fic and the amaaaaazing ones I beta-ed, since I am way behind on my reading, but there will be more to come!

Backpfeifengesicht by @samirant - I am so unbelievably grateful that I had both amazing prompts/amazing recipient for the fic I wrote, and such a fabulous gift fic too. I was still working on my own fic and very sleep-deprived and flagging when I read this for the first time and I think I may have actually left my body on a wave of sheer euphoria. IT IS ALL THE GOOD THINGS. So many of my favorite vacation/road trip tropes--drunken shenanigans! Intimate late-night conversations while everyone else is sleeping/elsewhere! Friends being too involved in your relationship! Unexpected forced proximity! And the banter is glorious, and the secondary characters are so well thought out and add such depth and vibrance to the story, and the Sansa/Margaery subplot was DELIGHTFUL, and I love the way this structured Brienne's relationship to Tyrion and then to Jaime as an extension of that, and the resolution was handled with an absolutely perfect balance of hilarity and heat. (There was also the stuff throughout that was very targeted to me specifically WHICH I APPRECIATED, so thanks to both Sami and @forbiddenfantasies1 for that). About 20% of the way into the story, I was deeply convinced it was Sami, and in the best possible way--it had the hallmarks I love about her writing: her sense of humor, her gift for banter, her clear affection for the characters, the richness of all the relationships. It was like showing up to a party and unexpectedly finding a friend there, and it was the loveliest feeling. I am thrilled that so many people have read and loved this story but I want everyone in the world to read and love it, so. Please check it out if you haven't! And also check out Sami's hilarious tale of woe regarding her writing process, which is amazing. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR SUCH A PHENOMENAL GIFT SAMI.  ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

A favorite line: On any other day, Brienne would have left him - a relative stranger - to his wallowing, but an untold amount of imbibed Pentoshi Slammers stirred up a noble benevolence within her, a little voice that said they had something in common and what good were her broad shoulders if they weren’t offered as a place to rest a weary, heartbroken brow? SO GOOD.

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Lay Your Heartbreak and the sequel You could make me feel so good by @ajoblotofjunk / sdwolfpup - LISTEN. SDW sent me an early chunk of this and I was immediately OBSESSED and I have not stopped being obsessed since. Obviously worldbuilding is a huge strength of SDW's and her creativity with that is a constant astonishment to me. But pop culture is full of examples of people who can create amazing worlds and then utterly fail to populate them with interesting or dynamic characters, whereas SDW's ability to fill in those wonderfully creative spaces with her love for the characters and their love for each other that is just magic. And these fics are the perfect examples of that. The setup is not only fascinating but makes for such fantastically INTENSE feelings, omg, everything just feels like it's crackling off the page; even before Jaime and Brienne and Addam are admitting anything to each other, it's not so much simmering under the surface as boiling. The balance between the three of them is gorgeous, there are two incredibly hot fencing scenes as well as a very hot swimming scene (in addition to the sequel being just one big tangle of brain-scorching hotness), there's a perfect amount of sweetness and softness to play off all the blazing heat, and overall this is one that's going to stick with me for a long time. I know J/A/B isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you aren't actively opposed to the idea of them, then I highly highly encourage you to check this out. 

A favorite line: That night she dreams of golden skin, hot and soft against her palm – yes, someone moans, yes – the rough scrape of callouses over the arch of her ribs, the scratch of red stubble between her thighs – like this? Yes, more, please more – legs sliding together and between each other, and two mouths touching her all over. Hnnnnngh.

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The Limit Does Not Exist by @agirlnamedkeith / sameboots - Fics with a power imbalance are something I approach with a lot of caution but I LOVED the way that sameboots handled it here. The fact that this fic includes her signature extremely hot feelings-forward porn as well as a thoughtful exploration of what it can mean to be a woman in STEM is like a beautiful multi-course meal; I cared a LOT about whether they were gonna do it and I was also equally invested in how Brienne’s thesis was going to turn out and where she would go from there. I love Brienne’s stubbornness and determination and even though she’s finding her way here (as you would be, as a grad student), those elements are VERY much on display and they spark fantastically against an initially guarded and caustic but eventually deeply admiring Jaime. And while I don’t want to spoil anything, I will say that I feel like the end is a perfect illustration of one of the major themes of the fic, and I love it so much for that. Watching this one take shape and watching sameboots geek out over her math research was a delight, and the result is excellent (and did I mention, extremely hot). Definitely worth all her work!

A favorite line: “Has anyone ever told you that you’re the worst liar?” (KIDDING HANNAH ILU HERE’S THE REAL ONE:)  The problem with smoothies was that it was hard to make them aggressively., Angrily pushing a button didn’t have the same release as whaling on a punching bag. Brienne didn’t have a punching bag, though, and she desperately needed to do something, and she was hungry. ANGRY SMOOTHING-MAKING. I LOVE IT.

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Right Off the Bat by @hillaryschu - A You’ve Got Mail AU where Jaime and Brienne are rival Little League coaches who unknowingly bond over Twitter is SUCH a great idea, and Hillary committed to it right down to the delightful rom-com-trailer summary. She also put an enormous amount of care into the details of the story--she had references for outfits, buildings, even Jaime’s cologne--and it shows in all the lush descriptions throughout. The banter is sparky, watching their two relationships gradually unfold is a lot of fun, there’s a particular tipsy (on Brienne’s part) Twitter DM exchange that I still get flustered thinking about, and there’s a batting cage scene that will be haunting my brain for a while. Especially given that Hillary had never written a story anywhere near this long before, I’m so impressed that she pulled it off (and fixed some of the most problematic elements of the movie, too). Congratulations to her on rising to the challenge!

A favorite line: But as they part from each other, Brienne lifts the hem of her tee to wipe the dirt and sweat from her face. Her exposed stomach is pale and toned, with softly defined muscles that gleam with perspiration. Jaime trips over home plate. SAME JAIME. SAME.

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X Marks the Spot (where I’ll find you again) by @pretty--thief - PIRATES. I WAS SO EXCITED WHEN I HEARD ABOUT THE PIRATES. And this fic is such a fantastic blend of snappy, exciting swashbuckling (and hilarious use of parrots) and a very poignant backstory that underlays the adventure with all this yeeeeeearning and it’s SO GOOD. The action scenes are thrilling, the descriptions are gorgeous, there is STARGAZING and BATTLE COUPLE, the Jaime snark is chefkiss, Brienne is so brave and committed and quietly full of feelings, there’s a really lovely discussion of the ethics of being in the military, and also Pod and Addam and Arya and PIRATES FOR JUSTICE. SO HERE FOR THAT. And did I mention the yeeeeeearning (which is paid off wonderfully--the penultimate chapter lived rent-free in my mind for about a week after I first read it)? Ugh SO GOOD.

A favorite line: When he had exited his quarters, Brienne had looked at him with so much concern in her eyes it threatened to swallow Jaime whole. He’d felt something similar when he was around Cersei, when they were fucking or fighting; a fire he had once thought he could never tire of, would never want to put out. But Brienne had reached out her hand, as if on reflex, and smoothed her thumb across his tired brow. The ship had continued to sway beneath them, and Jaime didn’t feel fire. He didn’t feel like he would be turned to ash at any moment. He felt a breeze, the wind in his hair and salty air in his lungs. as;lfkja;sldjgas;lfjas;lf 

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Federation Fliers by @elizadunc /Ladybugbear2 - A short and very sweet one! I adore the world that Megs created in this and would happily read many many more words in it, but this is a lovely glimpse in and of itself, and made me so happy. Established relationship (which I love), one of my favorite Jaime nicknames for Brienne, a wonderfully badass Brienne and a wonderfully besotted Jaime, all against a fascinating backdrop. So good!

A favorite line: She belonged in the sky. She had a grace to her movements on the ground, but in the sky she was ethereal. HEART-EYES

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And now for a few that I just read after they were posted like a normal person:

Wine Down by @slipsthrufingers - SOME MILD SPOILERS HEREIN FYI. Okay first of all, the summary of this fic is deliciously evil and I think we all need to appreciate that. Also, it starts out with Jaime and Brienne having lunch together and these glorious descriptions of food and he has taken note of the specific food she likes and is making sure it’s provided for her and that is SO VERY MUCH MY LOVE LANGUAGE YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. I FLAILED. And then things go, shall we say, a bit downhill, but in the most achingly beautiful way--Jaime sacrificing himself for Brienne and Brienne determined to tether him to life through sheer force of will and steadfast devotion. Slips puts us right into Brienne’s headspace/heartspace while she’s worrying for Jaime and trying to negotiate the fucked-up Lannister family dynamics (and the observations on said dynamics are wonderful too), and this hits such an excellent balance of Brienne’s rigidly controlled surface and everything that’s roiling away underneath. I’m always fascinated by the idea of what could have happened during the time that Brienne was in King’s Landing and this is such a brilliant exploration of how things could have gone, and Brienne’s interactions with the rest of the Lannisters (and Sansa) give the world that much more depth as well. The descriptions throughout are beautiful, there are so many lovely turns of phrase, the intimacy between Jaime and Brienne is just devastating, and it all comes back around to an immensely satisfying conclusion. SO GOOD. 

A favorite line: The gods had seen fit to give her an unwomanly body, so she had taken up the sword. They had given her an ugly face, so she had perfected her manners and courtesies so they could never be frowned upon. But they had given her a maiden’s heart, and try as she might she had never found the right weapon to protect it. MY PRECIOUS GIRL.

_____

A Matter of Honor by @nire-the-mithridatist - I shrieked at nire in DMs basically the whole time I was reading this story, it made me experience like 90% of the range of human emotions in one night and I’m still mad about it. This features a fascinatingly flipped script where Brienne is the wealthy one and Jaime the supplicant, and an arrogant-ass supplicant he is. Brienne is an angy baby nineteen-year-old who is furious at the entire world and I fucking adore her for it, and watching all the events unfold through the lens of her (generally well-founded) suspicions was a delicious sort of torture where I trusted NO ONE and genuinely did not know exactly what was going to happen next. Nire turns a lot of marriage fic tropes on their head in this and it’s all done brilliantly, and there is EXTREMELY SEXY SWORD-FIGHTING (and as a sexy bonus, Brienne’s perspective on it feels so perfect for someone who is truly an accomplished swordswoman), and nire uses some common elements throughout to just pack in these layers and layers of meaning and significance, and there are many turns of phrase so perfect that they hurt, and then she’s like “hey would you like to re-feel all the feelings in this story again in a very concentrated burst” and it’s SO MUCH, and the conclusion pays everything off amazingly. And even though it’s very swoony and romantic (and HOT. I SHOULD MENTION VERY HOT), there’s a hint of melancholy to it too, reckoning with what it means to be a woman--even a wealthy one--in Brienne’s world, and it’s just the perfect crunch of salt on top of all the sweetness. LOVE. 

A favorite line: He brought her knuckles to his lips. As sweet as honeyed nettles, he declared, “Lady Brienne. You have made me the happiest of men.” As the crowd roared in approval, she felt the sting of his kiss. STING OF HIS KISS ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Also I’m including this for purely thirsty reasons but NO SHAME: He stood from the sofa and went to help his wife undress, and if she noticed his averted eyes and his trembling hands—oh gods, the laces went on endlessly down her back, and with each pull, a little more of her figure was revealed, barely veiled by her gauzy shift—she said nothing. I DIED. I ALSO SAID NOTHING BECAUSE I WAS DEAD. Fuck, man.

_____

The Riverlands Gang Go to the Zoo by @naomignome - Another shorter and very delightful one with Naomi’s typical brand of chaotic humor that I adore. It’s Hyle POV, for one thing, which is good times, and the structure of this is so clever--the way each section of the zoo is used to progress the story is so seamless and happy-making, and there are tons of little jokes and Easter eggs packed in along with a very sweet, snarky emotional storyline wherein Hyle is definitely doomed. Plus another EXCELLENT Brienne nickname in here. LOVELY. 

A favorite line: “Pixel!” he said laughingly, “You know if you fell in the bear pit, I would jump after you without a second thought.” “You need to have a first thought in order to have a second one.” Brienne said dryly. SUCH A GOOD BURN.

_____

all these people think love’s for show (but i would die for you in secret) by @naomignome - This is SUCH A FLEX because not only did Naomi write TWO fics for her recipient but they are WILDLY DIFFERENT and I’m so impressed with her for doing it! This one is SPIEEEEESSSS and Naomi packs so much tension into 5K, I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing. Canon events are woven in astonishingly well, and it’s a delicious enemies-to-partners-to-lovers situation that involves some excellent hurt/comfort and excellent use of RAIN to moody/sexy effect and it’s just all very thrilling. YUM.

A favorite line: He lets off a single bullet and it grazes the inside of her thigh, enough to make her wince and draw blood, but not enough to stop her from tackling him to the ground and wrestling him into submission. She’s got both of his wrists pinned above his head and her knee is drawn up and pressed against his torso. Jaime’s chest is heaving under her knee. Her chest is heaving in tandem. From above him, Brienne can see the green of his eyes darken, and even in submission, he’s annoyingly beautiful. Her blood is rushing, and it’s not all adrenaline. WHEW. SAME.

_____

as stars once a year brush the earth by @ylizam / mazily - Another wonderfully bite-sized one (good job actually taking the minimum word count as a guideline, people who did that, unlike the rest of us dumbasses!) that packs a lot into a small space. A canon-ish soulmates AU that’s so understated and dreamy, but with the echo of all the turmoil they’ve gone through to get to this place that brings everything in sharp relief. It’s also funny and sexy and romantic as fuck, and there are gorgeous poetic descriptions, and they spar by a WATERFALL, and just. So much happens in just over 1600 words! IMPRESSIVE.

A favorite line: Her right hand goes numb, unfeeling; back in their rooms Jaime is waking up, and she knows the phantom ache of his missing hand is bothering him. Jaime is waking, and yawning, the bed linens pooling around his waist and highlighting his summer tanned skin. She misses him, suddenly, as wide as the endless sea in front of her. BEAUTIFUL.

OKAY THIS WAS A LONG POST. That’s all I’ve got for now--more to come as I continue my reading!!

[basket-of-epiphanies]

tyyyy @gusu-emilu for the tag!!! please keep these coming because i love talking about myself

My AO3 is half_right_writer

fandoms

i can’t possibly list all the fandoms i’ve ever been in, but the ones i’ve written for are cql, marvel, star wars and star trek! most of those are super old mind you, the only recent fics i have are cql and maybe a couple star wars

where you post

AO3, but sometimes i promote my fics on tumblr

most popular oneshot

a grave so familiar-- this is a yunmeng bros reconciliation fic! it’s actually not my favorite work, but it’s definitely the most popular. tho it’s not the one with the most hits it is the one with the most kudos.

most popular multichap

can you be a quiet man?-- a post-canon lxc healing fic. uh, i say healing, but we’re... 18 chapters in now? and he uh. he hasn’t done much healing. but nevertheless! it’s by far my most popular, over 5k hits now (which is good for me lol)

favorite story you’ve written so far

cybaqm! i’m super proud of it because it’s like the longest thing i’ve ever written and i think it’s... kinda good maybe? but i also really like when you move, i’m moved, a short and sweet get together songxiao fic that i wrote on a whim

fic you were nervous to post

oh, DEFINITELY in my mind, you’re the angel on the painted glass. i had never really written smut before, and that by itself was very nervewracking, but i’d written it and really liked how it turned out so i really wanted to post it. i was so nervous tho! i thought everybody would be like grossed out or something... idk even now i look at it and i want to delete it i just feel so embarrassed, but people wrote the nicest comments and i feel bad deleting it so idk

i was also nervous about i might as well sit here on my own, just cuz i wasn’t really sure what people would think about it

how you choose your titles

it’s always a song lyric! i know i’m edgy but like. music is literally the greatest thing on the planet and some lyrics just capture the vibe i’m going for perfectly! sometimes, i have a playlist for a pair and i’ll use a lyric from one of those songs, like what i did for my songxiao fics. for cybaqm, i knew i wanted something about being quiet in the title because lxc’s quietness (literally, and his unwillingness to ask for help, his fear of being a burden, etc etc) are huge themes in the fic, so i really wanted something to do with that! and Lost Man Running by Elliot Root was actually already a song I really liked, so when i was scrolling through my spotify for inspo, i saw and was like oh man, i have to. i just have to, it’s perfect. (fun fact: i actually associated lost man running with obi-wan kenobi before i gave it to lxc)

do you outline

not at all! it’s a real problem. altho actually for cybaqm, i was really putting maximum effort into that, so i’ll sometimes outline a couple chapters in chunks, write it, then just keep going, then sometimes when i get stuck go back to outlining. mostly, tho, no.

complete

all of my fics are complete at the moment except for cybaqm

in progress

as mentioned, cybaqm. also tho, i have a post-canon songxiao oneshot i’m working on that i’ve been talking to my friend about, so hopefully i’ll be able to finish that soon.

coming soon / not yet started

there’s a songxiao fic that i really want to write to go along with this art i made. a lot of people have been asking for it and i really do want to deliver! i’ve written a bit of it too (as you can see from the post desc) but i’ve kinda lost my way with that one. never say never tho! it’s still in my drafts and it’s not going anywhere soon.

Besides that, I’d love to write some baoyi someday! and maybe post some scene outtakes from cybaqm that didn’t make it into the fic?

and as always, i have a new chapter of cybaqm up every week.

prompts?

if you want to give me some, i will definitely lose my shit and do them instantly, but i’m not really known as a writing blog lmao so i don’t think that will happen (that’s okay tho)

upcoming work you’re most excited about

more cybaqm! people received it so well and every time i update it i get so much happiness from the comments people write.

tagging

i dont know many writers i dont think? but definitely @wishicouldpostfromsecondaryblogs @grapefruitsketches and anyone else who wants to do this!

[logicheartsoul]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by @allislaughter

Name: My name is A-Chan but other people call me Aya, so either one is fine tbh!

Fandoms: The amount of fandoms I read and am in...even as a lurker is a lot. There are fandoms I used to write for but the ones I’ve written in the last 5 years are: Star Trek (TOS/AOS/ENT and crossovers to other trek series), The Librarians, Leverage, and Yu Yu Hakusho. If you want to count series I have WIPs in but haven’t posted there’s:  Stargate (Mostly SGA but sometimes it’s SGA/SG1 crossovers), Card Captor Sakura, and some Precure. Also wrote some for 1-2 C-Dramas and J-Dramas but I dunno if I’ll ever post them.

Where you post: I post on here, on ff.net, and AO3. Also, I share a LOT on discord. An incredible amount actually (as a few friends will attest to lmao)

Most Popular One-shot: Considering how I post on multiple platforms, my most popular oneshot on ff.net is Savior, a post-The Point of Salvation episode tag fic, which has the most favorites. On AO3, the fic with the most kudos is scars; they will not fade, but its power lessens over time and the one with the most comments is Husband, a fic of fic of the amazing Hieibara series “by way of design”.

Most Popular Multichap:  All Things, though I’m not going to be updating it anytime soon and it’s also my first properly posted Trek fic which means it’s over 4 years old, so a lot has changed since then. There’s just been a lot of stories I haven’t posted that are multi-chapter mostly because in the past (like back in high school) I would start SO many stories and never finished them (I have about... 5? 6? abandoned series that way, maybe more) and I just don’t want to continue doing that same thing again. This story actually was intended as a one-shot that I created more chapters, thinking I would finish and then real life intervened. 

Favorite story you’ve written so far: ...asking me to choose a favorite is just... too hard, especially since there’s so many WIPs I have that I really enjoyed writing.

Fic you were nervous to post: Honestly? Husband, only because the author of the fic is someone I admire and waiting to see their response to my work really was nerve-wracking until it happened and then I kinda screamed and flailed and floated in a ‘is this real???’ moment. 

How do you choose your titles: Honestly, whatever goes. LOL Songs, poetry, quotes, things related to the story somehow that become relevant, or whatever. 

Do you outline: No, not really, because for me an outline is kinda too rigid? I mean I outline when I write nonfiction/academic stuff -- it really needs that structure -- and sometimes I make timelines of things to figure out when things happen in context with each other, but it’s not necessarily like a fully detailed, mapped outline in the traditional sense. I kind of have the road trip approach, where some of the big, basic important things are covered (overall story/arc, what characters, fandom, pairings, kind of setting, etc) and the rest will discover itself? Coz you never know on a trip what could happen, even if you’ve figured out how long your trip is, your mode of transportation, money for food/lodging, where you’re going to sleep, where you’re gonna visit. 

Complete: On A03, 8 works, on ff.net, 18, but a good chunk of those are really old. And I know I have at least 7? oneshots here that I haven’t transferred to either site yet. And 2 things I wrote for Spiced Peaches I also haven’t copied over. XD In general I actually have like... at least 9? Oneshots I’ve finished in the last few years I haven’t posted anywhere except maybe discord so... 

In progress: ...you really don’t want to know. I mean. You do? I have a chronic massive wip problem. I’ve even made a post about it 3 years ago here when it was a measly 325+. I’m sure it’s over 600 now. Yeah. Don’t be like me.

Coming soon/not yet started: That’s the thing: I either work on it, or it just...doesn’t exist. Whether I complete it is a different story lmao.

Prompts?: I like prompts, generally, but I haven’t taken them in awhile mostly because I haven’t been in the right headspace for them. My executive dysfunction has been all over the place -- I’m surprised I’ve managed to actually just do the basics for myself recently.

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: The thing I’ve been working the most on this month is basically this semi-AU where Spock and McCoy have met before being on the Enterprise, and Spock was taking a life drawing class and McCoy was one of three life models for said class. They have a meaningful encounter that changes things for them but they don’t meet again until they serve on the ship. I’m just stoked over Spock as an artist but as one of his various hobbies and McCoy as his (somewhat) muse/model.

TAGGING: Whoever feels like doing this because I’m kinda bad at picking people but some off the top of my head @onlyslightlyobsessed1 and @lenievi but anyone is free to do this!

[cdelphiki]

So how does Scrivener work cdelphiki? Any specifics? I think you talked about it a fair bit before, early in November, but I can't quite remember.

Scrivener is awesome!! Basically, it’s a word processor on steroids specifically for writers (and not student/business purposes, like Microsoft Word/Google Docs) Although you can use it for student or business purposes, if you wanted.  

Basically, you use it by first creating your project. It has a lot of templates to choose from, and once you pick what you want to do, it has instructions of how to structure your project in your newly created file.  There are a ton of template options, but I’m here for the novel format: 

But you can write pretty much anything you can imagine in scrivener.  

Pick what you want and click “choose” then save it somewhere. I have the app for ipads/iphones, so I save all my projects on dropbox so I can access them from my phone or computer. (This is how scrivener is set up for synced across platforms: over dropbox, not icloud for mac users. It took me a hot minute to figure out.) It has you name and save it up front so it can start backing up your work!!

Once it’s got the project created, it will give you the informational page for the template you selected. Read through it for a lot of good information on how to use all the organizational tools for your specific project. 

Now you basically just start working. There is no real wrong way to go about putting together your story.  I use scrivener for both one shots and multi-chaptered fics.  I actually keep most my one shots in one project, titled “Tumblr Prompts,” just to make it easier than having a zillion project files for single stories.  

If you want a pretty detailed walkthrough of how I use scrivener, I put it all below the cut. :D

Here’s one of my my well-used project files: 

There’s a lot going on here. The left column is your navigation bar. This is basically your entire book. As you can see I have folders within folders. The main one, called “Manuscript” by default, is basically the book in its entirety. I then use more folders for each chapter.  Right now, since I’m still drafting, I actually just have it broken into ‘events,’ rather than chapters. This is just a me thing and is what I figured out to help me keep better track of everything. 

So I have the Prologue, and then event 1.1 (act 1, event 1), 1.2, 1.3, etc.  In 1.3, as you can see, I have both chapter 3 and 4 as scene cards.  1.4 has five scene cards that will likely turn into 7 chapters, once I do a revision! 

All the various colors of text are revisions.  By default, the first draft is written in black.  

When you’re ready to do a revision, you can turn on revision mode and select which version you’re on. I’m on my third revision. I really like this function because it lets me see my progress. 

Now, inside all these folders you can see a couple different symbols there.  You can actually change the symbols of these things yourself by right clicking on the object in the navigation pane and selecting “change icon.”  I put the pencil on all my notes, so it’s very easy for me to know what to get rid of when I’m cleaning up and about to call something “done.” On Precedent, for example, whenever I publish a chapter, I go ahead and name the chapter folder in Scrivener and get rid of all the note cards so all that is left is what I actually published.  

Probably one of the best things about Scrivener, is when you want to get rid of something, you don’t have to erase it entirely.  On this project here, you can see I have a file a couple under the file selected for viewing called “trash pile.”  Whenever I remove large chunks of text, I actually just copy it over to a blank scene card so it’s not ‘lost.’  I then “move to trash,” so it’s not in the way, but it’s always available to me.  Scrivener does not delete anything you ‘move to trash’ unless you specifically move to that trash bin and make it delete it.  This is great because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ‘thrown something away’ just to realize, sometimes months later, that that exact scene would work perfectly now! And good thing I saved the draft, so I had something to start with!  

Now, back to these ‘scene’ cards.  Scene cards are just the files you actually write on. I don’t know if Scrivener calls them that or not, but they’re set up like notecards. I don’t know if you ever did the notecard method in school, where you wrote major points on note cards and then arranged them into a logical order on the table? That’s basically what this is. 

To get to this screen, I selected the folder for section 1.4.  You can pick any folder you want, even the over all manuscript to get here.  Then you pick the view option, where the top arrow is pointing.  The first view option shows it as a document, as my other pictures have already demonstrated. 

What the notecards are going to show you is your synopsis, if you have one written.  Each and every file, even the folder itself, has a spot for ‘synopsis’ and ‘notes,’ which do not count into your overall word count.  It’s really nice for keeping stuff out of the way.  I’ve found I prefer having my notes as actual scene cards, but the notes section is handy for throwing important things.  I also save the link to where I’ve posted stuff on tumblr for easy saving or research so I don’t lose anything.  

If you do not have anything written in the synopsis section, the card will just show as much as the text as it can in a dark grey, rather than the black ink of the synopsis.  I rarely use the synopsis section, so you can see all my documents just have the first bits of text.  

On this screen you can start dragging around cards and move them however you think things need to line up.  This works remarkably well if you write in a lot of small scenes, and need to reorganize because you realized that Tim needs to have a panic attack before he faces Ra’s.  Or whatever.  You can also reorganize at any point in the navigation pane itself.  I drag stuff between folders all the time.  That’s another reason I love having my notes on actual scene cards, because a lot of times I end up punting scenes off into the future, and it makes it way easier to drag and drop it into the next chapter folder to deal with later.  

Another feature I really like is ‘targets.’ 

To get here, I selected the overall manuscript, and then switched to the third view option, up there next to the note cards option.  It shows me my whole book this way, as well as the status of each folder or document (which I have to set myself.)  It also shows me if I had a target word count, and how close I am to reaching it.  I like my chapters to be about 3k words, so I make that my target. (set your target by clicking on the target icon on the bottom right corner of a document while in document view.)  The purple goes from a dark purple to a lighter one the closer you get. (This is because I am using the ‘theme’ “Purple Haze.” The color is based on your theme. I forget what the default is.)

You can also set daily word goals, and up at the top, below the project’s name, it’ll show you progress toward that goal. I’ve written two words today.... so I don’t have a progress bar yet.  The bar above the project’s name is for the overall word goal set. I have this project set to 100k. 

I think that’s pretty much it.  The only other feature I use regularly I haven’t mentioned is the split screen.  

Basically, click where the arrows are pointing. When you’re in just regular view, it’ll look like a split screen, rather than a single document view button.  When you hit it, it opens your currently selected document twice, on both sides of the screen. Click on the bar for the document you want to change and then select whatever you want from your navigation pane.  I use this mostly for putting my notes on one side and my actual working document on the other. Yesterday I was using while revising, throwing anything I didn’t want anymore into my ‘trash pile’ by just dragging it across.  

Once you’re done with something, you can run spelling and grammar check (because it does not check as you go, unless you go into settings and make it do that. It’s turned off by default. I find the squiggly lines distracting, so I love this feature) and use the various text tidying tools, such as the one that turns all multiple spaces into single spaces! 

So yeah! That’s Scrivener. I love it so much. It has made writing so much easier. I wrote most of Life Happens in a single Microsoft Word document, and that was a huge mess and horrible and really difficult. I’ve written two long fics in their entirety now on Scrivener and I won’t ever go back.  

Oh, and if anyone was curious, this is how I use Scrivener for my one shots: I just label the folders with the main relationship or the collection they’re from, rather than treated the folders like chapters.  I then name the scene cards either with their actual titles or a brief description (if I didn’t give them titles) to let me know what’s been published and what isn’t done.  

[neven-ebrez]

The continuing saga of narrative betrayal...

Back when SPN S13 aired I compared it a lot to Star Wars: TLJ. So I was very interested to see specifically how hand holding and touch would correspond to the final Star Wars movie. And OH BOY is the new movie a lot like SPN S15! There’s only one problem. The final Star Wars movie made a HUGE narrative betrayal. I’m on mobile so I can’t put a read more here but STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS BENEATH THIS PARAGRAPH!!

Touch as healing was a very important part of SW:TROS. Touch is about forging connections and mending that which has been broken. Touching, taking someone’s hand, is choosing them and choosing to care for them. We see it when Finn takes Rey’s hand in chapter 7. We see it when Rey doesn’t take Kylo Ren’s hand in chapter 8. And we see it when Rey puts her hand over Ben’s when he heals her near the end of chapter 9. At the heart of this entire series is how students become teachers. The past becomes the present then the present becomes the future. So onto narrative betrayal.

Using the Force to heal was visually introduced this week in The Mandalorian. And we now know why the episode was released early, because this ability would play a key narrative role in the final movie. Rey showcases this ability early in the film. She is rewarded when she does. Then she showcases it again after fighting Kylo Ren. She stabs him fatally then decides to save him. Two things are established: 1.) Healing is good and positive, and 2.) healing does not cost the healer their life. This is important. In typical student becomes the master format, structurally Kylo Ren (as Ben Solo/Skywalker) must then use it to save Rey. In TLJ they each saw a different future for the other. This vision of the future is experienced through the touching of hands. When Rey and Ben reach for each other a profound connection is made.

In TLJ Snoke says he forced their connection, but in TROS we see them maintain it. It’s much of the focus of the final two movies. They find each other with it. This living Force connection is said to have not been seen in a very long time. Rey teaches Kylo everything he needs to save her and then he does. And here is where our narrative betrayal comes and fortunately there’s enough of the ghost narrative here for me to make a solid enough guess why.

I believe when Carrie Fisher passed away unexpectedly that the final movie was forced to rewrite several key structural things. And one of those things is why Ben Solo had to instead die. In Dark Youth/Light Youth tales, the Dark Youth is usually saved by learning something explictly from the Light Youth. The LY is positioned to teach and the DY is positioned to redeem themselves by learning the lesson. This is sadly not what Star Wars executed. Ben touches Rey, heals her, then he kisses her and dies. It’s not *quite* as bad as what VLD did (at least Ben gets a heroic moment and we see him learn) with Lotor and Allura, but it’s the exact same relative betrayal. Ben was supposed to revive Rey in sacrifice, (maybe not kiss Rey, it doesn’t matter there one way or another; saving/redeeming =/= romance), and die temporarily but then get resurrected by all the dead Jedi. Instead we only hear the dead Jedi in one sequence when Rey fights Palpatine.

Since Leia doesn’t disappear until Ben disappears, this structurally links the change in narrative and gives it context. I think the kiss probably wasn’t in there originally but was added after the edits were made. Everything between Finn and Rey also feels edited as a result. The red flag for this is when Finn tells Rey he has something to tell her before they (almost) die in the quick sinking pit. He doesn’t get to tell her in time tho. Then! They survive. Rey prompts Finn to tell her what he was about to say but he says he can’t in front of Poe. This is never bookended. Rose is also sidelined without a real reason why. If originally they planned to continue the Rey/Finn romance on Finn’s part then this would make sense. In TLJ Rose’s structural purpose was to make Finn fight for more than just Rey. He never stops prioritizing her tho. The lack of bookend to Finn’s silenced confessional to Rey in TROS is a dead giveaway something was dropped/altered there tho. I can only guess this fragment of the final film’s ghost narrative remained in due to the fact that filming was likely already complete for this scenes and that suitable redubbing could not be made out of the plot situation they were currently in.

I just finished watching TLJ and we see Rey’s reaction to Finn caring for Rose’s injuries and she gives this a sad smile. I think originally Rose’s affection for Finn was probably more resistance hero worship and that her own arc was about learning to be her own hero. I think the romantic angle there was probably supposed to remain one sided. All this clarification seems to be dropped. Finn’s pursuit of Rey, to mimic Ben’s physical pursuit still shows up in several places tho. With the other ex-stormtrooper, Finn follows Rey across the dangerous water as she fights Ben. I think in the original script this character was likely Finn’s sister. Rey is seen protecting Finn from Ben but otherwise Finn’s physical pursuit of Rey here makes little sense unless we consider that originally it was supposed to emotionally lead into something else. Finn was always gonna be left behind whether he was on the shore or beside her.

Another thing that struck me as odd were the final bows. We see several romantic pairs. Some are unions (first queer onscreen SW kiss) while Poe’s is a story of rejection (bless). Then Poe and Finn are suddenly back in scene together for when Rey approaches. Since Poe was just left with his old flame in the shot before, this union should initially just be between Finn and Rey. Where Poe stopped, Finn kept going. So Poe being there again so quick makes no sense.

Both Finn/Rey and Ben/Rey are the last series’ key structural relationships. Equally important is Poe become a leader, a position he goes onto share with Finn. Of Rey’s two relationships one gets resolved structurally, while the other... does not. And the only good explanation I got for it is that I believe Carrie Fisher’s passing facilitated a rewrite that was unavoidable. In legacy, I believe the series decided to rewrite a good chunk of the final movie in order to focus more on Leia’s overall impact in the series as the past defined it.

For Voltron: Legendary Defender, Lance had a similar arc in the original S8 ghost narrative. Lance pursued Allura, then he was supposed to give her up to let her choose (and save) Lotor. Now. If you ask me if TROS did a better job with their editing than VLD S8 did I’d say YES. By a MILE. That doesn’t change the fact that each of these narratives ended up changing the exact same story now. And like with VLD, traces of the original remain and just couldn’t be removed at key points. If I had to guess, I’d say some Lando and Leia stuff was also removed, likely because filming never made it to that point. The awkwardness of Lando alone talking to the ex-stormtrooper girl feels strange, like some context there is otherwise missing. Earlier Lando tells Finn to give Leia his love and Finn tells Lando to tell her himself. Then he never gets the chance. It’s another missing bookend, dropped. When all the fighters are gathered for the final fight, it seems like maybe originally Leia was supposed to have gathered them through using the force to speak to them and convince them to fight. And Leia was supposed to do this by traveling with Lando.

I think originally Leia was probably supposed to teach Rey the healing, too. There is otherwise a focus on Leia as a fully trained Jedi and also on Leia as teacher. Having to drop and repurpose these plot elements, focusing on a Leia legacy narrative, over a full and complete “dead Jedi come together” narrative is reflected in the movie, again, still retaining both storylines. I think originally more dead Jedi should have appeared alongside Luke at different points. This conclusion comes from looking at the framing of Luke against unaccounted for narrative space.

And I’m going to be rewatching this movie tomorrow so I’ll try to get some photos about what I’m talking about. It’s clearly there tho. Finn being force sensitive is also dropped.

The comparison here to what VLD S8 did is uncanny. Unlike with VLD, I don’t think the narrative betrayal here was malicious. Just unfortunate and sad. Unlike with VLD, I think TROS managed to save most of itself tho. I at least enjoyed it. The trend of not letting the Dark Youth learn and redeem themselves and LIVE is a disturbing one, however. All this is just my theory btw. I knew Carrie Fisher managed to film some of the movie and I was curious going in as to how they were going to keep her in and maintain their original story. Well, obviously they couldn’t. I like all the movies, but I wouldn’t say I have a favorite character tho (except the porgs). So all of my opinion here comes without trying to see things a certain way. I have no shipping lens here. I just have an eye for things that lack narrative symmetry and/or thematic follow through.

Anyway. If you found parts of the movie to be strange or missing in some way, I think my explanation here may help fill in some blanks. And regardless of the reason the storyline exists the way it does, the trend of killing off the character that is supposed to be redeeming themselves isn’t a good look.

[EDIT] As soon as I wrote this I went looking for other opinions on this and found this Polygon article! This explains so much and explains why Leia didn’t have a new look for the movie. Her footage is repurposed from footage from Chapter 7/8. Considering everything, it’s amazing they salvaged as much of the original storyline (Leia as teacher) as they did.

I’m going to rewatch the movie assuming all this should have happened to see how much sense it now makes. This is just what I picked up on by watching one time.

[EDIT2] Okay then there’s this. It confirms what I thought. A person in the thread below this tweet mentions how Finn’s Force connection here could explain why other storm troopers put down their weapons in their respective village raids. Like, they could hear Finn’s distraught inner voice when it was all happening. It’s why Kylo Ren slowly turns and looks at Finn in chapter 7. Finn frees other stormtroopers in other words and the movie drops this off his storyline completely. First Finn runs, then he learns to be a rebel, then he frees his fellow soldiers. I still think Finn’s pursuit of Rey was originally supposed to also be romantic, but more than that she is ultimately his teacher.

I actually think the original script was probably more Finn/Poe friendly, with Finn ready to help Poe (using the Resistance) to free more stormtroopers. Poe learning Finn’s secret: his Force sensitivity, after all, is also cut, against the entire start of the movie showing them as a team. Poe was essential to Finn’s initial escape. They needed each other. Then Poe is essential to Finn’s new mission. They choose each other, completely. I believe that’s the proper bookend we should have gotten there. And it explains Oscar’s PR commentary on Disney company.

I’m.... there’s little they could have done here to salvage what I’ve pieced together of the original script. Not without Carrie. It would have looked great tho. Without her as (continual) teacher to Rey, much of the movie, the original script, sadly fell apart. Seeing how Finn/Poe as a narrative thread didn’t rely much on Carrie I think the editing here is a bit more malicious. I can’t prove that tho. I can only tell some of the outline of what originally should have happened. Finn gives up pursuit of Rey for choosing a mission with Poe. If TROS is to be compared to VLD S8, this feels like the equivalence of editing out Sheith.

[EDIT3] My bow commentary here is off. I remembered things wrong there. I’ve struck several things for my original post. I have a lot of screenshots now tho so I’ll write something more on this later once more time has past. Maybe JJ Abrams will talk about the rewrite process tho. I doubt the Finn/Poe stuff will be discussed, but I also don’t think it was ever intended to be textual, just subtextually coded. The repurposed Leia as teacher stuff tho, that may get discussed publicly. That one Hobbit actor looks to be written in to cover Leia’s intended plot explanations for why certain stuff is happening. Maz’ involvement, along with Rose’s was much regaled to this as well. Whatever their original storylines were, I believe they unfortunately got axed in the rewrite.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

Fic author ask meme

haha so @veliseraptor​ tagged me literally months ago, as in so long ago I have no idea when it actually was, and I didn’t get all my answers typed up until...now. actually a lot of them were typed up a few months ago and then I finally finished this yesterday on the plane home. no, I don’t know why either

Author Name: 100indecisions on AO3

Fandoms You Write For: it's pretty much all Loki at the moment and has been for the last several years. I've written for other fandoms in the past and I have others on my WIP list, but yeah, it's like 95% Loki.

Where You Post: everything is on AO3, and I do mean "everything" because I get obsessive about that sort of thing. I do still have an FFN account under ladymoriel and most of my fics are reposted there, although none of my most recent fics are because I haven't gotten around to digging up cover images for them. also FFN sucks but I crave attention/validation and there are still some people who only use FFN, so I'll get around to it at some point.

Most Popular One-Shot: for some reason “the state of my head” has 1,157 kudos on AO3, so I guess it would be that one.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: technically “the adventures of tiny Loki and Thor (and friends),” because it’s a multi-chapter fic (boy is it ever) and it has 1,020 kudos, but if we’re talking actual planned fic it would be “the kindness of strangers” at 623.

Favorite Story You Wrote: man, I don’t know. I’m partial to “I am a time bomb ticking away the hours to blow your world apart” because I like my headcanon and I think I structured it well, and “all this that is more than a wish is a memory” gets points for being the longest thing I’ve actually finished. but honestly I don’t know that I have a single favorite.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: haha well I'm sure there's been more than one, but if we're talking about the fic I was most nervous to post, I think that honor would go to my Grandthorki fic "I will kiss you till your breath is found," which is the most explicit AND most fucked-up fic I've written so far. I was nervous about...so many things with that one.

How Do You Pick Your Titles: probably 99% of them are song lyrics. sometimes I'll start with a specific song that's relevant to the fic itself in some way, but I also have a whole list of song lyrics that sound like good titles to me whether the rest of the song has anything to do with the subject of the fic. often I'll come up with a good lyric early in the process, just like "oh yeah I've had this hanging around in my list for ages and it works here"; otherwise, once I've finished or nearly finished a fic (or much earlier, actually, if I'm obsessing over an aspect of writing it that is...not actually writing, which happens a lot), if I still don't have a title I read through my whole list and make a much shorter list of titles that seem to fit this fic. if nothing from there seems just right, I’ll go hunting through my iTunes library and then Google for semi-relevant song lyrics. on occasion, though, the title comes first or otherwise shapes the direction of the fic, like with "I will kiss you till your breath is found"--I had a vague idea of what I might want to do, but it was very vague and I hadn't committed to it, and then I just happened to listen to some Sufjan Stevens and went "heyyyyy I know exactly what to do and it's terrible and I'm gonna do it, I have a title now, I have to do it"

Do You Outline: it depends on the fic. for long ones, at a minimum I'll write a bulleted list of plot points I need to hit, which often ends up being basically two or three pages of a zero draft that I then struggle to turn into actual prose...and then I often re-do the outline at least once or twice as I go along so I can compress it into something more useful that fits on one page and I can cross stuff out as I go. (if a list can’t fit on one page/view, there’s basically no way I can hold all of it in my head at once.) I often end up with shorter lists of scenes I still need to write and specific things to hit during revisions, too. for short fics it's not really necessary, although I often do still write up something similar if I've let it drag out over way too much time and I can't keep straight what I wanted to do with it. (don't be me.)

How Many of Your Stories are complete: welllll, as a rule I don't post WIPs because I know myself well enough to know that that way lies several different kinds of madness, so in general, my only completed fics are what's up on AO3, and everything there is complete. in practice that's not 100% true because I'm very bad at deadlines and I have a few different fics where I couldn't finish in time and I either posted the first chunk of the fic that still functioned as a self-contained story even if it wasn't the full story I'd planned to write, with the intention of properly finishing it later, or I did the same thing but worse because the part I posted was...not really a complete story. in my defense I've only done the latter a couple times, and in the case of "going down to nowhere" I really thought I'd be posting the rest soon because it was all written, it was just extremely rough, and for various reasons I still haven't gotten around to revising and posting the remaining 80% of the fic. (as far as the opposite issue goes, I have 0 finished fics that I haven't posted anywhere, because I'm too obsessive about being complete to do anything else. I think I do have one old, extremely short, very bad Lost fic on FFN that I never reposted to AO3 because I decided it sucked...and if we're being completely technical about it, I have some stories I wrote as a little kid that are technically fanfic because they featured licensed characters, but nobody wants to see those. all the other old stuff I haven't posted, including at least two Neopets fics, never got finished and that's the only reason I never posted them anywhere.)  

In-Progress: uhhhh. well, this made me realize my posted WIP list is out of date, not because I've finished anything on it but because I have MULTIPLE short fics that were supposed to be QUICK so I figured I didn't need to bother putting them on the list and then they weren't quick because I am so fucking bad at 1) sitting down and actually writing and 2) finishing anything. But yeah, basically what’s on there.

Coming Soon: fuck, I don’t know. Half the fics on my WIPs list are ones I thought I could crank out in one or two sittings, AND YET. But I’d like to finish the rest of my Whumptober fic soon, because that one really should be pretty easy...and I’d also like to finish the short little Endgame fix-it I thought of on my way out of the theater, where 2012!Loki hops universes and revives IW!Loki...and then there’s the even older IW/Endgame fix-it that’s basically just “everything is fine because I say so, let’s have a little recovery”, especially because I’m like 90% sure that one’s almost done but probably some of it needs typing up and then it all needs stitching together...oh, and finally getting around to finishing typing one of two notebooks reminded me that the other theoretically short fix-it where the Guardians pick up both Thor and Loki is also nearly done, I just need to finish typing it. so...one of those, probably.

Do You Accept Prompts: in theory, although I...don't think I get prompts often enough to know one way or another? plus my brain is The Worst, so my general reaction to actually getting a prompt is basically "that's interesting but I have never had an idea in my life, ever, and apparently I'm not starting now", with an added element of social anxiety or something because it's Somebody Else's Idea and that puts a mental block on my ability to develop it as my own idea. so...anyone's welcome to send me prompts, with the understanding that I might well never do anything with it and if I do, it might take literal years.

Upcoming Story You’re the Most Excited For: I also don’t know. I mean, in recently typing up some older stuff (like the one where the Grandmaster decides publicly executing Loki sounds like a fun idea, from which I posted a couple excerpts recently) I got excited about those again, which is a good reminder of why I want to stay on top of my typing, but I don’t know if I’m more excited for one specific fic than others.

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions: I have no idea who might have answered this months ago so I’ll just say that if you read this post and you want to answer these questions, please consider yourself tagged. yes, that means you.

[starlight-matrix]

Nabari no Ou 15th Anniversary!

@nabaridays wrote up some prompts to celebrate the 15th anniversary of NnO and as it’s my favorite manga series of all time, I had to join the fun!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the prompts’ existence until we were about four or five days in, so instead of starting in the middle of the prompt list, I wrote all mine up in a Google Doc and decided to do a big masterpost in the day of the anniversary. And here it is! Beware for a lot of reading, this shit’s at 4.1k words.

- Catherine Lynne / catielynnelove.tumblr.com Fan of NnO since 2012 -

DAY 01 (Jun. 3rd) - Favorites

My favorite character has always been Miharu, though I do struggle to choose between him and Yoite. I have always been fascinated by his apathetic nature, the way he uses is as a shield while loving the people in his life so incredibly fiercely. He appears neutral and uncaring, but the moment you look beneath the surface, you recognize that he would give his life for those he loves in a heartbeat - and has shown this on multiple occasions.

I also love his development over the series. His apathetic facade slowly falls out of use after he meets Yoite, and he learns that feeling your emotions is important, that letting the people you love know when you’re happy or sad or pissed the fuck off is important.

In the first few chapters we as readers honestly can’t tell a whole heck of a lot from what we’re shown of Miharu. He’s plain, uninteresting, even to us (unless you’re the kind of person who automatically reads between the lines, but let’s face it, not a lot of people are). But by the end of the series, he’s such a vibrant and expressive character that I marvel at Kamatani’s ability to drastically a character’s personality in a way that feels so gradual and natural.

Another reason Miharu is my favorite character is because I tend to see parts of myself in him, as many people do with the characters they like most. I can understand and relate to his apathy in the beginning of the story. His memory of his parents deaths is so deeply traumatic and that the very fibre of his being (objectively, Shinra) locked the memory, and most of his childhood, away for years to come. Because at that time in his life, the pain of it all would’ve broken him.

(E/N: I now remember that Asahi actually erased Miharu’s memories of that event, but I think a good chunk of this will still make sense, and I’m lazy, so I’m not gonna edit it out. Enjoy.)

Emotions, especially ones he didn’t understand - or couldn’t understand, like his feelings toward his childhood that didn’t quite make sense because of his augmented memories - were simply so overwhelming that Miharu pretty much just went “lol don’t wanna deal with those so yEET now they’re gone” and locked them up in a box to be dealt with at a much, much later date. That speaks to me, as a person who has struggled with depression, and the fact that he finds a way to recover from this is very reassuring.

Overall, Miharu is a very complex and realistic character that undergoes more vivid character development than I’ve seen in almost any western media. I love him very much.

DAY 02 (Jun. 4th) - What got you into Nabari no Ou?

This is actually quite a funny story, so buckle up for a wild ride y’all!

When I was 12 years old (God, this sounds like the setup for an angsty villain backstory), my family had a housemate who liked anime. One day I came to beg for him to let me use his video game console to play Little Big Planet and he happened to be watching the second half of the anime - I distinctly remember the second Alya Academy episode being the first one I ever saw. It was my first anime experience outside of a Studio Ghibli film, and to this day remains close to my heart, even though the anime adaptation itself really… just… well, it sucked.

After I finished watching it with him, I went and found the first half of the series on Netflix (back when Netflix did the whole send-a-DVD-to-your-house thing) and watched the whole thing from episode one. And then very quickly became obsessed. I probably watched the anime four times in two months. I had every single one of the English VAs names memorized. I was dedicated.

Eventually I looked up the manga online, and HOO BOI, this is the point where my Nabari no Ou origin story becomes ridiculously hilarious (and stupid).

When I read the manga, I was disturbed by the idea of Kouichi being a villain-type character, as he had been one of my favorites when I watched the anime. And, at the time I was first reading the manga, the apparent “ending” from my perspective was the scene where Kouichi takes the newly-made hijutsu scroll from a bleeding, dying Thobari.

Looking back, I figure the website I was reading it on just didn’t have all the chapters, or perhaps I had happened to start reading while the manga was on hiatus, but at that age I didn’t know of or understand either of those concepts and accepted that sad scene as the end of the manga.

And as such, I wrote the manga off as terrible and ignored it for years.

Flash forward to about 2014, two or three years after writing the manga off as a Fat Mistake, I finally decided to give it another shot. And BY GOD did I cry reading it a second time. Whether it was the two years of maturity, my experiences during those two years, or simply the fact that I read the whole thing that time - I was sobbing in my desk chair over NnO.

It was the most beautiful story I’d ever read. Even now, after five more years of reading beautiful manga, Nabari no Ou remains my absolute favorite, and likely always will.

DAY 03 - What are your favorite scenes?

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Alya Academy arc, even back when all I’d shunned the manga and all I had to go off of was the inaccurate anime adaptation, simply because of how well the character relationships are shown during those sequences (this is one thing the anime did really well in my opinion, actually - Shijima’s verbal reflection on how humans connect to each other and how important those connections are is stunning). Not to mention the displays of how the characters care for one another regardless of what side of the war they’re technically on.

I’ve always loved Subaru as a character, too. I find her motivations to be very realistic and really quite understandable, and I love the little easter eggs in later chapters that imply the Kouga ninja are helping Miharu’s side of the fight even though they’re not visibly involved. The scores from the Alya Academy arc are especially chilling and memorable as well.

Another of my favorites are the chapters following Miharu and Yoite’s escape from the Kairoshuu and their travels afterward. They feel mundane and peaceful, yet blanketed with this layer of grief, like we’re all aware that at any moment their calm could be destroyed and lost forever.  

The scenes about Yoite’s gender were very special to me as a teen still learning about the LGBT spectrum and how different people could be, and the scene of Yoite bandaging Miharu’s aching feet? My heart literally swells every single time I think about it! It was so sweet and loving, my fragile fangirl heart does flips when I read over it.

DAY 04 (Jun. 6th) - Photos & Fashion

I like to think that Miharu keeps every photograph he’s taken and has them stored safely away in a box or chest or drawer. In my experience, people who have lost loved ones tend to treasure photographs, more than someone who hasn’t experienced loss might. A lot of times a photo is all someone has of someone they loved outside of a memory, and contrary to popular belief, if you don’t look at someone - physically or in a photo - for a long time, you do forget how they look.

Miharu has lost many people: his parents, Yoite, Kouichi and Shijima, even Shinra, in a way - so I imagine this observation would be doubly true of him. Especially if he has Yukimi as an example to go by - pretty sure that guy has kept every photograph he’s ever taken in his life!

(As far as fashion goes, I honestly think everyone’s fashion in NnO is horrendous, so...)

DAY 05 (Jun. 7th) - Favorite character design in the series?

Gosh, it’s hard to choose, I love so many of them! Gau is fascinating to me because I figure his hair must be difficult to draw, with all those little curls and cowlicks. Shijima’s too, with the way it frames her face and leaves just a tiny little opening for her eyes to peer out at you through.

But, as with most of these character-specific prompts, my answer will have to be Miharu. The idea that Asahi reshaped his face to look more like her own when she used Shinra to save him is very interesting, and the fact that Kamatani manages to draw Miharu in a way that both clearly shows their resemblance to one another and establishes Miharu as his own character with his own unique features and gestures and ways of carrying himself is incredible.

Miharu’s stance are also very telling to me as a reader: he often stands loosely, almost lazily, as if he really couldn’t care less about where he is and what they’re doing, which rings true for a good chunk of the story. It matches well with his (mostly) fake apathy and kind of makes him seem bland and boring as a character. But as the story progresses, he becomes more open, shows affection more easily. He’s quicker to stand up for his beliefs and the people he loves. All of this shows in the way he carries himself throughout later chapters.

DAY 06 (Jun. 8th) - Favorite location in the series?

The Shimizu estate, without a doubt.

The secluded area, the forest in every direction, the house itself - it’s all so beautiful to me. Ot gives me the feeling of rural Japan and more traditional Japanese living. Even after the house has burned away and all that’s left is a field full of Spider Lilies, there’s a kind of sober beauty lying over the place, made even more intense when Shirogamon stands watch over it.

DAY 07 (Jun. 9th) - Positive Influences

The thing that I preach about the most when I talk about NnO to others is the fact that the series has no absolutes. There is no true right or wrong, no clear villains nothing that actually puts our heroes above anyone else. Which, in a way, means that are really are no heroes in the story at all, which is a very rare and interesting way to tell a story.

The entire series deal with a greyscale in morality. There’s no bad vs. good or moral vs. immoral, just your own goals and people whose goals don’t match yours. Opinions and ambitions differ vastly even between people on the same side of the fight - Thobari and Raimei want to seal the Shinrabanshou, Kouichi wants to use it to defeat his immortality, Miharu even changes side on a few occasions - yet they all work together together to achieve their own very different ends.

Even those who can be coded as villain on the surface have something motivating them to do what they do, and more often than not, those motivations are understandable to the reader and actually have you sympathizing with the character. Hattori wanted to rid the world of the need for war. Subaru wanted to save the person she loved most in the world. Yamase wanted to win his family back (I think? It’s been a while).

Even Katarou and Kannuki, two characters who have practically nothing to redeem them, at least have motivations that are pretty damn realistic. Kannuki wanted to capitalize on Kouga’s Forbidden Art and use it to grow Alya Academy’s profit and power through the surface world. A Lot of people are like this in real life, and while you may not sympathize with him over it, it is a motivation that is true of our own world as well as the one in this story.

An Katarou, as far as I understand, is obsessed with Shinra herself, rather than the hijutsu and the power it holds. He manipulated hundreds of people and hundreds of situations to suit his own needs, then literally got himself killed - just to see her one last time. And… yeah, I don’t think anyone really sympathized with him, but hey, I can see what pushed him to do what he did.

To me, Katarou is symbolic of someone with an addiction - their mind is so clouded by a need for some specific thing that all other human aspects of that person just fall away, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get what they want.

I also appreciate how the characters handle their differences throughout the story. Their honesty with each other, the way they support each other even when they’re all heading in opposite direction. The Alya Academy arc (I really love this arc okay) especially shows this, in how the ninja from Banten and Kairoshuu - two very opposing factions - fight together against the Kouga without hesitation, despite the fact that in most other situations, they’d be fighting each other.

It’s a wonderful thing to promote: that even though people might have different opinions or goals, it doesn’t mean they have to hate each other.

DAY 08 (Jun. 10th) - Favorite Extra?

I am IN LOVE with the little between-chapter 4koma pieces, especially the ones from the Alya Academy arc (God, I’ve talked so much about this arc). Subaru fantasizing about Miharu being her little brother and making her birthday cake? Adorable. Miharu and Yoite getting stuck behind a bookshelf and terrifying an opponent by asking for help out? Hilarious.

I love that Kamatani put those in, both as a peek into happier aspects of the world he created, and as a way to add a bit of sun in between the much darker, much sadder chapters.

DAY 09 (Jun. 11th) - Headcanons

I’m not much of a headcanon person, to be honest, and especially not with this series. It feels off to me, to try and add to something that’s already so perfect. However, I do agree with a couple of headcanons I’ve seen - particularly the ones theorizing that Yukimi is aro-ace. It makes a lot of sense to me in how his character is portrayed when nearly every other character in the series has a romantic match, and as an ace person myself, more representation is always welcome.

DAY 10 (Jun. 12th) - Alternate Universe

I once started (and quickly abandoned out of shame) a very cringey, very out-of-character fanfic, in which the Nabari world didn’t exist and all the characters meet through natural means in the surface world. Other than that, however, I’ve not put much thought into Nabari no Ou AUs.

But something I would LOVE to see is a crossover between NnO and Shimanami Tasogare, as the two stores canonically take place in the same location - NnO being in Banten, a fictional town  based on the real town of Onomichi, and Shimanami Tasogare being confirmed to take place in plain old Onomichi itself. It’s been a while since I’ve read Shimanami Tasogare, but I remember the leader/owner of the little house the cast gathers in as giving me a distinctly Nabari-world vibe, and I think it would be interesting to see the NnO characters react to a community like the one presented in Shimanami Tasogare.

(And also perhaps have some romantic relationships and sexualities proven canon. Perhaps.)

DAY 11 (Jun. 13th) - Favorite song from the OST?

It’s a firm tie between the opening theme and the second ending theme. I have every song in the OST memorized after years of hearing them day in and day out, but those two themes always give me this tingling nostalgic feeling, like rereading a book from your childhood or finding a toy as an adult that you’d thought was lost forever. The animation and symbolism in those themes are also very telling of the series and the character’s connections to each other (a bit obviously, at times), and the lyrics are special to me in a way I can’t describe. They’re precious to me, and  to me experience of NnO as a whole, considering I started with the anime first (a bad idea).

DAY 12 (Jun. 14th) - Are there any songs that make you think of NnO?

“Neopolitan Dreams” by Lisa Mitchell ( X ) ( X )

I once watched a cute Raimei/Kouichi AMV set to this song listened to the lyrics, I understood how the author had put them together. I very much feel like the lyrics echo Raimei’s thoughts on how Kouichi starts to act in later chapters, becoming more and more distant until he almost appears to be an antagonist rather than one of the perceived heroes. The song also makes me think of Raimei’s stubbornness and pride, her unwillingness to accept option besides her own conclusions until she’s had the full story and nothing less.

I can never get their faces out of my head while listening to this song, which I guess means the song reminds me more of Raimei and Kouichi than NnO in general, but it still counts, right?

DAY 13 (Jun. 15th) - Food

I’ve never really thought too hard on it, but now that I am, it’s actually very interesting to note how different characters use food - the Rokujo Okonomiyaki shop, in particular - to their advantage.

Thobari uses his (implied, before the start of the overall plot) regular visits to try and get Miharu to believe him about the Shinrabanshou and the Nabari world. Thobari uses the close proximity to explain his motives to Miharu, who physically cannot leave the situation, lest the food burn to a damn crisp (and I figure Naoko wouldn’t be pleased if that happened every time Thobari came in). He also very clearly uses this to keep tabs on Miharu when outside of a school setting where Miharu has no choice to be in Thobari’s sight, and later, as a way to either catch up on what’s going on in the Nabari world or - as in several cases - simply demand answers from Miharu.

Raimei uses the shop as a way to get closer to Miharu. She charms her way into getting free food (and sometimes, free lodging as well) and I assume her thinking is probably something on the lines of “Free Food + Spend Time With Miharu = Information on Where Raikou Might Be.” Of course, this likely isn’t her motive in later chapters, because, well, character development.

Food is also an important bonding thing for Yoite and Yukimi. In a lot of the scenes where we see Yoite and Yukimi in their home, they’re eating together, and I always took it as a display of their familial relationship - cooking dinner for Yoite the way a dutiful older sibling would for their younger sibling - thoughI doubt either of them would admit they’re like brothers. The significance of lemonade should also be noted for this topic - I could go on for ages about it.

(But I won’t unless people ask me to, because this piece is long enough already!)

I don’t have much memory of this scene being as big a deal in the manga as it was in the anime - but I also haven’t seen either in a while, so I could be wrong - but the birthday cake scene from the latter half of the anime left an impact on me even back when I’d only seen the anime, and it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the prompt was “food.” Gau’s pride in the cake he made and his determination to get any kind of praise out of Yoite is very touching, especially when you take into account that Yoite literally saved Gau’s life, and that Gau knows this, as well.

The Kairoshuu - particularly Yukimi, Raikou, Gau, and Kazuho - are all shown bonding on more than one occasion at Kazuho and her husband’s sushi shop, and there is significance to those occasions in the rather heavy conversations they have during those visits. And there’s also the time Miharu cooked okonomiyaki for all the main Kairoshuu member after he’d first joined their clan - similar to how a recently hired employee would bring cookies for their new boss.

Food has a lot of significance in Nabari no Ou, no matter where you look.

DAY 14 (Jun. 16th) - Favorite village, and thoughts on the Forbidden Arts?

As far as morals and motivations go, I would have to choose Banten, as their (or at least Thobari’s) main opinion is that the Shinrabanshou shouldn’t be used because it throws off the balance of the universe. I definitely understand this opinion, because a lot of things can go wrong if the wrong kind of person is making wishes to Shinra and having them granted.

Although, I think that if anyone were to use the ability in a way that leaves the balance of the world intact, it would be Miharu, and this is even shown in the series itself. He doesn’t have the kind of greed or anger that would taint a person’s motivations when making their wishes, he just wants to do what is best for others- especially Yoite. Yoite is important to him, and therefore Yoite’s wish is also important to Miharu. And, as we see in later chapters, Miharu puts granting Yoite’s wish above even his own happiness. I feel I would make a similar decision were I in his shoes.

(For aesthetic, though, I’d choose Fuuma. Their village is hidden and surrounded by forest and in that lovely traditional Japanese style, and their uniforms are great. If Saraba were Chief I’d join.)

DAY 15 (Jun. 17th) - Favorite minor/supporting character

Gau! Definitely Gau! Gosh I love him so much. He’s optimistic and tries his best to look for the best in situations and in people, and his smile is so freaking sunshiney, I bet he lights up rooms with it. He’s awkward and quirky and I can relate so hard. But he’s also strong? He stands up to other ninja even though he really doesn’t have the physical ability to defend himself or others. He puts his life in danger to tell Raimei the truth about her family immediately after swearing silence to Raikou, his boss, who could 100% kill him if he found out Gau had broken his promise. And I bet you Gau would’ve told Raikou about him telling Raimei as soon as he’d gone home, if the bullshit at the Shimizu property hadn’t gone down the way it did.

And speaking of that scene- he throws himself in front of Raikou’s katana to save the life of a girl he hadn’t known for more than a day, who had threatened to kill him, who was seeking to kill the person he treasured most in the world. Who does that?! Gau apparently. He literally gives his life for just the possibility that Raikou and Raimei can make up and be happy siblings again. He gives his life so that the person he loves can maybe reconcile with someone else they loved.

He makes a conscious effort to include Yoite in conversations in which he would otherwise be largely ignored, and while I doubt Yoite would care either way, it’s the thought that counts, right? And, at least in the anime (it’s been a while since I read the manga) he puts his life on the line to help Yoite and Miharu even though, as I said before, he can’t really defend himself all that well.

Basically, I’m in love with Gau and want him to be happy. Sweet baby!

DAY 16 (Jun. 18th) - Free Day

I don’t really have anything else to say but I’m posting all of these today (I was late for the original posting by like four days so I figured I’d write them all out and post them together) so I’ll count this as my day 16 entry! Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, I know it was probably daunting to look at this long as fucking post but I’m glad you took the time to read my personal reflection on NnO! This manga means a lot to me and it’s nice to discover other people who love it as much as I do (I’ve literally met two people in my entire life who’ve read it without me suggesting it).

Keep the love going y’all, I hope to see you again! And feel free to hit me up if you’d like to talk about NnO, I’d love to connect with other fans! Seeya owo

[aelaer]

Been sitting on this long enough! Tagged by @dragonnan

Author Name: Aelaer (though it was not my first author name! I changed it because the original had too many connections to my rl name, which is rare to the point that the first and last name combo are the only one in the world. It's that nuts)

Fandoms You Write For: 

MCU (Basically Doctor Strange centric stories)

LOTR (though after writing exclusively for Tolkien in fanfic for 8 years and RP for 7, I'm taking a bit of a much needed break outside of my crossover)

Sherlock (only in a crossover WIP at the moment but I think I could be game for more)

Where You Post: AO3 and fanfiction.net (though the reviews and faves in the Avengers category in the latter are depressingly low considering the amount of hits the fic gets).

Most Popular One-Shot: 

On AO3, based on kudos and hits: The Calm Before the Storm

On fanfiction.net, based on faves and reviews: An Elf-lord's Patience. Oh God, this is a parody about common Mary Sue tropes in the LOTR fandom. FROM 2005. Absolutely no promise regarding the quality of the fic, I was a baby. But it's a neat bit of history to compare my old writing to how I write my comedy now!

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

On AO3, based on kudos, comments, and hits: Strange in a Strange Land. I'm quite fond of this crossover (LOTR/Doctor Strange) and I'm working on the last chapter now.

On fanfiction.net: My magnum opus, Pirates of the Ring. 45 chapters, 200k words, 7 years, and dozens of rewrites as I grew as I writer (especially the first 15 chapters). It was my first fanfic and it will always have a special place in my heart. This story still gets hits, which astounds me. But as you can see I have a thing for crossovers.

Favorite Story You Wrote: Asking me to choose my favorites between my children is horrendous. But for now, I believe that honor will have to go to Within the Shadows (MCU) due to the fact that it just wrote itself. I somehow regurgitated 16,000 words in about a week. I've never written that fast in my life.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: Hmm I haven't really been nervous to post anything since I was a teenager posting on a strict Tolkien fanfic site, well over a decade ago. But I've not written non-con, smut, or anything that may be more "nerve wrecking". I'll read most anything but I tend to keep teen and below for my stories.

How Do You Choose Your Titles: Usually with great difficulty. It's not uncommon for the title to be one of the last parts I finish in a story. Titles come from lines within a story (A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies), are inspired by songs (Dawn of Red Skies), or are rather straight and to the point (Strange in a Strange Land). One title that came almost immediately was "The Opening" because I knew there was going to be a chess theme throughout the story to match the "Endgame" title. Chapter titles in Dawn of Red Skies were all taken from quotes surrounding red, while in my untitled WIP are all from soundtrack titles of the two pieces being crossed over. So yeah, a lot of variety.

Do You Outline: Depends on the length of the story! For one shots, not usually. My outlines for stories less than 10 chapters long are pretty loose and informal and tend to have chunks of text in between notes. Anything over 10 chapters in the past for me (which was 3 fics, one never completed) were heavily outlined, though not necessarily in chronological order. One reason I know my pseudo!villain Stephen story is going to take for freaking ever is because the outline I have for it right now is 3 pages long and nowhere near complete. I truly have no idea when it will see the light of day. Hopefully before the second DS film :P

How many of your stories are…

Complete: 30 over 16 years (with a hiatus for 6 of those years)

In-Progress: 3; one discontinued, one that will need to be entirely rewritten if I ever want to try an epic for LOTR again, and then the last chapter for the DS/LOTR crossover.

Coming Soon: Uhhhhh.

Strange/Sherlock crossover: About 70% complete.

This two shot dark comedy: Maybe 50% done?

Sequel to Within the Shadows: No idea how many more scenes will demand to be written for this.

Pseudo!villain Stephen: Absolutely no idea but it's 10k words thus far but that includes the outline

Hopefully some one shots?

Do You Accept Prompts: Yeeeeessss but shorter ones please so I have at least a hint of a chance of completing the bingo before the deadline. Give me your one-shot prompts.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Varies from day to day. Having 4 multi-chapter fics allows me to bounce to the one I want to work on most. I haven't written much this July so we'll see.

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions As Well:

Ugh this dumb thing erased who I tagged. @amethyst-noir @babywarg @calamityskies @cairistiona7 @xxgwenstacyxx if y'all want

[jewishangus]

you are my sunshine (a.k.a the fix you’ve all been waiting for)

hello and welcome to your daily afternoon news, its eden “jewishangus” adventurezone from fantasy wikileaks, and boy do i have news for you!

remember @inkedinserendipity ? remember that hell fic she wrote a couple days ago? you know, the one without a fix? well, seren’s a dirty stinkin’ liar, and she wrote a fix. unfortunately, our girl seren couldn’t do one thing right and didn’t fucking finish it, so, as the sole recipient of this fix, i took it upon myself to write the 2.5k words i apparently needed to get the goddamn thing done. i have no idea whether it fit her original vision or not? but as far as im concerned, this is canon. how do i know?

that’s how i know. i’ve done it, kids. i’ve got your fix. itll be under the cut, along with some extra screenshots for photographic evidence. 

let’s hope i do this massive hit some justice, shall we?

so. here’s the news story:

seren told me about this hit a few days before she posted it. how? idk. im from fantasy wikileaks, i have my ways. (just kidding, all i did was sacrifice my nap to the sleep demons. they rewarded me with this wonderful hit we all love so much. never making a deal with those assholes ever again.)

but anyways, while she did that, i was very generously promised a fix - a fix she later gave to me once she published the hit - and here it is (if you can’t read the screenshot, the text will come later on):

as much as the later piece she sent was wonderful, i ended up going with the former, as you’ll later see.

immediately after, she said this:

(haha, seren, serves you right), and then i promptly went to sleep for the night. the next day, we debated fixes for a bit:

and i officially got the go-ahead, as well as some important information. the conversation, of course, escalated from there, no thanks to tess and her angst, but thats all irrelevant. 

you want this fix, don’t you? well, take it.

When Lup and Barry come back from the ten-year celebrations, there’s something different about Kravitz. Nothing they can pin down, just — he smiles less. Frowns less. Emotes less, in general. Barry remarks to Lup that it’s the most dead they’ve ever seen him.

They don’t put the pieces together until Lup realizes it’s been two months since Kravitz has asked after Taako. Before, he would ask every other week.

She hated it, those ten years. Every time he asked she would be forced to look him in the eye, knowing there was a part of him dedicated to her brother, a love he carried that he would never return, and tell him he meant nothing.

She asks, “Are you okay?”

Kravitz says, in this new way of his, flat and toneless, “Fine.”

“It’s just — you haven’t asked about Taako in a while.”

Kravitz cocks his head at her and asks, “Taako?”

“My brother,” she says, “your — ”

Beside her, Barry hisses a gasp between clenched teeth. Lup doesn’t realize she’s balled her hands into fists until her nails break skin.

“Well,” she bites, “your nothing, now.”

Lup awakes to a quiet chirp.

At first she thinks it’s a raven. It’s hardly uncommon for their Queen to send them missives, whether tied to the raven’s foot or pried from their beaks. But when she peers groggily toward the window she sees nothing.

Another chirp, by her chest. She looks forward and yelps to find a silvery mongoose, head cocked, nosing at her collarbone.

“What the fuck,” she whispers.

It perks up at the sound of her voice, butts at her chin. It’s not solid, and its brush against her skin doesn’t feel like fur but rather a whisper of rain, a deep chill. She shivers and sits up, cradling the mongoose in her two hands.

It looks up at her and chirps insistently.

“What are you?”

The mongoose bounds around her hands, spinning in circles as if chasing its own tail, before leaping from her cupped hands and onto Barry’s chest.

“No — ” she blurts, but it just butts up against Barry’s nose, pressing tiny paws against his lips.

“Lup?”

“It’s not me,” she says, handing him his glasses. There’s something...familiar about this, whatever it is. Something lost. Something just now found.

“What is that?”

“Don’t know.”

“It looks like....”

Barry looks at her. “It looks like a soul, Lup.”

“But not a complete one. It’s too tiny.” She picks it up again, studying it carefully. “Way too small.”

There’s silence for a moment as they both think. “Can I see it?”

“Sure.” Lup passes it off to him, and he cradles it carefully, smoothing back its fur.

“Lup,” Barry says, “this is Kravitz’s.”

It chirps excitedly at the name, paws skittering along Barry’s arm as it races to curl on his shoulder. A near-constant stream of chirring issues from the mongoose as it looks at Lup intently, brushing its tail against Barry’s jaw, intelligence bright in its keen eyes. Then it bounds off of Barry’s shoulder and in one fluid motion, scrambles out the door.

Lup’s already shrugging on her robe. Barry stumbles into proper footwear, dons his own, adjusts his glasses on his nose. They take each other’s hands as they leave.

They follow the mongoose out of the house, a little ways down the lane, before it disappears.

“Okay,” Barry says. “That — probably isn’t supposed to happen.”

It reappears just as quickly as it had vanished and chirps impatiently at them before disappearing again.

“I think it’s going to the Astral Plane,” Lup says, and manifests her scythe. She tears between the planes and steps through and, sure enough, on the other side waits the mongoose.

author’s note: that was seren’s bit, and here’s mine:

It keeps looking back at them as they follow it, scurrying across the Astral Plane’s beaches only to occasionally stop and turn its tiny head around and nod at them before continuing — it’s the first time, after all these years, that Barry doesn’t stop to take in the view of the sea in front of him — but, despite its worries, they follow it safely to a small door behind the stockade, where it stops one last time before chirping to them impatiently.

When Barry sees the door, his face goes beet-red. “How the fuck did you know this was here?” The mongoose chirps again, getting a laugh from Lup, and Barry stammers in an attempt to explain. “Like. This is Kravitz, right? It’s a part of Kravitz’s soul.”

“Yeah? What about it?” Lup prompts him to keep going mid-giggle.

“Lup, how does he know?”

“What, that you have a secret lab in the back of the stockade? Let’s face it, that’s a pretty open secret at this point.” She slips her hand in his pocket and pulls out the key, unlocking the door and watching the mongoose scurry in as Barry stands there in slightly over-exaggerated shock.

“But—I didn’t even tell—“

“Come on, Bear,” She drops a kiss on his cheek, causing him to blush further, before taking his hand as she steps forward, jolting him out of his (definitely fake) shock as she pulls him. “Krav won’t wait forever, won’t he?”

They follow the mongoose through the (very long, Lup complains every time) hallways that lead to Barry’s lab, passing by the old storage rooms full of broken necromantic artifacts and through the illusory wall that disguises the entrance to the lab itself; Lup laughs as the mongoose sniffs the magic around them and recoils at the stench, and Barry sighs as he taps his wand against the key, changing its form slightly, and holds the door open as the two enter. Barry can’t help but notice how the mongoose runs to his desk, pawing at the drawers as if trying to climb the thing, before glancing upward, noticing Lup staring at the very new, very unfamiliar thing that sits where he had cleaned a couple weeks before.

“Barry— is that— those are—“

“Lup, I swear I wasn’t the one who brought these—“

“Barold J. Bluejeans, I swear on the Raven Queen, if you had these in the lab this whole time and waited for the fuckin’ soul mongoose to let me know, I would have kicked your ass into the Soul Sea.” She breaks into almost a relieved, hysterical kind of laughter; one that in all these years, he can count the amount of times he had heard on one hand. “Taako’s soul shard is in there!!!”

“I know it is.” He smiles at her, and she smiles at him, still breathing through her laughter.

“We can find Taako’s soul piece, and put it back together, and—“

“I know—“

“We’ll make it right, babe.”

“Yeah, we will.” He walks towards his desk, spinning the mangled ball of soul shards around and listening to its mix of songs, Lup joining him in her chair next to him as they work to decipher what they’re seeing.

“Are we going to have to—“

“Sort through them all?” Barry finishes her sentence, like he usually does. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Song by song?”

He nodded. “Memory by memory, too.” His smile turns grim, at that. “It’ll take a long time.”

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“We have all the time in the fucking world.” She pauses, and Barry laughs, processing what she said before she did. “Ok not all the time, I get that Taako’s still mortal, but can you let me sound cool for once?”

Barry laughs again, and kisses his wife on the cheek before turning back to the chunk of souls in front of him. “You were the one who brought it up!”

“That doesn’t mean you have to make me notice it!” She protests, taking the tip of her scythe in her hand and sticking it gently into the mix of souls, watching its energy wrap gently around the blade. “So… If we shut up and close our eyes, we’ll both hear the soul’s song and watch its memory, right?”

Barry nods. “Well, you will, because your scythe’s in the thing.”

“And because it’s the piece that belongs to their soulmate, I’ll see memories of their soulmates. Meaning we know we’ve found Taako’s when—”

“When you see Kravitz, yeah.” Barry finishes her sentence again, and she thinks about it a bit before responding.

“Then you’ve gotta mark where one soul ends and another starts.” He raises an eyebrow at her, and she laughs before continuing. “I can’t see, right? So you guide my hand, and I tell you when the memories change, and then we’ll cut each soul shard and set it free.”

“Then?”

“Then I’ll tattle to our boss about you having a secret necromantic laboratory in the Eternal Stockade — we’ll just go and match every one of them to their original, duh.” Lup laughs. “There are at least 750 souls in here, that’s like….”

“Fantasy 37500 First Dates.” They both say that at the same time, and can’t help but laugh.

Lup closes her eyes, letting the first memory enter her head, as Barry interrupts with a “...I still actually like that movie.”

She peeks an eye open, her smile betraying her fake serious-ness. “Shut the fuck up and take my hand, Barold.”

He laughs. “You didn’t even have to ask.”

It takes the two reapers a lot longer to sort through each soul than they would like. They take turns looking at memories — the realization that everyone they’re looking at was faced with either a dead soulmate, or a soulmate that doesn’t remember them is a lot for one person to bear — and spend a long while carving out souls, knowing that if they mess up once, it’d be even harder to repair. Their first soul shard — their soulmate is a bard who wrote them stories that made them cry, once upon a time — took them a few days, but they eventually become quicker with practice, and one of the storage rooms next door becomes filled with animal friends and their hoard of assorted objects. It’s there that the two go whenever they feel the memories the hardest, or when Taako wonders aloud about how they seemed to stop loving him two years ago, about how they don’t spend any time with him anymore, about how they’re always “working,” and don’t say where or why or tell any stories.

And by the time they find Taako’s soul shard — it had been three years, long enough that they had long since stopped counting the months and the days and the hours — the room is full, vibrant, brimming with energy, and Lup walks in there to cry, the mongoose crawling into her lap as it recognizes the feather it had missed for so long.

“Hey, Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“Their anniversary’s coming up.”

“Since when did they have an anniversary?”

“Since they had a fuckin’ date at the Chug and Squeeze, nerd.” She laughs through her tears. “I thought I told you!”

He laughs, wiping the stray tears off of her face. “Do you want to fix their souls then?”

Lup smiles. “It’d be kinda poetic, wouldn’t it?”

Barry shrugs. “It’s been like 13 years, but sure.”

It’s quiet for a moment, besides the now bright and chirpy songs of the souls around them, and then Lup sniffs and wipes her eyes. “You’re going to have to convince Krav to give you his soul, y’know.”

He smiles softly. “That’s the easy part.”

“Ok, Mr. Confident.” She smiles back. “Good luck with that.”

He smirks. “Who said I needed luck?”

She laughs. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

“Last time I checked, I was Barry, so….”

“Shut the fuck up.” She pecks him on the cheek, then looks down at the now-sleeping soul mongoose in her lap, cuddling around the feather it missed for more than a decade. “It’s about time.”

It’s weird, Lup thinks, to be stealing her brother’s soul while he’s sleeping. He’s normally such a light sleeper, too, even with Lup’s Silence spell, but its almost as if Fate herself is blessing her with her luck that night, and she appreciates it all the more so as she sits on the floor by his bed and starts casting. It floats in place as she works, round, smooth and brimming with energy and heat and yet somehow missing the full extent of its glow, somehow broken and chapped like lips in the wintertime, yet she has to mold it into shape, coax it into a different form, to get the feather to fit in the soul it’s always belonged in. So she shapes it into the raven that’s been sitting at Taako’s windowsill, stretches it and expands it, the fibers that hold it together spinning to match their new form, and then fits the feather in its slot, welding it in with her magic, and the world seems to go still around her as she does; all that’s important to her, now, is this bird and its broken wing.

It takes her a couple hours of work, only stopping a few times to renew her silence spell, and eventually she shapes the bird back into the round, ordinary soul shape she’s familiarized herself with and places it gently onto Taako’s chest, letting it sink back into his body.

His soul is complete, the job is done…. Now, Lup thinks, they wait.

It’s when Lup and Taako are making dinner the next day, chopping vegetables for the spicy fish they’ve been meaning to try, that Taako brings it up again.

“Hey, Lulu?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember Kravitz?”

Lup smiles, trying to hold back the swell of emotions that bubbles in her chest as he says his name. “Kravitz like my boss?”

Taako blinks, pausing for a moment before turning to the food in front of him. “Wait — oh fuck, yeah, he’s your boss.” Taako laughs, and maybe Lup’s over-analyzing, but the laugh sounds almost heavy to her. “Well fuck, I can’t date him now—“

She changes her smile into a smirk. “Babe, if you wanted to date him, I should have set you up 10 years ago.” She can’t help but almost laugh, at that. “You can never say Barry and I are bad ever again.”

“Shut up! I just wasn’t that into him until now, okay?” Taako reaches into the spice cabinet, pulling out a few things before taking both the now-chopped vegetables and the spices to the deep-pan on the stove. “But I just remembered I tried to date him once. In the b-oh-b days. Fuck was that like? 13 years ago, today?”

Lup raises an eyebrow. “What happened, then?”

Taako shrugs. “Well, I did save the world. Got some good fuckin’ sex out of it, let me tell you.” He pops open the spicy paprika and sprinkles it into the broth before continuing. “But I guess I just? Forgot about him. Didn’t really want a guy I would settle down with or some shit.” He pauses, for a moment. “He’s still hot, though, right?”

Lup laughs, almost in surprise. “Taako, he’s dead, of course he’s still hot.”

“Well hit me the fuck up then!” He laughs along with her, and she picks up her Stone of Farspeech and starts to dial Kravitz’s frequency before Taako stops her with a “Hold on a fuckin’ sec, sis, you can’t just dial him right now while I’m in the room, I’m not that desperate.”

“Ok, well in that case….” She drops a kiss on Taako’s cheek, getting a groan from her brother. “I’ll be right back.”

“Taako?” Lup yells his name from the other room in the loud tone he’s grown so used to.

“Yeah?” He yells it back, though not nearly as loudly, hearing her footsteps approaching before she peeks her head through the doorway

“How does tomorrow night sound?”

He thinks about it, for a moment. “I’ve got no plans,” He says, shrugging, “But if I do they can wait.”

Lup smiles, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Hell yeah, I’ll let him know!”

Kravitz wakes up in the morning to the thought of Taako — oh fuck, why does he remember Taako, shit, it’s been three years that shouldn’t have happened he worked so hard — and the sound of Barry — it’s very obviously Barry, from his soft steps and the way his soul sings and the occasional clang of silverware falling on the floor — in his kitchenette, which, in hindsight, should probably explain everything and yet somehow doesn’t.

It’s only when he gets up and walks into his living room, seeing Barry eat breakfast at his table, and says “What brings you here?” and Barry responds with “Hot damn, that sleeping spell did a number on you,” that Kravitz remembers the dubious way he fell asleep the night before.

“Wait, that was you?”

Barry raises an eyebrow. “Who else would it be?”

Kravitz thinks about it for a moment, shrugs, and then said “But why?”

Barry shrugs in return. “It looked like you needed it.” He sips his coffee, letting Kravitz join him at the table, and then says “So how has your morning been?”

Kravitz looks at him suspiciously — he knows Barry’s been lying —  before deciding to play along. “I’ve been sleeping up until a few minutes ago, but it’s been alright,thank you.”

“Nothing special?” Barry presses him, and Kravitz sighs before dropping the act.

“Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you do last night?”

“Nothing, I—“ He almost seems to blush, out of nervousness. “Fine, Lup and I just fixed both yours and Taako’s souls last night and we’re waiting to see if you remember each other, okay?”

Kravitz sighs. “Well, to ignore your blatant act of necromancy and answer your question, it worked.”

Barry scratches the back of his neck; it’s a nervous tick Kravitz is used to seeing, at this point. “Ok—but—I’m just glad you remember.”

Kravitz grimaces. “I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” Barry smiles, in that soft reassuring way he usually only sees when Lup’s around. “But this time, Taako remembers you, too.” He stands up, going to wash the mug he was using before calling back to Kravitz. “Hey Krav, do you want breakfast or something?”

Kravitz shakes his head. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

It’s only later, after Barry and Kravitz finish their first bounty of the day, that they get the call from Lup. She opens it up with a “Hey Krav, remember my brother?” and they can hear her satisfied smirk and the happy tears that she’s holding back behind it, hear the way her voice seems out of breath from excitement and the soft cushiony noise of her collapsing onto the couch, and Barry’s smile turns giddy and Kravitz starts to smile again, soft and relieved, as he says, “Did he finally decide he wants to date me?”

[linane-art]

Questions: 8, 9 (for Silence verse), 17, 25, 27

Hi Sweets,

Thank you for the lovely asks. Here goes:

8) Where do you take your inspiration from? 

Hard to tell, to be honest. Whetever magical place all Muses go to for inspiration. The best stories I’ve ever written hit me like a lightening, out of the blue, with no readily apparent connection to anything I did or anything I was familiar with. And then usually the trick is to sit down right then and there and write the thing. Needless to say, this isn’t always possible, and that is the story of how the Young Kings AU hasn’t been written down in nearly 5 years now, even though it lives, in detailed verses, in my head.

Then again, quite a few things I wrote came to exist because of various prompts, with no discernable rules, except one: find the most depressing/saddest prompt available AND WRITE A FIX-IT. That’s how Boards came to be IIRC (with a bit of historical background I already had).

And finally, like with everyone I imagine, some stories are inspired by places, scenarios and people we get to know. Fairies were inspired by a specific place in Turkey, which we visited briefly one day on holidays, called the Saklikent gorge :)

For full disclosure, I should mention that there’s quite a lot of headcanoning going on at any given time between me and My Folks, which quite often results in one of us going off to write The Thing :D So if anybody is stuck, I can defo help to headcanon :)

9) In your Silence Verse fic, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?

And for my next trick, I shall pick my favourite child.

God, it’s really hard! I like that very first scene, just because it sets out this world so succinctly. I like that little exchange with Gimli, just because it flows so naturally, and allows Fili to show off a bit of his snark, which is still there, just not very obvious, since he can’t always speak. I like the sequence in Amboseli, where Fili saves Kili’s life, because I think I’ve managed to climb inside Fili’s head quite succesfully there, and it’s such an important moment for him there and we’re right there with him.

But I think some of my favourite scenes are yet to come, in chapters yet unpublished, particularly this here big chunk which is 10k and shows no signs of stopping. But we’ll see how that works out :D

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on. 

Kili swallows thickly and takes another desperate gulp ofthe chilled lemonade set out for them by Dis to stay hydrated.

Hair pulled into a high bun, which has already declareditself independent from the rest of Fili, sending wispy golden strands free –and they must be a tease on Fili’s naked shoulders – but he diligently ignoresthem, tempting Kili instead with a kissable nape of his neck exposed carelesslyto the world. His eyes are unguarded and soft with quiet happiness, from thecombination of garden, beautiful weather, real grass under his bare feet, asense of purpose and the safety of what has become his second home.

Kili sighs dramatically and promises himself a millionand one kisses he’s going to collect for his torments in the evening whenthey’re alone again.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story? 

Heh, obviously, yes! Quite a few bits of Boards, Papercuts, Children of Stone, bits of Spellbound. Possibly even some of the Kisses :D Doesn’t take that much to get me crying and I think the process of writing is invariably based on emotional association, so of course you cry as you break them, only to pick up the pieces later.

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow? 

I have never done an outline in my life and don’t plan to start.

Writing is a very organic process for me and it almost always comes to me as a complete piece or at least a complete scene. Of course nothing is ever simple, so the curse of my life is called ‘I’ve got the bits I want, but now I need to write the bits in-between, ugh!’. Pretty much always write scenes out of sequence, jumping all over the plot line, to the point where I literally can’t write in a linear way, especially not describing entire days, moment by moment.

It’s very much about getting the stuff out of my head, so I can have some sanity, and if there’s nothing crowding in my head, I simply don’t write - I find some other form of creativity. 

Thank you!

[brentrogers]

Small But Impactful Ways to Nurture Your Creativity Every Day

One of the biggest barriers to creativity is lack of time. You’re busy. Your days are demanding. You have a long list of tasks from last week that you’ve yet to tackle.

But is it really a tangible, true-blue lack of time, or more of a belief or feeling that time is scarce or non-existent?

“If there is something you want to be doing, you have the time to do it,” said artist and author Bridget Watson Payne. She interviewed numerous people for her book How Time Is On Your Side who didn’t seem to have time for their creative work—and yet carved out “pockets of time in all sorts of amazing ways.”

Payne interviewed a woman who wrote two children’s books in 10-minute bursts on her phone while riding the subway. One book took 3 months to complete; the other took 1 month. Payne interviewed an artist who works for a ride-sharing company and “lets creative ideas percolate in the back of his mind while driving” and jots them down in his notebook between rides.

Prioritizing creativity—even in the small pockets of your day—is worthwhile.

“These days it can feel like we’re living our lives as watchers, and not doers, said Diana Rowan, a musician, composer, and author of the book The Bright Way: Five Steps to Freeing the Creative Within. That’s because we’re constantly consuming, scrolling, clicking.

However, “By directly engaging creatively, much as we did as children, we can literally come back to life,” she said.

Below, you’ll find nine small but impactful ways you can nurture your creativity every day—regardless of how much time you do or do not have.

Recognize the creative acts you’re already performing. Creativity doesn’t live in a vacuum. Rowan believes that creativity happens anytime we “directly engage with something. Whatever you add your energy to, you transform forever.” In other words, we can be creative while we’re cooking, gardening, putting on makeup, penning a marketing plan, or playing with our kids. As Payne also noted, “daily creativity doesn’t have to look like standing in front of an easel wearing a beret.”

Use Beginner’s Mind. This simply means pretending that you’re experiencing any activity for the very first time. Eating your turkey sandwich. Drinking coffee. Talking to your spouse. Chopping up vegetables. Reading this article. “Beginner’s Mind brings new perspective and enthusiasm to whatever you’re doing, which sparks your creativity,” Rowan said.

Keep an idea book. Jot down the first thing you think of every morning into your “idea book,” said Miriam Feldman, a fine artist and author of the forthcoming book He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness. She stressed the importance of not editing or judging your ideas, but instead, looking for patterns. “You might find some new directions to take yourself, and you will certainly gain insight to your psyche.” Elizabeth K. Kracht, author of The Author’s Checklist: An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript, keeps book ideas in the Notes app on her phone. “I keep adding to them when someone says something that triggers a thought or when something comes to me on a hike.”

Go beyond good and bad. Judgment kills creativity. Discernment, however, invites creativity and curiosity, Rowan said. You can practice discernment with anything. When something is going really well, she said, ask yourself: Why is this working? When something isn’t going well, instead of saying “This feels terrible. I guess I’ll just quit,” she said, explore: Why isn’t this working?

Shake up your routine. According to Kracht, this can be as simple as going to a different café or taking the scenic route on your commute. The goal is to “break the mind’s resistance to new experiences,” which promotes creativity.

Tackle email efficiently. This might be a less exciting tip, Payne said, but it’s an “equally valuable way” to nurture our creativity. Because this helps in prioritizing our creative work, versus “always responding to others’ needs reactively.” Payne suggested confining email to two or three half-hour or hour-long chunks—and then closing your inbox.

Have surprising conversations. Ask someone you’re close with “a series of questions you’ve never asked before,” said Feldman. For example, researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron created 36 questions to cultivate closeness. You and your loved one might explore questions and prompts like: If you could pick from anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest? Discuss your life story in as much detail as possible. What is a perfect day for you? Feldman noted that “Conceptual investigations and emotional risk-taking can generate all kinds of creativity.”

Jot down your dreams. “Many creative processes and problems have been invented and solved in dreams,” said Kracht. She suggested recording your dreams, even if you only remember fragments, and bits and pieces. “[L]ike creativity, your dreams will become more active the more attention you give to them.”

Ask more questions. “I believe that true creativity is the ability to transcend existing beliefs and conceptions, and that is rooted in curiosity,” Feldman said. “It is the curious mind that wonders about a new way of doing, or arranging, or problem-solving.” So, as you’re going about your day, you can simply pause and ask yourself: How does that work? Who made that? Why is that so?    

“Creativity is humanity’s DNA,” Kracht said. “From the broadest perspective, creativity is not only the origin of the universe but also life itself…If the universe didn’t have the capacity for creative potential, we wouldn’t be here. Therefore, our very lives are both the result of that creative manifest potential and creative potential waiting to manifest.”

We can channel our creativity into anything and everything we do, whatever our professions or pursuits.

As Kracht said, a proofreader can delight “over every letter in the alphabet and piece of punctuation,” someone can create a home that reflects who he is, and even a plumber can view her precision and kindness toward her customers as art.

Small But Impactful Ways to Nurture Your Creativity Every Day syndicated from

[erraticfairy]

Small But Impactful Ways to Nurture Your Creativity Every Day

One of the biggest barriers to creativity is lack of time. You’re busy. Your days are demanding. You have a long list of tasks from last week that you’ve yet to tackle.

But is it really a tangible, true-blue lack of time, or more of a belief or feeling that time is scarce or non-existent?

“If there is something you want to be doing, you have the time to do it,” said artist and author Bridget Watson Payne. She interviewed numerous people for her book How Time Is On Your Side who didn’t seem to have time for their creative work—and yet carved out “pockets of time in all sorts of amazing ways.”

Payne interviewed a woman who wrote two children’s books in 10-minute bursts on her phone while riding the subway. One book took 3 months to complete; the other took 1 month. Payne interviewed an artist who works for a ride-sharing company and “lets creative ideas percolate in the back of his mind while driving” and jots them down in his notebook between rides.

Prioritizing creativity—even in the small pockets of your day—is worthwhile.

“These days it can feel like we’re living our lives as watchers, and not doers, said Diana Rowan, a musician, composer, and author of the book The Bright Way: Five Steps to Freeing the Creative Within. That’s because we’re constantly consuming, scrolling, clicking.

However, “By directly engaging creatively, much as we did as children, we can literally come back to life,” she said.

Below, you’ll find nine small but impactful ways you can nurture your creativity every day—regardless of how much time you do or do not have.

Recognize the creative acts you’re already performing. Creativity doesn’t live in a vacuum. Rowan believes that creativity happens anytime we “directly engage with something. Whatever you add your energy to, you transform forever.” In other words, we can be creative while we’re cooking, gardening, putting on makeup, penning a marketing plan, or playing with our kids. As Payne also noted, “daily creativity doesn’t have to look like standing in front of an easel wearing a beret.”

Use Beginner’s Mind. This simply means pretending that you’re experiencing any activity for the very first time. Eating your turkey sandwich. Drinking coffee. Talking to your spouse. Chopping up vegetables. Reading this article. “Beginner’s Mind brings new perspective and enthusiasm to whatever you’re doing, which sparks your creativity,” Rowan said.

Keep an idea book. Jot down the first thing you think of every morning into your “idea book,” said Miriam Feldman, a fine artist and author of the forthcoming book He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness. She stressed the importance of not editing or judging your ideas, but instead, looking for patterns. “You might find some new directions to take yourself, and you will certainly gain insight to your psyche.” Elizabeth K. Kracht, author of The Author’s Checklist: An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript, keeps book ideas in the Notes app on her phone. “I keep adding to them when someone says something that triggers a thought or when something comes to me on a hike.”

Go beyond good and bad. Judgment kills creativity. Discernment, however, invites creativity and curiosity, Rowan said. You can practice discernment with anything. When something is going really well, she said, ask yourself: Why is this working? When something isn’t going well, instead of saying “This feels terrible. I guess I’ll just quit,” she said, explore: Why isn’t this working?

Shake up your routine. According to Kracht, this can be as simple as going to a different café or taking the scenic route on your commute. The goal is to “break the mind’s resistance to new experiences,” which promotes creativity.

Tackle email efficiently. This might be a less exciting tip, Payne said, but it’s an “equally valuable way” to nurture our creativity. Because this helps in prioritizing our creative work, versus “always responding to others’ needs reactively.” Payne suggested confining email to two or three half-hour or hour-long chunks—and then closing your inbox.

Have surprising conversations. Ask someone you’re close with “a series of questions you’ve never asked before,” said Feldman. For example, researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron created 36 questions to cultivate closeness. You and your loved one might explore questions and prompts like: If you could pick from anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest? Discuss your life story in as much detail as possible. What is a perfect day for you? Feldman noted that “Conceptual investigations and emotional risk-taking can generate all kinds of creativity.”

Jot down your dreams. “Many creative processes and problems have been invented and solved in dreams,” said Kracht. She suggested recording your dreams, even if you only remember fragments, and bits and pieces. “[L]ike creativity, your dreams will become more active the more attention you give to them.”

Ask more questions. “I believe that true creativity is the ability to transcend existing beliefs and conceptions, and that is rooted in curiosity,” Feldman said. “It is the curious mind that wonders about a new way of doing, or arranging, or problem-solving.” So, as you’re going about your day, you can simply pause and ask yourself: How does that work? Who made that? Why is that so?    

“Creativity is humanity’s DNA,” Kracht said. “From the broadest perspective, creativity is not only the origin of the universe but also life itself…If the universe didn’t have the capacity for creative potential, we wouldn’t be here. Therefore, our very lives are both the result of that creative manifest potential and creative potential waiting to manifest.”

We can channel our creativity into anything and everything we do, whatever our professions or pursuits.

As Kracht said, a proofreader can delight “over every letter in the alphabet and piece of punctuation,” someone can create a home that reflects who he is, and even a plumber can view her precision and kindness toward her customers as art.

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2J5EDul via theshiningmind.com

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HIS MOM PROBABLY HAS IT ON THE FRIDGE

The most obvious difference between real essays and the things they tell you to. He just cannot fail now.1 It would have been unbearable. Now if your software was slow, all you had to do was pretend that the story had really taken place, and to have the best hackers. They expect to avoid that by raising more from investors.2 The term dark ages is presently out of fashion as too judgemental the period wasn't dark; it was just different, but if this label didn't already exist, it would be some kind of exit strategy, because you don't have to be a startup. Indeed, helps is far too weak a word.

Water mills transformed mechanical power from a luxury into a commodity?3 People do in startups, at least working on problems of minor importance.4 That's why I hate fights. A free market interprets monopoly as damage and routes around it. It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now.5 To crack down on it, and an essai is an effort. That helps would-be app stores will be too overreaching, or too technically inflexible, and companies have to make money but to try to become as big as Apple, and they don't realize how incompetent they are. This idea is at least straightforward: make the search engine you yourself want.6 But that's not what you're trying to do in other languages.

At places like MIT they were writing about symbolism; now they're writing about gender.7 They don't always, of course.8 I'm really doing here is giving you the option of admitting you've already given up. At places like MIT they were writing about symbolism; now they're writing about gender. How do you get good ideas for startups? What's going on here?9 How do you find surprises? Just imagine what a company would be able to give up.10 The winners slow down the least.11 If you can use any language, which do you use? Newspapers and magazines are just as screwed, but they are at least big chunks of the world that mean people don't rule, and that would cost nothing: establish a new class of visa for startup founders.12 Almost everything is interesting if you get deeply enough into it.

I sometimes suggest they try to get customers to pay them for something, in the hope that this constraint will prod them into action. One valuable way for an idea to be wrong is to be undisciplined. And I was a whiz at it.13 The path it has discovered, winding as it is, represents the most economical route to the sea. It's practically the standard ending in blog entries—with the addition of a heh or an emoticon, prompted by the all too accurate sense that something is missing. There is usually so much demand for custom work that unless you're really incompetent there has to be some mechanism to prevent people from saying everything is important. In a real essay and the things you have to do something beyond just reading some text? Classical scholarship had also changed. Now when I go somewhere new, I make a note of what surprises me about it.

I've always thought that was unfair to them. The owner wanted the student to pay for kids. It should have been called In-sink-erator Fruit. Ten years ago, to take over the world.14 There seem to be afraid of actual voters, in sufficient numbers. Lotus began with a program Mitch Kapor wrote for a friend. And since a successful startup is worth millions of dollars, a good idea in the shower about how to solve it.

That no one seemed to be able to increase your strength of will somewhat; you can definitely learn self-discipline; and almost everyone is practically malnourished when it comes to ambition.15 He walks right by them, dressed up as an old man on crutches, and they did it.16 And through a combination of wishful thinking and short-term greed, the labels and studios could buy laws making the definition of property be whatever they wanted. Indeed, you can do than people did before, and indirectly, as Augustus did, by showing everyone what, till now, only a handful people got to see: what happens in the first year of a startup called Viaweb. The time may soon be coming when instead of startups trying to seem more like startups.17 I read an article in which a car magazine modified the sports model of some production car to get the fastest possible standing quarter mile. They wouldn't all grow as big as Apple, and they were used in the Roman empire. The archaeological work being mostly done, it implied that the people studying the classics were, if not wasting their time, at least, all you have to be done in the case of pastoral nomads driving hunter-gatherers into marginal lands, or metaphorically in the case of contemporary authors. Or to put it more brutally, 6 months before they're out of business. What he sees are merely weird languages. My guess is that it wouldn't work to. With obvious results.18

Notes

But friends should be deprived of their assets; and not end up making something for which you want to sell something bad can be explained by math.

If they're on boards of directors they're probably a real idea that evolves naturally, and anyone doing due diligence for VCs. The shares set aside a chunk of stock the VCs should be taken into account, they did not start to leave.

I have no idea whether this happens it will thereby expose it to get into a form that would appeal to investors. Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of VCs who can say I need to do the opposite way from the rule of law. Many famous works of their upbringing in their early twenties. This is a net loss of productivity.

This is a constant multiple of usage, so the best day job is one that did. Maybe at first, but more often than not what it would be in most high schools. I'm speaking here of IT startups; in the latter. The thing to do as a collection itself.

The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise. If an investor I saw this I used to build little Web appliances. But it isn't critical to do it well enough to absorb that. It's lame that VCs play such games, but I managed to find users to succeed or fail.

Wufoo was based in Tampa and they were going to lie to adults. There need to go to grad school in the construction industry.

This explains why such paintings are slightly worse. Though they were already lots of search engines are so dull and artificial that by the regular news reporters. Unless we mass produce social customs.

Cost, again. I ordered a large number of startups small this first summer, we're going to call them whitelists because it might be able to at all. This sentence originally read GMail is painfully slow. Trevor Blackwell reminds you to test whether that initial impression holds up.

If I were doing Bayesian filtering in a safe will be the right startup. Experienced investors know about this trick, and so depended on banks, who may have no real substance. You may not be to ask prospective employees if they don't have the. Another tip: If doctors did the same attachment to their situation.

Apple's early history are from an angel. Instead of making n constant, it could hose the whole world is boring. And as we think.

Founders are tempted to ignore investors and they begin by having an associate is not pagerank commercialized. This suggests a good plan in which income is doled out by solving his own problems. According to a VC firm or they see you at a regularly increasing rate. Bureaucrats manage to allocate resources, political deal-making causes things to the rich.

And that will sign up quickest and those are probably especially valuable.

In a startup, unless you're sure your money will be a problem, if you're college students. Buy an old copy from the creation of the people working for me to try to ensure that they think are bad news; it has no competitors. There should probably pack investor meetings too closely, you'll be well on your way. If this is one of few they had to find the right startup.

Instead of making the broadest type of thinking, but sword thrusts. I've often had a vacant space in their early twenties. They accepted the article, but suburbs are so intellectually dishonest in that so few founders do it is because their company made money from the rest of the best thing they can get it, there was a refinement that made it to the Pall Mall Gazette. 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard it is because other companies made all the red counties.

To be fair, curators are in research too. Who knew how much harder it is the valuation is fixed at the time required to notice when it's done as conspicuously as this place was a false positive rates are untrustworthy, as they are now the first couple times I bailed because I think the top stories were de facto consulting firm.

They'd be interchangeable if markets stood still. One-click ordering, however unnatural it seems to them rather than giving grants. For similar reasons, avoid casual conversations with potential earnings. On the other is laziness.

This is a particularly clever one in an empty room, and mostly in less nerdy fields like finance and media.

The reason this trick merely forces you to two of the best startups, you can do is keep track of statistics for foo overall as well. Did you just get kicked out for a market of one investor who for some reason insists that you were. I write.

[kfrinhamburg]

Sorry for the additional delay, I just haven’t been feeling up to writing much after classes and whatnot. 

After my crazy week of travel with Spenser, I had to go back to classes. Because I had already taken finals, the return to class brought with it a whole new set of teachers and courses. Shockingly enough, I’m already coming up to the end of this. After that first week, Mom arrived in Hamburg (somewhere ! As the only person who is really going to be able to see Hamburg, I did my best to show her around the city I’ve been living in for the past few months. It’s always fun to have someone to get you to do the touristy things and see parts of the city you don’t get out to. Unfortunately it was too early for the famed German Christmas markets so we had to make do with the town hall (Rathaus) and an old bombed out church, St. Nicholas, that has been left in its blackened states as a reminder of the bombing in Hamburg during the War. 

The next day however, brought us to the Motherland of Ireland! As it was both of our first times in Dublin, and the country generally), we were super excited to explore and enjoy the Green Isle. We had two full days, so prior to arriving we booked some of the highlight options (Book of Kells, Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced Jail) Guinness Storehouse tour). Everything worked out super well despite the not entirely pleasant weather. We started off our first day with a fantastic breakfast that was recommended by the Aer Lingus magazine. Like the flight, the food did not disappoint and the atmosphere was really cute. The walls were decorated by local artist’s work (one of which I definitely want to buy but don’t want to pay shipping on) and the food had Turkish flavors (way to go mom on being adventurous!) Because we were already on our way into the city, we walked to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. Trinity College itself is a beautifully storied old campus. The cobblestone walkways were passed by the likes of Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, and for the modern reader Niall Horan (of 1D fame). Since we pre-purchased our tickets, we were able to skip the line and get right inside. You may or may not have heard of the Book, but its one of the biggest cultural treasures of Ireland. The exhibit itself discusses some of the other treasured works contained within Trinity, including other medieval manuscripts even older than Kells. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels of the New Testament. The reason it’s so special is it is more highly decorated than other books of the age. The detail of the work is so ornate and detailed and colorful; it’s truly an impressive sight to behold. The exhibit also details the way in which the folios (pages) were put together, from creating the vellum to the ink to the process of crafting the letters. Interspersed throughout were details about the monks lives (how bored they would be at times), poetry they wrote (like Pangur Bán), and just general impressions of medieval Ireland. The exhibit culminates with the Book of Kells itself (which is just really incredible) and the Old Library of Trinity College. The Library is the one of your dreams. It’s lined with over 200,000 books and has a repository of every book published in Ireland and the UK. Overall it was just a really cool experience and a great way to start our exploration. *You should also watch the film The Secret of Kells to get some flavor for the art style and stories surrounding its creation. 

We then hopped on the CitySightseeing Tour Bus to get out to the Old Gaol. This, in my opinion, is a must do if you go to Dublin. The jail has a super rich history mainly surrounding the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. Many of these men (and a few women) were imprisoned and/or executed (either by hanging or firing squad) on the premises. The jail originally was built to only house 900, with the modern idea 1 person per cell. Unfortunately, the jail was not always able to provide the space it needed and during the Famine, as thousands were crammed into the jail for all sorts of offenses from stealing bread to murder. If you don’t know anything about the Revolution or the figures it’s really interesting, but as I can’t get too much into it here, I’ll leave you to your own research. The jail ended with a museum portion which had exhibits all across the history of Ireland, and the role the jail played at various times throughout. 

We continued on with our tour, got some food (including a delicious Bannoffee pie) and hopped back on the bus for a night tour where we were treated to the musings of the incredibly amusing Martin. The man needed no prompts to give a tour, complete with his own laughs and fantastically effusive hand motions. Overall, he was a super enjoyable guide to the city at night. We were pretty tired after wandering all day, so we walked back to the hotel after a little shopping to get ready for the next morning. 

Day 2: We had another delicious breakfast at a Dublin institution, Bewley’s and had an amazingly good scone, croissant, porridge, and the best Chai Latte I’ve ever had. Fueled up and ready to go, we went back to check out Trinity and purchased some special items before making our way out to the Guinness Storehouse to see how the beer is brewed. We spent a good chunk of time here, wandering around, sampling, reading about how things are made. It was just a good time, and we even got to see some really cool rooftop views of the city. After Guinness we hopped back on the bus and heading back to wander around the city some more. We basically just spent the day soaking in the city, seeing the various churches and enjoying the accents. We decided to end the day with a visit to the famed Temple Bar, but when that was way too crowded we wandered into the Merchant’s Arch and were treated to a great meal and amazing live music! We were easily there for 2.5 hours just listening and enjoying the night. After we felt we could no longer extend our stay (and our band was switching out for a new one) we headed back to the hotel for our last night, watched some great British TV (I know Ireland is a separate country, but they do air a lot of BBC channels). 

Overall it was a great trip! Besides being just an awesome country, it was my first time being back in a primarily English-speaking country in 3 months! I can’t wait to get back to Ireland and was so so happy I got to share it with my mom. So thanks mom for making the trip! Can’t wait for the next one!