#this year i am doing a version of nanowrimo called Just Fucking Write Something

[distressednoise]

Cassian necked five pints at the airport and spent most of the flight asleep under Brasso’s coat. Brasso has no real memory of him moving, but when he reclaimed his jacket it was loaded with trolley-sized bottles of JD, and now it clinks tellingly as Brasso makes his way through the resort’s cramped corner shop.

The owner squints at him from the far side of the international crisp aisle, and Brasso wants to say I’m not your problem here, but that wouldn’t be strictly true. Brasso has been part of the problem since he was twenty three and didn’t dob Cassian in for stealing from his young offenders’ apprenticeship. Since then they’ve been two halves of the same crime: the guilty party (outside, smoking, getting sworn at in Catalan by 12 year olds) and the one responsible (inside, clinking, making a resigned, supervisory face at the cashier).

When he pays up the cashier peers judgementally into his basket, as if 90% of his clientele aren't after the same combination of Pot Noodle, cans and overpriced factor 10. Brasso's about to make a joke out of it when he says, "You need to get him to stop that," with a nod toward the door, and Brasso turns to see Cassian has negotiated a truce with the children by handing out the last of their cigarettes.

"We're down by the beach," Brasso promises. "We won't be around much." Those are both lies, but he can keep Cassian out of view, probably. Stash him between the novelty beach towels and racks of glittery jelly shoes and hope his hideous fucking patterned shirt blends in. The only reason Brasso hasn't been ripping him about it constantly since they set off is that it's so awful he suspects it was Clem's.

He gets forty Richmond just to make the cashier glare and heads outside to discover what sort of trouble has coalesced around Cassian in his absence, only to find that the children have been dismissed and Cassian is staring at him, face hard, nails newly bitten. "You've brought us to the shitty island," he accuses, as if he thought they were going to Ibiza. He'd actually been uncharacteristically passive while Brasso threw this whole thing together, so maybe he did.

"We're on the Pegla's-nan's-free-apartment island," Brasso corrects him. "Sorry it's not ideal for a rager."

"I know you're decrepit - " Brasso is twenty nine, thank you "but not all of us have given up on life."

"You said you needed to lie low."

"That doesn't mean be bored."

"What did you think it meant?"

"I - " Cassian flounders. "I just didn't expect to be here."

"Cos you didn't fucking help," Brasso points out, but he doesn't add that Cassian brought this on himself in the first place, and in return Cassian takes one of the creaking carrier bags for the schlep up the hill.

"Pegla likes you better."

That's true, Brasso thinks, but people tend to like doing things for Cassian more. He's fun to indulge: wide-eyed enough that you feel good about helping him, shifty enough that you feel rebellious doing it. He could have found himself a bolt hole easily. There's no real reason for Brasso to be here at all. Well, no - to stop Cassian drinking alone and making another set of terrible friends, maybe. To stop Cassian filling the flat with anyone else.

The flat, when they find it, is wedged in the middle floor of a relative high rise, four white-and-terracotta rooms groaning under the weight of Pegla's nan's knicknack collection. There's not a single surface that isn't occupied by a doily or a commemorative plate or one of a seemingly endless set of pink clam shell ashtrays; the clock and the fruitbowl and the light fitting are all bakelite relics from the days when the only good household fixture was one that looked like an exotic, sunbursting weapon; every dish in the kitchen is smoked glass; every furniture that can be nested, nests.

"That's 'your place or mine?' answered, then," Brasso says, dumping his suitcase in a bedroom largely given over by a set of ragdoll donkeys in the costumes of the world.

"Girls will love this," Cassian shouts from the kitchen. "We bring them here. We give them some sangria. We give them tea from a clock and… whatever this is -"

"It's for oranges." Brasso's nan had one. Had the clock, too, and a similar rug. The whole place feels like it should smell of tinned potatoes and death.

"- oranges, on a plate with the queen's face. They'll love that. We take them out on the balcony - "

"Are you sure you've done this before?"

"Trust me, we go out onto the balcony -"

"We go over to the hotel," Brasso says, "and we pretend we're part of the all-in, and then we have sex in the pool like normal people."

"We're lying low."

"Not this low, I'll have nightmares." The donkeys have multiplied since he came in. "Come on."

"I don't want attention."

"That's a fucking lie."

"You're not supposed to encourage me," Cassian complains. He's right, but fuck it - Brasso's on holiday too.

[tropicalrpg]

ix. nine

aaaah i'm short on time! i did start writing something else. and i'm trying my super hardest not to be too hard on myself on length and stuff, but everything seems too short. i've spent too long on authors' advice to be someone who doesn't follow shit. there's that neil gaiman thing about writing every day, there's the hank green thing about not spending more than seven days away from the world of your fiction, and there's the someone thing about, yes, writing every day, but setting a low standard for yourself. no one needs a thousand words a day, that's insane, though it's great if you can manage it. aim for two hundred, something like that, right? i don't know, not really. like i said, i don't follow any of these things. like i said, what, the day before yesterday? yesterday? writing has always been a chore. it's the one thing i think i know how to do (i don't. i write like everyone else, and because of my narcissism i think i do it better), and yet i don't do it, and i hate doing it. (unless i don't: i'm going to write about this, still. also there's the poetry, which i only write when i want to, and so it turns out okay, and there's, well, what i'll elaborate on.)

this is a shit summer writing project. that's what my inspiration called their own blog; a summer writing project. between quotes—single quotes, apostrophes. but i don't have anything to tell you, so what is this? it isn't a journal, and if it's a writing project, then what is the project for? what are the rules? if the rules are, put simply, writing every day, how is that helping? how is talking about myself to an audience of ghosts doing anything to make me a better writer, make me a better person?

i don't even have porn bot followers on this blog, goddammit.

and i know, or i think, there's a learning curve to this. i've never written every day, i've never written nonfiction, so maybe i'll get the hang of this, eventually. maybe i'll start writing segmented essays, maybe i'll, i don't know. switch to fiction fully, and write newspaper novels. (romances de folhetim. oops! doxxed myself! fuck it.) maybe i'll switch to poetry and do a poem every day for january, or february, or the period between january 8th to february 14th—i don't know. i don't fucking know.

i don't know what i'm doing. maybe that's why i always look for writing advice. i write like i don't know what i'm doing, because i don't, ever. i see writers i admire writing better than me, with better metaphors (when have i ever followed chekhov's fucking gun) and better characters and even better sentence structure (i always start my damn sentences with a pronoun). and i don't know what i'm doing, and it's the best i know how to do. and this is the one thing i believe i've been able to do well, and even at it i suck, so fuck! fuck! i don't want to be worthless! if nothing about me is of note, what will i be if i lose my words, too?

i won nanowrimo in 2018. 2018 was the best year of my life—i talked about that in therapy today. not directly. i won nanowrimo in 2018. in 2018, i almost became friends with the author of the blog that inspired me to do this. i met them in 2018, and i've put them on a pedestal since the very day we met, i think. or since the day i read a fic of theirs for the first time. (yeah, ficwriters, ficreaders. i'll talk about it later.) i wrote reasonably successful fics in 2018 and in 2020, and in both those years i found people around me that were just so much better than me, and i did nothing but compare myself to them. the difference with this year is that i've found no one new, so i compare present me with past selves, and i still can't outdo anyone. i am worse than 17-year-old them. i am worse than every version of them i have ever known. i am shit.

i think self-esteem is one of the things for which admission is not in the path to recovery—admitting you have a self-esteem problem, if that problem is low self-esteem, is admitting you have a problem, and you're fucked up, and that makes you worse. how can i get better? external validation? i'm already a fucking narcissist. i don't know how i manage to hate myself and think so highly of myself at the same time, but i must be special, ey? there must be something unique about the ridiculous way my brain works that allows me to be this way.

maybe if i die famous someone will psychoanalyse this blog. maybe this blog will be anonymous forever, and, once or after i stop using it, it'll just be another grave in the online cemetery. and no one will know who i was, like no one knows who i am.

maybe, hey? all we can do is wait.

[thoseindarkness]

DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes.  I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Things I regret and things I wish I had done better in pushing Diversity in Books

Probably a bit self-aggrandizing... and I’m aware of that. And I’m aware most people won’t believe me, but I have documentation. (I also pushed diversity in Korean dramas a bit, too lol, but that’s much more subtle and harder to prove.) Short version: I helped pull a lot of the strings on the internet about the discussions of diversity and writing from about 2004 (November 2004)

Loose background:

I have always been more diverse than the people around me. And I’ve always felt disaffected from being able to understand my own diversity completely as an adoptee. Being Highly Intersectional, but often disconnected, also makes me super stubborn on representation over other people.

I am also from a line of advocates on all sides of my family.

And no, I’ve never been particularly good at being “nice”. Kind, yes. Nice, no. So people have always felt split about me from the time I was born, I suppose.

Disclaimer:

Some of this might be retconning a bit... just a bit. But unintentionally. All facts are true as I can document/remember them.

Introduction:

So, I’ve always had my eyes on writing diversity, but never quite felt qualified to write it when I was younger, and being adopted, I was raised by a white family. So most of my characters from extension of exposure, ended up white and were female and a few were gay, but being ace spec, and in the dark about it, I didn’t know how to write that. (Incidentally also a sucker fro Rom Coms.) But I’m quite stubborn and quite detailed when it comes to such things, so tried my best with what I had and did not cross.

Internet hit, and frankly, I spent the majority of it on Sailor Moon in the early years. Also arguing down Adoption lawyers from using triggering statements in their “ads” to adoptive parents on listserves, etc. (Adopted to a Jewish family and Korean, so top notch arguing skills is a must. [I joke, also insider’s joke])

Nanowrimo hit, and I learned that asexuality is a real thing, which was also a part of me, but they didn’t acknowledge gray-aces until much, much later. I was inquiring about it in November 2004 (Finally looked up the date)... (so AVEN lies their butts off about that because I remember the first aces out were sex repulsed, aro aces. Not a spot of gray out there.)

Since about 2005? Nanowrimo I started compiling lists of links to various information, since it started to repeat from the previous year. Every year until about 2008-ish... I compiled links for Nanowrimo for resources on how to write various groups. The fights all went in the same exact direction.

I also from about the beginning started compiling Banned Books list by category and every year posting that thread, which was also exceedingly popular. I did it to expose the stupid reasons that books are banned, which mostly were on diversity.

I also was the one that started the “Above Below” in writing forums form. (I took it from ASMR--A Sailor Moon Romance, who would play games like that and cross referenced it with my experience at Canisius College Summer Writing Camp and used the rules from there. I did it because Nanowrimo at the time didn’t have a critique section, so me and another person discussed it in PMs first, and then I started the thread in an “other” section. (I still have the rules from the *original* post on my computer, which have since gotten corrupted.) Nanowrimo also had word limits, so I had one for first page with a strict 250 word limit and eventually after Miss Snark, one for query letters (which I’m exceedingly good at. I won Miss Snark’s contest, but for a while thought I lost, until I saw the Nanowrimo boards to show I won. lol I’m sued to rejection.)

Also started compiling the Writing Survey questions in about Year 3 and ran it, gathered statistics, etc about Nanowrimo and the writing population.

People hated me. People liked me too... since I spent a ton of time helping people. The PoC threads, out of the diversity threads, were always the most contentious. (Also in other writing forums too... often populated by white Moderators who didn’t know why associating black people watermelon and porches was racist as anything... *cough* Critique Circle *cough*)

So... given that background...

What Did I Do wrong:

- Probably shouldn’t have bit at Trolls and asked people to move it along? (OK, I can’t resist the temptation still.)

- I started with thinking it was individualistic power, not systemic. I set this on the wrong course. We should have been challenging agents and editors as much as writers from the beginning. This is my bad, (though I was not alone.) I didn’t have enough study back then. I didn’t understand how systems worked.

- I probably shouldn’t have been thinking only about privileged people writing. I think that it should be own voices first, but that privileged people and outgroups should *also* be given a chance *after* a ton of research to also write people of color. Personally, it’s been a bit overcorrrected in places, but yeah, I think the idea that we should teach outgroups... no. They need to do the work, the research, be insecure, and pick up the slack.

- I probably should have said no more often about diversity. No, you can’t write that. (But others should also have said no, but sometimes you’re hungry for representation.) Also my line of “Real People > Fiction” would have been greatly helpful back then.

- I did argue that YA was where most books are banned and most trends *start* in YA books, but the part that was also missed was that I also said that it spreads *from* YA, not that it should *stop* solely at YA. BTW, you do not have to write only YA as an author... It’s a demographic, not a genre. A lot of kids also read adult books. I did as a 13 year old. (When the YA section was 4 shelves at best) I think I should have pushed more for it to get into the adult section, too, because without the tools to see what it’s like, how is the previous generation supposed to help kids as well? Adults are not hopeless.

- I also think I should have instituted better ways of discourse around diversity, but it’s not like anyone was cooperating with it. Argue with resources, reliable sources, back it with fact, not truthiness.

- I also think I should have argued that if you have NO ONE in your life of that diversity... HANDS OFF. Not the token friend, but someone who comes around *often* to you *house* you *regularly* talk with and interact with. Being more adamant about that might have helped. If you never read anything from that group and yet still want to write them HANDS OFF. If you think all _blank_ of that group are terrible people... also HANDS OFF. If your only interaction with the country and the people is through dramas and pop culture... HANDS OFF.

- I really needed the words Implicit Bias, not just Privilege. Also needed Privilege Qualifying too. White Tears also would have been useful. Stereotype Threat... OK... I needed more Social Justice vocabulary.

- I should have learned that everyone has privilege, but it’s how you use it that matters sooner... It took me a while to get there. And I wrote it out first... as far as I know, and spread it around.

- I also have smaller regrets like... the use of Caucasian... I pressed MTV Decoded for a video on it. Also on the history of “Submissive” Asian.

- Also wish I had written a better code of conduct on how to interact with people with Diversity so they don’t get mentally drained better.

- I think I should have argued better for Diversity within, not stereotypes outside looking in. (This is currently missing from a lot of the Diversity workshops on writing--the stories that don’t hit the bell curve neatly. Fi~~~x it.)

- I also think trying to force convert authors was wrong (and is still wrong). If they do, they do, instead.... I should have bolstered support from the System itself and from authors of that identity, without locking out privileged authors that wanted to try. Let the authors that try and flop, push back flounder so others can learn from them. I don’t abide by canceling before release UNLESS there is a very good reason they shouldn’t profit. You can cancel them by not buying their book.

What I Did Right:

- I did ask Writing Forums to institute a Diversity policy that was more specific like the writing conventions. (Still looking at you Nanowrimo, Critique Circle, Absolute Write and Wattpad.) AND to have administration at the very top of the forum that was not white OR at least very educated on those topics (Head of forums should get paid... unless they started it themselves). But to have boards to review problems with diversity discussion. (And I know it’s not for everyone and it’s exhausting, but power representation is something we need.) It’s not bad to ask those in power to be educated on the problem and not make weak excuses on why they can’t do it, and then ban people for challenging them on diversity. *cough* I’m STILL asking that all writing forums are specific on diversity and prejudices and ban all prejudiced swears because from the Nanowrimo survey shit, fuck, dick, ass... are *less* offensive than prejudiced swears. And people can self-censor and can look it up.

- I know I was late to ask for it, but yeah, asking Editors and Agents to be *educated* before making a call for diversity isn’t a bad thing. (Lots of studying to get here.) I know they can’t change their sexuality, skin color, disability status, etc. BUT being able to list books from what you are asking for and ones that are not all privileged-qualifying would show you know your stuff. A quick way, BTW, to get a hold of countries is to read Folklore... I know this from lots and lots of reading and studying foreign media. Story structures, deeper beliefs, etc, can often be found there, plus they are quick to read. I know I wasn’t the first on this... Lee and Low pressed for it a lot, but I tried to extend it.

- I asked for end to end diversity. Every single part of the bookstore should have diversity in it. I’ve been going to the bookstore at least once a year since I was 13, scanning how the market has shifted and changed. I know authors counsel that by the time you see it on the shelf the fad is gone... but that’s not what I was looking for. I was looking for diversity, for gaps that people hadn’t filled yet. I want the cookbook section to have worldwide cooking. I want the economics books to have PoC names in it--even if I might never write or buy one. Because mirrors are important. I know this. If women can spread to the entire bookstore without question, then so can all of the other authors and sections. I’m still frickin’ asking for this. I know how much it hurts writers to not be able to find non-fiction books on their own identity.

- I insisted on research as the best route to get there. Not write what you know, explore what you don’t know. (But a lot of writers are lazy about research... if you are going to write diversity that’s not your own, then no.) If you’re not willing to put a year’s worth of work into deprogramming, it’s not worth your time to even touch diversity topics.

- Insisted that Diversity people are not trends. (Though I wish I’d pressed this more). Again, conquer the ENTIRE bookstore so it’s not a question. It’s an answer. Books are there to answer things in my PoV.

- I spent a lot of time trying to learn perspectives and listen to people and dissenting within.

- I don’t regret challenging We Need Diverse books for being a-holes about rolling back on the dream of diverse books end to end by saying Diversity only for YA and challenging them to do better on adoption discussions with an adoptee at the helm who is defogged. If I’m unpopular for calling them out to do better, so be it. Again, conquer the entire bookstore. Don’t be afraid to dream big so the movement has a place to go, and don’t make a movement solely for your benefit.

And personally... I think book sellers should stop trying to cater to the 40% market of male readers who read only 1 book a year by insisting on more male characters... but that’s me.

But this is me... still wishing to have my dream come true that when I go to any part of the bookstore, go to a movie theater, listen to music, that I know diversity is represented there without anyone batting an eyelash at its existence. It’s not always going to benefit me. Sometimes it might actually hurt. But I’m OK with that if I can’t leverage my privileges always... I’ll cheer for it... because it means someone who was like me as a kid, and them as an adult can finally see themselves in the media they consume. And truly, this lifts my heart.

[jercythesiscrying]

Dumb Dumb | KageTsukki, G, 4k

NaNoWriMo Day 6: Songfic

Summary: Tobio may like Tsukishima, but that doesn’t mean he’s enjoying it.

A songfic based on Dumb Dumb (Japanese Version) by Red Velvet, which is an expanded version of a ficlet I wrote in this shuffle challenge. Main focus is on KageTsukki, but includes background poly-first years (specifically TsukkiYama and KageHinaYachi). Takes place when the first-years are second-years.

Read on Ao3

A/N: Exceptional hugs, kisses, and gratitude to @karasunovolleygays​ for the beta and ass-kicking (I hope I got all the epithets now???), shout-out to @omgrandomwords​ for throwing ideas at me, and general thank yous to Stream Team for always listening to me bitch. All other mistakes are my own.

Tobio finally notices, hilariously, at the Spring Interhigh when they’re arguing about the new quick they’ve been developing. Tsukishima had missed Tobio’s set, now furious that Tobio accused him for being at fault.

It’s late but here I am, sighing by myself Look what you’ve done, you’ve got my heart going crazy, oh

“I don’t need a pinpoint toss!” Tsukishima yells. “I’m not Hinata!”

Tobio is well aware of this fact, but he’s too proud to admit it, so he stands his ground, glaring at Tsukishima with a pout.

“Just –” Tsukishima growls, and Tobio notices his fists clenching at his side. “Just fucking toss it to me the way I keep telling you!”

“I know you keep telling me, because you won’t stop screaming in my ear about it!”

“Because it’s the only way you’d ever listen, genius!”

“Hey! Quit it!” Tobio whips his head around to see Tanaka-san yelling at them and stomping over. He tries pushing the two of them apart, but Tobio strains against his senpai’s palm, chest puffing out. He notices that Tsukishima does the same, and Tobio bares his teeth in a snarl.

Baby baby baby baby baby You play me play me play me play me play me

They always get like this: in each other’s faces if they ever want to make any progress. It’s different than when Tobio argues with Shouyou. With Shouyou, their bickering is more settled, now an almost comfortable banter about dumb things all the time. But with Tsukishima, Tobio is always on his toes, ready to push back at Tsukishima’s quick wit. Sometimes, their conversations can even be playful.

Unfortunately, in this case it means they’re chewing each other out in the middle of a match.

“I said quit it!”

The angry tone in Tanaka’s voice forces them to pause. That, and the vice-captain’s fists clenching into their uniforms.

“Keep it off the court or you’ll be benched for the rest of the season,” he warns in a low voice.

Tobio looks back at Tsukishima, who frowns at him before glaring away.

“Fine.”

They all reposition themselves on the court. Wakatani serves the ball, and Nishinoya easily receives it, volleying it to Tobio with precision. Tobio calculates the odds in the split second the ball soars in the air.

He frowns; he hates when Tsukishima’s right. He takes one look at the shithead, who answers with a nod.

Tobio sets the ball high, arching just behind the net. Tsukishima easily spikes the ball at an angle, and the crowd roars when the ref calls it as in.

“See?” Tsukishima says in a sweet, deeply sarcastic voice. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

“Piss off.”

Tobio walks away, but while he does sneaks a glance at Tsukishima. He has a triumphant smirk plastered across his face, but instead of supreme annoyance Tobio feels a flicker of fondness.

He brushes off the blush creeping up his cheeks as exhaustion from the game.

Your sparkling gaze has me so dizzy My calm and collected intuition’s nowhere to be found, oh

Later that very game, Tobio notices it again. It’s a tight match against Wakutani, but Karasuno pulls through with a 28-26 win. They use the quick that Tobio begrudgingly agrees to, hollering with his senpai when it lands in Wakatani’s court for Karasuno’s winning point.

Tobio gives Tanaka-san a double high-five, then he looks at Tsukishima, who wears a pleased grin on his face, eyes alight with satisfaction.

“Yo,” Tobio says, offering a raised palm.

Tsukishima’s smile drops, but he lifts a hand to match Tobio’s.

Baby baby baby baby baby You crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy

Tobio hits Tsukishima’s hand with a satisfying smack! and when their sweaty palms meet Tobio feels an electrifying shock. He almost gasps, but manages to rein in it when their hands separate.

Tsukishima moves on to high-five Yamaguchi, leaving Tobio to stare at his open palm with confusion.

They’re all in the clubroom dressing back into their school uniforms, except Shouyou’s already finished changing and heading towards the door.

“I’m really sorry!” Shouyou whines. “Really, Tobio, we’ll go together next time, I promise!”

Standing in front of his cubby, Tobio rolls his eyes, waving his boyfriend away. “Yeah, sure, just go get your sister now.”

Shouyou gives him another distressed look but nods nonetheless. He pecks Tobio on the cheek before yelling goodbye to everyone and running out the clubroom. After Shouyou leaves, the other members begin to file out in groups, leaving Tobio and Tsukishima left to lock up as per the third year’s orders.

I’m like a mannequin Just looking at you turns me into a cringe-y mess

Tobio sneaks a peek at Tsukishima standing in front of his own cubby, clad only in his tank top and black uniform pants. He’s even taller than he was last year, his gangly frame now more toned with wiry muscle. When he lifts his arms to slip on his pullover, the tank top bares a strip of milky pale skin just above his hips. Tobio immediately averts his eyes back to his belongings.

They continue to change their clothes in silence. Tobio is normally fine with saying nothing, used to Shouyou’s loud voice filling the space so he and Hitoka don’t have to. For some reason though, he doesn’t like the silence between him and Tsukishima, and feels compelled to say something.

He purses his lips, considering his options. He tries to think of how Shouyou flirts with him, how Hitoka approaches him, if there’s any way he can possibly emulate them to extend some sort of olive branch. He comes up empty except for the one thing he hates doing: complimenting Tsukishima.

No one can stop me From dancing with awkward steps

“Y-you did good today,” he mumbles. He says it so softly he almost hopes that Tsukishima doesn’t hear him.

“What was that?”

Tobio closes his eyes, gently leaning his forehead against the cubby shelf in front of him. He clears his throat when he looks up to meet the other boy’s gaze.

“I said, ‘You did good today.’”

Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell what Tsukishima’s thinking, but now Tobio can see every emotion that passes through his face: shock, doubt, annoyance, the tiniest bit of joy, more shock.

Eventually it settles into its usual smirk. “Well,” Tsukishima croons, putting his hands on his hips, “the King himself is offering me a compliment. What, is it going to snow today too?”

Tobio glares at him, completely regretting everything. He turns back to his cubby with a huff.

“Whatever,” he grumbles. “Forget I said anything.”

Tsukishima chuckles. Tobio thinks he’s going to tease him more about being a “king” in that asshole-way he loves doing, but instead he’s met with silence. This time, Tobio doesn’t bother trying to fill it.

It’s not until the two of them exit the clubroom together, Tsukishima dutifully locking the door, that he whispers, “You too.”

He and Tsukishima are the only ones who show up in the library to study one afternoon. Normally all five of them would be together—often to tutor both him and Shouyou—but Yamaguchi apparently had to help Ennoshita-san with something, and Hitoka and Shouyou are nowhere to be found.

If Tobio had to guess, he thinks his partners are making out in some secluded, dusty corner; he has no idea if they’ll actually show up.

He doesn’t realize he sighs out loud at the thought until Tsukishima says, “What now?”

“Nothing,” he grumbles, scratching down random numbers onto his worksheet.

After a beat, Tsukishima says, “That’s wrong.”

Tobio glares up at him. “What?”

Tsukishima starts going off on a monotone rant about how he’s not going to give Tobio the answer, that Tobio should learn the material himself or else he’s not going to pass his classes again. Tobio hears none of it because he finds himself especially distracted by the way the sunlight filters through the library windows, casting Tsukishima in a partial glow. He looks back down at his homework, narrowing his eyes even more in hopes that his embarrassment doesn’t show.

I can’t help My stiff facial expressions Or the way I walk

When Tsukishima eventually finishes, Tobio huffs. “Whatever.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes, dragging his chair closer to Tobio’s and coming into his space. Tobio, for some reason, is too stunned to stop it from happening.

“I am not going to do your homework,” Tsukishima says defiantly, “but if we’re the only two people showing up today you should at least get somethingthrough that thick skull of yours.”

Tobio can’t even bark out an annoyed reply because Tsukishima starts leaning over his worksheet. He’s so close that Tobio can feel the other boy’s body heat. He starts to write what looks like complete gibberish, none of which Tobio follows because his heart starts to race like he’s in the middle of a really good volleyball match.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

It’s really weird, to say the least, feeling like this around Tsukishima. Tobio doesn’t know what to make of it so he just continues to glare at Tsukishima’s pencil dancing across his worksheet.

Then he starts to explain what he did, his voice low and somewhat soothing, and Tobio tries to relax because he really should be focusing on his homework.

Somehow, after a particularly calm and understandable explanation, Tobio begins making his way through his problem set.

The drum of my heart The giddy mood I’m in They’re already out of my control

An hour later, Tobio slams his pencil onto the table with a thunk!, raising his math sheet in the air like a trophy.

“I did it!” he says triumphantly, pushing out of his seat to stand up.

Somewhere in the distance, someone shushes him, and he blushes, taking a seat once more.

“Not yet,” Tsukishima deadpans and absolutely ruining his moment.

His hand reaches out for Tobio’s worksheet, and Tobio mumbles death threats under his breath before passing his homework to Tsukishima for corrections. He follows Tsukishima’s eyes rapidly running down the worksheet, and before long he looks up at him with a single brow raised.

“Well?”

Tsukishima hands his homework back. “Not bad, King, you finally did good for once.”

Tobio looks at him with a smug grin, chest puffing out with pride. He’s about to say something when Tsukishima cracks the tiniest of smiles.

Not a smirk either. An actual, genuine smile.

And it’s directed at Tobio.

Tobio’s brain wipes out for the rest of the tutoring session. He barely notices when Hitoka and Shouyou eventually show up dishevelled and unkempt, matching blushes on their cheeks, because he’s too busy thinking about the way Tsukishima smiled at him.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb...

The rest of his homework doesn’t get completed that afternoon.

Tobio twists his ankle funny during a practice match against Date Tech. It’s not bad enough to do any lasting damage, but he’s out for the remainder of the match. He’s left to pout on the bench with an icepack Hitoka hands him, their back up first-year setter subbed into the game. The kid’s not bad, Tobio knows, he just rather it’s him on the court making the plays.

He claps his hands twice, calling out Don’t mind! when the gigantic middle blocker (Aone-san, Tobio vaguely remembers) slams a spike in. The teams reset positions for Date Tech’s serve to some first-year Tobio doesn’t know the name of.

The serve messes up, hitting the top of the net, but Nishinoya-san manages to dive for the ball, saving it with his fingertips. The ball flies up at a weird angle towards Tanaka, leaving him no choice but to pass it poorly to Tsukishima.

I dream about romance movies But you have me on the edge of my seat, oh

Tobio expects Tsuksihima to bump the ball over the net, maybe hope that their opponent won’t try to pull any fast plays. Instead, he watches Tsukishima run up, sprinting towards the ball with what looks to be a hard swing. Tobio frowns, glaring at the court—it’s a shit pass (no offense to Tanaka-san), so he has no idea why Tsukishima would bother trying to spike the ball. Date Tech immediately backs up at Tsukishima’s run, calling out to watch for a hard receive.

What is this idiot doing? Tobio wonders.

Tsukishima jumps, arm swinging with rapid speed, only for his palm to lightly tap the volleyball.

“Feint!” someone shouts, but it’s too late. The libero misses the ball.

Baby baby baby baby baby You make me crazy crazy crazy crazy, yeah

“NICE KILL, TSUKISHIMA!” everyone around him begins to yell, and despite himself Tobio hollers the praise along with his teammates.

Tsukishima catches his eye at Tobio’s cheers, flashing the tiniest smile, and he blushes. Before he knows it, the game restarts, ball passed to Hinata for his serve.

Tobio repositions himself on the bench once the next play begins. He didn’t even notice that he got out of his seat.

I’m like a mannequin Just looking at you turns me into a cringe-y mess No one can stop me From dancing with awkward steps

It’s infuriating, really, how stupid Tobio feels.

Tsukishima is the most annoying person he knows. He might be even more annoying than Shouyou, which is terrifying on a whole different level.

You make me crazy Hold on a sec, I wasn’t expecting this Things have been happening so fast since the day I met you

Tsukishima makes him feel exceptionally stupid; he cannot go a day without provoking him somehow; and he literally looks down on him with every centimetre he has over Tobio.

Which is why Tobio is beyond frustrated with himself over his obviously growing crush. It’s the same way he felt—feels—about Shouyou, about Hitoka. He doesn’t know how he got into this ridiculous position, liking another one of his teammates.

You see right through me, ready to start at a moment’s notice Don’t know why I can’t read the vibe The border’s so unclear

“Oi, Your Highness,” Tsukishima calls after him, and Tobio’s heart flutters at Tsukishima’s voice. He hates this so much.

He takes a breath, looking over his shoulder to meet Tsukishima’s gaze. When their eyes meet, he can’t find any words to reply, somehow dumbstruck at how stupidly attractive Tsukishima looks when the light outside envelops him in a soft halo.

“Fine,” he snaps, pulling Tobio out of his thoughts, “don’t talk to me, but practice starts in five.” He leaves with the club door slamming shut behind him.

Tobio drops his head.

He doesn’t know how he’ll survive this.

I had my hopes up but you just keep teasing me Boy, you can’t feel me I’m here next to you hesitating at your smile And before I know it, I lose control

Practice goes by unbearably slow. Tobio is beyond relieved that he doesn’t make a fool out of himself by the time everyone breaks for free practice. He claims the net for himself so he can practice aiming while he sets.

Hitoka passes him a bunch of empty bottles when he asks for them, and after she sets them aside she leans up with her lips puckered. He meets her halfway and bends down for her to reach his cheek despite the fact he’s blushing hard. Receiving affection from both his partners is still weird for him, but it makes them happy, and he likes when they’re happy, so Tobio tries his best to let them dote on him.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, still flushed red.

Hitoka smiles at him in reply before walking away.

Tobio lines up the bottles by the net with practiced ease, and when he stands up he finds his girlfriend talking to Tsukishima at the sidelines. Hitoka easily catches his eyes and beams at him. Tsukishima just looks on with a straight face.

Then, it slowly morphs into his signature smirk.

Tobio wants to kiss the look right off his face.

That was when I went numb You’ll be my sweet love

His teammates continue to beam at him like twin suns illuminating a clear sky. Tobio turns away before he does something embarrassing like trip over the bottles he just lined up.

Shouyou and Yamaguchi are still in the baths, but Tsukishima is already in bed, fiddling with his phone with his headphones on.

Their sleeping mats are next to each other for training camp, and Tobio wants to die. He can easily ask Shouyou to switch places with him, but his idiot boyfriend is as bad as he is at picking up cues and will probably make a big scene asking why. Tobio can’t handle that tonight.

Never apart, whether we’re asleep or awake Walking a fine line between loving and hating you

He sucks up his anguish with a deep breath. He lies down, fluffing his pillow with a hard fist before tucking himself underneath his blanket. He pointedly turns his back to Tsukishima behind him when he pulls the covers up to his chin. Once he’s comfortable, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Good night to you too, King,” Tsukishima says, but the pet name carries none of its usual malice or annoyance. He mumbles it so quietly that Tobio almost misses it.

I stand on my tiptoes with all my might But you treat me like a little kid again, oh

Almost. He smiles.

“Good night.”

 I’m just like a robot Rigid because I need some oil My body won’t move It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to breathe

Everyday, the five of them have lunch together. Tobio and Shouyou usually wait for Hitoka outside of her class, then the three of them meet Tsukishima and Yamaguchi in their class since they can push their desks together.

Tobio lets his partners know he’s running late, telling them not to wait and that he’ll meet up later. He checks the time on his phone, and when he realizes he doesn’t want to waste more time, he goes into a brisk walk down the hallway.

Unfortunately (or not), for some reason Tsukishima is there too.

He catches the unmistakable backside of an unfairly tall blond, ears covered by trademark white headphones.

Tobio knows he often doesn’t have time alone with Tsukishima, and because his crush is clearly here to stay, he sucks in a deep breath and catches up to him.

“Tsukishima!” he calls, jogging to his side.

Tsukishima turns to look at him with ever-judgemental eyes, but he pulls back his headphones, resting them on his neck.

“What do you want?”

Tobio frowns, glaring up at him. “I just wanted to walk next to you—is that illegal?”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes, not offering anything more. Tobio grunts, looking away. This was a stupid idea, he realizes.

“Well, what are you late for?” Tsukishima asks once they’re halfway to the classroom.

Tobio holds back a gasp, coolly answering, “Had to stay behind to talk to sensei.”

“About what?” Tsukishima furrows his brows at him. “You’re doing fine in your classes aren’t you? Or else all our tutoring is a waste.”

Tobio rolls his eyes. “I just had a question about the assignment, douchebag. I'm not failing.”

Tsukishima scoffs a laugh. “And isn’t that just a miracle?”

“Asshole.”

“Get better insults.”

“Maybe once you have better receives.”

“Shut up.”

They go back and forth in comfortable banter all the way to Tsukishima’s class, where their respective partners are waiting for them at their usual spot. Hitoka spots them first, waving them over.

“Tsukishima-kun! Tobio-kun!” she calls. “Over here!”

Tobio is a little sad to have their alone time end so soon. He slides into his seat with an internal sigh.

Usually, Shouyou and Hitoka like to sit next to each other; Tobio is fine sitting next to Yamaguchi opposite them; and Tsukishima takes the end seat at the short side of the tables. Today though, Tobio is pleasantly surprised when Tsukishima takes the seat next to him, making Yamaguchi scoot to the end where he normally sits.

I can’t help My stiff facial expressions Or the way I walk Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

The other three give them knowing looks, but neither he nor Tsukishima say anything.

Tobio eats his bento with a blush on high on his cheeks.

Shouyou tells him to stop messing around with Tsukishima and ask him out already, so Tobio worries for almost a week trying to figure out how to confess to him.

Turns out it’s a waste because Yamaguchi and Tsukishima corner him after practice one day.

No one else is in the gym, aside from Hitoka and Shouyou discussing something at the entrance, and Tobio glares at his two teammates before him.

The drum of my heart The giddy mood I’m in They’re already out of my control Dumb dumb dumb dumb

“What?” he demands.

After a painful silence, Yamaguchi elbows Tsukishima in the side.

“Ow, Yamaguchi!”

“Not sorry, Tsukki,” he says. “Now tell Kageyama what you told me.”

Tsukishima glares at him. “You’re the worst boyfriend.”

“I am the best boyfriend,” Yamaguchi clarifies, “and you are avoiding the subject.”

The two of them return their attention back to Tobio with eerie coordination.

“You’re-you’re not that bad,” Tsukishima finally mutters, looking Tobio in the eyes. A blush blooms high on his cheeks.

Tobio frowns. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“So?” He crosses his arms; he doesn’t have all day for this.

“He’s trying to say that he likes you,” Yamaguchi supplies with a grin.

Tobio’s stomach flips. “Oh.”

When he doesn’t add anything else, Tsukishima glares at him. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Well, yeah.” Tobio glares back. It’s not like Tsukishima said he liked him—Yamaguchi was the one to translate things for Tobio, so what could he possibly reply?

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Jeez, you suck at rejecting people.”

“And you suck at confessing.” He frowns, lip jutting out. “Besides, who said I was rejecting you?” He tilts his chin up defiantly, unfolding his arms to rest his hands on his hips.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes again. “Can you maybe not be a vague idiot?”

“Maybe you can learn to speak like a normal person.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Mr. I-Almost-Failed-English-Again.”

“Shut up, asshole!”

Tsukishima scoffs. “Maybe I should take my confession back.”

Tobio growls. “Was it even a confession? Yamaguchi was the one to say it for you.”

“Jeez, shut up and kiss already!”

Tobio doesn’t register Shouyou shouting because someone pushes him onto Tsukishima, and someone else pushes Tsukishima onto him, then they tumble into each other and their mouths meet in an awkward liplock.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb Dumb dumb dumb dumb...

They both gasp, eyes wide at the kiss, and Tobio immediately pushes himself away.

“Shit, sorry, I –”

Tobio doesn’t finish his sentence because Tsukishima cuts him off with another kiss—more purposeful, even softer. This time, Tobio sinks into it, eyes fluttering closed.

They break apart when Shouyou yells, “Finally!”

Tobio whips around to scowl at him. “Dumbass! Did you push me onto him?”

Shouyou’s responding laughter when he runs away is all the answer Tobio needs. He’s about to pummel his boyfriend into next week when Tsukishima grabs his hand.

“So.”

“So?”

Tsukishima looks away from Tobio’s gaze to sheepishly stare at their joined hands. Tsukishima’s other hand scratches at his neck. It’s almost unbelievable how cute Tobio finds that.

“Are we dating or not?” he finally asks.

Tobio steps into his space, pressing his chest against Tsukishima’s. When the other boy finally looks at him he leans up to press their lips together.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “we’re dating.”

They break apart again because Yamaguchi starts cheering. Tsukishima doesn’t say a word before hunting down his freckled boyfriend, and Tobio smiles after them before sprinting away to teach his own idiot a lesson.

Baby, dumb I must be... oh!

[jbrentonparker]

Different Plotting Methods

Ah, plotting. As a writer, it’s either your saving grace, or the bane of your existence.

Coming out of NaNoWriMo, the distinction between “Pansters” and “Planners” is on my mind. I fall firmly into the “Planner” category--though I haven’t always. When I first started writing when I was 12 or so, I believed pantsing was the only way to go (”pantsing” is, for those of you unfamiliar with the slang, is writing a story without doing any significant planning or plotting beforehand).

Perhaps not unrelated, I never got more than a page or two into any story I ever wrote for years.

Now I don’t dare start a story unless I’ve got 90% of it plotted out in detail. But plotting is hard, and a lot of writers who are just starting out can be daunted by the task, so I thought I’d write a series of posts, one every Friday, going over a few different plotting methods in detail, hopefully turning at least one person on to a method that works for them.

In this post, I’m just going to give a quick overview of seven methods that are commonly used and/or helpful to many writers.

The Freytag Pyramid:

Developed by German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag, the pyramid was really developed to map out the story structure of five act Greek and Shakespearean dramas, but it can often be modified and applied to short stories and novels as well.

In Freytag’s pyramid, there are five parts (acts) to a narrative:

Exposition, in which the background of characters and events that occurred prior to the plot are given; Rising Action, which is the series of events that lead up towards the greatest point of interest, or the turning point in the narrative; Climax, which isn’t the same as what other people refer to as the “climax” of a story--Freytag means the turning point that changes the protagonist’s fate; Falling Action, when the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist comes to a head (what is actually usually called the “climax” in novel writing); And Denouement, all the stuff after the Falling Action to the very last scene, in which the narrative is wrapped up for better or for worse.

The Three-Act Structure:

Similar to Freytag’s model, but this one has been developed specifically for narrative fiction. The First Act begins with exposition: the introduction of the characters and the setting. It gives the reader a sense of what “normal” is in the context of the narrative. A little ways into the First Act is the Inciting Incident, the thing that changes everything for the protagonist. The letters start coming for Harry, the Dwarves show up at Bilbo’s house. The protagonist trying to deal with this Inciting Incident leads to Plot Point A, and signals the end of the first act. Think of Plot Point A as the dramatic moment in a TV show right before the first round of commercials start (e.g. House’s first guess being wrong and the patient unexpectedly coding). The Second Act is the protag reacting to and trying to deal with Plot Point A. They don’t have the necessary skills yet however, and only continue to wind up in increasingly worse situation (this is their character arc, them gradually acquiring the skills to triumph later). The Second Act ends with Plot Point 2: the moment the protag is at their lowest. Everything that could go wrong has, and it seems as though they will never succeed, but they have to make a choice: forge ahead anyway, or give up. The Third Act commences, with the protag still trying to clean up after themselves despite the hopeless situation. They are forced to face the conflict head on in the Climax, which is the ultimate clash between the protagonist and the antagonist. One or the other comes out victorious, and the remainder of the act follows the same lines as Freytag’s Denouement, wrapping up all the loose ends.

Snowflake Method:

Developed by Randy Ingermanson, this is one that’s popular with many writers, especially because if its pick-and-choose nature in which you can skip steps, only using what works best for you. Step 1: Write a one word sentence, 15 words or less, describing in broad terms the subject of your story (”a young boy learns he is a wizard and goes to  a magical school”). Step 2: Turn one sentence into five: the first describes the set up, the next three describing the main conflicts, and the last describing the conclusion. Step 3: Write a one page summary of each main character, describing their major goals, motivation, conflicts, and epiphanies, as well summarizing the story from each of their respective points of view. Step 4: Take the five sentences from step 2 and turn each one into a paragraph, fleshing out the details of the set up, conflicts, and climax in the form of a one page synopsis. Step 5: Write one page for main characters and half a page for supporting characters describing the story from their point of view, expanding on step 3. Steps 6 through 10 continue to add more to the previous 5 steps, so I’ll skip over that for now. I’ll discuss it in more detail in the post devoted to the Snowflake Method, but you can google it to check out the other steps for yourself.

The Protagonist Fucks It Up Method:

I can’t remember where I first learned this method, so I am afraid I can’t credit the creator. It more or less plays out like the 3 Act Structure method, but with more of a character-oriented focus. An Inciting Incident occurs, which will forever change the protagonist’s life. In this event, they are passive: something has happened to them. First Reaction: the protag reacts to the inciting incident. Whatever they do, they make the situation worse. They make a new enemy, they wind up in a dangerous place, they fail in a way that leaves them with more problems than they had before. Second Reaction: the protag tries to clean up the mess they have just gotten themselves into. They, of course, fail, and wind up in even more trouble. Harry and Hermione send Norbert on his way without Malfoy getting Hagrid in trouble--but end up getting themselves and Neville detention instead. Third Reaction: In serious trouble now, the protag has a choice to make. Get the hell out of Dodge, or face the consequences of their actions, and try for one last desperate attempt at fixing everything. This leads to them confronting the antagonist and leads into the...

Climax, in which everything they have messed up comes crashing down around their head in a dramatic fashion. This is the moment in a RomCom when the main character has driven away all her friends, got into a huge seemingly irreparable fight with the love interest, and is in imminent danger of losing or has already lost her apartment/job/dog/whatever. The movie Bridesmaids is a great example of this story structure.

The Hero’s Journey:

If you were in 7th to 9th grade, you’ve probably learned about this at least once in school. This story structure can be found just about everywhere in fantasy literature, from the Odyssey to Eragon. It’s not a plotting method, but many writers have followed its structure in building their plots, and it appears in many epic myths and legends around the world. There seventeen (!) stages, so I’m going to blow through them real quick. You can google it for more info, or wait for my in-depth post about it.

The Departure (protag leaves the safety of home), which contains: The Call to Adventure (in inciting incident); Refusal of the Call (protag says “Heck no”, a la Bilbo); Meeting the Mentor (the reliable figure who coaxes the protag out and teaches them the ways of the world); Crossing the First Threshold (actually leaving home and setting out for adventure; Belly of the Whale (the protag is fully out of his element and thrust into totally new, usually dangerous, adventure). The Initiation portion of the narrative involves: The Road of Trials (a series of tests or challenges the hero faces, many of which they fail); Meeting with the Goddess (in which the hero is given an item or items that will help them in the future, see Galadriel);  The Woman as Temptress (named after the temptation of of lust knights in Arthurian tales and heroes in Greek epics often face, in which the hero faces a temptation that makes them consider abandoning their quest); Atonement with the Father/Abyss (when the hero confronts and is initiated by whatever holds power of their life and fate. See the scene with the cave on Dagobah in Star Wars for a very literal version of this); Apotheosis (the hero attains understanding, and is ready for the next more difficult part of their journey); The Ultimate Boon (the hero achieves their goal, comes out of the climax victorious). The Return consists of: Refusal of the Return (the heroes doesn’t want to go back to the way things were); The Magic Flight (the hero needs to get out of danger with the MacGuffin, e.g. Dorothy getting out of the Wicked Witch’s castle and back to the Emerald City); The Rescue From Without (other characters help the hero return, especially if the hero has been wounded); The Crossing of the Return Threshold (returning home, but retaining the knowledge and wisdom gained from the experiences of the journey); Master of the Two Worlds (the hero is now comfortable with both the inner world and outer world, in reference to both “home” and the wide world their adventure took place in, and their own inner self and everyone else); Freedom to Live (fear of death or anything else is cast off, giving the hero the freedom to live life to the fullest).

Beginning, End, and Nothing Else:

This one is nice if you’re a “plantser”, half planner, half pantser. You like to know where you’re starting from and where you want to end up, but you want everything in between to remain a mystery, and discover it as it happens.

It’s pretty straight forward: you come up with a premise, maybe a setting or a plot or some characters, or all three. Then you decide where you ultimately want the story to end up. To fall back on Harry Potter an an example (which most everyone is at least familiar with), it would look something like this: “A boy discovers he is a wizard, and goes away to a magic school. The climax is him having to face the evil wizard who killed his parents, preventing that wizard from regaining power.” It could be more detailed than that of course, the point is, you start out with only location and destination, and work out the rest as you go. This method is nice, because it automatically forces you to come up with a conflict to drive the story forward, and minimizes the likelihood that you’ll end up with a rambling, plotless story.

Stream of Consciousness Plotting:

This is my personal method, and just involves writing down everything I think of as I think of it, working out plot points and characters and setting as I go. It’s a mess, so I’ll leave any more explanation for a later post.

[simmyshuno]

I’ll be quite honest. I’m terrible at being in communities.

This is a huge TLDR/personal post and seriously, you can ignore. That’s not some manipulation tactic. It’s here for people who want to know genuinely why I keep coming/going the last two years and where my inconsistency is coming from, as well as why I run headfirst into the community and then just disappear without warning.

Sims posts will follow. This is just something I felt I needed to talk about. In short: yes I’m fine. Yes I’m handling things well. No I don’t need crisis care. I’m actually doing well considering. Sims has always been my go-to comfort. I didn’t know about the community until I met @invadersim many moons ago on LiveJournal, and Tumblr was in it’s infancy. As well as the things mentioned under the cut, I also feel like I’ve withdrawn from social media a lot since I turned 30 (I’m 31 now). I just stopped needing to belong and sort of settled in where I was at. Like I said, Sims have been my comfort. Sometimes I sit on Facetime with another IRL friend who also Sims and we just chat like one would on Skype only with our games running and Facetime going on our iPads. It’s fun. She discovered my game is utter chaos incarnate while she micromanages everything. She likes hearing me talk about my builds. I like hearing about the random TV show characters in her game that she tosses in (like the shenanigans her Dean Winchester Sim gets up to). Sims, to me, is ‘home’. The place you return to on holidays when you’ve been away to school or the warm cup of tea waiting for you during a cold, snowy day. Sims is my home away from home - when other games have frustrated me, or when my mental health is doing poorly and I either cannot focus on anything or I’m too depressed or anxious to do much at all. Which, leads into the TLDR portion.

So my last time posting was August I believe. I had just installed TS4 for the first time and was leery. I’ll say this now: I fucking love TS4 and probably won’t go back to fix my TS3 game ever to play it. It became my new go-to comfort and I’m loving that I am still learning things about TS4 that I didn’t already know. With TS3, I knew so much about the game that it started to become boring. I was always adding mods and CC and then just doing the same old boring shit in my games.

Right now I don’t have “Cats and Dogs” but I have everything else, so it’s forcing me to play the rest of the game without the addition of pets. It’s nice. I also don’t use much CC and I have only one core mod in my game (I don’t even use MC right now). It’s just nice playing a completely vanilla game. I can think of a dozen things I want to recolor (and thanks to @blindingechoes teaching me now, I likely will sometime early 2018) but otherwise I’m enjoying things again: enjoying building. Enjoying the gameplay. Enjoying how smoothly things run. But that’s not really why I’m posting. I’ve had my inbox filled with worried messages and I want to address things for those who don’t have me on Facebook already.

Yes I’ve been dealing with a malignant narcissist and yes this person was once a close friend, and yes I knew they truly had diagnosed sociopath behaviors but I also knew them for so long that I had the totally naive thought of it could never be me. The thing with abuse is, the second you think that? It’s likely already too late. I should’ve seen things coming and I didn’t until it was too much at once and I decided to cut this person out (their version of the story is that they cut me out first which is not true, and I have ‘receipts’ to prove this).

This person did truly heinous things to me between the end of January 2017 until October 2017, when things finally stopped. I won’t get into major detail (though this post is marked so anyone browsing in safe mode won’t get to see it, I feel a lot of people following me are slightly younger and I don’t feel anyone really needs to know details) but some of the things done to me over nine months were: having my personal info (name, address, phone number, mother’s name - who is sick (she’s had many strokes and lives with me so I can take care of her) - as well as her personal number posted (ie, doxxing) online to a website which is notorious for some crimes in the past (members who met up and literally plotted to kill their families and succeeded). It’s home to a lot of skeevy, disgusting people and this person literally outed my personal information to thousands of people who are potentially dangerous.

From that moment on I spent three months having child pornography, gore porn/snuff, gory images of dead animals and the type of stuff you’d find on Rotten or Ogrish on my damn phone - being texted daily - by throwaway numbers. I reported this to my phone company and blocked all the numbers I could but it didn’t stop. I did everything I could but in the end I was the one who was losing their phone service as a result of “breaching telecommunications laws” and had to pay a fine of 400-something dollars (I forget the exact amount, I do have copies of the legal docs though), as well as paying to have my phone turned back on.

I acquired paperwork for a restraining order but couldn’t serve it until recently. I have been working with a defamation and libel lawyer pro bono to get this person to leave me alone. They’ve made threats to “skin my cat”, to “throw acid on me in the street” as well as to have one of their junkie friends who is HIV positive “throw their used needles at them like darts”. I have copies of the messages where these discussions and plans were made.

Cops most definitely were notified. It has been a huge drawn out process and they’re basically claiming they’re “mentally ill and won’t go to jail” even though they’ve been harassing and abusing me for nine months straight. There is so much more than what I posted above but needless to say, when this all became really freaking bad I just left the internet. I stopped posting on a lot of places and that was when I came back to the Simblr community then promptly left again.

Around this time I started prepping for Preptober which is the month of October where those of us who do Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) start prepping for November and our novel. On October 29th, right before the Kick Off party our Nanowrimo region holds, our ML (Municipal Liaison) -and close friend of mine- was found at his home unresponsive by another writer friend and after being taken to hospital by them, was found to have three brain tumors. The primary cancer ended up being in his kidneys (three more tumors) and the secondary cancer was the tumors in his brain. He went for surgery immediately and his current treatment is radiation as palliative care. I don’t think I need to explain more where this is going.

November was busy as I had to step up as ML and run a region of 200 writers where we had write-in’s (where you go to write with a group of Wrimos, or what we call Nanowrimo participants) leaving me running these groups 6 days a week (I took one day off) from 6-9pm and sometimes two in a day (9am-12pm, then 6pm-9pm). I have severe agoraphobia and social anxiety so you can imagine how difficult this was. While mentally and physically exhausting (it also screwed with my sleep schedule which is already a mess from a sleep disorder) it was one of the best November’s I had in awhile because I had always wanted to be ML but it was legit so fucking exhausting I had no time for anything else.

No gaming. No Sims. No social media. Nothing. Things have sort of evened out now but since it’s December I’m back to feeling irrevocably depressed (holidays always do that as I’m 1) poor, literally at the poverty line despite being on disability so I can’t afford anything for myself or others at Christmas and this also means no celebrations with dinner or decorations because all of my money is spoken for. As well I have no where to go/no family to be with.

Secondly, I’m finally catching up on the screwed up sleep schedule of November. As a result I’m sleeping 20 hours a day sometimes. I’m awake maybe 10-12 hours and back to sleep again. It’s terrible. I also had walking pneumonia all of November and I’m still sick from that. It’s a huge clusterfuck and things were just terrible. If it wasn’t for coping skills from CBT and DBT I seriously don’t know how I would’ve managed the last year.

ON THE PLUS THOUGH - even though this month is hell and I’ve no where to go, I’m playing the Sims again and plan to post screenshots and random things and re-engage with the community as much as possible. If you read it this far, you’re awesome and thank you.

In terms of uploads and such, I won’t have anything for awhile. I’m using a pirated copy of the game as I have no way to buy it online from Origin (I’ve no money to be spending on gifts and I don’t expect it as a gift or anything so it’s not likely something I’ll be owning legitimately for quite some time). The game version I have doesn’t get updated often and I don’t want to risk breaking my game and having to do a huge re-install just to add “Cats and Dogs” as well as game client updates so I can’t be sure anything I create or recolor will work with your guys’ games. 

Thanks for sticking around and sorry to keep leaving but hopefully this gives some idea of why I’ve just not been around and neglected things.

[scriveyner]

Fanfic questions: for the samflam werewolf au (1, 5, 12) for the blind au (4, 11, 12, 15) and mermaid au (1, 2, 11 and 12). Hope that is okay to ask! I am curious haha

SamflamWerewolf AU:

1: Whatinspired you to write the fic this way?

Itsnowballed, to be entirely honest. It started with a 69min promptthat I enjoyed the idea of, and I decided I wanted to dig intowerewolves. Then, without a real plan in mind, I just started writingand the plot took shape from there. The fact that the fic is dividedinto three-day parts around each full moon was something I decidedafter chapter 3, which is why all the following chapters actuallyhave dates attached.

5: Whatpart was hardest to write?

Idon't recall struggling a lot with the fic, there was a ton ofwinging it involved though, not gonna lie. That fic came off thekeyboard and got posted immediately, every morning, for nearly amonth straight. It was literally, nearly a NaNoWriMo except it was inMarch/April!

Now,the sequel fic, I've been struggling with. I started out much thesame way and I know what a lot of the plot threads are, but therewere several that I wasn't sure what I was doing with them and untilI can figure out where they lead I can't safely progress the fic toits conclusion.

12: Whatdo you like least about this fic?

HonestlyI didn't handle several of the plotlines as well as I'd hoped and Ikinda want to go back and rewrite it to better weave them together.But, maybe I ought to finish up the sequel fic first, hm?

SamflamBlind AU:

4: What'syour favorite line of dialogue?

Partof the reason it's taken me so long to answer this ask was I had togo back and re-read to try to decide, and having reread my own ficI'm still not sure! (In part because looking back at a fic two yearsold I keep thinking about how I would tweak and rewrite things eventoday.) I do love how the proposal turned out, though, and Gotou'sreaction being “That better not be what I think it is.”

11: Whatdo you like best about this fic?

Ireally like how the interactions between Masayoshi and Gotou playedout – which considering that's 90% of the fic right there – butespecially how Gotou tries to work through everything while theevents are happening.

12: Whatdo you like least about this fic?

Godit needs a rewrite badly. And better pacing. But it wasn't somethingI'd intended as a full fic, kind of like the werewolf AU snippitsoccurred first and then I went, I want the whole story. And so thereit is.

15: Whatdid you learn from writing this fic?

Howoften I write about characters looking at each other! Holycrow. I had to think about it a LOT when writing from Masayoshi'sperspective.

Samflam MermaidAU:

1: Whatinspired you to write the fic this way?

LordI don't even remember why I started mermaid AU at this point.Honestly it's likely either Vy's fault or Momo's.

2: Whatscene did you first put down?

Thefic labeled 'siren's call' was literally the first bit I wrote aboutit, a stand-alone easy about a mermaid Masayoshi and Gotou. Didn'texpect things to get out of hand but that's the story of my life atthis point. (Writes a one-shot werewolf fic, 80k later… writes aone-shot blindfic … 20k later… writes fucking ABO ONE HUNDRED ANDSIXTY FIVE THOUSAND WORDS LATER….)

Cough.

11: Whatdo you like best about this fic?

Thetwo different worlds aspect of it. Someday I'll get back to this ficand get to write more about the mermaid culture and what else isgoing to happen, because Gotou can't spend his entire life at thewater's edge. ;)

12: Whatdo you like least about this fic?

Ikinda screwed myself up by writing a few different versions of themermaid AU in what-if fics, because they're not necessarily canon tothe original outline. But I didn't get deep enough into the originalstory for it to matter much yet.

WHEWTHAT'S A LOT. Sorry it took me so long to respond to this! If anyone else wants to ask, here is the questions post!

[literary-lioness]

*Blows Dust off of Blog*

Last year I made an effort to take part in Nanowrimo, but things happened and I wasn’t able to finish...I got about halfway. This year I am going to try again, only this time I am going to actually use this blog for it’s intended purpose and post the writing that I do here with my word counts.

For my November writing, I wanted to do something fun, so I decided to try and take a stab at doing a lesbian Christmas romance (Hallmark-style). It’s actually a loose version of the formula that Hallmark movies seem to use. (Don’t look at me like that, we all know there is a formula). I used these sites to help me with the formula: 

 http://www.shopwithstyle.com/stylewise/2017/11/22/hallmark-movies

https://nypost.com/2014/12/14/claus-in-the-contract-for-hallmark-channel-holiday-flicks/

https://www.vulture.com/2016/12/hallmark-christmas-movie-essentials.html

I took pieces from each website and mashed them together to make my own formula, so while I do try to follow some of the rules, I break other ones...for example...I am writing about lesbians instead of a straight couple. Anyways, hopefully you enjoy reading the story as I post it. Sometimes it may come in complete chapters, other times it may come in pieces, it just depends how much time I have that day. Additionally, I will mark the passages I post for language and steamy situations (its a romance novel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) in the tags, so be sure to check the tags before reading if there are parts you want to avoid. And as a final warning, I’m not editing these pieces before I post them if I like what I wrote when I finished I will go through and do the edits, but considering my goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month and work a full-time job, I just don’t have the time for editing. Thanks for understanding! 

Now, without further ado, Chapter One:

Nanowrimo Word Count: 2095

                                                          I

                                                      Quinn

           If trouble had a phone number Quinn would have save it under Mom. She thought back to the call she had gotten from her mom a month before. When her phone started buzzing, she had considered ignoring the call. She had enough to deal with already without whatever added stress her mom was about the pile onto her plate. But, ever the dutiful daughter, she picked up the call.

           “Hello?” She said cautiously.

           “Quinn?”

           “Mom, if you pressed my name on your phone to call me, who else would it be?”

           “Well you never know with this stupid thing. Sometimes it calls people I wasn’t trying to call.”

           Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, “I’m sure there is a reason for your call.”

           “Of course, there is, I have some bad news.”

           Quinn waited for her mom to tell her what the bad news was, but there was a long pause that suggested that she was waiting for her daughter to speak first, “Ok? Whats the bad news?”

           “I’ve just been to the doctor and I’m sick. Really sick.”

           “With what?”

           “They- don’t know. They haven’t been able to diagnose it, but it’s pretty bad. I think I’m going to need you to come home and help with Daisy. I won’t be able to do it with the treatments.”

           “The treatments for the undiagnosed illness?”

           “Yes, dear.”

           “Mom, how are they going to treat an illness they haven’t diagnosed?”

           “You’re a doctor, you know how these things go.”

           “Yes, I am a doctor and typically we have some kind of diagnosis before we go into treatment options.”

           “Well maybe the doctors in Snow Haven are different. Can’t you just come home, please?”

           Truthfully, it had been perfect timing. Quinn had just lost her job at the hospital she was working at and was struggling to find work in the city. The lease on her apartment was also coming up, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to afford the payments anymore without her job. That coupled with concern for her niece, Daisy’s well-being made her mind for her. So, against her better judgement and the fact that it was very likely that her mother was lying to her, she said, “Yeah, Mom. I’ll come and help.”

           Her mom had been thrilled when she agreed to come, probably from a mix of disbelief that her plan had worked and actual relief that Quinn had agreed to come. Now, as Quinn drove to her childhood home, she wondered if she was making a mistake.

           Snow Haven was still the small town it had always been, with few opportunities for jobs, especially for doctors, and even fewer opportunities for the anonymity she enjoyed in the city, but at least in Snow Haven she would have a roof over her head. She might even be able to convince Dr. Henry to take her own at his office as a primary care doctor. Hopefully Dr. Henry’s familiarity with her would circumvent the need for a referral since she doubted the only hospital, she had experience with would write her one.

           She had not parted on good terms with the hospital. Officially she had resigned, but unofficially it was resignation or termination. The new head of the hospital had told her there were complaints about her bedside manner and overall attitude regarding patients, and while that might be true, Quinn had a suspicion it had more to do with the one night stand she and the new chief had before she became Quinn’s boss.

           Quinn couldn’t exactly argue her case either. There was plenty of evidence of her bad attitude and cold demeanor toward patients to support what the chief was saying. So, instead of suffering an embarrassing termination, she chose to resign. She had been confident that she would get another position at a different hospital but had woefully underestimated how difficult a task that would be without a recommendation.

           She pushed aside thoughts of her failed career as she entered Snow Haven. The sun was beginning to set on the quiet town. Everything was about the same as Quinn remembered it. A few differences in the storefronts of main street-a chic coffee shop and a few new restaurants- but overall not much had changed. She was almost to the traffic light where she would turn left to get to her Mother’s house when a small, tan, French Bulldog darted out in front of her Mercedes.

           Quinn stomped on the breaks and swerved slightly to avoid hitting the dog. Once her car was stopped, she whipped her head around to see if the dog was ok. A woman who looked about her age had run out into the street to scoop up the dog.

           Quinn threw her car in park and jumped out. She stalked toward the woman, “What the fuck?!”

           The woman turned toward Quinn so that she now had a clear view of her. For a minute Quinn was stunned by the beauty of the sandy blonde woman standing in front of her. She was taller than Quinn by a few inches so that Quinn had to tip her head slightly to look the woman in her sea-green eyes. Quinn couldn’t stop herself from letting her gaze sweep down the woman’s curvy figure. She was Quinn’s type on paper, and she had to remind herself why she was even standing in front of this woman to begin with.

           “I am so sorry,” the woman said clutching her dog to her.

           The woman’s voice snapped Quinn back to reality, “Wha-? Oh! What if I had hit your dog? What kind of irresponsible pet owner doesn’t leash their dog?”

           “He wiggled out of his collar, he just got a new one and it wasn’t tight enough. I am so sorry. I’m so glad he is ok.”

           Quinn wanted to continue laying into the woman, because if she was being honest it felt nice to vent her frustration on someone, but a few of the locales had started to gather on the sidewalk, “Just be more careful next time.”

           “I will, again, I am so so sorry.”

           Quinn shook her head, climbed back into her car, and drove the rest of the way to her mother’s house without incident. She pushed the woman and her dog from her mind as soon as she pulled into the driveway of her childhood home.

           Her parents had purchased the old colonial style home right after they were married and fixed it up. In her childhood, it had been the gem of their neighborhood, but since her father’s passing five years before, the house had been on the decline. Her mother was unable to keep up with maintenance and lacked the money to pay for someone to help her with the upkeep.

           Quinn turned her car off and leaned back into her seat. For a second she considered turning around and heading back to the city, but before she was able to really consider the plan her mother came out of the house.

           “Quinny! Oh, thank goodness you’re here!”

           Quinn sighed deeply, but climbed out of her car, “Here I am.”

           Her mother, Molly, enveloped her in a tight hug, and despite her feeling about being home her chest warmed in the hug. Quinn pulled back and looked at her mother for the first time in over a year. Her once lustrous copper hair that matched Quinn’s own had dulled. Gray hairs were beginning to outnumber the copper ones. The lines in her face looked deeper and her stone-grey eyes seemed more sunken into her face. For a minute Quinn worried she had misjudged her mother, maybe she was actually sick.

           Until her mother looked sheepishly away from her, “I have a confession.”

           Quinn pulled back from her mother and cocked an eyebrow, “Go ahead.”

           “I lied to you. I’m not sick.”

           “What? No way,” Quinn said flatly.

           “You knew?”

           “I suspected.”

           “But you came anyway?”

           “Yes, look, Mom, this is going to help me as much as it will help you.”

           “I doubt that, don’t you want to know why I lied?”

           “I assumed desperation.”

           Molly swatted her arm, “Stop that. But yes. It’s Daisy. She’s been out of control since the holidays have rolled around. She’s fighting at school, talking back to me, her grades are slipping, Christ the child is in second grade and she can’t keep her grades up. She’s never acted like this before, not even after-Noelle.”          

           A silence fell between them at the mention of Quinn’s sister. It wasn’t something they talked about, and Quinn did her best to never think about what had happened to Noelle. She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat, “Well, I’m here to help.”

           Molly dabbed at her eyes, “Yes, and I don’t think I will ever be able to thank you enough for that, Quinny. Come on, let’s get your things inside, dinner is almost ready.”

           Quinn grabbed the few belongs that she had out of her car and followed Molly into the house. Just like the outside, the inside of the house was not what is used to be. Once pristine in its cleanliness, there were now stains on the hardwood floors, jackets thrown over some of the furniture, toys left out on the floor, and a very thin layer of dust covered the bookshelves and TV.

           Quinn almost commented on the state of the house but stopped as soon as she saw Daisy peeking around the corner. For the first seven years of Daisy’s life she and Quinn had been tight, but a year before, when Quinn could no longer bear to see her sister’s face reflected at her in her niece’s face, they had fallen out of touch. Once, Daisy would have run to Quinn, thrown herself into her arms and laughed when she was spun around, now there was only silence between them.

           Daisy came out from behind the corner and glared at Quinn. Her small eight-year-old features scrunched together in what could only be described as fury. This was not the kid that Quinn knew, this child was a stranger to her.

           Daisy looked at Molly, “What is she doing here?”

           “Your Aunt Quinn is here to stay with us. She’s going to help take you to school, and maybe help around the house a little. Won’t that be nice?” Molly said encouragingly.

           “No.” Daisy said, and then turned on her little heel and marched out of the room.

           Quinn’s mouth hung open, she wasn’t sure what she expected, but that was not it. She looked to her mother, but her mother just sighed, “Don’t worry about it. She’ll come around. Probably. Why don’t you go put your things in your room and then come back down and we’ll all have dinner?”

           Quinn nodded, grabbed her things, and climbed up the stairs to her bedroom. She opened the door to her bedroom and found that it was exactly the way she left it the last time she was there. There was nothing fancy about the room, it contained her oak dresser and matching bed frame, a small tv with a DVD player attached to it, and a bookshelf with a myriad of long-forgotten books. She had never thought she would be back in this room, especially as a 32-year-old woman, yet here she was.

She dropped her bags on the floor by the dresser and walked deeper into the room. She stopped when she saw a picture sitting on the dresser. She scooped it up and looked at it. She realized, too late, it was the picture from her doctoral graduation.

Four smiling faces that she hardly recognized stared back at her in the frame. She was standing between her mother and her sister, with a three-year-old Daisy sitting on her hip. They all looked so happy in the picture, and so much younger. Her mother’s hair still matched hers, Noelle’s, and Daisy’s. She didn’t have the weary lines that now covered her face. Daisy looked so carefree and happy, so unlike the scowl she now wore. Even Quinn looked older, more jaded, she no longer smiled so widely or laughed so freely. And Noelle, well, Noelle was there.

Quinn felt the lump from earlier rise into her throat again. She quickly placed the picture into her dresser and shut the drawer. She walked over to her bed and sat on the end of it, put her head into her hands, and wondered what had she gotten herself into?

[silence-ion-om]

Dead or Alive 2.0

Today I asked my clients what makes them feel dead and what makes them feel alive. It is a version of an exercise I posted about here 5 years ago that just reemerged into my consciousness when I was planning my art therapy group. Isn’t it wild how cyclical things are?

One thing I have learned about this “dead/death” concept, both from tarot and from life experiences, is the element of ending and letting go that it entails. I elaborated on the original exercise by encouraging my clients to consider what is holding them back that they need to let go, and what they would like to nurture and cultivate. Life-Death-Life cycle all around. Here is what I came up with:

ALIVE:

My relationships. I am co-cultivating a great love with a wonderfully supportive, understanding, patient and kind partner. Seriously, he is like a living wishlist of things I didn’t know I needed (and some I did) that I put out into the Universe and man, did the Universe deliver in a big way. I wish I could go back in time and tell me from 5 years ago to be patient and wait and ride out a lot of heartbreak because this is worth it. 

Reconnecting with a dear old friend who is walking a similar life path to mine right now, and feeling some divine alignment in that reconnection. I think it is seriously cool how people from our past can come back into our lives exactly when we need them so we don’t feel alone, and her badassery inspires me. 

Living with my aforementioned travel buddy best friend, still pulling each other out of funks with perspective taking. I also have a diverse and resilient team of coworkers that I can count on, which greatly contribute to feeling alive at...

Work. Yes, I have days when I feel less than lively here but overall, my work gives me life. I get to help people for a living. I get to hold space for folks who don’t always have it and hear secret stories that beg to be brought into the light and teach families how to talk to each other. I am in a more open place lately where I can intuit what my clients are trying to teach me. My boundaries are feeling fortified after A LOT of work building. I got that license, which seemed to mean everything to my baby therapist self and I have learned that being an MFT doesn’t help with credibility as much as my confidence. (Because I AM a B.A. MFT y’all!) Work is the kind of “life” thing that vascillates between dead and alive all the time. Up until very recently, it was starting to feel heavy and uninspired but I did something about it instead of staying stuck.  And now I get to make art with teenagers.

My tarot practice. I am learning so much and seeing things manifest. It feels meaningful in a way I never could have predicted, like I am tapping into Jung’s collective unconscious every time I read. A different type of spiritual experience for sure.

Writing, art and this flow of creative inspiration I got going lately. Two days ago, I woke up from a dream and decided to write a young adult novel. (NaNoWriMo, here I come!) Two months ago, I submitted several art pieces to an online art magazine. My brain feels abundant (sometimes a bit overabundant) with ideas and I am enjoying it to its fullest potential.  

My dog. I call him Cyrus the Great for a reason. Sometimes if I am really still, I can literally feel the dopamine rush to my brain when I stroke his sweet little face. This dog has kept me from going to the dark places and I am beyond grateful that I got to keep him. 

The smell of this rain right now and the season of fall. Summer sucks for a myriad of reasons, so fall is my time of rebirth. 

DEAD:

(Still) worrying about money, student loans and bills. Having a scarcity mentality of “never enough” when it comes to the end of the month or I’m between paychecks and anxiety sets in. Five years later, the difference is that I’m doing something about it by budgeting and consolidating and generally trying to be more mindful of where my money goes. Baby steps, people.

When I feel like I don’t have enough time. Still feeling rushed, like there is not enough time in the world to possibly accomplish all I need to do to a lesser extent. More scarcity mentality. I am learning patience the hard way. This is directly connected to…

Future-fucking myself. So many (Fakebook) friends seem to be getting married and having babies and somehow managing to buy property despite the Denver housing market’s madness. It’s killing me in a very specific way because it fuels jealousy and comparison and makes me lose sight of my values. Yes, I desperately want all those things but I also want to do them on my time, without feeling rushed. I’m hitting snooze on that stupid biological clock.

Work (certain aspects). Told ya it could be both. What I used to feel was a really inspiring and unique opportunity to do school based therapy is leaving me feeling underwhelmed and disconnected. It’s taking longer than it has in the past to get into the swing of things.  I am giving myself some time to figure out why this doesn’t quite fit before I make any decisions.

Sedentary lifestyle. I no longer ride my bike or exercise everyday. I miss that. I also eat a lot of crap when I don’t carve out the time to meal-prep. Some of this is also related to recovery, learning to think about the things I put in my body and why I am choosing to at that moment.

Sobriety. It’s just existing, which is entirely my choice. This one exists in the middle. I’m feeling like A.A. doesn’t fit the way it used to but that does not negate its usefulness or mean there is no space for it in my life. I am understanding my relationship to alcohol and the label that entails differently, and it’s complicated. One of the perils of a know-it-all sober therapist I guess.

Unhealthy or old relationships that no longer serve me. I keep coming back to this one, and I think it is one of those curious cycles that will keep repeating and teaching me no matter how old I am. Cliche as it sounds, losing my Mom has taught me that life is too short to put up with unnecessary bullshit from people. I get to chose who I let in my circle as family, including blood relatives and old friends, which is a radical concept I still grapple with. 

[nyalisa-landale]

fucking hell, you guys

so it’s july, which means it’s time for nanowrimo: camp edition vol.2. (no, i don’t know.) i used this as an excuse to pick up DETERMINATION AND LIGHT, my nano project from last year which... well. i got really excited and then i failed to deliver, for... shit, the third year in a row? maybe just the second. idk. i forget how many words i managed 2 years ago (it was not 50k) but last year it was something like 8k? it’s possible i was juggling projects, but DTL was supposed to be the main one. and i wrote like 8k. yeah.

as of today, the ninth of july, that fic is currently sitting at a little under 30k. and i’m like a third of the way through PART ONE. (maybe almost half, i’m not sure.) 30,000 WORDS AND IENZO HASN’T EVEN SHOWN UP YET. (i’ve mentioned him several times now, and i’m getting to the part where he shows up, he just... hasn’t, yet. because kairi got arrested and then sans dragged her off to grillby’s and then toriel’s and NOBODY WOULD SHUT UP and now they’re in the core. i still can’t get anybody to shut up, and they’re fighting a goddamn boss fight. ...actually, that’s not true, sans is doing a lot of not talking. because they are in the core.) 

“azu aren’t you supposed to be writing mania?” yes but let me take my victories where i can get them

i would like to thank summer games done quick and snowiey101 for reminding me that dtl even existed and 4thewords.com for giving me the ability to make numbers go up WHILE MAKING NUMBERS GO UP. (little-known secret: i fucking love making numbers go up.) 

thirty-thousand. jesus christ. that’s not even counting all the other random shit i’ve been scribbling at in the last nine days. a little bit of universal constants. Yet Another Dragon Age Inquisition AU featuring my oc reincarnation of salazar slytherin who is not only an ancient elf but a literal child of mythal, this time featuring the reincarnation AND ALSO THE REGULAR VERSION because why the fuck not. (i am actually really enjoying writing the two of them together. there’s like 7k more words right there and they haven’t even gotten to haven yet.) there is an entire other 13k words i’ve written. IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS. sometime tomorrow i will undoubtedly hit 50k. probably on dtl because i had to stop writing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMN BOSS FIGHT. it has 1.5 health bars and kairi and sans have so far only taken out 1/3 of its health. kairi’s supposed to show off a neat keyblade style and sans hasn’t used his blue attack yet. WILL HE USE THE GASTER BLASTERS????? no. he and kairi are still at a low friendship level and also he is literally in the place where gaster was ripped from existence, he is not going to use the gaster blasters. he’s already super uncomfortable about his life choices as it is, but he’s pretending that he’s being super serious for once in his life because they’re someplace super dangerous. (that is also true though.) he’s also pretending that he has absolutely nothing to do with the core at all ever even while demonstrably knowing way more about the core than anyone has any right to. (kairi is already well aware that sans is lying his ass off about that, but he’s helping, so she’s not going to call him out on it.)

they think ebott’s keyhole is in the core. HA. as if it would ever be somewhere so easily accessible from the barrier and not at all related to the actual main plot of undertale! it’s in the room where you start the game, but they won’t find that out until after they go to the world of darkness and beat the shit out of xehanort!gaster and successfully un-nort him because gaster is not, actually, a huge fan of being possessed and also probably has a lot to say about xehanort’s scientific practices, all of which can be summed up as

xehanort is not a huge fan of criticism and also gaster has existed in the world of darkness for roughly an eternity so he’s kind of... a creature of darkness at this point. but like... a benevolent one, because fuck you. even if he weren’t he’d still be pissed about xehanort & the heartless because ebott is HIS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, NOW GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY PROPERTY so naturally xehanort doesn’t have a very good grasp on the whole ‘possessing gaster’ thing and kairi is a goddamn princess of heart, if anybody’s gonna be able to un-nort someone it’s her

and before they can do any of that kairi has to SAVE asriel because that is THE ENTIRE REASON THIS FIC EVEN EXISTS

[staringatmycarkeys]

NaNo Prep Questions Day 27

WOW I AM BAD AT THIS. There’s two days left til NaNoWriMo begins so hopefully I can actually post something on those two days!!

Day Twenty-Seven - Tropes

So after a quick google search, here are the main zombie related tropes:

Not Using the “Z” Word - the Walking Dead does this where they call them anything but zombies

Your Zombie May Vary - there are different types of zombies; the typical slow moving, groaning one (not that dangerous alone but scary in packs); there’s the “I Am Legend” ones that have heightened senses/powers; the World War Z ones that are just not human; etc.

Humans are the Real Monsters - in a zombie apocalypse, humans are more of a concern

Destroy the Brain - I think most zombies are killed like this

Useless Military - in the first days of the outbreak, the military tries to take action but they always underestimate what they’re dealing with and after a while, there’s nothing the military can do to help or save society

That Person Who Hides the Fact They’ve Been Bitten and then Fuck it All Up for Everyone Else - exactly what it says

I think these are the most common ones in the “zombie” genre. There are definitely tons more but I don’t want to just go on endlessly. My people will say “zombie” just because I think any non-zombie word has already been done (walker, undead, muerto, lurker, biter, etc.) and I don’t want to come up with some obscure word just to avoid “zombie.” I’ll have the typical slow-moving zombie and they’ll be killed by destroying the brain. The humans are gonna be the real monsters in this scenario. The military obviously failed because the zombie apocalypse is all over now. But I’m really gonna avoid having that person who gets bit and doesn’t tell anyone because I hate that person.

Day Twenty-Eight - word count

N/A

Day Twenty-Nine - Hopes and Dreams

My hopes and dreams for this NaNo project are both simple and wild. My first hope is just that I finish the whole story. I have an issue with getting my stories to 50K and technically completing NaNoWriMo but I never actually finish the story because they end up being longer than 50K. So I’m gonna try and keep this story less complex, less dense, and actually finish it around 50K words.

My next hope and dream would be for this to be published and then made into a movie. The idea for this novel actually came from a short screenplay I had to write in a film class for college a few years ago. We didn’t have to actually film it, just write it, but I had such a clear image in my head of what it would look like on film that even if the original “short film” version of this story got made, I would be thrilled.