#avoiding writing

I had forgotten about Raynard.

My sister just kinda…looked at me.

Flip side, I officially have her on team Quelliot after the coronation scene. Second best use of a Swayze/Dirty Dancing reference ever, thanks. (The first is personaI 😉🤣)

But then Q getting all geeky with the ‘way things should be done’ because when are they ever going to be crowned monarchs of a fantastical nation again? His whole heart is still caught up in this totally whimsical experience, in spite of the metric pile of less-whimsical bullshit that it came with.

Honorable mention to the Queen Margot the Destroyer and the Margelliot friendship. I love these two on every level.

Am I gushing because i should be writing and I’m stalling? 😅

Maybe. So I’ll wrap it up.

I’m so, so sorry to tell you. The experts are right. The magic is in the editing. I know it’s not fun, AND you have to make the thing before you get to edit it.

When I edit photos I feel kind of “meh” about, I often fall in love with them through editing. When I edit photos I think are really good, I often become obsessed with them. I’m debating submitting some Pride photos to major magazines because I love them so much.

My writing has always been good. I’ve been told that my whole life. I never really felt like it was true, it was just something I did. Recently though, I’ve started to train my editing skill in writing. All of a sudden, I see the art in my work.

Make art. Make as much art that excites you as you can. The worst thing you can do is hold off on doing projects you’re impassioned about because you aren’t happy with your skill level yet. It will eat away at your love for the thing.

Do it badly. Remake it later. Sometimes the true beauty of the peace is the enthusiastic enjoyment apparent of the thing, not the 10,000 hours that went into skill. Skill without passion is no art at all.

Valentino-

he's almost...meeker?

isolated is really more of the term I would use

He's quieter, almost stotic, not as flirtious as he was

he hardly ever shows up at the studio

Velvette-

she's been avoiding meetings

she's been monitoring comatose Vox, making sure he can still breathe and still has brain activity

she's incredibly paranoid now, knowing any injury or germ could kill Vox easily and for good while he's like this

she literally does not leave his side for more than five minutes at a time, and when she does a soul she owns or Valentino looks after him

Vox-

And If I can have more than one 👉👈

L

AHH TY FOR THE ASK PRINCESS (Sorry for delay I needed to wait for AO3 to come back up and have time to pick out a snippet for F)

F: Share a snippet from one of your favourite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you're proud of it.

Okay, this was stupid hard to pick because once you read your own stuff with this question in mind, literally everything sounds like garbage 😂 So I just went with something recent people seemed to enjoy. (For context: KisaSaku, Canon divergent, Yokai infested post-apocalyptic AU set about a decade out from early Shippuden. Shameless use of one tent and shared body heat tropes.)

With a tired sigh and a shiver, Sakura had begun to absently nod before looking at him with a sudden halt. Her eyes traveled up his barely clothed body, over to the tent, and back. “You’re not going to put on clothes?” she asked. An adorably genuine, but very silly question. “Not even a shirt?”

His brows raised in clear amusement. “You’re wearing it, Kunoichi.”

She rolled her eyes. “I assumed you had another.”

“Oh, I do,” he said, looking highly entertained. “But it got all nasty because someone decided to punch me into the mud.”

Sakura choked on a snort.

“Yeah. Welcome to the consequences to your own actions,” he said with a flourishing, if not arrogant gesture to himself. 

She sighed. As far as consequences went, she’d definitely dealt with worse… not that she’d tell him that. “Fine. Let’s just go to bed,” she said, kicking off her shoes and ducking into the gloom of the tent.

“Fine by me.”

“Kubikirbocho can cuddle with Samehada if she doesn’t mind,” Sakura muttered, already stuffing her sword next to Kisame’s.

“She’s probably cool with it. We’ll find out if not.”

Sakura looked up at him with a weary smile. “What’s she gonna do, eat it?”

He smiled back with a shrug. “Maybe.”

“Ah. Well,” Sakura sighed, shoving her pack into the corner by her head. “Samehada will have a very iron rich diet then.”

“Hey, not bad, Kunoichi,” Kisame pushed his jaw out with an approving nod. “Freezing to death and she’s still got jokes.”

“Yeah,” she yawned, flopping onto her back and rubbing her eyes. “Thanks, I’ll be here all night.”

“Great,” he said, nudging her side with his foot, “now scooch.”

“No. Crawl over me. I want to sleep by the flap.”

“Why, so you can get snatched up by another yokai with the hots for you?”

“I was hardly snatched,” she sneered up at him, most of its impact lost in the darkness.

“It wanted to snatch you,” he asserted, looking down his nose at her like he was some sort of authority on snatching . “You were very snatchable. Snackable even. Neither of which would have been the case if you’d just listened to me from the start.”

She snorted. She didn’t mean to. She really wasn’t in the habit of encouraging him, but that was kind of funny. “I was not snackable,” she grumbled, pulling the blanket up and sighing deeply at the warmth of it.

“You were. I saw the way it was drooling all over you.”

"Oh, gross, stop.” Sakura pretended to gag, curling in on herself and tugging the blanket over her head entirely. “Don't remind me."

Kisame chuckled, “You were like a steamed bun to that bitch.”

"You're just jealous she picked me over you."

"Pfft, no way. You were just an appetizer. She knew who the main dish was."

“Good lord… would you just get in here please?” Sakura flipped the blanket off her in a huff to stare up at him very seriously. “I’m freezing to death, if you’ll recall.”

“Oh, so now you just want to use me for my warmth,” Kisame feigned offense terribly, not even dropping his grin. “I see how it is.”

“That was the plan–your plan–yes.”

“Oh, well if it was my plan then it’s probably a good one.” He promptly tucked inside, awkwardly fumbling over her as he kicked his muddy shoes off. His presence instantly tested the limits of the two person capacity.

As far as tests went, the tent failed.

“Kisame,” Sakura wheezed, squishing against the edge of the tent. “You are large.”

He had a joke for that but opted out. Low hanging fruit and all. He needed to up his game.

“I’m also warm. Get over here, Kunoichi,” he grunted as he rolled onto his side. Freeing up some space, he used it to reach out and loop an arm around her stomach. He tugged her back against him. Curled around her like a shrimp.

Sakura let out a startled squeak, launching into a fit of dissent. “Oh my god , what do you think you’re… what do you…” she found herself stalling, petering out as her base survival instincts began to override her pride. “Oh my god ,” she sighed, lids fluttering as Kisame wrapped the blanket around both of them with a chuckle. “You’re like a human boiler.”

"Human," he echoed, "that's mighty high praise coming from you."

“How are you so warm?” Her fight had all but died and had a eulogy.

Here lies Haruno Sakura’s dignity, backbone and fighting spirit. They were nice while they lasted. She’s warm now though, so that’s something. If it’s any consolation, she will surely regret her decisions later. Something something, it's all very sad, may they rest in peace.

“We’re not sleeping like this,” she decided aloud. Like that would counteract the way she’d shoved her face into his bicep. She was currently using it as a pillow, by the way. Her nose burned cold against him. "This is just until I can feel my limbs again."

“Sure, Kunoichi,” he chuckled, settling in.

A breath scraped out of her throat. “Can you not say it like you’re placating me?"

"Sure, Kunoichi,” he repeated in a mockery of deadly seriousness.

“You’re an ass."

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Things I Do Instead of Writing

Every writer is familiar with this phenomenon. We have a project we’re working on, and in general we are excited about it. We plug along and the words come and life is good. And then we hit a part of the story that is… not that. Maybe it’s the murky/muddy middle and we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Maybe it’s a very emotional/exhausting scene and we’re avoiding it. Maybe we just had a…