I really struggle with the first editing pass, especially for longfic. It's not the only part of the process where my motivation's likely to flag, but it's often tough with no other result to look forward to other than a slightly less shitty draft and arghhh.
(Other times it's coming up with ideas, but that usually just means it's time for a break lmao)
✏️ Do you write every day?
More or less. Usually I'll vacillate between periods of writing daily and not touching a single writing project for a month. As for this year, I ended my writing streak a couple of weeks ago and told myself I could take the rest of the year off, but I've still been tinkering with edits so I guess it's still on my mind at least.
😐 What embarrasses you most about your own writing?
The parts where I veer into purple prose. Problem is, I also get embarrassed when my writing's too plain, so it's a constant struggle.
100$ serious xcx prompt: morag ignores jbho to go for elma's ass instead
word count: 1507
When Mòrag opened her eyes, she never expected the world to… be so… different. It was like everything she knew changed in the blink of an eye. There weren’t titans here, or an Architect, or the World Tree. No one she even knew was here. Everything was wholly unfamiliar.
It took a very long time for Mòrag to adjust.
There was no mention of Mor Ardain, Uraya, or even of Morytha, or, well, anything she knew. Whenever she tried to ask, all she would get were strange looks, and also pitying ones. Mòrag knew her world existed, because why else would she have these memories, but what did that mean when no one else did?
Here, there was only a place called Earth where the humans once were, now stranded on another world called Mira, amidst a sea of other… worlds, if that was to Mòrag’s understanding.
… and also, the cl—
“Hey, Mòrag!”
She startled at the call of her name, not realizing that Elma was next to her now.Their group had stopped to take a short break, resting next to one of the supply camps in… Primordia, if Mòrag remembered. She was still getting used to the names of unfamiliar places. Elma had been talking to Lin, last time Mòrag noticed.
And, also, the… er…
Mòrag didn’t know how to describe their… fourth member. Was she their leader? Sometimes, Mòrag couldn’t tell, especially given the way Elma would take charge but also defer to her leadership.
From what Mòrag had observed, outside of battle she was a quiet person though Mòrag couldn’t tell if that was from shyness or stoicism. Very rarely Mòrag heard her spoke but when she did, it was always in the heat of battle, yelling out commands just like the rest of them. There was also no denying her skill with a gun and long sword and how amazing her teamwork with Elma and Lin were.
But most striking of all, had to be her make-up, like someone took a bucket of white paint and threw it at her head (and only her head), along with the odd purple markings, and also the strange way how her nose was highlighted in red. Did… did that mean anything?
… but also the abnormally green skin that seemed to bother no one else except Mòrag.
Was… was that normal? Mòrag didn’t even… know. Maybe humans, wherever she was, sometimes… had green skin. But no one else she’d seen back at the city had that same sort of skin Rook had. So, what was it.
“You scared of Rook? I know she seems a little odd, but there’s no one else I’d trust more with my life.” Elma gave her a friendly smile. Mòrag would have liked to feel comforted, but there was no changing the fact that there was, er, that there was…
Elma turned around and waved. “Rook! Come on over, we were just talking about you!”
Oh, no.
Mòrag pretended to fiddle with the buttons on her shirt, except she forgot there weren’t buttons on this uniform and hastily reached up to tweak her collar. Except this shirt didn’t have a collar either and now Mòrag was wondering what kind of shirt she’d even managed to put on today. She looked down at herself, wrinkling her nose when she realized she’d put on something so short that it barely covered herself, what with her midriff bare up to even the bottom of her breasts.
When did she even put this on? She had absolutely no recollection of this. It was like some invisible force made her put this on instead. Huh. Maybe being in such unfamiliar territory scrambled her whole sense of being more than she thought.
… but that wasn’t the biggest of her worries. Mòrag needed an excuse, and she spotted one in the form of a blitz simius (which looked remarkably similar to a rotbart, who would’ve thought) skulking close by, staring threateningly at them. “Elma,” Mòrag started, turning around, “there might be a threat nearby but I think the both of us can take care of it alone, would you like to—”
A strangled gasp tore out of Mòrag instead as she looked straight into pupil-less blank eyes instead.
“That thing?” Mòrag whipped her head to her other side, wondering when Elma even got there, and also taking a moment to realize Elma meant the simius. Architect, were her senses getting dulled by being here? She hoped not. How would she be able to explain herself if she ever got back to her own world? Brighid would be disappointed.
The thought of Brighid, and inevitably her home, shot a terrible pang of loneliness through her.
… but there was no time for that. Mòrag coughed into her hand to compose herself. “A-ah, yes. It’s been staring at us intently. I fear it might move suddenly and ambush us without a second’s notice. Perhaps it might be better for us to strike first.”
“Hm…” Elma nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. And it’s wandering close to some one of the bases where a team set up. Let’s deal with it.” She was already heading off toward it, waving her arm. “Lin! Rook! Let’s go!”
They ran off through the simius, not even trying to cover their tracks. It had already spotted them so there was no use hiding.
… how did someone with bright green skin and shockingly white paint hide out in open plains anyway—
The simius roared, beating its chest as it leapt toward them. Mòrag focused herself, eyes hard, ears open as she awaited for Elma and Rook’s orders. No time for distractions now.
“Go for one of the arms!” Elma called out. Everyone shouted their agreement and went right to work.
The battle was going well. Although they managed to disable one of its arms, the simius continued to remain ferocious, throwing its other arms all around and scattering the others apart. In fact, it seemed like it was fighting even more ferociously than before. There was nothing more dangerous than a cornered beast.
Then, without any warning, Lin went down. The simius quickly spun toward Rook and knocked her away with the back of one of its hand. Rook struggled to pull herself up but fell back down onto the ground, still. Mòrag wanted to run to help her but she was forced to jump back, narrowly avoiding a swing from one of its fist. There was a shout, and Mòrag could only watch in horror as Elma, too, collapsed.
Mòrag darted her eyes all around. Lin was too far from her. Rook and Elma were the closest next to her but they were on opposite sides. She had only one chance to help someone up—
Her body reacted before her mind caught up her.
“Elma!” Mòrag dodged under an arm, sliding toward Elma to help her up. Elma was dazed but when Mòrag quickly slapped at her cheeks, clarity returned to her.
“M-Mòrag?” Elma said before abruptly pushing her away, a giant arm separating both of them from view. “It’s almost dead! Just don’t get hit!”
“Easier said than done,” Mòrag muttered to herself, ducking under another arm. The weapons she had were unfamiliar to her, but her footwork was still impeccable. If only she had Brighid here though, then this wouldn’t have been so tough—
The simius forced them away from Rook and Lin, so there was no choice but to keep fighting the simius with only the two of them. Somehow, after what felt like a long time, it finally went down, collapsing in a terrible heap and heaving one last breath before remaining still.
“You get Rook, I’ll get Lin,” Elma said, already dashing for Lin before Mòrag could protest. It wasn’t like she was actually going to object, but…
Mòrag sighed as she ran over to where Rook was. She gathered Rook into her arms (her green skin felt the same as any other, she was relieved to find out) and shook her. Rook opened her eyes—Mòrag nearly dropped her back down.
“R-Rook, you ok there?”
Rook looked up at her, blinked once, twice, and then nodded.
But she made no motion to get out of Mòrag’s arms.
“… um.” Rook kept staring at her, and Mòrag swore she didn’t even blink once. Mòrag would’ve thought she had lots of experience being able to tell when someone was asleep or staring, but not when their eyes were wide open, she soon found out.
Was it impolite to put someone back on the ground? Would Rook even react? Mòrag… wasn’t sure if she wanted to find that out. “Can you stand?” she asked. Rook nodded.
… and still didn’t move. It was almost like she wanted to stay there. For what reason, Mòrag couldn’t even guess. Or maybe Rook had fallen asleep. Either way, she wasn’t moving, and now Mòragwas stuck here, awkwardly holding a clown in her arms.
Why couldn’t it at least be Elma instead, Mòrag despaired silently.
Rex is the one who speaks. “Uh, Mòrag, you know there’s—”
“I’m well aware,” Mòrag answers in a perfectly nonchalant tone, as if everything is normal with the world. It would seem like it if Brighid, standing next to her, didn’t look so affronted.
On top of her head, Patroka continues to gnaw on her hat. Mòrag reaches up to tug it down by the brim. Patroka snaps at her fingers, but Mòrag’s used to her and quickly moves her fingers away.
“She’s only upset she can’t reach my face, nothing to worry about,” Mòrag says with a smile, as if that expression could make everything better. It only draws attention to the conspicuous mark that looks like a bite on her lip. “Nopons are very round, you see, and you know how that complicates things.”
Nia squints at her. “Complicates… what.”
Mòrag only keeps smiling, and Brighid makes a face that says she’d rather be anywhere else but here. On top of her head, Patroka continues to gnaw away, glaring at everyone, but most of her ire is directed at Mòrag, not that she can see it.
Five times Rin surprises Maki, and the one time she finally returns the favor.
“Is this... strictly necessary?” Maki says, so blandly the words tilt from her mouth and slap the paving of the roof with a dreary sort of thud.
“Absolutely,” says Rin with the same breathy, serious focus that Maki associates with the height of a crescendo mid-symphony, and Rin performs a gaping pirouette. She leaps dramatically and points inward toward her knee with a skinny, shoeless foot, and whirls in place like the sky’s falling around her. Maki winces in sympathy with the impact.
“Did Eli teach you that?”
“Yeah,” says Rin gleefully, hammers one dusty foot down, and turns again with a lovely imbalance. “Don’t you think it should be in our duet? It’s so fun.”
“Ballet in Beat in Angel?” Maki asks, just to make sure she’s certain that Rin wants to incorporate classical art into the electronic overload of their song.
“A fusion,” Rin purrs. “Old meets new! A modern twist, yeah!” She puts both feet on the ground, finally, and Maki relaxes. She’d been sure an ankle sprain was in the future. Rin has none of the training Eli’d spent years of her life on, just a wiry body and far too much enthusiasm for delicate motions of ballet. Maki blinks away from her stare on Rin’s muscled legs (probably sore from all that running and jumping? Controlled falls in track? The bare skin is a surprisingly pretty color). Focus.
Maki waves her hands down her body, slightly uncomfortable, practicing the smooth movements of her hips and the liquid curls of her wrist while imagining the beat. “Eli sure saddled us with a lot of body rolls in this one,” she says, then turns to see Rin watching her with an unfathomable excitement.
“You look great!”
“Thanks.”
They stay dancing on the roof, dutifully early and exchanging occasional comments - “Isn’t the lighting out here great today, Maki?”; “It’s so bright your hair almost looks pink,” - until Honoka bursts through the doors for official practice, clutching a roll of bread and smiling brighter than the sun. Maki catches the wisp of disappointment in herself when the rest of Muse tromp out from the stairwell.
**
“What do you think?” Rin asks, and leans in very close to Hanayo, grinning impishly.
Hanayo grips the lyric sheet with one hand, the other rooting in her lunchbox for her rice bowl. Her fair brows arch and drop as she reads, then: “Oh, it’s so flirty. It’s like Umi thinks something special about you two, huh.”
Maki feels herself start to protest, but she clamps it down and burns red instead. She takes a surreptitious bite of sandwich and ignores the whole comment with what she considers impressive solemnity. Hanayo and Rin look hard at her, though, like carving meaning out a disastrously malleable marble, and she’s not fooled either of them. Dammit.
“Ah,” says Rin carelessly, “there’s nothing risky or dangerous about me and Maki!” She accompanies this lyrical reference with a hearty slap to Maki’s back, slim arm somehow forceful and embarrassingly strong. “Or our relationship, heh.” Maki coughs over her sandwich, surprised at the blow. Why is Rin so sneakily strong?
Hanayo’s halfway through her lunch already, eating with a single-minded intensity that surfaces only with rice and idol trivia. This means Rin is the one to pat Maki awkwardly until she stops choking. “Sorry,” she says, and bares her little teeth in a grin.
“Are we still on for studying after practice?” Hanayo manages as she scraps her bowl lightly, looking politely puzzled when there isn’t even a single grain left.
“Let’s go to the awesome cafe with the umbrellas outside!” Rin cheers with a bite of cookie mangling the words.
“You only want to go there because it’s down the block from a cat cafe,” Hanayo says clearly. Rin pouts, drooping her lip pathetically like the last line of a tragic play.
“We’ll go to the umbrella place if you get through the first three pages of exercises from trigonometry work,” Maki allows, feeling gracious. She catches herself turning a thin strand of hair in her fist - she stops at once. She doesn’t let the prickling nerves in her spine spill into her voice, imagining Rin cuddling all those happy, fat cats to her near-ecstatic face.
**
The track meet is full of high schoolers bustling back and forth, the gritty sand from the tracks tromped across the tight-kept lawn behind the building. Maki and Hanayo follow the crunching, reddish dirt trail to the bleachers where the athletes are still warming up, high knees and unsettlingly low squats like a badly flaunted limbo. Maki turns her head, eyes glazing past the lines of boys and girls in baggy tracksuits, searching while pretending not to. After a moment, Hanayo nudges her with a soft elbow, like the bunting of a deer.
Rin has both hands stretched over her head, determination and a rare sobriety in her angled face as she bends and flows, careful not to strain herself. Hanayo tries to wave, but Rin’s swallowed by a sea of teammates a moment later as the races gear up.
Maki plants herself and Hanayo in the front row, next to some sports moms and a boy who almost looks like Nico’s little brother. He gazes at her with a plaintive, fathomless stare. She blinks, and Hanayo laughs, the sound like a muffled wind chime.
They have trouble telling the races apart - “Is this the 5k?” Hanayo asks.
“That can’t be right. It’s more likely a, a dash.”
“It’s a relay,” a sports mom informs them from behind.
“Ah! There’s Rin!” Hanayo bounces in her seat, and Maki allows herself to lean forward and squint. Yes, that’s the familiar, blazing bob half-dancing at the starting line beside a trio of other wiry girls in different-colored shorts, like an artist’s palate. Rin is the shortest there. Maki puts her English worksheet down, carefully laying the pen on top so it doesn’t blow away. Hanayo sends furious Snapchats, fingers tapping wildly on her screen like rain. The whistle blows.
Maki is quite fit, but she is always impressed by the speed and power compact in Rin’s body - she fairly erupts from the start, dashing along the dusty white lines of the track like a compressed spring. Maki finds herself biting her lip, drawn in by the cheers and the form of Rin ripping along the ground, slowly edging out ahead of the other runners, baton in one hand and arms swinging like she might launch into the sky, trailed by dust.
Rin’s group doesn’t win. Maki, surprised and a little offended on Rin’s behalf, watches the long legs of the winning team jump and crow, relishing their victory with (in Maki’s humble opinion) excessive elation. Hanayo looks devastated, but Rin shakes all of the opponents’ hands and smiles freely.
By the time they meet up, Nozomi, Eli, and Umi have gathered around Rin, making consoling motions. But Rin gives Hanayo a sweaty hug and turns to Maki, “It’s okay! We all raced our hardest, and Yuri hurt her ankle in the last meet, so it wasn’t her fault she didn’t make speed on the last bend.”
“If it had been just you racing, you would have won. You should have won,” says Maki, who realizes she must be making a face, for Rin to pinpoint exactly what’s troubling her.
“Nah,” says Rin casually. “I like playing as a team, and I don’t mind losing. It’s nice to win, but it’s not everything, you know? It’s more interesting just to play.”
“I like to win,” Maki says. Eli laughs at this.
Nozomi looks at Maki, still scowling, and then looks at Rin, who rocks on her heels like a ship coming into shore while grinning dopily. Nozomi laughs at something she sees, and puts her face into Eli’s shoulder.
**
Maki gets one foot into the music room before she’s tackled. The force of the embrace sets her off balance enough to almost drop her mug of tea, but after a glittering, frozen moment where she’s certain she can control the universe, gravity, and space itself, she realizes it’s just Rin and tilts her wrist accordingly. Her beverage does not spill.
Rin lets off clutching at Maki and hurtles through the room, twirling with a wild urgency on occasion, and does a weird hop around the piano like a rabbit. “You did it, Maki! You and Hanayo did it! I got a perfect on the last math test!” She yells this last part, a staccato singsong with no particular melody. “Ahhh! I’m so excited!”
Pleasantly surprised, Maki gives herself a moment to smile, feeling it slip into place like the last piece of a puzzle. “You see what studying hard can do? I knew that you could do it.”
Rin stops jumping for joy and plops herself at the piano bench with a heavy smack, then digs in her bag. “Look,” she says, almost shyly, then brandishes a sheaf of papers with a 100 marking at Maki. “I couldn’t have done it without your help. Hanayo’s, too, but you’re really quite good at math. You gave me lots of good pointers.”
Maki shrugs, trying to brush this off, but Rin continues with a little more passion, “C’mon! Thank you! It’s been really nice of you to help me out like this!”
“You’re welcome.”
Rin actually sighs. “Always so proper, Maki,” she says cryptically.
**
It’s when they’re running the final practice for Beat in Angel in front of the rest of Muse that Maki gets slapped in the face.
“I’M SO SORRY,” Rin bellows, heartbroken. Eli turns off the music and Kotori tries to pry Maki’s clamped hands off of her nose where she’d been caustically attacked.
It’s an over dramatization, and Maki is embarrassed at the flutterings of Kotori and Honoka, Rin’s anguished apologies while being held awkwardly by Hanayo, and Nico loudly announcing a broken nose is “just edgy enough to draw in new fans.”
“It’s not broken,” Maki tells everybody, mortified, and gently touches the cartilage where Rin’d gotten over-excited with her dancing and pirouette-slapped her. “I’m fine, really. Let’s start again in a few minutes, okay?”
“Eli and I will get you some water, or a Gatorade, or something,” Nozomi says cheerfully, and gives Maki a strange, hard stare as she heads for the stairwell with Eli’s hand in hers. As usual, Maki looks at their PDA and feels a blip of something else, something she can’t quite pin down; she’s throwing javelins at feathers. As she’s struggling with the bog of her feelings, Rin’s face swoops down into her view in all of its harried, guilty sweetness.
“Ah! Maki! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry-” Maki sits perfectly still, one hand still splayed across her face like a mask as a perfect bolt of lightning hits her. It’s Rin. It’s definitely, definitely that sunshine girl that dances like she’s fighting, sings like she’s inviting the world to join her, and runs with a fierce, wild pride.
Maki stands. “I’m fine. Let’s practice the place-swapping bit at the two minute mark.”
Oh no. Now she’s got to say something, doesn’t she, she’s got to ask or confess. The feeling churns in her stomach like a rotten tomato, persistent and churning. She can’t not do anything as the music burbles back up, and she and Rin take their places in front of Muse.
**
Maki keeps them running late, late enough that the second years leave for student council duties, and Hanayo goes off to help Nico with an idol stream. Rin looks a little disappointed as they wave goodbye and promise to save a glowstick for her. But she nods when Maki asks her to keep going, maybe out of guilt for punching her by accident; maybe because she actually wants to stay and make this perfect.
When Eli and Nozomi tire of clapping, they pronounce the rehearsal officially over and depart for home. Maki says her goodbyes and turns back to Rin, who looks tired but hopeful. “Once more?”
As they lip-sync to rest their voices and pose, whirling and shuffling, dancing in tandem like two parts of a whole, Maki feels the embarrassment and the desire to say something rise in her throat like a song she hasn’t written yet. This is ridiculous.
“Hey,” Maki splutters as the music fades out for the final time. Off to a great start. Rin lowers her hands from the end pose and sticks up a questioning eyebrow like a flag.
“I love you, you know,” Maki says in a rush. Her mouth keeps moving, like she’s blowing bubbles underwater. Oh God, why is her breathing so loud? This is incredibly terrible. “I love you. Rin.”
For perhaps the first time in history, Rin freezes in shock, the lining of her face young and so, so cute. Maki squints. If her legs were working, she’d be out of here. Then the tip of Rin’s lips turns up, then breaks into the flashy smile as always, a sunshine-sweet blaze with maybe a new, careful edging of seriousness. “I know!” Without any ado, she hops up to her toes and leans in - Maki thanks the constant pirouetting that has probably given Rin ankles of steel - and then Maki’s brain short-circuits as Rin pecks her once on the lips. They pause, and Maki moves, pulls her in closer and gives her a proper kiss, all sweetness.
Rin drops back down and taps her chin, looking exceptionally tickled as Maki loosens her grip. Her shining eyes narrow, and she slits a grin across the roof at the sky. “You’re so cool, Maki,” she says earnestly. “I got a kiss from Maki!”
“That’s me,” Maki says, and knows she again fails to fool Rin with any presentation of a blase attitude. She feels like she’s flying, wrapped in a warm cloud that flushes her skin a forest-fire red. Thanks, complexion. Maybe the heat is just Rin throwing her arms around Maki and hugging her, cuddling her quick and happy like a kitten.
“Thanks for telling me,” Rin says softly, finally focused, finally stoic. Then her quicksilver, feline smile flares out again, a spotlight blast of excitement that Maki thinks she’s privileged to be lit by. “I love you too!” Maki hesitates, then figures she ought to be done hesitating. She spins Rin in a circle, and her laugh echoes over the rooftop.
