talking about jilypad, I have always wondered what would happen if suddenly one of them is taken or walk away, like stop being in that relationship, be it by choice or not. James is the balance between Sirius and Lily i guess, so if he is the one who deserts the relationship, Sirius and lily 's relationship probably will take a v platonic turn. Tbh I think S and L are platonic anyway but without james it would turn into a comfort thing, like Sirius brewing tea for a sleepless sad lily or lily slowly persuading an absolute devastated padfoot to come out of underneath James' bed sheets and turn into his human form to at least eat something. I think it would be easier for them if it is lily who has deserted the relationship. I mean, james and Sirius are codependent and in sync, so they can fix each other after sometime. Not that it won't hurt for them or lily is less important in the relationship but because they know how to handle each other's feelings. But when I think about Sirius being the one who deserts the relationship, I can't help but to think that James would blame himself constantly, thinking he had not given enough love to Sirius and feeling guilty ( specially if Sirius has moved away on his accord) I can imagine him panicking because of Sirius's sudden absence, trying and spend time on things Sirius likes ( to distract himself from driving himself crazy albeit unsuccessfully) like how a motorcycle works or buying muggle men fashion magazines, just to show Sirius how important he ( and his likings ) are to James later. He is a type who never accepts not being with Sirius. Like, he involved Sirius in his private life and marriage by making him harry 's godfather in the books. God forbid though, if Sirius is not there because he can't be there (for whatever reason ) , James would probably end up silent and numb for the rest of his life. After all this rants, now that I am thinking, it is lily who balances this two not James. Because Sirius and James practically ignore all the laws of physics in codependency. I would have said the prophecy in the book 5 ( Neither can live while the other survives ) is about them with slight change of neither can live while the other one is dead ( or while the other is away or sth like that)

:O

ngl, i’ve never considered this bc it’s on the road to angst and my heart can’t handle it but now that i’m thinking about it…

i actually can’t see a lily/sirius working without james tbh. i mean, i’ve read the ship and it can definitely be written well but with how i see j & s, it just doesn’t compute. for one, l & s are way too similar and james is the balancing act between the two. also, sirius wouldn’t ever do anything that could hurt james & being w someone that james liked w/o him being there? man, idk. i think i also struggle w seeing sirius in a relationship that’s not james (i kinda see him as needing an extremely close bond before he’ll be in a relationship & there’s no way that happens organically w lily unless it’s a jilypad scenario). if james does, though, i can definitely see them clinging to each other for comfort, doing things like u mentioned. both of them are trying (unsuccessfully) to fill a gap that refused to be filled.

if it’s sirius who leaves in the relationship, tho? especially after they’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be together at the same time? i absolutely don’t think james would be able to go on as before. i mean, in a jily + sirius scenario, he’s already relegated s to a particular position, right? and he knows he’ll have him like that always. i’ve talked ab how i think james is super possessive of sirius and wants as much of him and his time/attention he can get so once he’s gotten a chance to have s in a relationship context, he would absolutely not want to give it up. he’ll definitely fixate on sirius to the point that james/lily won’t work either, i think.

this is gonna sound mean but i don’t think lily leaving would have a lot of impact on their existing relationship 💀 i mean obv there’ll be grief and sorrow and anger/hurt etc but ultimately, they can bounce back from it because she was transient in comparison to these two. if it’s like a,,,post harry world, there’ll be an added layer of grief bc they’re also losing the mother of their child in addition to a partner but i still think they can pull through w/o devastating consequences just bc of the strong bond they already have.

2, 8, 13, 20, 30, & 38 for the fanfic asks? -megs 💙

Hi Megs!! This is a LOT. Thank you for asking!!!!

2. What character(s) do you find the most difficult to write for? Why?

Answered here <3 (It's Michael)

8. Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered stories?

Okay so... my sweet spot as a writer is about in the 20k range. I'm notoriously an over writer and so that's a pretty,, good length for like a day-long read, you know? Something that feels fairly long but that won't take you more than an afternoon as a reader to munch on. Most of my work is one-shots so I feel like... I have to say I prefer one-shots lol. I do love writing multi-chap stories though, even though I don't have many. But a one-shot is like... It takes a week/couple days to write. It takes a day for people to read. It's not bite-sized but it's not... over-filling or overwhelming. Yeah, I like one-shots of 15-30k.

13. When did you start writing fanfic?

... do you really wanna know?? I guess I'm gonna go back to the very beginning. Not my ao3 days but before that. Because I really started writing fanfic on Quotev when I was twelve. I think my first fic was... Oh geez, now I have to go find it. Alright. I hate to admit this on main. The first fanfic I EVER wrote was on Quotev. It was published on April 15, 2015. I would be twelve. It was a Supernatural fanfiction. And it is quite literally called "Supernatural: DeanXReader." Now I feel the need to clarify, 12 yo Jess did not know what romance WAS (hello aro ace identity) and I can guarantee you the "X" is used VERY liberally. Dean and Reader were just friends. They never touched. They never kissed. They were literally just homies. But I said "ROMANCE!" bc I didn't know that,, wasn't romance. If that makes sense. Yeah <3

20. What feedback makes you the happiest to hear?

THIS. is hard. Uh... Ok. I really enjoy,,, overall commentary on a story?? Like when someone takes something out of a fic and fosters it into a dialogue with me. One of the people that does this the best is Miki ( @ashtonhours ). I really adore the way she interacts with my work in our dms. Because she makes me sound a lot smarter than I actually am haha and I appreciate that!! And I tell you who really blew me away recently with a compliment was Em ( @redrattlers ). The kind of stuff I want to elicit when I write is a feeling of... honesty?? If that makes any sense. So whenever I get feedback that a story sounds "real" or "human," I get very very excited.

30. Do you write down all your ideas? What makes you decide to write one versus the other?

My notes app is... oh it's a mess. It's bad. I write down,,, so much bullshit. If I get even a sentence of an idea, I'm slapping it down. And so my notes app is just a graveyard of disjointed plot bunnies and one-liners and unused titles and... yeah, it's a mess. I write down everything. I do like a lot of what I have in my notes though and I do end up incorporating most of these fragmented ideas into fics! But also sometimes, I have no idea what they mean.

38. What story of yours are you surprised that people liked as much as they did?

Lmfao a lot of them. I think the main one that shocked me will always be Risky Risque. It's one of my big three and I just... fucking hate that fic with such a fiery burning passion. Because the characters are flat as boards and it lacks depth and I just don't believe it. Nothing about the story feels true. But, people like it!! A lot, actually. Which I hate lol but what're you gonna do, y'know?? I can't control audience perception. I wouldn't want to. People are totally allowed to like it but I very much don't think they should.

from fic asks <3

what's been your favorite part of writing seaglass blue? is there a part in particular that you couldn't wait to write? is there one you were avoiding?

to be honest i am 100% flying by the seat of my pants with this which right now is out of character so i haven’t exactly gotten to the dreaded parts yet lmao

i have an ending in mind (and a final line) that i really like but that i have a gut feeling no one else will like but i’m not compromising with it and i’m a little nervous to post that eventually. i’m not nervous about writing it but i don’t think it will necessarily come across well. Like it feels a little end of the sopranos but also it’s not like that at all but it’s the same existential vibe if that makes sense. which it doesn’t at all. but still

i actively avoid dialogue because it’s not my strong suit. i also can’t get the Mulder Voice right (deadpan snark etc) and then throwing in Big Feelings i’m just so out of my element

so far i shockingly haven’t dreaded writing any part of it. i did end up blocked with this last chapter because i hadn’t entirely decided what to do with the plot and the plot i’d thought through and didn’t actually use (and lmao have since forgotten!) just was not working at all so i didn’t write and instead did the whole running in circles thinking it through thing that isn’t writing (i recommend reading atomic habits by james clear ahaha! that running in circles motion gets a massive drag in there) that ultimately was never fruitful AND EITHER WAY i started a new drug for the other side of my life and it gave me wicked insomnia and at two am everything righted itself so i finally figured out where i was going. But that being said i never really dreaded it even though i oftentimes dread a scene or two in most chapters i write and i think the lack of dread comes from how it’s all set up in a very cozy way and it’s hard to dread something like that

i couldn’t wait to write the wedding which is why i dive into it so quickly. And i really wanted to interject parts of their “wedding night” or afternoon or whatever because those were my favorite moments to visualize. there’s another part down the line that i can’t wait to write but i also can’t spoil that haha. i think like...the most anticipated stuff i have coming up for the next chapter (or maybe the one after that depending on how the wordcount shakes out) is a specific conversation about specific things that happens in the dark. and uh i will not elaborate beyond that aldskjasldkjfdalsgj

my favorite part of writing it. this answer is so disjointed i’m sorry. i’ll put the rest of this under a cut because i’m rambling ahaha

my favorite part of writing it has been like...i think this is a multitude of things which is why i wrote msr again after a long unintentional break from it. idk if i ever really mentioned this (or at least if i mentioned it recently) but i started writing msr here in mid 2016 to rekindle my passion for writing while i was very very ill long term, and that culminated in the “everyday msr” archive i have on my ao3, which thus was a log of self-comfort in hard times as well as (unintentionally) documentation of how i neurologically healed during that treatment. so, bizarre. i was in a hard place back then and writing helped me keep my head screwed on straight, and luckily with msr you can write the shittiest things and someone will still be genuinely happy to read it and will look past any lack of talent or training or experience or anything and instead see you, someone having an idea and offering it to others, sharing something for the sake of feeling something good together. that (combined with my own personal gratification of having done something) really helped me emotionally during that time. like when you can’t be of service to anyone in the world, barely even to yourself, it’s really reassuring to hear “i was having a hard day today and this small thing you did eased me” and know that they didn’t need quality or exceptional talent; they just needed you to show up. i’m getting off topic but all of this is a roundabout way to say that i’m essentially back in that same place right now and have been for the past little over a year and like. It’s bullshit ahaha. like it’s absolute bullshit. But it’s strangely valuable to have this like...same connection as i had last time, just in a bit of a different way. it’s still msr, it’s still a kind of Happy Place for me, but there’s an overarching plot, i have other stuff that i write too, etc. but still, i appreciate being able to go back to an original comfort and form that comfort in the same way. the “everyday msr” stuff was intended to be just extended written-out headcanons about domestic msr post iwtb or post revival #1 that i could write in one sitting, and this isn’t entirely different from that; it’s just that the domesticity has a twist and a different era. but it’s the same stuff as before - pictures of misty places, gentle music, living based on the season, being a homebody, cooking for your lover, natural beauty. it’s nice to return to that place right now

another favorite part of writing this is that maine was an important part of my childhood. my family spent a week of vacation there each year (outside of bar harbor, not on mdi but right outside of it) and i kind of associate that purity with it. it feels like one of the only elements of childhood that i haven’t found adulthood corrupting. like we learn that disneyland is just a capitalist hellhole and whatnot when we’re older but maine hasn’t been ruined for me yet and i treasure that. And having them there feels special as a result. i very much on purpose didn’t label a town they’re in (or even base where they are on a real one lol all of that is glossed over enough anyway that i’m not worried about it) but it felt important and right for them to be in maine. it feels special to tap into the very brief time that i shared with the show while i was still a part of its cultural landscape. that sentence makes no sense. in other words i was born in 1997 ahaha. but either way like...i get to people this place that is already special to me and give them love and safety within it and that feels good in a way that i’m struggling to describe. And also i could go on some stupid rant about how Cell Phones Hurt Our Social Circles or whatever but i do genuinely miss rental houses that got 10 blurry channels on rabbit-eared tin foil televisions in a day and age when you normally got way more than that, all while you’re in an era in which boredom is still normal enough that all of that means “well, no tv for this week i guess!” and then you play a board game instead. it feels good to voluntarily create a place like that, then ask in my own life, why don’t i just live like this? And then to struggle through plotting something because there’s no digital numbing with television and smartphones and whatnot, and to understand my own hesitation, and to explore that a little more whether or not it’s in writing

another favorite part (yes i will in fact keep going!) is that the writing style is a little bit atypical from my current norm which allows me certain freedoms that i haven’t really opted for in a while. on the off chance that anyone has read any of my other recent stuff (though this is...a very small chance ahaha) it’s clear that these chapters are much shorter and less prose-heavy than my other stuff is, and that’s really helpful in that editing it is much simpler and writing it happens much quicker. if life were predictable and i had better self-discipline (and better health! can’t discount that one haha) then i could easily get a chapter out every weeks, in comparison to other stuff that i updated once every three months. i’m trying to keep each chapter to being about 3k in length (which they seem to naturally tend toward anyways, i didn’t create that metric so much as just went along with it) and there aren’t frequent “flashback sequences” (there are callbacks and past things brought up, but they’re not significant portions of chapters that go back and forth in timelines and make a nonlinear plot, the linear plot dominates and each scene is more or less in chronological order even if there are callbacks) so i’m not too worried about pacing or structure or anything like that. i never set out to make it “simple” i think it reads better this way and i appreciate that a lot because i can take a break from other stuff that’s a bit more jagged and just do this instead. it’s also nice to write something that i feel is more on the readable side than other things. i think my biggest inspirations for this (which i realized accidentally with the “he wants to brush her hair” line ahaha) were our souls at night and the sunlit night, both of which have a kind of dainty prose style and are a little low on long descriptions but can say a lot with one simple sentence. recently i’ve focused a lot more about darker subject matter and uglier parts of humanity so it’s nice to be able to focus on something that i feel like matters and has a more readable quality to it without actually sacrificing anything in the process or trying to dumb something down

so i think that’s it! that’s my thoughts! this is too long and far too personal! haha!

I want you to answer all the fanfic questions because I love your writing and want to know more about it!!! But if that is too much, than just the first 10

Dude.  Not only do I love talking about myself, I ESPECIALLY love talking about my writing, so fuck yeah I’ll answer them all.1: When did you start writing?I distinctly remember writing stories as early as age 7 (I loved creative writing in school so much) but I can’t recall if I ever wrote anything outside of school projects, so I’m not sure that counts.  I DO remember writing stuff for fun when I was 12.2: How many different fandoms have you written for?That I can remember?  Just three.  The first being Warrior Cats, then My Little Pony (though it was very few), but the only one I’ve written fanfiction for that I’ve actually posted online is for Transformers.3: If applicable, do you think your writing has improved a lot or a little since you first started writing?Oh, definitely.  Both in general and since I started posting my fics online.  I have an old FF account (good luck finding me :P) with very disjointed stories full of plot holes, and even my early stuff on AO3 seems really bad to me now.4: What was the first fic you wrote?The first fic I can remember writing was a Warrior Cats thing full of my own OC’s that I had my mother edit (YEAH, I SHOWED MY MOM MY SHITTY FANFICTION) and I even had it printed and like professionally bound with those round plastic edged things people use for reports and whatnot.  Tbh, I miss being so unbashedly proud of my writing.  I would let other people read and edit it, trying to improve.  Of course, I’m not going to show my mom my fics where Megatron and Rodimus bork but I can’t even bear to be in the same room as someone reading my fics without feeling like I’m going to DIE even if they’re doing nothing but praising me.5: What is your favorite fic you have written?Honestly?  Two Factions.  There’s just something really freeing about writing some so self-indulgent and grandiose.  I also really enjoy the world-building aspect and taking a different approach to how becoming a Prime works.  Plus, I get to make Megatron say really gay things and make everyone use SWORDS.  It’s also fun to re-imagine a familiar work through new characters and a new setting (I started pretty close to the original Romeo and Juliet but the end is quite different, in my opinion).What really stands out for this fic, though, is that I have @justroddythings beta’ing everything and I wrote and edited a bunch of chapters before I started posting so I had the liberty to change things I didn’t like without disrupting the canon I’d already made (and fix any continuity errors.... like where I had a character bust his sword and then he inexplicably had it two chapters later [it’s because the scene from that chapter was one of the first I’d written, but I still gotta fix it]).  6: Which character of yours has been your favorite to write?It’s a toss-up between Rodimus and Starscream.  They’re quite similar in their “put on this personality” while being miserable on the inside.  It leads to fun and snarky scenes that can dissolve into breakdowns where they need to be comforted (which is when I throw their love interest in).  But man... writing these two together is equally fun and intimidating, but I love writing them as mutual supports for each other.  Whether that means one is more stable and supporting the other, or both of them are breaking down but can offer the other things like “I understand, and you’re going to be okay” and that let’s THEM know that they’re going to be okay.7: Which character of yours do you most identify with (if any)?Probably Rodimus, but there’s some strong sprinklings of Megatron in there, too.  Which is one of the reasons I love writing megarod so much. 8: Which character of yours do you find the hardest to write?Well, I don’t branch out as much as I’d like so mostly any character I haven’t written.  If I had to pick one from fics I’ve already written, then Wheeljack, because I haven’t read too many comics with him in it but I’m so thirsty for starjack that I will attempt it anyways.9: If any, what music/artists do you like to listen to while writing?I find sad Maroon 5 songs to be really good background noise, but I usually just listen to whatever I currently am listening to on my ipod.10: Do you ever put any of your own traits or personality into any of your characters? Which?I do with Rodimus a lot, usually just little habits or w/e.  I like to HC he picks at his paint like I pick at my skin (as a nervous habit and just a bad habit in general).  BUT in “I Promise You” (which idk if I’ll ever finish, but I hate the title and should have thought more about it before I posted it) I basically put all of my fears and insecurities into Skywarp.  He was a very cathartic character to write and writing his suicidal thoughts or w/e really helped me work through my own (especially when he had someone there to hold him and tell him what *I* feel like I needed to hear).11: If you could take one character from your fic and put it with another character in another one of your fics, who would you want to see together?Uhhhh I got nothing because if I wanted to do it I would just do it.12: Which do you prefer writing most, description, dialogue, or actions?I used to write really detailed descriptions but somewhere along the line I set out to improve my dialogue and now I prefer writing that (sometimes, esp. if I’m stuck, I just write what I want them to say and fill in the rest later).  I hate writing actions a lot because I see in my head the movement I want them to make but idk how the FUCK to put it into words.  What Ratchet is doing in the second panel here in particular eludes me and if anyone could tell me how the fuck to describe this I would love you forever.13: If you could base one of your fics in a different location than where it is currently, where would you like it to be?Well tbh I never know how to describe the “wilderness” on Cybertron because it’s.... its all metal can I even call these things rocks??? So I guess a really lame answer to this is to set all of them on Earth so I can say there are trees and rocks and shit but Earth also sucks so *shrug*.14: Which of your fics would you like to see turned into a movie the most?Either Two Factions or Behind Closed Doors, which, when you look at them, are pretty similar stories XD15: Which of your characters do you think you would be most friendly with?I’d say Rodimus, Swerve, and Tailgate.  I wanna flop over Swerve and watch Earth TV with him.16: Are there any ideas you are currently playing around with that you would like to write sooner or later?I have started writing two multi-chapter megarod fics (one being a soulmate and reincarnation fic, the other a heatfic) but I want to finish my other ongoings (at least my megarod ones) before I denote any real time to them.17: Favorite fic that is not written by you?Hmmm that`s a tough one.  On the one hand, I don`t read as much fanfiction as I’d like to (I’m trying to rectify that) and on the other hand I love different fics for different reasons so I couldn’t just pick one.  This is a cop-out answer but I’m sticking to it.18: Have you ever written a personal experience into your fic?Oh, all the time.  Like I said with Skywarp before and I’ve written some self-insert things where I essentially was adopted by Rodimus and Megatron that will never see the light of day lol.19: Who has been your favorite face claim to use?So I google what “face claim” means and I still don’t understand.20: Lastly, take your favorite character from any of your fics and tell us 3 things you like about him/her and 3 things you dislike.Bluh this is too much work.

Phoenix

Written: Early 2014

She jolts awake to the cacophony of loud voices and the hostility of a blood-red rose wrapped delicately in barbed wire. Clammy hands rub sleep-sticky eyes before realization hits like a trainwreck. She is not where she drifted off into slumber. Instead, she is in a stranger’s house, where she cannot dictate her life by her own rules.

The commanding presence of animosity lingers, yet she cannot command a livid expression to accompany the sensation until she realizes the room, devoid despite minimal furniture, is overcast by gray clouds from the opened, unframed window. As the breeze picks up, slowly rotating, then suddenly morphing into the kind of gale that carries the destruction of a rampant typhoon, she dreads the notion that she must make haste towards the white door, which seems to have blended in with the overcast walls save for a subtle golden doorknob.

She bolts upwards, ignoring the screams of pain her legs elicit while making a break for the dim glow of the knob, but just as she reaches for the object a mere hairsbreadth, she falters.

A voice whispers in her ear, and though the words are incoherent, she knows they are laced with malice.

The whispers grow, louder until they can be heard: “Where are your wings, angel? Where are they?”

In the pending silence, she can feel the presence of razor-sharp nails gripping her arm, imaginary rivulets of blood dressing her limb in crimson-crusted webs. She attempts to open her mouth to fire a vicious retort, but something has stolen the speared words from her guarded mind. Something has ripped her voice box out of her throat, leaving behind hoarse, echoing rasps. her numbed limbs are not functioning properly and she cannot break free of the unspoken words materialized in the form of a sinister voice. She struggles and struggles, willing her mind to fuel the mobility in her arms, her legs, but to no avail.

Finally, she is successful. In a broken, mangled voice, she rasps out, “No! I have my wings. I have my wings!” She screeches the single sentence over and over, growing weaker until only disjointed phrases are audible and finally become a mere thought on replay: I have wings. I have wings.

As if eavesdropping on her mind, the voice whispers tauntingly, “But they’re broken, aren’t they?”

The savage gale, ripping mercilessly around the girl, brutally overturning the meager contents of the room, and violently lacerating her skin, reminds her of the little time she has left to spare. She squeezes her eyes shut, desperately searching, scavenging, mulling over the contents of her scattered mind for an undisguised answer:

She knowsknowsknows this voice. She has heard this voice before, she swears.

She blanches.

As quickly as she had given into the undertones of the insinuations, she proudly reconstructs her mind, body, and spirit. All at once, everything that had her shrouded in mists and heavy fogs of doubt disintegrates and illuminates the firm silhouette of her soul. She yanks her clean arms, free of any blossoming stains of incriminating crimson and bruised maroon, no longer bleeding profusely, away from the grasps of the malevolent figure. It desperately screams, “No!” as she twists the golden knob and flings herself past the square arch of the door and into the darkness.

Before long, she is dashing down the foyer, into a dimly illuminated labyrinth. The still air picks up again, gusts of wind reminding her it follows closely wherever she may go. She wanders further into the maze, taking sharp turns, meeting dead ends, but she has yet to retire any thought to despair or escape because she knew from the moment she woke up she could not escape easily; she will push through. With strengthened resolve, she pauses her steps, closes her eyes, but does not rummage her thoughts for any hints.

This time she lets pure instinct take over. Left here. Keep running straight. Now take the third right. Keep running straight and don’t open your eyes. Don’t look back. She is no longer running in circles and is clearing the pathway to the centerfold point. With her eyes still squeezed shut, she breaks through the barriers of illusion, through the walls of her thoughts, the whirlwind behind her no longer in tow. She runs and runs until she bursts into the midst of it all and finally opens her eyes to the sight of wonder unraveling. Above her, the endless ceiling beholds a bright spiraling circle of light, swirling and sucking in any form of darkness that has engulfed the confinements of the room.

And she knows. She knows that this is her ticket out of this embodied prison of her mind, but she also knows the portal hovering above is completely out of her reach as she stands firmly locked on the ground. She stands stumped, confused as to why she has already made it this far but cannot move forward since there is nowhere to go other than up, and she has no means to get there...

But she does, she suddenly remembers.

I’m not an angel, no. But I have my wings. [insert 2017-me-cringe here]

She closes her eyes, once more, and she thinks, for the last time, because this will be the last time she ever shuts her eyes in doubt.

Calming the torrent of jumbled thoughts and the calamity of her mind until they thin out into nothing but a flame, she then ignites the flame to burn brighter than ever and on her back, she sprouts chained wings. They are not white, but rather a deep shade of red, almost like the blood her soul bleeds. She nurtures the burning of her soul until she herself is almost bursting into the flames of a phoenix, as the feathers of her wings struggle and struggle until they expand and shatter the steel chains of her mind.

They’re not broken.

She finally spreads her wings and flaps them up once, twice, measuring the sturdy strength in her bodily extensions, before she takes flight in an endeavor of reaching the hovering light. Behind her, she leaves a trail of uprooted, obliterated miseries and scarlet feathers from her hard-fought battle, as she breaks through the barricade of the portal.

Outside, she dips and soars in warmth, taking the scenery in stride as she flutters on the air with the delicacy of a butterfly, but the speed of a hummingbird. The horizon stretched across her reach is blended a multitude of shades in roses, maroons, orange marmalades, glittering golds that reflect upon the wide open shimmering lake that happens to be where a line is almost forcefully drawn between the invisible atmosphere and the tangibility of the earth.

Above her, the sky painted is a deep hue of blue, deeper than a royal blue but still as velvety as promised, splattered and flickered by the twinkling lights of the celestial spirits of the night, sprinkling glitters on wings like fairy dust. She pauses, watching as twilight gives way to the comfort of the now-glimmering moon, melting away the warm colors of the day in exchange for the cool colors of the night. 

And it is in this moment she looks below her to find the green trees of the forest rooted firm to the ground, the rivers flowing silkily into the the tranquil undulating waves of the lake, the glorious mountains protruding from the ground, almost like a shield for this haven, all bathed in the ethereal moonlight the Luna sheds upon as a safeguard to the land.

This is no fool’s paradise, she knows. 

And so she hums softly, in a liquid gold voice, her lifted spirits flying her above as a guardian of the land. She continues on her flight, the bloody hues of her wings soaring higher and higher into the atmosphere until she becomes one with the stars. And there, she will remain until-

She jolts awake, this time in the confines of her room, to the cacophony of loud voices and the hostility of a blood-red rose wrapped delicately with barbed wire. In her sleepy haze, she realizes she has yet to break the barriers of the world, but before she can do so, she has just broken the barriers of herself, of her voice. She is cold, as her blanket is thrown off her, but the warmth of the phoenix that burns inside her lulls her back to sleep, her bed littered with remnants of her feathers.

A/N: I think I wrote this as a dream sequence for my English class in high school, so all those symbols meant something to me, even if I don’t remember what they mean to me now. Lol hello nearly-16-year-old me.

This was written over three years ago, so my writing has definitely changed since then. When re-typing (when posting these, I like to type them up instead of copying and pasting because I get to revisit them) this piece, I edited some parts to make them seem less awkward and more coherent for readers, but I generally left the piece as was.

Why?

So I can observe the growth in not only my writing, but myself as a person. I recall this piece as being my catharsis at the time, so it kind of reminds me of how I struggled through that time, but made it through.

Lol think what you want, but I’m just going to leave this here.