Writing passages that you're most proud of

[Leftovers]

As the title says, post segments of things you've written where everything clicked just right. Preferably not thousands of words each but if you're just that good then by all means, don't be modest.

[King of Padoru]

As foolish as the question may be, I'll ask it: Must the passages be TM-related?

[Bloble]

ok left

Avenger looked at the scene before him, all hope gone from his eyes. “What are you going to do, Lancer?” He asked again.

The other man just grinned.

“I suppose,” Lancer said. “I’ll have to get serious.”

[Leftovers]

As foolish as the question may be, I'll ask it: Must the passages be TM-related?

I honestly expected the responses to be from fics posted here but uh, I guess not necessarily?

[Rafflesiac]

“To err is human. It’s a common enough phrase, with a common enough follow-up. However, forgiveness is an incorrect deduction. If the capacity to err is human, then would that not imply that to be incapable of error is to surpass humanity? With enough power, there is no capacity for mistakes; with enough strength, no path is out of reach. For a people devoted to surpassing humanity and casting it aside – especially a group like them – wouldn’t they have found a way by now?”

- Theodore Thirioakis, 4th Family Head of the House Thirioakis

“Have you ever wondered why we call ourselves such a thing, Dimitri? Our official name is simple enough; to the casual observer, it may even be our true name. But what others pass off as a mere nickname is far more important. You see, we have a role in this world, one that has changed through the millennia. We have usurped our betters, our progenitors, and created a new age – an Age of Man. We are the greatest indicators of this time, and also of the miracles of the past. Just as a clock speaks of the present, yet hints at the past and future, we magi do the same. And that is why I believe in our capability – what others call a laughable myth. For did we not once live in the Age of Myths?”

- Alexander Thirioakis, 5th Family Head of the House Thirioakis

“Every creature on this earth has a place. There is but one exception – the corrosion known as humanity. Humanity is but a plague. It consumes every resource and rots every acre, leaving naught behind but refuse and filth; it claims that it is the greatest race to walk the Earth, yet has brought this world to the brink of destruction. To atone for our sins, no sacrifice is enough. Therefore, we who are more harmful than any other and more useless than any other must strive to serve the Earth and to better it and the creatures that rightfully live upon it. We who hold unparalleled power in the destruction and protection of the world hold this role – we are the stewards of Gaia.”

- Dimitri Thirioakis, 6th Family Head of the House Thirioakis

Nice, punchy foreshadowing for plot developments that never came to pass. Remember kids: If you don't finish it in time for the contest (though in this case, it was meant to be incomplete), you'll never finish it at all, so submit what you have when the due date comes.

“Hm?” Astolfo tilted his head quizzically. “Master, you don’t know what a penis is?”

Fun Things are Fun.

Deja vu. The recollection of a phantom memory, the extrapolation of experiences forced over cherry-picked characteristics of the present, coincidence given meaning by the brain's desperate attempt to rationalize the vagaries of fate. A single transient link between the past and present, quickly forgotten about once reminiscence ends and existence resumes.

Hell no. Life is made of moments that you shouldn’t, can't, and won't forget. Ordinary or extraordinary; there's no difference. Even eating a cheap burger at a restaurant is precious. And yet, that moment was definitely extraordinary. It changed my life. Moments like those are something you keep with you to the moment you die.


Especially if you see them twice.

I like this as an opening; deja vu was a fitting way to cover the prompted relationship of Shiki/Illya based on the similarities between Illya and Arc and the fact that it's a relationship/moment that can't last. Also both parties are doomed to live fast and die young, and I do wish I'd touched on that part a little more. I don't think I had the capability at the time, though. But even if it's all in your head and meaningless in the grand scale of things, a moment you enjoy is a moment that is important.

“Shiki, can you tell me more about this woman?”

Shiki tensed up, and Illya continued. “It doesn’t have to be her name, or why you’re looking for her. But if I don’t know anything about her besides ‘wears white’, then I can’t help you look for her. I want to help you. Who are you looking for?”

He paused for a while, staring into the shadows. Illya stepped forward to reach out to him, and then he spoke.

“She was fun. Teaching her things was fun. Learning things from her was fun. Just being with her was fun. She was incredibly wise in some ways, yet oh so very stupid in others. She was a foreigner. She traveled a lot - all over the world even - until one day she came to the city where I lived. She was tracking someone down who kept escaping and who was very persistent; the kind of guy who wouldn’t die even if you killed him. It was pure chance that I met her.”

The misty night was silent.

“Because she met me, she lost her way. I took away the path that she had. I made her a wanderer. So I decided to help her get back on her path. There were setbacks, but there were also fun times. She was never meant to wander, but it was good for her. I got to show her all sorts of new things and take her to all sorts of new places, and then it all came to an end. We found the man she was looking for. I killed him. And with him, I killed the path that she was traveling on. But even then, she still had more to lose. Her journey was over, so she couldn’t stay with me anymore. She was too tired to linger, to waste time wandering about a small city.”

Shiki’s fists clenched, and blood began to drip.

“So she left. She went back to her coffin, unable even to wander. A white princess in an empty castle.”

Illya stopped, and her hand fell. She faced Shiki, and he faced the darkness, and neither were looking at what was before them.

Illya and Arc have a lot of similarities once you think about it: pale hair, red eyes, white and purple clothing, locked up in a castle, loathed someone they wanted to meet but were also fascinated by them, older than they look, fairly sheltered from the world, etc. So I brought that up in the fic with how Shiki treats Illya and how he uses her as a crutch, and vice-versa, though I could've stated more details, I suppose.

[Kirby]

I wanted to hurt people.

To preserve formatting, and also somewhat actual spoilers

It’s noon.

She waits at the bus station. It’s hot today; it was August, after all. She sits on a bench outside, by the busy afternoon streets. Beads of sweat roll down her face, and she grimaces as she wipes them off her head. It’ll ruin the kimono. She shifts in her seat, taking respite in the shade, the little shade the overhang provides. She winces; the metal bench is hot; it could probably burn her if she sat too long.

How many days has it been, since that night?

A voice calls out to her, and her head turns. Familiar faces. A girl waves to her and calls out her name, and hurries on over and sits onto the bench beside. Another girl follows shyly behind.

The girl talks, her speech animated and excited; she introduces the other girl as her roommate, she complains about the strictness and stuffiness of the Academy. And she watches her as she talks. She is asked questions, and she answers. They talk and smile and laugh. They talk of their recent days, speak of rumors, anticipate the night and festival to come.

Shall we go then? the lively girl asks, and they nod and agree and leave the station. She looks through a store window, and sees decorated bamboo through the glass.

It’s evening.

They’re in the streets now, food stalls lining the roads, bustling with chatter and life and light. They’ve met up with the others. He is there.

They walk along the stalls, peering over shoulders, She sees skewers grilling over coals, they smell of grilled meats and smoke. She sees soba tossed over a fire, crepes spread over a griddle.

She holds shaved ice in a paper cup, candy-sweet and cherry-red. It’s cold, it stings her hand. She takes a bite, and winces from the brain freeze. The others stand by a small grove, other festival goers coming to and fro. The girls huddle, paper and pen in hand, whispering, giggling, laughing, writing. They hand her one, too.

She hesitates, and scrawls down her wish. She hides it from their view, and hangs it high enough so they cannot reach. Her friends prod her and bug her for it, for her to tell them. She feels heat in her cheeks, but she laughs it off. The boy laughs too, and sighs.

They wander the festival, they talk and laugh. Her feet hurt from walking, and so they sit, and watch. The boy tries his hand at goldfish scooping, his sister fares a bit better. The girl takes the prize with her in a plastic bag, she laments that she probably won’t be able to bring it with her. She takes another bite of ice. It has no taste.

It’s midnight.

The others had gone home now. They said they were busy, or they had things to attend to, and so on. And the two of them were left alone.

She had overexerted herself; she is still recovering. He carries her on his back, just like that night, and they make their way down empty streets. They do not talk; there is nothing to say. They had no need of conversation; they simply enjoyed each others’ company. They make their way in silence.

He stops at a bridge, and looks. And she looks too.

They can see the city from here, faint lights blinking in the distance like stars, reflecting off the surface of the water in sheets of golds, reds, blues. They blink on and off, like the beating of its heart. The spirals are gone. There is nothing left but the skyline. He only stops and looks for a moment, but that moment stretched into an eternity, just the two of them watching the lights of the city.

And he shrugs, and gets on his way. She rests her head on his shoulder. She squeezes his hand.

The night was still young.

And it’s morning.

It’s warm, she notices that first. Sunlight dances across her skin. She opens her eyes, raises a hand. A familiar ceiling, one she couldn’t forget. Open, close. She forms a fist; she feels cool fingertips against her palm. Heat flows through her body. Not a torrent, but a gentle stream. She feels warm. There is no pain.

She gets up, and looks around. Her vision is hazy, but it’s there. A familiar apartment. Beige walls and blue curtains. Light furnishings; simple wooden furniture. Sunlight filtering through the window. It is open. She finds herself on the bed. She sits there, enjoying the warmth of the sun. She wraps the blanket around her, even if she’s not cold.

She hears. That surprises her, even if it shouldn’t. She hears through a static, a haze, the sizzling of the stovetop, the scraping of a ladle against a pan. She turns and sees a familiar face. He stands by the stove, intent on his work. A flame dances and dies. He ladles something into a bowl, and something else into a plate. He sets them by the table, and turns.

He’s smiling.

He walks on over, he enters the room and crouches. He frowns in concern. He speaks words that she cannot hear. His mouth moves; she reads the words off his lips.

—Does it hurt?

He laughs as if she had replied; he smiles. He continues to speak. She hears him not. His voice is distant, like a veil of fog, like she’s sinking into the sea and he is calling from the surface. He leaves and seats himself at the table. There’s no warmth left in her. No warmth or cold.

It shouldn’t be more than a few feet. If she stretched her hand, could she reach him?

She knows the answer. An uncrossable distance. She sees it there, that ordinary life. To love. To hurt. To live. It’s there; it’s real. Like she can hold it in her hands. She clutches; it darts away.

She laughs. Her voice makes no sound.

It doesn’t hurt at all.

[Ausreford]

Mine would probably be these:

“Right, I get it,” Lancer said. “Magi need to keep their secrets. Then I suppose it’s fine…”

He lowered his spear, pointing its crimson tip at Illya’s head.

“… If you die keeping them, right?” he finished.

I was trying to emulate the VN style or anime style of delivering lines, and I thought this worked out decently.

She was smiling, but this time the smile was wide. She looked happy, like the carefree girl she appeared to be, and as she wore that radiant, childlike smile on her face—

“Goodbye! I saw a nice dream thanks to you!”

—she said those distant words.

I also liked this and the whole conversation I wrote for the two Illyas from FSN and Prisma. I dunno, I just really liked the idea of the two of them talking and being unable to reconcile their differences, and I thought their conversation highlighted that difference. Could be improved, but in the moment I thought it worked well.

[King of Padoru]

Trace: Overedge.

I feel boundlessly sad. I have lost everything that mattered to me. Since I was a young child, I have lost more than what I have earned. My freedom of speech was cut off, my love was rotten and split in half, my reputation was tarred, my land was given away, and lastly my wings of freedom have been twisted and rent. There is no longer a path for me to walk, I can only plummet to an abyss of depression. Not even my children visit me. Furthermore, my son Carlos orders not to set me free under any circumstance. My own children have betrayed me. I cannot believe in anything anymore.

But the last glimmer of light in this thick darkness of nil gives me some hope. Yes. Everything else may have been lost, but I am still myself. I am still Juana de Castilla. Even if the rest of the world sees me as a maddened demon, as long as I can see myself as a woman who fought to maintain what was hers no matter how emaciated I was, I will not have completely⸻⸻


They want to kill me. The nuns want to kill me. I am old and frail, therefore there is no need for me anymore. No, it’s not that. I never was needed, they were just waiting for me to be so weakened that I could not defend myself to end my life. I cannot feel secure even in my own room. If I fall asleep, they will asphyxiate me with a pillow. If I hunger, they will feed me poison. Stay away. Stay away from me! Don’t touch me!! Don’t come any closer to me!!!


Almost fifty years of my life have been spent recluse between these walls, almost all my life has been spent alone. Even in my death, this is still true. I finally lose the only thing I had left: my life. Nobody cares about my death, nobody cares about my thoughts. Despite my atheism being widely known, a priest is at my side in the deathbed. This is so painful. Why did nobody care? Why didn’t anyone have regards for what crossed my mind? I cry disconsolately. Felipe… If I was wrong, please wait for me in the afterlife…

[You]

This will motivate me to finish before christmas so i don't go onto the wall of shame

Spoiler:

“It was smuggled. I’m a smuggler.”
Darn it all. If *** was going to get this Frank to help him, he was going to have tell the truth for once.
“You’re pretty smug about that, aren’t you?”
“Bad jokes aside, are you going to help me or not get into the cistern?”
“You love it.” *** sighed, “Anyway, I’m not welcome back to that bar until I finish helping you.”
Just go to another bar instead of posturing then.

[Historia]

I got nothin'. But, someone told me they drew inspiration from the imagery in this paragraph for their own writing:

Running through deserted pathways, past the
town's square, she felt with each step the
guards trying to keep it at bay, their numbers
diminishing very quickly, very suddenly.
Jumping over an overturned cart where blood,
severed limbs, and entrails were strewn
across the ground along with various fruit
and vegetables, Kuno and the others must
have drawn it further away from the town
than she'd realized, for nothing alive was at
the front-gate.

It's from an old Claymore fic of mine.

As for TM related things, uh, it's fun to see how my writing style has evolved. It's so...

There was, long ago, a barbarian queen. Tall and terrible, a bringer of destruction. Once, a mother. Loving and kind. Then, a warrior. Horrible and cruel. Later, a goddess. Indifferent and disposed. She was the Queen of Carrion, nourishing her appetite on the corpses of those who dared to stand in her way. She was Boudica, a woman of rage, and regret. And, nothing, not the fates, nor the Eagle, could hold back her fury. Not until Rome itself, and the one responsible for her pain, burned.

They'd won their first battle to unify the north.

Crouched knee-deep in the battle's aftermath, Arturia thought of her in the wet, iron-scented rain. Voided bowels and blood-churned mud. Broken teeth, punctured flesh, scattered brains and bits, split bone and torn limb, bodies littering the field friend and enemy both. Arrow cushioned knights drowning in their own gurgled cries. Crushed by hammer, cut by axe, skewered by spear, hewn by sword. Silenced with the coming down of steel upon skull. The survivors, brandishing dented armor and bandaged wounds galore. Stained blades, shattered lances, splintered shields. Her, standing alone, staring out into the horizon, oblivious to the carnage behind, eyes ever on that light which blinded them, looking forward to the glimmering sunlight of a destiny she was born to lead, fading beneath dark clouds further on into rugged valley and tundra. White, rolling hills and clusters of mist, masking a land with a history of savagery and violence indigenous to the invader's homeland an ocean away. Barbarians. Horned horrors, helmeted marauders, crow-loving fiends. Terrorizing the people she vowed to protect when pulling sword from stone. From where the Tall and Terrible once marched, burning and bleeding the land in her war of vengeance. A perversion of what she'd been before and, watching Bedivere's father and others in the shadow of the naive girl-king she herself had once been, Caliburn under clasped hands, now simply another amid that carnage and helping tend to those she previously kept her back toward, Arturia better understood the monster she too would become--the unshaken ideal--to those very same.

... bleh.

Which brings to mind this neat article: A Reader's Manifesto

[SpoonyViking]

Hmmm... The fics I had the most fun writing were probably The Gift and The Sorrow of Kings. With both I had a clear vision of what story I wanted to tell, and I feel I managed to translate that story well into the actual text - though with The Gift I fear I may have gone a tad too purple at times, and I couldn't finish The Sorrow of Kings on time.
As for specific passages...

The Gift

Wordlessly, staring into the empty space before him, Cú Chulainn violently ripped the pendant Scáthach had returned from his neck. He looked at it for some long seconds before speaking to the air:

“Idiot. I didn’t give ya anything.”

He dropped the amulet to the ground, picked up his spear and walked away, tears streaming down his face.

It would be a long time before he cried again.

Passion Acknowledged

The friction between his insides and Emiya’s rubber-covered prick was painful, but there was also pleasure mixed with it. No – the feeling of pleasure was the greater, as the gnawing ache which still lingered in his soul seemed to subside, the constant craving finally satisfied. Jealousy, anger, worthlessness, all the mud stains on his heart had been washed away by that passionate tide; never had he felt as uplifted as now, when he had Emiya dick-deep in his ass.

And for He Was a Good King, I liked the parallelism I used of the king's heart pounding.