#“are you really putting something that is by your own admission mostly based in projection in the main tags?” you say

[recklessracoon]

Something that I draw on when writing Akechi Touma is the experience of losing contact with a friend and really wanting to see them again but knowing that I've mythogized them to such a degree that there's no way the real person would be able to live up to my memory of them.

I also think that Akechi isn't building Kusuo up for his psychic powers (except in as much as getting confirmation of those would be an extremely satisfying answer to his long time questions about the classroom incident) as much as he's building him up as a person who accepted him easily and completely.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND WIRED

There is rarely a single brilliant hack that ensures success: I learnt never to bet on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success. When we cook one up we're not always 100% sure which kind it is. The Web may not be. Some believe only business people can do this with YC itself. The floors are constantly being swept clean of any loose objects that might later get stuck in something. The really juicy new approaches are not the ones that matter anyway. Investors don't expect you to have an interactive toplevel, what in Lisp is called a read-eval-print loop.

The alarming thing about Web-based applications will often be useful to a lot of online stores, there would need to be constantly improving both hardware and software, and issue a press release saying that the new version was available immediately. Admissions to PhD programs in the hard sciences are fairly honest, for example. He said VCs told him this almost never happened. Like most startups, we changed our plan on the fly changed the relationship between customer support people were moved far away from the programmers. It's the same with other high-beta vocations, like being an actor or a novelist.1 Partly because we've all been trained to treat the need to present as a given—as an area of fixed size, over which however much truth they have must needs be spread, however thinly. Bootstrapping sounds great in principle, but this apparently verdant territory is one from which few startups emerge alive. When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another, and though they hate to admit it the biggest factor in their opinion of you is other investors' opinion of you. Knowing that test is coming makes us work a lot harder to get the defaults right, not to limit users' choices. Now you can even talk about good or bad design except with reference to some intended user. I can sense that.2 I don't know of anyone I've met.

How can this be? Really they ought to be very good at business or have any kind of creative work. And they're astoundingly successful. The Detroit News. In fact, it may not be the first time, with misgivings.3 The eminent, on the other hand, are weighed down by their eminence.4 And what I discovered was that business was no great mystery. Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all? Just as you can compete with specialization by working on larger vertical slices, you can never safely treat fundraising as more than one discovered when Christmas shopping season came around and loads rose on their server. Once a company shifts over into the model where everyone drives home to the suburbs for dinner, however late, you've lost something extraordinarily valuable.

Y Combinator and most of my time writing essays lately.5 It was only then I realized he hadn't said very much. Actually, there are projects that stretch them. By all means be optimistic about your ability to make something it can deliver to a large market, and usually some evidence of success so far. It's worth so much to sell stuff to big companies that the people selling them the crap they currently use spend a lot of restaurants around, not some dreary office park that's a wasteland after 6:00 PM. At Viaweb our whole site was like a bunch of people is the worst kind. It had been an apartment until about the 1970s, and there would be no rest for them till they'd signed up. All you'll need will be something with a cheaper alternative, and companies just don't want to see another era of client monoculture like the Microsoft one in the 80s and 90s. We can learn more about someone in the first place.6 If you try writing Web-based software will be less stressful. In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls ought to be out there digging up stories for themselves. Be able to downshift into consulting if appropriate.

You wouldn't use vague, grandiose marketing-speak among yourselves. Focus on the ones that matter anyway. If they hadn't been, painting as a medium wouldn't have the prestige that it does. These are not early numbers. C: Perl, Python, and even have bad service, and people will keep coming. But angel investors like big successes too. If someone had launched a new, spam-free mail service, users would have flocked to it.

Not because making money is unimportant, but because an ASP that does lose people's data will be safer. In a startup, things seem great one moment and hopeless the next. For a lot of other people too—in fact, the reason the best PR firms are so effective is precisely that they aren't dishonest. You can shift into a different mode of working. Maybe they can, companies like to do but can't.7 Fortunately, I can fix the biggest danger right here. It was not until Hotmail was launched a year later that people started to get it. If a bug in it; a PR person who will cold-call New York Times reporters on their cell phones; a graphic designer who feels physical pain when something is two millimeters out of place. I wish I could say that force was more often used for good than ill, but I'm not sure. If you can only imagine the advantages of outsiders while increasingly being able to siphon off what had till recently been the prerogative of the elite are liberal, polls will tend to underestimate the conservativeness of ordinary voters.8

This was apparently too marginal even for Apple's PR people.9 These were the biggest. Give hackers an inch and they'll take you a mile. Be flexible. When did Google take the lead? But if you were using the software for them. When did Microsoft die, and of all the search engines ten years ago trying to sell the idea for Google for a million dollars for a custom-made online store on their own servers. I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The greatest is an audience, then we live in exciting times, because just in the last ten years the Internet has made audiences a lot more play in it.

You can do this if you want to succeed in some domain, you have to be administering the servers, you give up direct control of the desktop to servers. A few steps down from the top you're basically talking to bankers who've picked up a few new vocabulary words from reading Wired.10 There is a role for ideas of course. And that's who they should have been choosing all along. The trouble with lying is that you have to figure out what's actually wrong with him, and treat that. Lots of small companies flourished, and did it by making cool things. As Fred Brooks pointed out in The Mythical Man-Month, adding people to a project tends to slow it down.11 Every audience is an incipient mob, and a lot of compound bugs.

Notes

Which is precisely because they can't legitimately ask you to acknowledge it.

A great programmer might invent things an ordinary one?

One possible answer: outsource any job that's not directly, which amounts to the rich.

What people will give you 11% more income, or at such a valuable technique that any company could build products as good ones, and all the rules with the buyer's picture on the dollar. By this I mean forum in the Sunday paper. 1% a week for 4 years.

Whereas the activation energy required to switch. If Bush had been with us he would have. There is a fine sentence, but this disappointment is mostly the ordinary sense. 1323-82.

And for those interested in investing but doesn't want to live. I talked to a group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I write out loud can expose awkward parts. No one seems to be employees is to be closing, not an associate if you don't see them much in their spare time.

Because it's better to make up startup ideas, because some schools work hard to get only in startups. But you can't mess with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v.

Which helps explain why there are no misunderstandings. If you like the Segway and Google Wave. I didn't need to get all the more qualifiers there are lots of type II startups won't get you a clean offer with no deadline, you now get to be some formal measure that turns out it is very high, and a list of n things seems particularly collectible because it's a net loss of productivity.

If he's bad at it. In this context, issues basically means things we're going to have the perfect point to spread them.

A Plan for Spam I used thresholds of. Google's site.

A deal flow, then their incentives aren't aligned with some question-begging answer like it's inappropriate, while everyone else and put our worker on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series A in the median case. Possible exception: It's hard to say that it makes people dumber.

[leam1983]

Cyberpunk 2077 Thoughts

Having perused Dark Horse Books’ The World of Cyberpunk 2077 over the past few days, I’ve gotten a better feel for the various basic hooks that structure V’s inception as a protagonist. The short of it is the Polish wizards are on the right path to nailing Pondsmith’s treatment the same way they nailed Sapkowski’s works.

Consider the following as half a brain dump, half a series of prospective spoilers, and also half projection, so either skip this, find some other entry to read, or come back to this come late November.

I know I mentioned three halves, but it’s late and I don’t give a shit.

I’m serious - DO NOT PRESS ON IF YOU’RE THE TYPE TO BLOW A GASKET IF YOU’RE INADVERTANTLY SPOILED. 

The latest Night City Wire as of August exposed three incipient “life paths”, or starting branches of V’s path. I’ll tackle my personal narrative approaches to them in the order of my choosing.

Nomads: CP2077 is set in a world where much of what we understand to define a family has been blown up, tossed around by climate change and nuclear fire and then stitched back together using grit, resourcefulness and the last dying embers of human decency. Nomads are less a group of people defined by blood relations and more a cadre of individuals that share something more significant than mere genes. It might be a common history, a set of shared hardships, a yen for similar automotive and engineering-related projects - whatever it is, that something pulls people together in ways Corpo rats and street kids will never experience.

This seems to define even the average Nomad’s degree of education. Surprisingly, Nomads are the most well-read group in Coronado Bay’s greater area, some caravans reportedly including entire RVs packed with books. Nomads generationally elect teachers and record-keepers and seem to care for those cultural remnants of the old world, before Pondsmith’s paranoid alternate sixties kicked off more than a century’s worth of technological progression and rampant dehumanization. To a Night City native, a Nomad’s speech patterns appear precious and uselessly florid, while they might appear almost normal to us - maybe slightly touched by the fact that Grandpa Joe or whatever really wanted you to have your Greek classics down before you were old enough to repair your first CH00H2 carburetor on your own.

That new, mega-clustered version of family matters immensely to the Nomads. You identify to yours the same way Orcs in Shadow of War might refer to their clan, or the same way a Scottish clan might design specific visual cues identifying its members. In normal circumstances, Nomads live, thrive and die in service to the clan - and the opening segment for V’s Nomad origins suggests that something happened to his clan. They’re gone, or so the narration says, without going into further detail. Is V responsible? We don’t currently know. As it stands, however, he is a lone Nomad in a clan of one, and soon finds himself pushed out of the Californian wastes and into Night City’s neon-drenched streets.

Seeing this, I considered the narration as an admission of guilt on V’s part. He feels responsible, and hopes that grinding his way to success will in some way atone for what he’s done. Consequently, my Nomad V would be as gruff as could be, but as moral and upstanding as the setting allows. He considers himself as having been invested with an example to set, and would intend to set his sights on more than just filthy lucre. Honest filthy lucre is what matters to him, if that concept even is possible: he might deal in unsavory types and illicit activities, but he always does so with a certain moral rectitude - as a tough and gruff, lean and stringy type you can occasionally catch in his battered Thornton pick-up truck with his feet up on the dashboard and a dog-eared copy of Plato’s Republic in hand. Jackie honestly wonders how he can put up with that Greek pendejo’s endless words and the lack of scrolling animations, while V keeps his Kiroshi optics’ News ticker locked onto grassroots Leftist RSS feeds that stoke a bit of an ignored Rockerboy ethos in him. Quoting Marx in Night City might feel like trying to teach lab rats in the finer points of string theory, but it at least feels genuine to him, compared to the predigested sociopolitical pap Militech, Arasaka and their ilk are more than happy to spew on the airwaves. 

There’s a lot to be pissed off about in Richard Night’s failed utopia, a lot of fat cats to gut and buildings to burn. Still, he leaves the glowering act and the churning rage to Johnny Silverhand’s imprinted ghost. Being more of a down-low, gun-toting choomba than a classic Street Samurai, Vincent “V” Carson thinks first and strikes second.

Vinnie isn’t much for electric guitars and anarchy in the UK, much less in the Free State of Southern California; but he does love the occasional Leonard Cohen ballad or the occasional shot of Johnny Cash’s melancholy. Having picked up something of a Northern Texas drawl while cruising, he might feel like Harry Dresden’s Good Ol’ Boy cousin, magic tricks here pushed aside in favor of a measure of dermal plating and a good ol’ fashioned twelve-gauge and revolver combo. Not being much of a techno-fetishist, he considers his optics and his skull jack as being begrudging concessions to an era that looks down on fully “ganic” types. Having grown up with TV serials and the occasional visor-based Braindance all depicting cyberpsychosis as something vile that utterly dehumanizes its sufferers, he’s naturally wary around anyone who seems a little too giddy with the prospect of taking a few scalpels to perfectly decent muscles and bones.

His Thornton is where most of his Eddies go, and yes, he’s named his truck Suzie. Suzie’s done right by him, and he’ll do right by her - unless someone else with a pretty smile and a working moral compass makes him swoon.

Street Kids: if you weren’t taught on the highways or in corporate arcologies, odds are you became a positive blip in an otherwise grim statistic, one of the myriad fucked-up kids raised by other fucked-up kids with more seniority than you. With no roads and paid-for nannies, you survived off of grifts, grit, violence, deceit, smarts and gumption - and that, in its own screwball way, creates its own blood ties. You’re wise by Heywood’s standards - streetwise, that is - and you speak the back-alleys’ lingua franca of threats, insinuation and casual intimidation like no other.

If only Jackie hadn’t fingered that Rayfield, huh? This beaut could’ve been paydirt! Well, at least for a week or so, judging by the fact that hundreds of car thefts are reported across Night City on a daily basis. At least, Dean - who also goes as “V” - got to make a new friend while out in the pokey, and managed to shake a few proverbial trees... They’ve got a short-lease in with Trauma Team’s frequency and could maybe hook themselves up with a sweet finder’s fee for anyone who’s on the verge of death at the hands of the city’s Scavengers...

Little does V know, that’s selling Trauma Team as well as their clients painfully short. Shows of gratitude don’t mean anything if you’re not packing the right social status. He barely remembers his birth parents as it is, and grew up the fifth grubby prospect of one of the Valentinos’ “school clubs” (hence the nickname) - where the points of study refer to the proper observances to be held in Jesus Malaverde’s presence, intensive Chicano and Spanish immersion, as well as the handling of common types of weaponry.

Vincent and Dean would be likely to shoot one another, if placed in the same room. One clings onto nearly-lost value systems, while the other commodifies what can be discarded like so much flesh - only inasmuch as his efforts to pacify his unofficial five or six abuelas force him to forego extensive modifications. His knives and wrist-mounted data port are his main tools of the trade, although Dean keeps his hacking creds along the bare minimum. Why bother, when melting an ATM’s ICE wall and whacking the cops with a baseball bat is all you need? There’s a type of gun for nearly anything else, if someone knows where to look...

Dean has no last name, and is consequently registered as “Dean Smith” in the city’s Census records. That doesn’t suggest, however, that he wouldn’t want to make one for himself. As he’s less focused on the city’s legends than on its kingmakers and pawn-movers, Dexter DeShawn strikes him as someone to emulate, watch and learn from - all with a decent degree of caution.

Being on top matters a little less to him than eventually pulling Heywood’s stings. With a little fear and a lot of persistence, Dean “V.” Smith knows that one day, he won’t go hungry on a weeknight. To that end, he’s certainly a hearty eater, here paired with extensive free-weight training regimens and the use of anabolic stimulants. Oh, sure, he’ll speak of family and blood like the best soldier festooned in Santa Muerte visual codices, but his friend Jackie’s got a mind like a slow and steady steel trap.

Either Dean blows his new fellow Street Samurai out of the pond, or he does. Unlike Jackie, however, Dean isn’t realistic about it. Friendships are a rare gift in Heywood, if not the rest of Night City, and Dean’s convinced that Jackie could conceivably look past his final betrayal.

Corpo: nowadays, we’re mostly familiar with the idea of one-percenters creating a bubble of affluence for themselves. Boarding schools, private villas, prebooked vacations across the globe’s priciest spots, access to the hottest trends on the minute of their inception - what this tends to forego is the level of social disconnect that’s required in order to stay relevant. We’re only just waking up to the consequences of letting an aging, crusty first-generation Yuppie be crowned the ruler of the free world, and even someone who’s behind on their Bret Easton Ellis could tell you that Donald J. Trump is a sociopath and a narcissist.

Take that mindset, and cultivate it into an ethos that’s taught to children from a very early age - children who live, eat, shit and breathe in accordance with their parent corporation’s tenets. The more placid, mid-tier lifers in the genre are called sararimen, in reference to William Gibson’s use of the term to designate low-level company workers in Chiba City. A bit like Shenzhen’s factory workers and execs, everything in a corpo’s life is in service to the corporation.

In Night City, as of 2077, two major players have installed this culture of total obedience in their roster. Their names are Militech and Arasaka. One is a juggernaut in the field of military-grade personal defence, the other has a wider grasp and reach, but is more fragile. Arasaka owes that fragility to the last fifty years having involved its re-establishment and reconstruction. Fifty years ago, Night City’s Corpo Plaza was blasted open by a thermonuclear discharge that sent the Japanese giant packing. The charges had been set by three Edgerunners: Rogue, Morgan Blackhand and Johnny Silverhand - accessorily a well-respected Rockerboy and front-line member of the band SAMURAI. Only Rogue survived that fateful night, or so the street lingo goes, having gone on to start a legitimate consultation business as well as a fruitful career in the hospitality business. Her bar, the Afterlife, is Night City’s hotspot for every techie, script kiddie and accomplished cyber-spelunker.

Our gal Vivian knows this. She knows this, because Vivian “V.” Banks lives two lives.

In one of them, she’s a lean and hungry Junior Executive in Arasaka’s Counter-Intel division. In that line of work, you either fuck someone’s prospects or protect your own, or ensure that no up-and-comer just out of the company’s Law School program manages to push you off the board. She knows full well that in centuries past, corpo-speak was made up of mild euphemisms that at best referred to destroying a rival’s prospects or lifelihood. Taking a life was something that required careful deliberation, especially when tossing a fat severance bonus into an aging CFO’s three-piece pockets and letting your erstwhile rival snort cocaine off of the rolling hips of Tahitian dancers was so much cheaper...

Nowadays, zeroing someone is commonplace.

You’re born for Arasaka, and chances are you’ll die for Arasaka just the same. Viv’s killed, lied, cheated and even stole her way to her position, remorse being this vaguely churning sense of coldness in her gut that keeps one-night stands coming in and out of her bedroom. She only remembers her parents as being credit-chip enablers and personal enhancement drug addicts, cutting ties with them so completely on the day of her official hiring that it felt more like a tacit understanding.

On most days, sex and booze keep the cold at bay. On most days, Vivian Banks is a class-act of a sociopath. The stronger she gets, however, and the more paranoid her targets become - which reinforces her own paranoia. Before long, playing the part of one of Arasaka’s several poisonous flowers won’t work anymore.

Unfortunately, she trusts no-one. No Fixer could put her in contact with any hacker she’d trust, no rando fresh off the street with a retro-tinted National Arms plinker would satisfy her. To climb up the ranks and maybe share tea with Old Man Saburo himself, she needs a spotless performance record. She needs skills.

More importantly, she needs a reputation. That means leaving Arasaka Tower and mingling with the experts in their own field - and it means filling out her back book of successful hits. The drinks at the Afterlife are decent enough, but what she’s after is an official in.

If she can get to Rogue, or maybe even hook up with a ripperdoc not bought and paid for by the company, she might be able to score both new skills and increased performance...

If it were as simple as slitting Janet’s throat in HR and diving her way to an orgiastic performance review quite innocently left on the department’s server, she would’ve done that already. Viv is my obvious Pure Stealth build candidate, my main-line hacker and would-be engineer with a thing for black power skirts and designer offensive augments.

With that said, we’re months ahead of schedule, all the good shit’s already come out, so we’re stuck playing the waiting game...

What are your own character or build ideas for Cyberpunk 2077?

[carmenlire]

I Miss You Only Sometimes

read on ao3

“What are we doing?”

Looking up from where he’d been replying to a work email, he takes in eyeliner that’s just as sharp as when they’d first entered the hotel room and can’t help but lift a brow. “Having fun,” he drawls before redirecting his attention back to answering a question about tomorrow’s board meeting.

“Just a little stress relief between friends?”

Without looking up, Alec huffs out a laughing scoff. “Exactly.”

Magnus turns back to him as he redoes his tie. His gaze is direct and part of Alec wonders if there’s a warning lurking in the brown. “And when one of us is no longer having fun?”

“Then we stop,” Alec replies easily enough as he tosses his phone on the bed and stretches before standing and reaching for his own now wrinkled pants.

“No hard feelings?”

Something crawls through Alec’s gut but he nods once, a little distracted, as he sees the time and realizes that he only has twenty minutes to get back to the office before he’s to meet with his marketing department.

“No hard feelings,” he echoes and sets to work on trying to tame his hand-mussed hair.

--

He’s swimming in this feeling, in the warmth that seems to radiate from the man leaning over him, trailing from manicured hands and whispering along his skin with reverent lips.

Or maybe he’s sinking.

Drowning.

He’s overwhelmed and when he feels those lips curve into a wicked grin before biting down on the juncture between his neck and shoulder, his moan is desperate as he shudders in a hold that’s as ephemeral as it is secure.

“Darling, you have no idea what you do to me.”

The voice is hoarse, almost a plea if he deludes himself enough.

Over the rush of blood in his ears, he hears the low words of praise that follow and distantly, he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t let himself get so lost in another body, in this body, but he’s well aware that rules have no business near Magnus.

Not for the first time, he surrenders to the feelings that light up his bloodstream. All he can think of as Magnus digs fingers into his hips, as nails scrape down his side, is that it’s not enough.

He wants everything Magnus has to give and more.

Words slip and he’s perilously close to begging as he arches against Magnus. “Make it hurt,” he mutters and he’s barely aware of Magnus freezing above him, of the way his breath shudders in his chest as he hears Alec’s words.

“Alexander,” he asks quietly and Alec opens hazy eyes to focus on what he wants most.

“Want to feel you,” he whispers, trying to pull Magnus closer. “Want to remember this.”

Alec’s heart is a riot and he can’t catch his breath as he watches the way his confession washes over Magnus. Magnus blinks, trying to regain some semblance of rationality, before his gaze darkens.

Eyes falling closed as Magnus rests a hand over his heart, Alec’s hyper aware of Magnus’s voice and the way it’s tone is promise laden.

“Are you sure, darling?”

Alec’s nodding before Magnus’s is even finished speaking. Something calms in him as Magnus’s hand drifts to lay at the base of his throat. Anticipation makes him lightheaded. Too strung out for more, all Alec can do is repeat his simple request, making sure that they both know what he wants.

“Make it hurt. I like when it hurts,” Alec says again and his cheeks flush at the admission, at the unmistakable thing he wants.

But he opens his eyes to see Magnus looking down at him with what he’d almost call affection, if it wasn’t for the cruel shadow behind his eye.

Alec swallows hard but the tension bleeds from his spine as Magnus nods once and ducks close to lay an innocent kiss against his ear before he murmurs, “Red if you want me to stop, Alexander. In the meantime, brace yourself. I’ll make it hurt so good.”

His body feels too small for the feelings rising in him and, again, Alec wonders if he’s drowning or soaring.

--

His heart hurts but it’s mostly background noise these days. It’s almost impressive, he thinks, that these feelings don’t swallow him whole.

He wonders how many more times he can do this before his heart just turns to ash and blows away like so much dust. He must’ve given Magnus every piece of his heart by now-- he feels empty enough for that-- but goddamnit if he isn’t the idiot that keeps going back for more.

Waving his key card over the lock, Alec takes a deep breath before pushing the hotel door open. If the choice is between carving his heart from his chest to steal a few hours away with Magnus or giving him up altogether, then it isn’t really a choice at all.

However, when he steps into the room, instead of seeing Magnus already in bed or, as he’s wont to do, working on his laptop until Alec arrives, the man in question is standing in the middle of the room.

He looks a little lost but there’s a resolve in the set of his shoulders that Alec’s only ever seen across from the conference table.

“Magnus?”

Turning around at the sound of his voice, Magnus smiles but it’s nothing more than attempt, falling flat almost as soon as his mouth curves.

“Alexander.” Before Alec can open his mouth, he continues, “We need to talk.”

The room cloaks them in silence that’s a little deafening. Alec prepares himself for a long winded speech but he should have known that Magnus would surprise him.

“I think we should stop this, whatever this is.”

A dozen replies spring to Alec’s tongue but only a single word passes his lips. “Okay.”

Looking a little taken aback, Magnus falters for a split second before he raises a single brow and echoes, “Okay?”

Wracking his brain for what he can say-- and there’s so much that he wants to say, all these pretty words about how he only feels alive when he’s with Magnus, about how Magnus makes him want to try something real, about how he likes Magnus more than he should and how he might even go so far as to say he loves--

Well.

Too late now, Alec thinks and surprises himself with just how useless that realization is now, when Magnus has just called this entire thing of theirs off. Alec’s known as a bit of a coldhearted bastard and wryly he reflects that most would probably be surprised at his baser reaction to what’s become the end of his steadiest relationship.

There’s some pathetic sort of irony there, he’s sure, but fuck if Alec can find it right now.

Shrugging, Alec pulls on well practiced apathy and smiles, just a little. “We agreed from the start that we would end things as soon as one of us wanted to. I’ll always respect your decisions, Magnus.”

Nodding once as he parses over Alec’s words, Magnus returns his smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, this was easier than I thought it’d be.”

He takes a step toward Alec, toward the exit, and Alec gives him his space, allowing him to pass. Eyes landing on his back, Alec clears his throat just as Magnus steps into the hall.

“Why,” he asks. “Color me curious,” he tacks on coolly, trying to hide just how desperate he is for an answer, for a reason why a chasm is growing in his chest.

Magnus doesn’t look back and the silence stretches until Alec can hear the echo of it snapping. Finally, so quiet that he barely hears, Magnus replies.

“It’s not fun anymore.”

He walks away and Alec’s left in an empty hotel room wondering why the hell he can’t ever seem to get it right.

--

He might be a little drunk.

It seems like everything’s come crashing down at once. He’d thrown himself into work since that little scene at the hotel last month but he’s caught up on all of his projects and he was starting to piss even himself off with avoidance.

His apartment is empty and he blames the rain for the way he feels both alone and lonely.

Scoffing to himself, he pours another glass and watches lightning crash against the skyline. He supposes that it’s about time that he had a normal reaction to what was, essentially, a break-up, even if they had never been official.

Maybe he could’ve come clean before the end, maybe if he had told Magnus that things had stopped being fun long before that afternoon, that it had stopped being no strings attached almost from the start, then things could have been different.

Or maybe, he thinks, it’s no one’s fault but circumstance. They both lead busy lives and they’d both agreed at the start that feelings could never come into play. It was Alec’s responsibility to keep his heart in check and his failure to do so has nothing to do with their little arrangement growing stale in Magnus’s eyes.

Frowning into his glass, everything’s blurry at the edges, in the way things only get when Alec desperately, hopelessly, wants to escape.

His head’s a fucking minefield.

Laughing to himself, Alec figures he should probably have his shit together more than he does.

It hits him, maybe for the first time or maybe for the hundredth, that he could’ve tried harder. But then, he’d tried more with Magnus than he had with anyone else and look where that had gotten him.

Maybe he’s just not built for relationships, Alec wonders, and knocks back the rest of his whiskey.

His stomach is warm and it burns all the way down.

He’s never been in love before but he thinks Magnus had to be his first. He’d never cared for someone so much, never wanted to put in the effort that he had with Magnus. He’s not good with feelings that can’t be pinned down but if there was a checklist on How to Know If It’s Love, then Alec figures he’d check most of the boxes off.

A lot of good it did him now.

Taking the evening to delve into these messy feelings that he’d really rather continue avoiding, Alec decides that he’ll pack them back up in the morning. He’s always been good at that, at putting his feelings into tidy little packages and making sure that nothing spills over.

Still, that means he has until he gets to the bottom of this goddamn bottle to try and work through his shit so Alec does what else he does best.

He acknowledges his feelings, labels them neatly, and resolves never to let them see the light of day again.

--

He leans against the railing and watches the water. It’s a calm spring day and he’s alone but not lonely. There’s a comfort to his own company that he’s never found with anyone else.

Alec doesn’t think he’ll ever find this quiet contentment with someone. He’s always been his own best company. A spot of stillness in the city, he sinks into himself with an easy sigh.

Business is good. Life is good.

Things are looking up and as always, it’s upwards and onwards. It’s been most of a year since things ended with Magnus and Alec wonders that it’s like nothing ever happened.

Alec’s life is his own, just as he likes it. No one else has caught his eye and he doubts anyone will.

In the quiet moments, though, it’s easy to get lost in his head. It’s only ever during these little moments of solitude that Alec catches himself thinking what if.

His mouth curves into a smile. It’s a little sad but a part of Alec wonders if that’s just adulthood-- stacking up regrets against reality and finding the balance that lets him manage his sanity.

Huffing out a breath, he watches the river below. Lost in his thoughts, he murmurs, “I miss you only sometimes,” and figures that’s better than most.

It’s only these in between moments that graze over Alec’s idle loneliness.

Alec’s a grown man and his life is as fulfilling as the next person’s. He doesn’t need someone else to light a fire under his ass and complete him.

He figures contentment is easily managed with the occasional lingering thought on what Magnus is doing, if he’s happy, if he ever thinks about Alec with the same melancholic whimsy.

Shaking his head to clear the dismal thoughts, Alec turns away from the river and starts to walk back towards home.

Phone on silent, he doesn’t notice the text message that comes through.

It’s a spark easily snuffed. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the match that burns the whole damn place down.

I miss you.

[nomanwalksalone]

A LIFETIME

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

One of the joys of custom clothing, they used to say, is that is supposed to last forever.  Any English teacher would immediately ask, who are “they”? The reassuring voice of others that lured us down this path, the sybarite chorus of lazy fashion journalists and bored copywriters, repeating every few articles or press releases the same tropes about a kind of clothing that had become both incredibly rare and, generally, deterrently expensive a few decades ago. So rare, so expensive, that they suggested any order of custom clothing was an epiphany of the classic, style as arbitrated by middle-aged men behind shears who would make your clothes last so long that your descendants would be wearing them, suitably nipped and tucked to fit their dimensions, but otherwise an enduring physical manifestation of the platonic ideal of the suit.

Custom clothing must be made to last a lifetime, or many lifetimes, the articles, tailor websites and PR pieces asserted, because why else would someone seek it out?  The default clothing choice was off-the-rack, seasonal fashion, and 16 years ago the suit was barely beginning its trip back to relevance.

I believed it. Consigning my very first bespoke suit last week made me think again about those beliefs, the expectations and assumptions I had when I began ordering bespoke clothing.  I’d found my tailor through his association with another, more well-known tailor, quickly submitting myself to his garrulous East London-accented phone calls where he cockily asserted that he’d still be tailoring for me in 30 years. I wanted a suit – one suit, I thought – that could be custom, with all the perfection of cut, style, construction, material and fit that that term connoted to me at that time.  One, I thought, and done: one suit for a workplace that was mostly business casual, that I could wear to important meetings or ceremonial occasions.

I was mostly wrong.  Wrong to think that custom means perfection, transformation or revelation, wrong to think one single garment could actually satiate, let alone saturate, my taste for the thing despite those failures, wrong to think I could get exactly what I wanted, wrong to think I knew what I wanted…

… And yet… When I thought this would be the one suit that I had made for me, I had thought so hard about all the baroque details I wanted it to have.  To his credit, the tailor had diplomatically explained why certain of my requests were impracticable, alpaca not being a common material in suit cloths, and tagua nuts (based on something in The Tailor of Panama, which I was reading around that time) a less suitable button material than honest horn from RJ Weldon.  An array of books of cloth swatches from mostly English-sounding companies I had never heard of overwhelmed me.  He steered me away from names I did know from their flashy ads, like Dormeuil or Loro Piana, to a cloth that really would be suitable for a garment that would last a lifetime: the mid-weight wools of the old, lamented H. Lesser, springy, sturdy, lustrous.  

I had to have a silk lining put in, even if I had read that flashy lining colors were quite not the thing. It took me over a decade to let my freak flag fly in the face of that imposed discretion.  I chose a dour burgundy colored silk for this suit’s lining in order not to seem gauche to those spectral judges whose articles I’d assimilated.  

I likewise tried to apply all the other things I thought I’d learned about button stance, “nipped in waists,” and all the rest in placing my order. The tailor, thank goodness, suggested I let him figure out where the buttons would be placed on the suit, as well as how defined he could make the waist of my suit, and all the rest. He gladly agreed to the other details I’d always wanted, like side adjusters on the trousers, double vents, plain trouser bottoms (no cuffs), slant pockets – all the things that to me at the time suggested bespoke and British.

It arrived about eight months after my order – several fittings later.  Whether a custom suit lasts a lifetime, its making can take ages in fashion terms, thanks to the time needed to make it, fit it and adjust it.  It used to be that even good tailors could make and fit a suit over the course of a week if a customer was in town and specially requested it.  There generally aren’t enough flexible free hands on staff to accommodate that now, at least not at a tailor I would trust.  And as I suggested, putting it on for the first time forced me to realize that there was no transformation, no immediate elimination of all my physical shortcomings and no phoenix-like rebirth of my best self from the ashes of the money I’d burnt.  No tailor can, really – particularly not at the first order.  It reflects what the tailor thought you wanted, and sometimes what you wrongly thought you wanted too.

It’s a hard reconciliation.  Maybe that’s why I kept trying, for a more perfect realization, getting the shoulders the way I wanted over a few more orders, the slant in the pockets pitched just right after a couple of extremes.  All the ridiculous pedantry that I thought custom was supposed to indulge.

A lifetime.  This suit had accompanied a significant part of mine, career moves that took me to business-formal environments that justified ordering more suits, and admissions to myself about what it was I really did want – in suits, in work, in life. Some of those clashed with each other, frankly.  Loving suits, I now think sadly, is as much a manner of loving our chains as liking nice briefcases.  But in a suit I love, I still feel greater, complemented by some extension of my best self.  

No longer do I really feel that way in this suit, though.  Not so much through its shortcomings, although most of us would find something we ordered 16 years ago a bit different from what we like now, to say nothing of a bit snugger.  It ran its course with me, and while it still fit, I no longer felt I had a place for it in my wardrobe.  I no longer wore it, because it no longer felt like me… beyond its warp and weft of nostalgia.  

So to a new owner, hopefully someone who can project his own thoughts, expectations, hopes onto this canvas, new to him, a respeaking, as my friend dirnelli might say.  After all, it has a lifetime in front of it.

[cullnstm]

            hi  everyone  !  my  name’s  koa  ,  i’m  21+  (  with  a  birthday  coming  in  t - mius  four  days  🥴  )  ,  and  i  absolutely  love  any  form  of  cheesecake  so  please  ,  i’ll  take  it  via  amazon  fresh  for  my  birthday  .  this  intro  for  my  son  has  been  vastly  overdue  ,  and  i  apologize  !  i  finally  feel  much  better  after  slipping  into  a  slight  funk  ,  but  i  finally  up  to  writing  his  intro  (  and  don’t  roast  me  ,  it’s  the  exact  same  one  from  another  rp  but  it’s  fine  )  and  so  here’s  everything  you  need  to  know  about  mister  cullen  !

            [  ALEX  FITZALAN  /  ALETHEIA  /  ANADEIA  /  MUSE  13  ]  /  CHRISTOPHER CULLEN  is a  21  year old  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  major.  HE  is known for being  NONPARTISAN  &  AUTHENTIC  but  MACHIAVELLIAN  &  UNSYMPATHETIC  .  when  i  think  of  them  ,  i  imagine FEMINIST  ENAMEL  PINS  LITTERING  HIS  BACKPACK  , THE  LINGERING  COLD  THAT  FOLLOWS  AFTER  HE’S  GONE  ,  AND  MASTERING  THE  ART  OF  FAUX  INTEREST  IN  A  CONVERSATION  .  and  even  though  they’re  a  proud  HU  student  now  ,  we  all  have  our  roots  .  theirs  run  back  to  them  being  a  NEWCOMER  .  i  asked  around  and  it  turns  out  they  ARE  an  AOP  student  .  in  their  interview  ,  they  managed  to  woo  the  admissions  team  by  SHARING  A  VIDEO  OF  HIS  BEST  ARGUMENTS  FROM  HIS  TIME  ON  HIS  HIGH  SCHOOL’S  DEBATE  TEAM  .

statistics  .

FULL  NAME  :  christopher  patrick  bartholomew  cullen  .

NICKNAME(S)  :  chris  ,  topher  ,  and  toffie  (  by  his  little  sisters  only  )  .

BIRTHDATE  /  AGE  :  september  15th  ,  1998  /  21  .

ZODIAC  :  virgo  .

HOMETOWN  :  darien  ,  connecticut  .

GENDER  :  cis  male  .

NATIONALITY  :  american  .

ETHNICITY  :  white  caucasian  .

HEIGHT  :  5′9″  .

LABEL(S)  :  the  zealous  and  the  connard  .

ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION  :  biromantic  .

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION  :  bisexual  .

OCCUPATION  :  political  science  student  at  hatchet  university  .

LANGUAGES  SPOKEN  :  english  ,  latin  ,  and  conversational  spanish  .

POSITIVES  :  desirous  ,  spellbinding  ,  ingenuous  ,  nonpartisan  ,  and  authentic  .

NEGATIVES  :  worrisome  ,  machiavellian  ,  cocksure  ,  unsympathetic  ,  and  narcissistic  .  

background  .

            patrick  cullen  was  a  wide  eyed  and  bushy  tailed  first  year  law  student  who  knew  he  wanted  to  make  a  change  in  the  world  .  from  the  get  go  ,  he  knew  that  he  wanted  to  be  a  criminal  defense  attorney  as  he  was  not  a  rich  kid  by  far  and  saw  that  there  needed  to  be  a  change  in  the  american  justice  system  .  it  wasn’t  easy  for  him  by  far  ,  and  he  was  the  student  who  needed  to  work  throughout  college  in  order  to  make  ends  meet  ,  but  he  wasn’t  going  to  let  that  deter  him  from  his  goals  .  during  his  first  year  in  law  school  was  when  he  met  a  political  science  graduate  student  named  stephanie  daniels  .

            stephanie  was  made  up  of  unruly  blonde  curls  and  an  australian  accent  ,  but  she’ll  still  debate  you  until  she’s  blue  in  the  face  .  coming  from  a  wealthy  family  ,  stephanie  found  herself  constantly  being  told  one  of  two  things  :  she’d  either  be  the  perfect  housewife  or  the  perfect  mother  .  determined  to  change  that  narrative  ,  stephanie  went  through  college  with  the  best  grades  and  she  was  not  idle  to  being  interrupted  by  the  men  who  attempted  to  speak  over  her  .  stephanie  is  a  woman  who  knew  what  she  wanted  and  she  was  determined  to  get  it  .

           so  ,  when  she  met  patrick  at  a  party  she  told  herself  she  wasn’t  going  to  attend  ,  their  worlds  flipped  on  their  heads  ,  but  in  the  best  way  possible  .  their  first  date  was  filled  with  gentle  laughter  and  it  wasn’t  at  the  fanciest  restaurant  in  town  ,  but  they  enjoyed  themselves  nonetheless  .  despite  their  major  differences  ,  the  couple  managed  to  make  it  work  and  following  two  years  of  dating  and  engagement  ,  patrick  and  stephanie  married  .  despite  patrick  coming  from  a  poor  background  ,  there  was  never  a  reason  for  the  two  to  not  be  together  –  it  was  evident  with  the  way  that  they  looked  at  one  another  from  the  moment  they  met  .

           as  the  years  passed  ,  patrick  found  himself  working  at  a  law  office  while  quickly  rising  in  the  ranks  while  stephanie  ran  for  city  council  .  during  that  same  year  ,  patrick  and  stephanie  welcomed  their  first  child  ,  a  sweet  baby  boy  named  christopher  .  their  son  was  the  apple  of  their  eye  ,  and  they  absolutely  loved  having  him  in  their  lives  .  from  the  get  go  ,  christopher  had  always  been  around  his  parents  and  around  their  political  ties  .  christopher  was  always  found  attaching  himself  to  his  parents’  pant  leg  as  they  worked  to  provide  him  the  life  that  he  had  in  darien  ,  connecticut  .

           more  years  passed  ,  and  their  world  changes  again  as  stephanie  is  elected  as  congresswoman  for  the  state  of  connecticut  .  for  christopher  ,  who  was  ten  at  the  time  he  saw  the  world  change  for  the  first  time  since  his  parents  were  now  in  the  public  eye  and  there  was  suddenly  security  detail  around  their  home  .  christopher  while  growing  up  ,  though  ,  found  that  this  was  exactly  what  he  wanted  out  of  life  ,  as  weird  as  they  may  sound  .  he  liked  what  his  mom  did  ,  and  he  liked  seeing  what  his  father  do  with  ensuring  that  the  justice  system  was  held  accountable  for  their  actions  .

          when  christopher  was  in  middle  school  ,  not  only  did  his  parents  welcome  his  younger  twin  sisters  cassandra  and  courtney  ,  but  this  was  when  he  started  his  development  into  someday  becoming  a  president  .  middle  school  was  when  he  began  joining  student  organizations  and  even  developed  his  love  for  lacrosse  .  during  high  school  ,  christopher  continued  with  lacrosse  as  midfielder  and  was  elected  as  student  body  president  during  his  sophomore  year  .  he  knew  from  the  get  go  that  he  wanted  to  be  someone  who  made  major  differences  ,  so  while  he’s  making  his  way  to  someday  being  mr  .  president ,  for  now  he  was  more  focused  on  ensuring  a  place  at  a  college  .

           now  a  student  at  hatchet  university  ,  christopher  is  studying  political  science  as  he  has  plans  on  attending  law  school  once  he  graduates  .  he’s  president  of  the  student  association  ,  vice  president  of  speak  to  lead  ,  and  a  midfielder  on  the  lacrosse  team  !  when  it  comes  to  the  fact  that  he’s  an  aop  student  (  and  pertaining  to  his  subplot  )  ,  a  lot  of  people  don’t  think  he  got  into  hatchet  based  on  his  own  merit  since  his  parents  are  extremely  influential  and  his  spot  could  have  easily  been  bought  .  christopher  really  makes  no  effort  to  tell  people  the  truth  since  he’s  convinced  that  they  won’t  believe  him  anyways  ,  so  lets  people  have  their  rumors  .

headcanons  .

he’s  on  the  lacrosse  team  and  plays  the  position  of  midfielder  .  he  only  ever  learned  latin  because  it  made  sense  to  his  parents  so  now  he  knows  a  dead  language  that  only  ever  works  when  he’s  reading  difficult  books  or  traveling  !

has  his  driver’s  license  but  he  doesn’t  really  drive  .  he’ll  get  an  uber  if  he  needs  to  go  far  distances  ,  but  he  likes  being  able  to  walk  places  since  his  dorm  isn’t  far  from  different  campus  locations  .  

topher  spends  most  of  his  time  outside  of  his  dorm  ,  and  usually  doesn’t  get  back  until  late  at  night  .  his  days  start  really  early  for  training  and  practice  ,  then  he  has  classes  pretty  much  all  day  and  he  likes  to  study  right  after  .  of  course  ,  he  has  his  student  association  meetings  and  then  he  goes  to  the  gym  so  he  probably  only  gets  a  wink  of  sleep  before  he  starts  all  over  again  .

he  doesn’t  like  leaving  his  apart  without  being  put  together  ,  and  it  mostly  stems  from  being  a  congresswoman’s  son  !  his  style  is  mostly  made  up  of  chinos  ,  long  coats  ,  turtlenecks  ,  chunky  sneakers  ,  and  a  gucci  belt  to  flex  .  

he  can  make  people  worry  about  him  sometimes  ? and  it’s  mostly  because  he  will  literally  go  days  without  answering  phone  calls  or  texts  ,  but  then  he’ll  pop  back  up  like  nothing  ever  happened  .  he  really  does  hate  how  much  he’ll  make  people  worry  about  him  sometimes  ,  but  that’s  the  d*pression  doing  all  the  talking  .

personality  .

since  he  has  really  big  ambitions  for  himself  ,  christopher  can be  really  overbearing  at  times  .  he  hates  when  things  don’t  work  out  for  him  and  he  really  hates  when  people  try  to  overstep  .  he  definitely  is  the  guy  who  takes  over  group  projects  and  assigns  people  a  part  because  he  wants  things  to  work  as  smoothly  as  they  can  .  he  can  be  pretty  charming  as  explained  by  his  aesthetics  :  he’s  mastered  the  art  of  having  a  faux  conversation  with  someone  so  sometimes  he  might  not  be  truly  listening  .  he’s  getting  the  important  parts  and  then  that’s  what  he  works  off  of  .  he’s  not  that  way  with  his  friends  ,  though  .  i  can  promise  you  that  .  he’s  the  most  chaotic  boy  on  the  entire  planet  and  will  definitely  find  a  way  to  ruin  your  life  if  he  wanted  to  .  despite  all  of  that  ,  though  he’s  a  jock  at  heart  !  when  he’s  with his  friends  he  can  be  really  laid  back  and  all  about  enjoying  himself  in  the  now  .  

desired  relations  .

for  specific  plots  ,  i’d  love  for  him  to  have  his  best  friend  !  the  person  who  really  knows  him  the  best  and  can  tell  when  he’s  truly  dealing  with  something  .  topher’s  a  crier  because  toxic  masculinity  is  not  a  thing  ‘round  these  parts  ,  so  get  ready  for  him  to  show  up  being  a  soft  boy  .

i’m  really  feeling  a  one  night  stand  with  some  substance  ? like  yeah  ,  they  have  their  fun  together  but  they  don’t  pretend  to  not  know  each  other  in  public (  unless  they  have  like  a  fierce  rivalry  going  on  or  something  )  so  they  probs  tend  to  be  a  little  like  confidants  at  times  but  it’s  still  them  having  fun   !

give  me  a  plot  where  they  full  on  hate  each  other  .  no  lingering  feelings  ,  no  soft  moments  –  give  me  a  full  bred  spicy  hate  ship  that  literally  gets  your  blood  pumping  .  it’s  all  i  want  in  life  ,  thank  u  .

something  soft ?  something  really  sweet  and  enough  to  make  my  freaking  teeth  rot ?  i  don’t  know  something  literally  anything  just  give  me  the  softness  that  i’ve  been  craving  for  my  boy  .

[buri-art]

Wuqiao Acrobatics World

A few years ago while trying to keep my Mandarin skills in tact, I saw a short documentary about Wuqiao, Hebei Province, said to be the birthplace of Chinese acrobatics, and where all the villagers can at least do some acrobatics (I treat that saying with a big grain of salt, but phrases like this do have some impact on local identity). For my last six-day backpacking trip in China, I planned it around going to Wuqiao for a day trip and seeing this circus-y place myself. 

I’ll start out by saying that if you don’t speak Chinese or feel very comfortable getting around in a place that speaks no English, I wholeheartedly recommend going with a tour group from Beijing or Tianjin if you want to go here yourself. The venue is designed for groups with coordinated performance times and dependable transportation. I found this out through trial and error and missed a few morning performances that way. Sniffle! 

Anyway, if you search “Wuqiao” in English most of the results will be the same short article on multiple websites and several tours designed for foreign travelers from Beijing, so while I don’t have a specific recommendation, I can say that Chinese tour guides will vary a lot and as long as you have  a small group, you’ll have an easier time getting a good guide who will be flexible to your interests. So now onto my June 19, 2018 experience!

Sometimes when people talk smack about tour groups, they say it’s because they want to the see the “real” things, not touristy things. I see where this comment is coming from; sometimes a superficial run-around of a handful of packed locations that the locals never go to and then hours spent being shoved into gift shops is going to make it feel like you learned nothing in a foreign country except for the stresses of international travel. However, as someone who has worked in foreign tourism before, I want to point out a couple things:  1. If you have a good guide, you’re going to get a far more awesome experience than you might have been able to plan on your own. You’re not lame for enjoying the good (and often amazing) services of a tour operator who cares about giving you a good time.  2. In China, you’re getting something “real” anyway. That was one of my biggest impressions of this very dilapidated tourist venue. 

“This is so China,” I thought. 

To boil the past several decades of Chinese economic history down simply, China has lifted millions of people from starving to having disposable income (it can’t be understated how large of a feat this has been, though poverty is still a significant issue). When a population goes from “most people are so poor that everyone stays put” to “whoa, we have... money?? Um... let’s do fun stuff! Let’s go places!!”, this is what gives birth to the development of domestic tourism. And China, as you might guess, is chock full of amazing landscapes and historical locations. 

China got this great idea: Now that people are making money, let’s make them spend money, so we can make more money! 

China, more so than any other place I’ve been, will find any way it can to monetize a tourism destination. Is there a cool rock? Put a fence around it to obstruct the view, make people pay to see it. Is the lake too big to put a fence around it? Have Zhang Yimou make an “Impression” show there and have people pay to see that! Too big of an area to charge admission at each spot? Block off the whole area and add some nifty transportation options inside. No possible way to block it off because the historic area is in actual daily use? Call in the vendors, kids, we’re still going to make something off of this!

Yes, I’ve been to places with free admission, and often I only stopped in because they were free admission. And I rather liked a lot of those free places, yes. But in general, if you’re traveling to see something, you’re going to pay to see it, even if it means paying admission to even get closer to a village. 

But that means building stuff to justify it being something to see and spend money on. That means, with extra money suddenly available to you and/or pressure from above to make something snazzy and brag-worthy really fast, you build a lot of things. Domestic tourists have come to expect big fancy stuff, and construction makes this world (or at least this country) go round!

And then you do the press reports. Take some good pictures. Have people make a cool documentary. Welcome the tour groups, stay busy while the place is shiny. 

And then let it fall into disrepair.

There are many tourism facilities in China which are really, really nice, and kept that way. But there are also not only tourism projects finished and then abandoned, or slowed indefinitely partway. This is pretty “real.” It’s not just tourism; this is very “real” for a lot of China’s rapid economic development and construction projects, even entire new cities that they couldn’t get anyone to move into. 

So yes, by coming to Wuqiao Acrobatic World, you’re getting a very real experience of what modern day China is like, especially outside of the biggest cities or especially famous tourism facilities. 

But you know what makes that awesome? The people here were so much fun to interact with. 

Before leaving on my trip, I told some Chinese friends and coworkers where I was going, and they had never heard of Wuqiao. When I told them about it, some reacted in horror that I’m interested in acrobatics. “But it’s so sad,” one friend said. “The kids go through so much pain to train like that.” 

Yes, the performance arts and competitive sports worlds of China have a long and ongoing history of this. But I also really, really like watching circuses. If someone loves their art and works hard at it, then I want to watch them, I want to be impressed by them, I want to reward that hard work by giving it my attention. I’ve had some fun experiences in the past with helping backstage when grassroots level diplomatic groups of performers went to my college in the US or in the city I worked for in Japan, and I’ll never forget how spirited those Chinese contortionists were, and how easy they made being bendy look. 

So anyway. In all this preamble I haven’t even gotten to my travels yet. I took a morning train in from Tianjin and with only some little red tuk-tuk like cars with three wheels available for transportation, I went with a guy who gave me a ride for 5 RMB (about 77 US cents). He was a nice old guy who also picked me up later right on time for my return that afternoon. But, uh, one of the doors of the little vehicle wouldn’t close. 

It’s a short ride, but not really walking distance, especially if you only have about six hours to spend there. The town is still mostly farming community, on the platform of the train station you can watch people take care of sheep and stack up dry reeds. The town is hot and dry in summer with smooth traffic, wide roads, and no tall buildings. I arrived at the Acrobatics World on a weekday morning with no line to get tickets and enter. 

There were a few scattered people who stared and whispered (loudly), “Whoa, it’s a foreigner,” a phrase that after a while either bounces off of you completely or piles up on you so much that by the end of a trip off the beaten path you think your trapezius will snap if you hear it again. I found buildings under construction and a temple, and because many tourism facilities have temples built into them, I assumed I’d politely go straight through it. Not so! Turns out you go around this one, which I would have had no idea about had a woman not approached me and told me so. 

So, with no one in sight (an odd sight in and of itself at a tourism facility in China), I went hunting for the acrobats. 

I hunted a long time, saw a few people here and there. Passed a few people making noise in what looked like a wuxia version of a renaissance festival fairground, but according to the maps, I decided to press northward, looking for, well, whatever  it was I was looking for, or at least trying to figure out what all was there. 

Well, like, nobody, basically. A few people here and there, but mostly some lonely statues in various groupings around a wide park, some architectural pieces ignored and serving no purpose, some poorly kept animals (I chose not to check out the “Funny Zoo” area), but mostly big expanses of nobody. After living in a place like Shanghai for a while--a place unkind to introverts--you come to really appreciate those periods of nobodyness, and walking around this place had the same sort of bizarre allure of photos of abandoned, flooded shopping malls.

This would be such a great spot for hanfu photoshoots with nobody in your way! But I’d need someone to take the photos, something to wear in the photos, and a much better hair day than I was having on that whole trip. 

Anyway, based on the size of the building, I had assumed that I reached the “main spot” I was aiming for, whatever that was. 

This was a combination of performance space and museum, so I started at the museum. When I approached there were a couple women hanging out on the red queuing gates, not quite doing acrobatics, but not keeping their feet on the ground either. They were surprised to see me, and I asked if I could go in, and they were like, “um... okay,” and turned the lights on inside. I asked if I could take pictures, and they said yes. While enjoying myself in the first room of the winding exhibits, I heard them talking to each other and saying, “She asked if she could go in. Then she asked if she could take photos.” What I wish I would have overheard them saying would have been something like, “What the hell is she doing over here, doesn’t she know that the only action taking place in this whole facility is going on as scheduled over in the Jianghu Culture City ren-faire-ish-place?” But I heard no such thing, and enjoyed the museum in ignorance. 

As far as Chinese museums are concerned, they’re a very mixed bag, but I rather liked the contents of this simple, small one. Everything had good English translations--and by that I don’t mean clear and grammatical, but actually useful content that puts what you’re seeing into context. Here are a few bits I liked: 

Not all of the rooms were as interesting as others; and although I have a passing interest in how Chinese circus is used diplomatically, I didn’t have enough of one to stay in those exhibits for long. I was starting to get the sense that I was missing out on the performances. If I felt less rushed and was there with friends, however, I probably would have had a great time in this room, with this corner of traditional circus props, easily in arms’ reach and not mounted in place. 

Nothing said not to play with them, but nothing said that it was okay to touch them either. I decided to err on the side of doubt. After all, assuming such things in the past had lead me to get bitten by a penguin. 

Back to acrobats, I zoomed through the very empty painting and gift shop (if it can even be called that) rooms, where the people working there did not even look up from their phones. After that I found where they keep the horses (poor, skinny horses... let’s not even get to those bored, chained monkeys I saw later with nothing and nobody around to prevent a wandering tourist from walking right up to them--I imagine that could have been more disastrous than my encounter with the penguin). Then I found--what?? People??? What’s more, it was like a group of moms and a couple little kids watching some teens in capes on a round stage, the Red Peony stage. I asked if I could watch, and finally, these people told me what I wish someone would had told me in the first place: 

All the performances are scheduled in different locations. The Jianghu Culture City has the morning and late afternoon performances, and the northern buildings and horse track have the early afternoon shows. Ohhhhhh, no wonder. 

So I hurried over to where all the smart tourists and their group guides were; watching this guy. 

I only caught the tail end of his act, and from the looks of the stage he must had been smashing bricks with his face or something earlier, who knows. He climbed down the handles of the swords at the end of his act, but if I had gotten there earlier, I assume I would have seen something like this: 

Hmm. Not super sharp at tourist-reach, but still, ouch. 

Immediately after that everyone shuffled over to this tent for some other folk acrobatics by a little troupe: Some lovely ladies young and not-as-young, some burly men, a dwarf, and a guy from the audience picked out for the knife-throwing show who had the build, expression, and haircut of a circus performer himself. He was at the other shows that day too, so I don’t suspect he was a plant. Chinese men just have some weird haircuts, that’s all. 

Couldn’t really get good pictures in there, but you had a girl sitting on a chair balanced on a swinging trapeze, a routine with blocks complete with juggling and handstands and flips, the aforementioned knife-thrower who doubled as the clown of the show, a jar juggler who catches the big jar on his head and neck, a jar juggler who spins a much, much, much, much larger iron jar on her feet that three burly men needed to lift together, and this lady doing what you see here: 

A note here about those tour groups---they were overwhelmingly made up of middle age men. I did see a few families with small children, some younger couples, and a fair number of women mixed with the men, but the groups of men who all knew each other was striking. Maybe I just happened to go on a day when they were planning big outings, who knows. 

After that, there was a very, very small “performance” in this little back-alley area of the Jianghu Culture City, where there were many performance areas with signs stating the folk artist and their performing times, but with seating areas filled with, well, seats that they had probably pulled out of other areas and had not yet taken to the dump. 

That said, some of the area felt downright homey. I was the only person over there at first when a lady was about to do her sales pitch--I mean, “performance” explaining that they were selling fans decorated with the origins of the 100 most common Chinese surnames. Many of the men bought them for 30 RMB each ($4.61 USD). I got one for my roommate since her surname is rather uncommon, she hadn’t seen something like that before and found it interesting. 

Anyway, the lady there was very friendly, and insisted I put my heavy backpack down on her chair so I could relax while looking around (she also insisted I leave it there while enjoying my afternoon, but I declined). She would have been the right person to meet right away when I got to the park, she explained the whole schedule of the park (which I had mostly figured out by then) and helped me to plan how to make the best of my time left that afternoon, and she walked with me part way to the only place to get food in the whole area. She was on her way home for lunch, she said. Everyone working there is local and all the performers go home for lunch, except the director, who often has to show VIP guests around. Since she was so cheerfully talking about the place and clearly took pride in this being their local claim to fame (I got that sense from a few other people too), I considered asking if it was true that everyone could do at least a little acrobatics. I decided against asking, but kind of wish I had. 

If you do ever get there and want to make sure you get to the see every performance offered from the moment the park opens, you do have the option of staying at the Red Peony Hotel! This is really your only option for food anyway. The staff was very friendly (and not overly friendly, so I could thankfully eat my meal in peace!), though I can’t say the food or ambiance was anything special, even for a tourist facility. 

The fish sauce tasted like ketchup. 

It was a really long lunch break. I imagine that’s when wiser people would have walked around the odd groupings of statues and architecture of questionable purpose in the park, or gone to the museum to play with hula hoops and throw ceramic jars at each other. I went out to the empty horse track to reapply sunscreen, smell the nature, listen to birds, and gaze into the lotus pond. And frown at how skinny the horses were. 

The Red Peony theater opened at 1:30pm. There was a very small line; I was one of the first people there and got a good seat in a round theater that looked like it could hold up to 200 audience members. People continued to trickle in for 25 minutes. They were starting late that day, they said, blaming it on either having VIP tour groups who take their time or having foreign performers who take their time. For twenty minutes they played a Backstreet Boys song on repeat, and I looked at the apparatuses around the stage--a small Russian swing, three aerial hoops of different sizes, a couple silks, a triple-wheeled Wheel of Death (does it have a different name when three people are cheating death?) behind a curtain, a large net hung up out of the way, and some set pieces that looked like a wooden ship set to either side of the stage. After twenty minutes of Backstreet Boys they played the entirety of Hotel California before starting the show. 

They had signs forbidding photography and Yours Truly is a rule-follower even in China where these silly rules about video recording are flat-out ignored even at Cirque du Soleil performances, so I doodled the show on the train a few hours later. 

This was no Cirque du Soleil, let’s be clear about that. It was more like the community theater version of a Broadway show; everyone was doing their best but items were unintentionally dropped and costume pieces flew off, but everyone was encouraging because the kids were doing their best. 

Let’s look back at a few parts of that sentence:  1. Encouraging audience: Chinese audiences can be extremely frustrating to perform in front of, because they are so likely to chat among themselves or play on their phones--I charitably chalk this up to a cultural difference that historically elevates the pleasure of the audience over the hard work of performers, but it still drives me crazy in my current job that involves training kids to do things in front of audiences. That said, this works in another way--when a Chinese audience is engaged, they’ll be very, very engaged, and even if these performers were dropping their stuff, they still kept the audience’s attention and smiles and applause, so it’s all good. 

2. Their best: Sure, they weren’t the sort of performers I’d expect to see if I paid the big ticket price to go watch the Shanghai Circus, which is primarily geared toward foreign tourists. But they are still insanely skilled and have obviously poured hours and hours and hours of their life into this. Also, very importantly, many (but not all...) of them look like they truly enjoy it. As a point of comparison, I went to the Shaolin Temple eight years ago, and the whole little town of Dengfeng surrounding it was filled with schoolyards of boys from all over China studying there to fulfill their kung fu dreams. The boys in the temple, however, are often problem children sent there for discipline. I watched the show they put on, which the adults are full-on performers for. The boys also performed amazing stunts, but the whole time looked like they were sick and tired of tourists and having to do the same flips and feats every day. It was unintentionally funny to see such bored, sour looks on their faces as they were soaring through the air. The performers in this show did see themselves as performers and acted like it--though the expressions came much more naturally to some than others. 

3. Kids: Yeah, no two-ways about it, the vast majority of this cast looked very, very young. This includes both the foreign troupe and the local Chinese kids. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if none of the local performers in this show were adults. Even the stage crew looked like they were all teenagers. 

My friends’ words about “aren’t you sad for them, having to do all that painful training?” rang through my head during a couple of the performances in particular. The five contortionists smiled charmingly and performed without mishap, but I was very afraid that someone was going to break in one way or another. Their bodies shook with both unbalance and strain, and sitting that close to the stage, I could read some “uh oh” in their faces at times. The rollerskating show was charming at first with the pairings of what looked like high school boys with elementary school boys, all of whom kept a gracious performer’s attitude the whole time, even with small mishaps. At the end of the act they spun the little boys around by cords on their necks (like the graceful aerial hoop duo had done in a less startling way). Despite being really impressed, my stomach churned with pity for them. 

The foreign troupe had quite a mix as well of veteran and less-veteran performers, and some mishaps here and there, but overall good shows. They seemed a little casual and self-managed, like one of the kids who performed earlier in the show snuck out into the middle of the audience later to watch his buddy and then sneak backstage again. I had to wonder about them too--how long were they going to be in Wuqiao? Did they go to other places around the world too? Did they choose the circus life, or did the circus life choose them? 

Before getting dragged too deep into wondering about the darker sides I know exist behind something I love watching perhaps a little bit more than the average person does, the clown came out. 

The very, very, very white, platinum blonde clown. 

She and the person in a polar bear suit did a charming, although not particularly funny or impressive routine, but what struck me most was how naturally she lit up being on stage, and that she might had been told in clown schools that she was “too pretty” to be a clown (something I recall hearing about happening to many young women who try to go into that). What was really captivating about this clown was that it was like she wanted more than anything to be a clown, and she looked like she was having the time of her life. 

At the end of the show the performers all came out to, well, not do a final bow persay, but wave at all the tourists on their way out to go to the “Home of the Demon Hand” theater across from the Red Peony Theater. I let things clear out before standing up, and the clown saw me, locked eyes, and very smilingly said, “AMAZING!!”

Amazing to see another lone white girl there, I’m sure. 

We were both on our way out in opposite directions, but we had the following conversation:  Me: Where are you from?  Her: Ukraine! Me (pointing to the guest performers heading backstage without her): Where are they from?  Her: (wild look over her shoulder, a look back at me, a giant shrug and nervous laughter)

We waved and then went our separate ways, but I wanted to say, “Come back here, girl, give me your life story.”

Instead I went to the next show and squeezed into what I thought would give me a good view of the sleight-of-hand tricks that old’ Demon Hand was apparently famous enough for to have his own theater hall. 

The 74-year-old man in a silk outfit (the top of which he later took off to prove he had nothing up his sleeve) and ponytail started the show by very, very firmly insisting on no photographs, but they had the option of getting a logo’d photograph with him before the show. A small crowd of people, mostly middle age men but a spunky younger woman too, went up and forked over their cash. 

To be honest, I got really irritated for the first ten minutes or so of the show. He was a gifted performer, yes, but he was more of an improve comedian who talked a big game (his sleight of hand tricks were impressive, yes, but they made up a very, very small portion of his show). Furthermore, I couldn’t see very well around the guy in front of me, so I had to lean forward and to the sides. It was so much trash talk with men in the audience that I couldn’t follow very well (my Chinese is good, but not enough to understand all the humor), and it wasn’t very possible to stand up and leave without calling a huge amount of attention to myself. 

Call attention to myself I did anyway. 

As part of his goading the audience, he invites skeptics to come crowd around him and watch him closely to verify his tricks. I stayed put, not really in the mood for all the talk and just wanting to see some impressive tricks to justify my staying put. Well, he saw me, and pointed everyone’s attention in my direction, and I had to announce where I was from, and he ordered me down to his side to watch. 

So I sat directly next to him and had to play along with the “I’ll show you some real Chinese kung fu!” bravado and do my best to answer any quick questions he shot at me to answer, like “how many are under the cup?���. 

He made some men bet their cigarettes on a few tricks, and was accumulating a stack of cigarette boxes on the table. The number of people standing, sitting, and squatting around him dwindled. I awkwardly stayed put because I knew he’d call me out if I tried to escape, so better that I stayed there and ready to quip back the next time he quipped something at me. And yeah, I totally had a better view of the tricks and could appreciate them a lot more from the table-eye view, so it was my luck that I was the one foreign face in the room. 

Toward the end of the routine he dared anyone in the rowdy audience to come sit in his chair and do the tricks themselves to make a bet. No one did. 

He told me to sit in the chair. 

I half-way expected that. Thankfully I can play along well as the casual “I just came here to have a good time, I don’t know what you’re making me do and I never asked for this, but okay, tell me what to do” young foreign beauty* there to make the show more interesting for the audience. 

*(This is how the locals describe me, and they often insist on taking photos with me. Often without permission. Often when I am looking my worst from days of backpacking in hot weather with tired looking skin, extremely unruly hair, and practical although unflattering outfits.)

He asked me to place a bet, but I think we had some difficulty understanding each other’s Mandarin, because he’s got a thick local accent and I have a foreign one. 

Him: You don’t smoke, do you? Place a bet for something else.  Me: Me? Him: What do you want? Food or something?  Me: ...how about something sweet?  Him: Money!? Me: No, sweets... Him: No no no, we can’t do money. Come on, there’s no point if you don’t bet anything. Hmm. Tell you what. If you win, I’ll make you my ghdrtsmplwssz.  Me: (His what???)

I have no clue what he said. My guess is something along the lines of either “disciple” or “bride.” 

Well, the coolest part was that he had me hold one little styrofoam ball in my hand, and next thing you know, I had two of them in my hand, and that was pretty impressive, enough to make the whole show’s worth of trash talk worth the experience. 

And then he had me stand up with him and he thanked me as the audience applauded, and he introduced me as his ghdrtsmplwssz, everyone clapped, and then he hugged me a few times from different angles so a couple sides of the audience could see my face. I played along with a wide-eyed “what the hell is going on, save me” look. 

And then he went in for the smooch. 

I can do the “pure innocent maiden who blushes at the sight of a man’s lips” routine really well. Plus, practicing martial arts makes me really fast at blocking incoming attacks like this that I have faced at a few times throughout my life, so the dramatic hand in the air, lean backwards, and turned maidenly face were all automatic rather than calculated. 

We repeated this a few times, with the lean getting more comically pronounced each time. He tried to insist that this is what they do in America (like the hug), but my maidenly virtue won out in the end, and he graciously played it off and gave me the send off back to my seat in the audience. Sorry dude, I’m stubborn about kissing strangers.

After that was the horse show. I skipped it and went back to the Jianghu Culture City to catch some of the repeats of morning shows I missed. 

Which was really only one. A lady saw me walking around and tried to help me plan where to be at the right time, in a helpful, non-pushy way (I am so grateful when I get this mix of helpful and non-pushy). The only other show I had time to see was Chuipotian, the suona (horn) performer. His bio introduces him well: 

It was a short show with just a few audience members, including a couple women who wanted photos with me and a girl who looked around one year old who kept wandering off so her dad had to chase her while mom enjoyed the show. I found his crosstalk with the audience a lot more enjoyable than Demon Hand’s, though I had to stay on my toes to make responses here too. 

As for the sound of the suona, it’s like a screaming duck. If you’ve ever seen Beijing Opera, you can probably recognize its sound. (I don’t think it’s used as much in southern opera styles. On that note, I find southern styles more melodic.) It was a fun cacophony of a show. 

He mostly used smaller ones, this just makes for the funnest photo. He also included some non-instrument related tricks, like taking a lit cigarette from someone and doing tricks with the smoke, swallowing the cigarette, and pulling it out of his ear, still lit. All while reminding you that smoking is harmful to your health. 

Immediately after the show, the ladies with him pulled me aside and started teaching me his catchphrase. They caught on through the crosstalk and a little conversation before the show that I’d be a good person to do a little social media routine for them, saying “(Something I could not for the life of me understand but sounded catchy), he’s the real deal from Wuqiao, CHUIPOTIAN!” After rehearsing it several times to make sure I got it right, and the woman in red holding the camera directing me to just be big and fun with it, we recorded it with me standing next to him, looking into the camera, and pointing at him. They were all very pleased with my good work and looked forward to uploading it. 

They were super nice and fun to talk to (there weren’t any other immediate performances to watch while everyone else was still at the horse show), and Chuipotian gave me his business card so we could be friends on WeChat, but within ten minutes of taking my leave I dropped it. Good thing I’m not a juggler. 

My friend the 5 RMB driver with the one functional door met me right at the appointed time, and people chilling at the train station were also very aware of me. They were a great mix of kind and looking out for me, but not all up in my business. I appreciate it greatly. 

And then I left on a crowded, cheapest-seat car of a train that would take over three hours to reach Tianjin. I had enjoyed the day and all the people I got to interact with the (even old Demon Hand, I guess), but being an introvert, I was grateful to have the chance to chill and make the above doodles in my notebook. 

But then people figured out I understand Chinese and started chatting with me. 

For three straight hours. 

To be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the position to play a vehicle of foreign exchange for hours and hours at a time, and it can be fun, but it’s such a relief when you can rest. 

And rest I did, on the night train I switched to in Tianjin to get to my next stop on the trip. I slept pretty well for it being on the cheapest berths, stacked three-high with little more than the average Chinese man’s body width. After maneuvering on the top berth with my heavy backpack, I felt like a pretty good circus performer myself. 

[entergamingxp]

Rocket Arena Review — Remarkably Unremarkable

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

Rocket Arena is a hero shooter that tries to make a mark, but doesn’t do nearly enough to help itself stand out.

The hero shooter subgenre is an odd one.

It’s not an oversaturated market, at least not yet, but instead, one that’s so dominated by a select few successes that it’s an uphill battle for any new game to come in and gain a foothold. For every Overwatch or Apex Legends, there’s a Battleborn and LawBreakers to match.

Rocket Arena — a debut project from Final Strike Games that released Tuesday under the EA Originals line — is the latest hero shooter looking to make its mark. But with minimal fanfare leading up to launch, a questionably high price of admission, and time spent playing a game that feels so derivative and uninspired, it’s a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.

“[Rocket Arena is] a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.”

Rocket Arena’s foundation is built with an amalgamation of elements from other games. Online shooter with a colorful, Pixar-esque art style? That’s Overwatch. A K.O. meter that fills up and sends opponents flying off the map after taking so much damage? That’s Super Smash Bros.

The 3-v-3 team setup? Although it’s likely a means to help differentiate from Overwatch (6-v-6) and Valorant (5-v-5), the format, and the name Rocket Arena in and of itself, brings it awfully close to Rocket League. Hell, there’s even a handball-like mode to bring it closer with a sports-focused angle. And while we’re still at spotting influences, one of the playable hero’s special abilities feels like it’s pulled right out of Splatoon.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with taking inspiration from other games. It’s just that Rocket Arena doesn’t do anything new or interesting with ideas it’s pulling from. The aforementioned gameplay mechanics and rules function almost exactly like they do in the respective games that established them, leading it all to feel like they’re just included because they’re popular and familiar, not because the development team saw a way to expand or put a unique spin on them.

That isn’t to say Rocket Arena doesn’t try to do anything original. Its biggest selling point is that it’s a rockets (i.e. projectiles) only shooter, which on paper might sound cool. In practice, it’s quite literally hit or miss.

It takes some getting used to when you first start out. Most shooters make use of hitscan for the bulk of their weaponry (rifles, handguns, shotguns, basically anything that uses bullets), having hits register instantly so long as the aiming reticle is on target when you fire. Then projectiles (rocket launchers and grenades) are added in to help break things up, usually as secondary or special weapons that carry a blast radius, but need time to travel to their target. It’s risk vs. reward. If you connect, you can do tons of damage to one or multiple opponents, but you throw or pull the trigger knowing you might miss completely since they’ll have time to get out of the way.

Since Rocket Arena forgos hitscan almost entirely in favor of all projectiles, every shot has to be deliberate in order to consistently hit anything. At launch there are 10 playable heroes of varying skill sets, who each have their own weapons that come with different levels of forgiveness. For some, all you need to do is put a rocket within an opponent’s general area to connect, while others I’ve found you need to be dead-on with. And in the case of one hero, Plink, his automatic weapon is the closest that comes to conventional hitscan, which I found myself falling back on a couple times when I felt like things really weren’t going my way.

“The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere.”

There is a practice mode where you can take all the time you need firing away at bots to get acclimated with the game’s mechanics and find the hero or heroes that best suit your playstyle. I still found myself going back and forth on whether the rockets-only approach was a good idea or not once I jumped into online matches.

Small maps, the 3-v-3 format, timers, score limits and relatively fast respawn times are all there to keep rounds moving quickly and players constantly involved. Genuinely interesting means of traversal help out on this front, too. Shooting the ground below you mid-jump will give you an extra boost, and firing downward at a wall repeatedly will send you climbing up it in a way somewhat similar to Mega Man X’s triangle kick. It gives maps an extra layer of verticality, opening up chances to do a quick survey of the area or get the drop on opponents.

It’s mostly in combat itself where things felt like they were falling apart. Trying to anticipate an opponent’s movements and lead shots often felt like it was slowing the action down, and perhaps because the game just launched (at the time of this writing, Rocket Arena has only been out for a couple days), I’ve seen shootouts tend to devolve into just firing away and hoping for the best.

The game launched with five modes. Knockout, basically the Rocket Arena variation of Team Deathmatch; Rocketball, the aforementioned handball-style mode where goals are set up at the opposite end of each map; Treasure Hunt, a two-part mode that starts with competing for possession of a treasure chest (in simpler terms a game of keep away), then turns into a scramble to collect as many coins as possible; Mega Rocket, where teams fight to capture control points across the map; And Rocketbot Attack, a co-op horde mode. There are multiple ways to play and find success without having to deal damage thanks to the mode variety. Still, it doesn’t absolve Rocket Arena from the issues I’ve had so far with its gameplay, and the modes themselves have been seen before in dozens of other multiplayer shooters over the past decade, to the point where playing them here hardly feels like anything more than going through the motions.

Rocket Arena will reward you for mastery. Gameplay-wise, you can pull off techniques like comboing opponents off the map without filling up their damage meter through consecutive hits (another note taken from Smash Bros.). And in terms of progression, every hero has 100 levels of rewards, with experience going toward cosmetic unlocks like outfits, VFX trails, and parts for customizable banners referred to in-game as totems. Time spent playing also unlocks and levels up what are called artifacts, of which you can assign up to three to a respective hero to either boost certain attributes or reduce respawn and cooldown times.

That said, if the core gameplay isn’t enough to keep you going, progressing the heroes won’t do much to remedy the situation. The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere. The story and lore put behind them also, frankly, is nothing more than shallow justification for how a world can have pirates, magicians, dinosaur hunters, and underwater kingdoms co-existing all at once.

“Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised… I just found it to be really dull.”

Completing ranked and social matches also accumulates Rocket Parts, one of Rocket Arena’s two methods of in-game currency, which can be put toward purchasing specific cosmetic gear. The other is the paid currency, Rocket Fuel, which serves the same purpose. Yes, this game does have microtransactions.

On top of that, Rocket Arena has an upfront cost of $30 minimum for its standard edition (the base game only), and $40 for its Mythic edition, which comes with extra outfits, VFX trails, and enough Rocket Fuel to pre-order the game’s season 1 Blast Pass (a roughly $8 package that comes with more cosmetics and a temporary XP boost).

Maybe in isolation, there could be an argument to justify the game’s pricing model, and to its credit, the hero this season is adding will be free to everyone. The hang-up I have with it is that this game was published by EA, the same company that helped put out Apex Legends, one of the more popular hero shooters and battle royale games out there…and that’s free-to-play. By comparison, Rocket Arena is asking for way more for something that, to me, is way less exciting.

Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised — provided there wasn’t something else to it outside of that few minutes the game was given during the EA Play showcase a month ago — I just found it to be really dull.

It pulls from established ideas you’ve already seen elsewhere, and the one unique hook it puts at the forefront isn’t near stable enough ground for it to stand out.

The whole thing is just forgettable.

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable

[cristixntm]

𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭  𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧.

[ XAVIER SERRANO / POLYTROPOS / CAERUS / MUSE 36 ] / [ CRISTIANO MONTERO ] is a [ TWENTY-ONE ] year old [ BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ] major. [ HE ] is known for being [ CHARMING & CLEVER ] but [ INSOUCIANT & INSENSITIVE ].  when i think of them, i imagine [ A CHEEKY WINK FROM ACROSS THE BAR, LATE NIGHT ‘U UP?’ TEXTS, THE CLENCH OF A JAW BEHIND A COCKY SMIRK, RICH BOYS DON’T HAVE HEARTS ]. and even though they’re a proud HU student now, we all have our roots. theirs run back to them being a [ MHP ( AQUA ) ] graduate.  i asked around and it turns out they [ AREN’T ] an AOP student. in their interview, they managed to woo the admissions team by [ PRESENTING A FIVE-FIGURE INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO THAT WAS STARTED FROM $10 ]. i guess that’s all there is to know! unless…

howdy hey frands! i’m jocey ( 24, she/her, est ) & this is my trash son, cristian. not me reusing an old intro and still getting this up late……. mmYEP luv that for me! if you would like to plot, hit that like button & i’ll come your way or feel free to hmu on discord ( jocey#9154 ).

full name : cristiano javier montero de barra nickname : mostly goes by cristian age : twenty-one sexuality : heterosexual hometown : madrid, spain / los angeles, california high school : marble hill prep ( aqua house ) HU house : polytropos major : business administration extracurriculars : eleusinian circle ( legacy ), soccer ( centre forward )

cristian is the second and youngest born to javier montero and alisa de barra. his dad is the CEO of montero properties, the developer behind many big name casinos and resorts around the world, while his mom is an actress who starred in several spanish telenovelas and hollywood films.

originating from spain, the montero family had always been a familiar face in the media, with both cristian and his older sister having large followings on social media. the montero’s had a reputation for living extravagantly and lavishly, and often flaunted their 1% status.

out of the whole family, arguably the one with the most controversial reputation was cristian — one of the heirs to the montero fortune, fuckboy extraordinaire with an impressively long list of ex lovers, and all around entitled trust fund brat ( whEW hate that!! ). taking full advantage of his family name, he was always seen at the exclusive events and partying, even hooking up, with some well-known names.

but with the family name also came the expectation to be the picture perfect son and the responsibility to carry on the family legacy. unfortunately, parents never quite get exactly what they hoped for from their children, do they?

if there’s one thing you should know about cristian is that he will never do anything if he felt forced into it. his parents learned early on that hiring a good PR team and shipping their son off to a boarding school ( marble hill prep ) was easier than forcing him to behave. the fact that cristian’s dad was a MHP and HU alum and the montero’s family were big donors might have helped to keep him from getting expelled on one or two occasions.

still, to some extent, cristian did the bare minimum just to keep his parents off his back and his bank account essentially bottomless. he got good grades ( whether it was completely based on his own merits was a different story ), showed up to important events ( granted he was always drunk and late ), and charmed the pants off of interviewers and his admirers ( sometimes quite literally ).

attending hatchett unversity was just another thing that he did to keep his trust fund ( or so he says ). and who was he to turn down the good ol’ college experience? it was also the perfect way to keep his side business ( read: drug ring ) going.

running a boarding school turned college drug ring was never exactly something he’d planned on doing. like with most things in cristian’s life, the opportunity sort of just fell into his lap and he decided to run with it. call it a bored rich kid thing, but there was just something about earning his own cash in such a risky way that made it that much sweeter.

while those who know cristian may be aware of his connection to this drug ring, most assume that he’s just dealing and/or using his rich boi connections to bring in customers. only a select few know that he’s actually the brains behind the surprisingly well thought-out operation, and he prefers to keep it that way.

cavalier fuckboy with a heart of gold… ( underneath a shit ton of asshole layers, that is ) basically summed up cristian. he always puts out this very lazy, devil-may-care image of himself, and acts like someone who could not give two shits about anyone other than himself. call him a selfish asshole and he’d probably agree with you. but when it comes to his closest friends, the ones he considered to be his real family, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for them.

most write cristian off as this spoiled, reckless and directionless loose cannon, who maybe had one braincell on a good day. but underneath it all, he’s a lot smarter and more calculating than many people give him credit for and believe it or not, actually does think things through. but he believed that expectations just led to disappointment, so it was better to not have anyone expect anything of you. hence the perfected facade he’s kept up for as long as he could remember.

he is, however, not so smart when it comes to his love life and is notoriously bad at juggling his booty calls. as in, getting all their names mixed up, and running into a booty call number three, who he’d ghosted, when he was with booty call number five. but then again… could it all just be an act to get out of any and all potential relationships? who knows?

WANTED CONNECTIONS. most connections are open to multiple people filling it, unless it’s crossed out. and ofc i’m always open to any ideas not listed here!

RICH BOI SQUAD ━  they’re those guys. the popular, rowdy bros who are always seen together, they throw the best parties and cause a bunch of mayhem together. honestly just a bunch of obnoxious alpha dudes who think they’re hot shit.  taken by kennedy king

#1 SINCE DAY 1  ━  cristian’s best bro since the beginning of time ( or close enough ), who’s been there through all of his constant shenanigans and wild times.  taken by felix könig

BEST GAL PAL  ━  probably one of the few girls cristian’s managed to not try to hook-up with, or constantly flirt with. someone who helps him remember the names of all the girls he’s hooked up with plz lol. it’s rare that he’s protective over someone, but he’d absolutely throw hands for her if needed.  taken by caroline fitzgerald

CONFIDANT  ━  someone who actually knows cristian very well and sees through his lazy rich boy act. one of the very few people who he’s completely opened up to and genuinely cares about not fucking up their friendship.  taken by florence trask

MOM FRIEND  ━  basically a mama bear who looks out for cristian and may be one of the few people he actually listens to. doubles as his moral conscience/good influence when he wants to do dumb rich boy things.  taken by giada vitale

PSEUDO SIBLING  ━  they have a sibling-like relationship, where he’ll annoy them sometimes and they mom friend him. but they’re always looking out for each other.  taken by odette könig

CHILDHOOD FRIEND  ━  someone he grew up with. they could still be friends to this day, maybe they grew apart, or maybe they never really clicked.

UNLIKELY FRIEND  ━  the last person you’d expect to be friends with cristian. possibly met during a school project or something, and they realized that he’s… actually… not that bad?? despite what everyone says about him and his reputation, y/m sees that he’s not really as big of an asshole as he comes off and is actually kind of tolerable one on one. kind of.  taken by dorian garcia

FAVOURITE ANNOYANCE  ━  they got on cristian’s nerves at first, but eventually, they grew on them. whether he admits it or not, they do have some kind of friendship and deep down, he does enjoy their company.  taken by astrid mae

DEALERS  ━  basically dealers who work for cristian, who is the supplier. he may seem like a clueless hot mess, but rest assured, he takes care of his own. as long as that loyalty is returned.  taken by felix könig

ON & OFF  ━  cristian has had a lot of flings and hook-ups, but this person has been the one constant in his life. their “relationship” ( if you can call it that ) is kinda messy because he ( and maybe she as well? ) won’t commit, but is also surprisingly chill.

HOOK-UPS / FWBS  ━  whether you like cristian or not, people can’t really deny that he’s good-looking rip. he’s known to have a bit of a roster of girls that he hits with those late night booty-calls/texts.  taken by diana radcliffe

PAST HOOK-UPS / FWBS / ONE NIGHT STANDS  ━  homeboy has been around the block and back more times than he can count on two hands, so he’s definitely got a long list of ex-luvas. especially ones who hate him cuz he’s the worst™.  taken by isadora banks, daphne moon

ENEMIES  ━  cristian’s the kind of guy who easily has a lot of people who don’t like him. he practically has no filter, so his big mouth and careless words are bound to rub some people the wrong way. or maybe he screwed y/m over to save his own ass.  taken by belinda torres, camille jung

[peepgamecomix]

Comic shops don’t care about Indies

I came across this article by Comix Central: Comic Shops Open Up About How to Get Your Comics on Their Shelves. And it bugged me.

These were comic shop owners and managers giving an honest account on why Indies don’t succeed in their shops.

But something under the surface just kept nagging me until I came to this conclusion: Comic shops aren’t for Indie Comic Book Publishers.

And this article by Comix Central and others like it actually explains why.

The questions Comix Central asks are pretty benign. It’s the responses that range from scathing to bipolar that caused me so much ire.

I’ll walk you through it.

QUESTION 1: Any Insight into why certain titles seem to take off compared to other titles? What seems to misfire?

So here they are supposedly helping Indies by explaining to them why they fail in comic shops when in reality it seems they are just explaining why they HATE indies so much. Describing them as, “3rd rate DC/Marvel/Image/Dark Horse wannabe books…Overall, crappy art, lame writing, uninspired storytelling. In many cases, you can judge a bad book by its cover.”

One guy says, “It’s like Batman except his butler is a girl! Whoa.”

So all that’s really established here is that Indies don’t sell in comic shops because most retailers believe Indies suck.

News Flash! They are supposed to suck!

Most Indies are first time publishers who typically don’t have the technical knowledge or the resources to create a top notch book. So grading a title based on a set of standards they may not achieve in the short term seems counter productive from the start.

Note to first-timers. No one nails it their first time out in anything. Most creatives suck for years before hitting their stride.

But more importantly, If you are using your access to comic shops as a gauge of how good you are you’ll never succeed because they typically are biased from the start because you are self published.

Which brings me to the next question.

QUESTION 2: How does the person responsible for ordering make their specific choice of titles and the quantity they order?

This is very telling here. Pay close attention.

Want to know why there is no room in comic book shops for your “sucky” Indie book? It’s because they are over run with sucky comic books that happen to be prettier and published by bigger names.

When a retailer says, “we order based on what is pre-ordered mostly, and…based on mainstream exposure and hype,” that means all that talk about “quality” is just a lame excuse not to support an Indie creator.

By their own admission, retailers don’t have an accurate guage as to what really sells because they just don’t know. They are trusting that publishers and websites like Bleeding Cool and Newsaramawill tell them what will sell. And they regergitate that hype to their customers hoping it sticks.

So DC/MARVEL tells the shop which book/series is hot and they believe them. [Insert Secret War/Secret Empire joke here.]

That being said, I can appreciate Benn Ray’s honesty when he lays out all the stuff he refuses to buy. Notice, it covers 90% of the Indie publishing eco-system:

“If the book looks like a wannabe DC/Marvel superhero book, I’m not ordering it. If it’s a hokey-looking genre book, sci-fi/ fantasy, I’m not inclined to order it. If I’ve never heard of the publisher, the writer, or the artist, it’s unlikely I’m going to take a chance on that book. If the art looks poorly computer colored, computer-generated or the story concept seems hackneyed, I’m probably not going to order it. If the art looks “manga-inspired” I’m probably going to skip the book.”

QUESTION 3. In terms of sales does anything stand out to you as remarkable from the past few years, as far as indie publishing?

If I haven’t proved that comic shops are no place for Indies wait until you hear this.

None of the retailers in this article could name an Indie title that stood out to them as “remarkable” in terms of sales. Or just plain “remarkable”.

And to add insult to injury, Dave Micheals says, “I don’t know if this counts but I would say the resurgence of Archie and the whole relaunch of the Archie line of comics shocks me.”

I’m not knocking Archie’s hustle but they’ve been around since 1939! Indie they ain’t.

And maybe we are getting into some semantics here as to what exactly is “Indie”. That’s an arguement for another day.

What stands out to me is their inability to point to any Indie project within their own shop.

Mentioning Image and Valiant is cool I guess but there was an opportunity to share their favorite small press project in their store and they totally missed it.

QUESTION 4: Any advice or suggestions as to how someone with a self-published book would best go about getting it on comic book store shelves?

So after explaining to Indies why they won’t make it in comic shops Dave Michaels offers this piece of brilliant advice: “go to local comic shops and ask them to put your stuff on the shelf. There are not many stores that won’t support local content. Make friends and fans and get out there!”

Unless, of course, the shop owner is Benn Ray. (Refer to his tirade above).

The only real solid advice comes from Jim Drucker who advises Indies to:

A. Have a ground breaking idea B. Have a strong social media presence C. Have the necessary capital

Translation: Don’t walk your sorry ass up in this shop until you’re ready!

Which is actually a valid point.

Indie creators should take the time to perfect their craft and figure out what works; build a fan base that will support their work; and secure the necessary funds to make their dreams a reality.

Unfortunately, I don’t think comic shops are the place to accomplish that.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN BIAS

It would probably be a pretty narrow one. I went because I wanted to know everything.1 Or to put it more dramatically, ordinary programmers working in typical office conditions never really understand the problems they're solving.2 Grad school can be a damned heavy monkey on your back. What matters, though, if I've misled people here, I'm not eager to fix that. But guys like Ed Roberts, who designed the Altair, Bill Gates was writing something he would use, as were Larry and Sergey, for example, or any of the other dodges people use in nontechnical fields. There was no protection against breakage except the fear of looking like an idiot to one's peers, and that was more than enough technical skill. You'll notice we haven't funded any biotech startups. I've been on both sides, and I tend to agree. The manual should be thin as well. It was very different at Viaweb.

Chasing hot deals doesn't make investors choose better; it just makes them feel better about their choices. I already have a lot of lies to get us and our parents through our childhood. It's usually a mistake to use the median in a domain with so much variation. They would call support in a spirit more of triumph than anger, as if it will work, but it also has a lot of people wish that hacking was mathematics, or at least to know what an n 2 algorithm is if you want to help fix patents, encourage your employer to. The two words are pulling in opposite directions. All you'll need will be something with a keyboard, a screen, and a developer has to deal with other companies, who to hire, everything. Another wrote: I believe that they think their approval process helps users by ensuring quality. If you open a bar in a particular neighborhood, as well as consuming your attention they undermine your morale. If you use this method, you'll get roughly the same answer I just gave.

When you have actual first class functions or recursion or even keyword parameters. But these scale differently, just as they were with desktop computers.3 Google has, you have to know if you bet on Web-based software, because writing applications for them seemed an attainable goal to larval startups. My parents were pretty good about admitting when they didn't know things, but because it throws off the Social Radar, and this is reversing the historical polarity of the relationship between customer support people were moved far away from the programmers.4 Everyone's model of work is the future. The less it costs to start a startup, you'll be thinking everyone says it's really extreme. And because startups are in the earliest phases. And unfortunately there is a group, they couldn't have multiple people editing the same code, because it suits the way they write software. With server-based software wins, it will at least be a powerful common bond. So if investors want to fund them.5

I forgot about that. That's a problem for adults, and they were always right. You can choose whichever revenue strategy you think is best for the founders is not to stop and pant for a while before starting a startup into an optimization problem. You don't have complete control, of course, is selection bias. It's a lot easier for a couple days when he presented to investors, we presented to investors at Demo Day, where the current group of startups present to pretty much every investor in Silicon Valley. Whether or not understanding this can help large organizations, because the people they want as employees. Being able to have your own computer was so exciting that there were plenty of people who do that tend not to have much power in big companies than small ones, and product development. You'll be willing for example to hire another programmer?

But I suspect the filter is set a little too high. Bar neighborhood is a sufficient idea for a new project, but this is a coincidence. They do it too consistently. So I'm really glad I stopped to think about anything except the valuation, and that people choose mostly based on how the case looks.6 To hackers the recent contraction in civil liberties seems especially ominous. This works well for more parallelizable tasks, like fighting wars. I protested that the teacher had said the opposite, my father replied that the guy had done nothing wrong, but more because the company is basically treading water. So you don't have to do whatever seems best at each point. It also made them more careful in judging the seriousness of a bug, because now their honor was on the list because he was a startup guy he probably gave them useful advice.

Notes

But if they want impressive growth numbers. The wave of the x division of Megacorp is now the founder visa in a cupboard saying this cupboard must be kept empty.

Looking at the command of the venture business would work to have discovered something intuitively without understanding all its implications. Oddly enough, maybe 50% to 100% more, and Fred Wilson to fund them. The answer is simple: pay them to lose elections.

No VC will admit they're influenced by buzz. But while it makes people feel confused and depressed in their early twenties. There was one of them is that Steve Wozniak in Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. Don't even take a lesson from the bottom of a handful of lame investors first, and the war.

There are aspects of the world barely affects me. Looking at the fabulous Oren's Hummus. In practice you can do what you learn via users anyway. If a man has good corn or wood, or a blog that tried that.

Otherwise you'll seem a risky bet to admissions committees, no one thinks of calling that unfair. Earlier versions used a TV as a company doesn't have to assume the worst—that he could accept it. They overshot the available RAM somewhat, causing much inconvenient disk swapping, but sword thrusts.

As we walked out we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and wouldn't expect the opposite. My first job was scooping ice cream in the future, and in a bug. The ironic thing is, because a she is very high or especially very low, you usually have to solve a lot easier now for a 24 year old, a well-preserved 1989 Lincoln Town Car ten-passenger limousine 5, they don't know which name will stick.

[joie-university-rp]

Dear NOAH PUCKERMAN,

It is with great pleasure we invite you admission to Joie University! Welcome to the Thunderclap family!

-

Congratulations, ELLE! Please be sure to check the New Members’ Checklist and send in your character’s account within 24 hours from now. We cannot wait to see all that you will bring to this roleplay! We love you already!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias; pronouns: Elle  She/Her

Age, Timezone: 23 EST

Activity, short explanation: I am a full-time retail work and a part time college student for computer coding. My active hours tend to be in the afternoon, and in the evenings except for the days that I’m out working, then usually it’s most of the day. Most days I am out of work before 4 pm, and home before 5.

Ships: Puck/Chemistry

Anti-Ships: None

Triggers: RFP

Preferred photo for Character’s ID (please give a link): https://hips.hearstapps.com/harpersbazaaruk.cdnds.net/15/37/original/original-theo-james-boss-square-jpg-d5e7ec86.jpg

Anything else: I have roleplayed before, mostly in school setting based rps.  

IC INFORMATION:

Full Name (First, Middle, Last): Noah Ezekiel Puckerman

FC: Theo James

Age/Year at University (Freshman [1st Year], Sophomore, Junior, Senior, or Graduate Student): 21/Freshman (can be Sophomore if you think the age is too old for Freshman.)

Birth date (MONTH DAY, YEAR): June 6th 1998

Hometown (please be sure to check the hometowns listed for characters your muse is related to!): Lima, OH

Gender/Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Pansexual

Major(s): Architecture and Engineering

Minor(s) [optional]: None

Housing request (remember, only the president of a Greek Organization is required to live at a Greek House to be in it!): Bieste dorm, 221

Extracurriculars (Click here for the list. Be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, secretary, etc.] If something isn’t listed, please put it here and we will add it to the masterlist!): Track and Field, Cross Country

Greek Life Affiliation [optional] (Please be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, pledge educator, etc.] or if your character is not yet a member, but plans to rush):  None

CHARACTER PROFILE:

[At least] 3 Headcanons for your character:

After high school, he went out to LA like he was talking about. Only it wasn’t so easy to make money by busking, so he ended up working odd part time jobs to make ends meet. One of them was as a receptionist at this construction management firm, where he got too meet all these engineers and architects and chat with them about their projects. It was there he realized he could use math for more than just adding.

Math and math-based things have always been super easy for him, which is why he skipped so many math classes in high school.

It’s always been more of a “both” kind of situation for him when it comes to who he was attracted to in high school, but he was never going to act on it in Lima. LA however is a different story, out there he learned that there was more to it than just male and female, and if they hot and willing, then he’s down. All they have to do is say yes.

LA did lead to a couple firsts for him though. He was with Troy for two months. It was his first relationship with a guy. It was his longest relationship at the time.

Even though he played football in high school, he only really enjoys watching it now. He found a love of running when he was looking for cheap ways to stay in shape.

Puck did a short stint in Juvie, he was charged with stealing an ATM. But really he was crying out for help, in the least constructive way possible.

STUDENT CENSUS SURVEY:

(Please answer the following questions IN CHARACTER. Responses can be as long or short as you see fit!)

1.     What made you want to attend Joie University?

One word… Home. Well, no, not completely. When I decided that maybe I could do the whole college thing if it was something cool like architecture or something, I started looking at schools. One of the guys I met, knew a guy, who knew a guy, who dated this girl that went to Joie for her undergrad in Architecture and raved about the program. After that I started looking at other programs in the area and comparing them. This school had the best program in the area. And honestly the move back to Ohio was easy, beaches are overrated.

2.     What are at least 3 positive or neutral and at least 3 negative traits that you believe you possess?

Positive:

I am the original bad ass. I mean just look at these guns.

I’m like a candy bar. Hard shell on the outside. Soft and nougaty in the middle.

My ability to adapt to new situations.

Negative

I’m like a candy bar. Hard shell on the outside. Soft and nougaty in the middle.

I don’t always have the best hold over my temper. I try to be a good person, then the red drops over my eyes and I’m beating some guy up by 11 am.

If it doesn’t interest me, if I’m not getting anything from it. I don’t want to do it.

3.     Which of your traits do you value most?

My ability to adapt to new and changing situations. When I got to LA, everything that I thought was going to be easy, was actually a lot harder than I expected. Even getting out to LA. I landed in the city of angels with about $100 left from the money I had put aside for the move, and that didn’t stretch very far. I had to change my plans to be able to survive in the new city.

4.     How can that trait benefit the University (or its student body) as a whole?

I roll with the punches. I’m never going to be the smartest guy in the room. But I will be the one who adapts the fastest and bring new ideas to old problems. I’m not a traditional student, and my life experience I’ve had will make me look at problems differently and assess them differently, and that will bring some push back from more traditional students. I can adapt to whatever solution we come up with, even if it’s not my own idea.

5.     What do you hope to gain from your experience at JU?

I hope to gain the knowledge to be able to excel in my field while also continuing to grow as a person. I did a lot of learning while I was out in LA and grew up from who I was in high school. I need a space where I can continue to grow and find the grown-up version of me.

6.     What is a quote or song lyric that describes you?

“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible’. ~ Audrey Hepburn

“Made me learn a little bit faster. Made my skin a little bit thicker. Makes me that much smarter. So, thanks for making me a fighter.” ~ Fighter, Christina Aguilera

[hotelbones]

Deconstructing New Games

There are a lot of misconceptions about The New Games Movement it seems. Everyone that talks or writes about the time knows that there is a history of the games being somehow formed to protest the Vietnam war and its military technologies, but really the specifics of the movement always seem to be changing with a new person’s story.

Here are some of the tellings of The New Games Movement:

From The New Games Book (1976)

“When Stewart investigated how and why people play together, he saw in games the potential for another such tool. ‘Changing games seemed to me to be a useful thing to do, a way to be, a set of meta-strategies to learn.’”

“I felt that American combat was being pushed as far away as the planet would allow, becoming abstract and remote. It suggested to me that there was something wrong with our conflict forms here.”

In 1966 the War Resisters League at San Francisco State College asked Stewart to stage a public event with them. Stewart created an activity that would let the players understand war and appreciate it by experiencing the source of it themselves. He called the event World War IV.

In 1966 pacifists and war protesters were opposed to warfare in any form and repressed their own feelings of anger. Stewart wanted to create a game that allowed them to express that aggression. Stewart created the game Slaughter to create an intense experience to release the aggression.

This is also where Stewart brought the Earthball from his experience in Army bootcamp training.

“There are two kinds of people in the world: those who want to push the Earth over the row of flags at that end of the field, and those who want to push it over the fence at the other end. Go to it.”

From these experiences Stewart conceived of “softwar”, the idea that people could design their conflicts to suit everyone’s needs. Stewart designed softwar as conflict which is regionalized, refereed, and cushioned. Which he made a point of making similar to sports.

George Leonard was interested in “creative play”: the experience of a player placed in an open environment and encouraged to use their imagination to devise new play forms.

George: “Sports represent a key joint in any society. How we play the game may be more important than we imagine, for it signifies nothing less than our way of being in the world.”

George and Stewart presented their new games and theories at the Esalen Sports Center in 1973

Around this time Pat Farrington joined the New Games movement and created the idea of the “soft touch” inspired by the “softwar”

“Games are not so much a way to compare our abilities as a way to celebrate them.” “I felt by reexamining the basic ideas of play, we could involve families, groups, and individuals in a joyous recreation experience that creates a sense of community and personal expression.”

The New Games tournament was to be held on two consecutive weekends on October 1973 in Gerbode Preserve. The New Games Tournament was the first public event held on the preserve.

The funds for the tournament came from POINT, a non-profit distributing the proceeds from The Whole Earth Catalog.

Anyone who challenged another to a weird event was encouraged.

What came from The New Games movement changed from something of a Vietnam protest into a therapeutic form of playing games that was deemed to therapeutically releasing the aggression from the players.

“The New Games is attempting to bring people into harmony with their environment once again.” As the preserve was left the way it was and people were free to explore the outdoor space.

While the thinking of New Games was not unique to the New Games Movement, it did begin to form as an event after the first New Games Tournament as Pat and Ray began to name themselves as New Games Staff

New Games started to be implemented in government parks as a way to modernize and bring more of the public out. The New Games staff also started going to low income areas to play such as Visitacion Valley in San francisco.

The first New Games Tournament was mostly white, middle aged, men. The second New Games Tournament was designed to bring people from many different backgrounds. The staff worked with various organizations to create more accessibility options such as free buses.

The second New Games Tournament left the New Games Foundation in a $25,000 deficit.

The third New Games tournament was inside of San Francisco and retracted the admission price. Now anyone could join and play without any restriction. From miscellaneous sources:

The New Games Movement wasn’t a collective of people, it was a line of thinking that came out of the 70s. A good example is looking at the Esalen Sports Center in 1973. This center had some people that are repeatedly referenced in relation to the New Games Movement, but it also had a lot of other people who were thinking about similar things such as Michael Murphy (Author of Golf in the Kingdom), football player David Meggyesy, sports coach Bob Kriegel and running coach Mike Spino. The program included a session of yoga-tennis, a demonstration of Murphy’s own version of Frisbee, tai chi and aikido workshops, a talk on the exploration of movement using hula hoops, and several of Stuart Brand’s games: Slaughter and boffing.  (Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970’s by Sam Binkley)

 “The Esalen revolution paralleled efforts in the Bay Area to come up with recreational forms that were aimed at the recovery of intimacy through games focused on ritual violations of social distance that called on trust, play, and bodily touching , often players who were not familiar with each other. These games infused the countercultural sense of play with a therapeutic project of self-development and learning.” (Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970’s by Sam Binkley)

“They’ve been called earth games, free games, and liberated games.” – NYT December 5

   “Some of them [the games] are brand new. Some of them have been played for hundreds of years. Many can be played competitively, with lots of opportunity for skill and strategy. Others have no object, really, besides getting people together and enjoying each other.”

“You can choose to compete because competition is fun, not because you’re concerned with who wins. If you’ve all played hard and enjoyed it, then you’ve all won. You can change the rules if you don’t like them. So long as you all agree on what’s fair, you can make the game into whatever you want it to be.” (Community valued over the game)

“New Games is for everyone who wants to play. You sex, age, or size doesn’t determine you ability to have fun. And if everyone keeps in mind that the people are the most important part of the game, then no one has to be afraid of being hurt.”

“All you need are a few of your friends and the desire to celebrate the day with play.“

Looking at some of the New Games:

Tweezli-Whop

In Tweezli-Whop two players pretty much just fill sacks and beat the heck out of each other (whopping) while balancing on a rail.  There is no winning condition with Tweezli-Whop, but maybe it’s easy to imagine a version of this game where people are trying to hit each other off of the rail. But, as with many New Games the rules are malleable and it suggests versions where there is no rail at all. It instead focuses on the whopping, and states that it is a terrific way to work out tensions. This is something that I am suspecting will show through many of the New Games, is ways for bodies to act out body movements and touch that are typically repressed from day to day.

Also its important to note that this game came from Wyoming, as many of the New Games came from a variety of different places. It’s interesting that the New Games took this game from Wyoming and made it one across the US that is now played in classrooms.

       Boffing

This is one that is mentioned most of the times Stewart Brand is mentioned in the New Games Movement. A boffer is a custom made object for Boffing. It looks kind of like a practice fencing tool, however it is custom for boffing. This activity also suggests that players have protective eye and ear guards as well. Then both people start to hit each other with the sword. I imagine this game becomes a bit more strategical as you play with each other; Dodging, parrying and more. After the rules have been described in the book, the original rules that were made for the game are given. This is so that the players understand that base of the game, but don’t feel pressed to follow the original, more strict rules.

In the original rules of Boffing, there are certain points of the body that give points to the players. This adds more built in strategy into the game.

Today, boffing has become the word associated with the physical weaponry battles of LARPing and soft-combat. This also seems to have created a culture of a lot of white dudes, interested in a sort of throw back to medieval historical appreciation. Here is a video that I think says a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOyOk6dNuHY

        Schmerltz

Schmerltz is less of a game and more of an object. You take a sponge rubber softball, like one of the cheap ones you get with plastic baseball sets and put it inside of a tube sock. The game here is “Schmerltz Toss” which involves twirling the Schmerltz around underhand and then letting it go when it reaches a critical velocity. Then the person who it is being tossed to has to catch it by the tail. Unlike the normal game of catch, Schmerltz Toss asks the players to put a more intensive physical action into the throw, and with the irregular catching involving a sort of alligator snap it becomes more difficult.

There are two ways the Schmerltz continues to be used today. In camp extracurriculars, and as a continued legacy through Bernie De Koven. When schmerltz is searched on the internet, loads of summer camp websites come up, including missionary training camps as well. However, when finding websites where De Koven continues to keep the Schmerltz legacy going, he is referring to the object for games to continue being soft, instead of being possible hurtful.

Apparently, this was invented by a person named Peter Whitely who I can’t find anything about.

Stand-Off

This New Game does not require any equipment to be played and can be played anywhere. In this game two players stand on a surface the length of their arms and then put their hands together with the goal of pushing each other off. If someone moves their foot or changes their stance then the other player gets a point. If both people lose balance, then no one gets a point. The game is won when one player scores 2/3 points.

This game was said to be brought into form by a guy named Scott Beach and seems to be inspired by Aikido. The 70’s was a period where a lot of eastern culture was being appropriated into western life and thinking. Aikido was even written about by George Leonard who wrote one of the fundamental texts for The New Games Movement, “The Ultimate Athlete”.

           Flying Dutchman

Flying Dutchman is a game based on the ghost ship where two players hold hands and walk around a circle of other people holding hands. At one point, the pair will break through a pair of people. The broken pair will then join hands outside the circle, and the original pair will go inside. Then the two will race around the circle to reach the open spot as a replacement. Whoever is left outside has to break through and repeat again.

Flying Dutchman does what a lot of New Games do. It has the players using aggressive actions but with fun so that there is an understanding no one should be hurt. As players bust through the hands and run around they are getting out all of this pent up energy.

This one also shows up in a bunch of camping instructions. https://boyscouttrail.com/content/game/flying_dutchman-901.asp

     In all of this Bernie seems to fit in as someone theorizing and watching everything happening. Not as the origin of New Games, but simply the only person that kept the spirit and theory alive. In The New Games Book chapters are written that contain games, and the introduction discusses how the movement started, but Bernie has a section in the middle theorizing what he discovered from being a part of the movement.

In some ways, it feels like Bernie sees differently what other people saw in New Games. Where Brand saw a different alignment of thinking, Bernie seemed to believe that the games were pointlessly necessary. That none of it was for a purpose.

“Here we are together, to have fun. We’ve already dispersed with the sense of any other purpose. We have no need to prove anything in particular to anyone in general. We’re not looking to be therapized or taught or charged. We want to celebrate. We want to play.”

Bernie’s theory here, is that there is no goal in what everyone is doing. That everything is without meaning, for the sake of fun and without consequence. But really that feels short-sighted. These games were being played in order to allow the players to reframe their bodies and minds, and to understand parts of the world great. Some of those parts are just…other people. All of this comes through moving, thinking, and touching. Just because there is no commodity produced from play, doesn’t mean that it is pointless.

The other theory that Bernie writes here is about the play community, which he later takes into his book “The Well-Played Game”. This is the group of people that connect with each other through the reframing of the mind into the mindset of the game. This quote particularly recognizes this.

“When we find ourselves on one particular side, its not because we feel that one side is any better. We make separation so we can find a new union.”

   Something that is interesting to see in The New Games Book is instructions to help ease people into the mindset of new games. This is actually something I was a little worried about when designing my own games. How will people want to play them if they aren’t in the right emotional or thinking space?

These instructions give tips on the games from the book that aren’t too involved for the beginning, and how to interact with varying levels of people that may be interested in the games. For example, if someone is standing around watching, just invite them to play

This is cool, because this aligns with the thinking I have about making a game without rules. These new games are just descriptions of how one could play, and are not prescriptive.

 NEW New Games

 These were created by Robert Herbst as a way of creating utopias through the retro lens in order to reframe today.

 “means by which people could realize their own visions of living, shape their environment accordingly.”

 Interesting about New New Games, is that some of them are scores.

And just from having these scores on the same page as the New Games it becomes clear what a score does compared to a game. Scores points out parts of the world to its player directly, and then asks the player to act once they have considered what the score has informed them. Games create rules for the meaning to be completely derived from play, like an engine as Colleen puts it.

[spamzineglasgow]

SPAM Digest #5 (Feb 2019)

A quick of the editors’ current favourite critical essays, post-internet think pieces, and literature reviews that have influenced the way we think about contemporary poetics, technology and storytelling. 

‘Terminology’ by Callie Gardner, Granta

I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve recommended Callie Gardner’s astonishing piece, ‘Terminology’, to friends and family. Sometimes you read something and it’s as though the world decided to refashion its atoms around the text, wear it like a brand new garment. I had to cry a little, admittedly, to realise this. I guess I was reading the essay in darkest November and found myself astounded by its honesty and light. It’s not all sunshine, but it’s definitely a form of waking up, of gradual awareness and loosening. ‘Terminology’ begins with a sleeper train, a world where people wake up in carriages and put on what they want to, unbound by the violent constraints of our usual distinctions. These people keep their differences, but the differences are no longer scars of history, privilege.

The sleeper train is going somewhere. This future is open, potential; this future is based on care. This world, this place we drift towards on the train (I say we now, because I too want in on this world), is named Iris, ‘after the Roman goddess of the rainbow’. Iris, perhaps, is without terminus, the people that live there ‘speak a language with a hundred pronouns’. If this is a utopia, it is ‘an unscientific utopia’ that nevertheless glows with what already exists, what is within our reach: the charge of a ‘queerness in everything’. It is a mantra, a lullaby world and ‘a wish given flesh’. I wish every essay began with a world like this, a speculative projection towards where we could be when we open up, seek some generous expanse to sink into, flexing our selves afresh.

‘Terminology’ is about the body. It is about appearance and disguise, about survival, performance, expectation. It is about the precarity of the genderqueer person in public space, the social ties they might make out of safety, necessity. It draws attention to the everyday actions the genderqueer person might make for the sake of their own survival. The fact that we occupy space radically differently, depending on how society chooses to stratify our identities and consequent vulnerabilities. ‘Terminology’ moves from the hypothetical experience of the genderqueer person to the author’s own encounters with daily microaggressions, media representation and social relations in public, creative and professional space. Gardner describes, acutely, the violence of misgendering, intentional or otherwise: its physiological effect on the body, akin to a kind of dissociative paralysis, abjection. ‘Maybe this makes no sense to you’, Gardner writes, ‘It doesn’t make much more sense to me’. This is an essay of admission, working through, coming to terms, learning respect.

The reason I constantly recommend ‘Terminology’ is that it states the fundamentals with absolute clarity: ‘language is not ours to use without consequence’. It asks for an ethics in which we question what our words might do in a certain context, how we make and shape reality with discourse. Recently, the songwriter Kiran Leonard put it so eloquently in an interview, arguing that tenderness and cultural responsibility is ‘about thinking through when I’m speaking in the world, speaking against a thing, what world am I looking at, what world am I creating when I say these things, and what worlds are other people creating’. The world of Iris is a world we might make with a more commodious language, one which permits an expanded, plural sociality.

Gardner tentatively imagines what Iris would actually look like, the features of its ecology and landscape. I am reminded of the work of Queer Nature, ‘a queer-run nature education and ancestral skills program serving the local LGBTQ2+ community’: a collective who make it their mission to make links between the survival skills queer populations have developed for themselves, ancestral wilderness skills and other forms of marginalised knowledge. Wilderness, conventionally the domain of dominant hetero-male, becomes a queer space in which collectivity and silenced forms of self-reliance map onto the terrain as an active, responsive, symbiotic space of wonder, vulnerability and healing: an ‘Ecology of Belonging’, as Queer Nature put it. There is, in queer ecology, a blurring of active/passive as a binary. Survival might be about avoidance or withdrawal as much as presence and action.

Walking through Gardner’s imaginary Iris, we realise we won’t reach this space without confronting questions of identity around capitalism, sexuality, culture and ‘nature’. What is it to feel something as natural at all? Since society likes to police what is considered ‘natural’, how do we frame queer subjective experiences of embodied reality in collective contexts, without essentialising? There is the beautiful admission that queerness is not just about who or how you do or don’t fuck, but also about how you live, how you need to live. The doing of gender and intimacy. And looking for a language, a vernacular, a cultural narrative through which you might play out that life, which is not defined essentially but perhaps intuitively, iteratively, interdependently. Gardner calls for the necessity for nuance in a world where the conditions of survival often confuse the bounds of romance or friendship. If ‘gender is only history’, then we have to really reflect on where we are here and where we are going. Sadly, we aren’t going to wake up from the sleeper train in a lovely, wholly unbound country. But this isn’t to say utopian thought is useless. For Gardner, wanting a place like Iris is not a weakness but actually ‘a resource’ for recalibrating the self within dead-end, heteronormative histories.

The question of queer futurity versus Lee Edelman’s ‘No Future’ is of course a complex and rich one, which I haven’t space to go into here. What’s more interesting is the fact that this essay celebrates the possible while recognising difficulties and limits within the imagining of a place like Iris, as much as reminding us what happens in lived spaces like queer communities. Ultimately, ‘Gender is at once a material condition and a psychical state’. This essay, ‘Terminology’, is one of those rare places where the actual extent of what that means is acknowledged. Nothing covered in this essay bears easy solution or simple resistance, position. Identity, standpoint, community and experience are entangled in questions of occupation, flux and, frankly, difficulty. I learn a lot within its gauzy bounds, I find clarity of a sort; I look at the world around me anew, and I feel an openness in myself that, for once, I lack words for. I realise this is okay, I just need to read on; there is so much more to understand.  ‘Citation’, as Gardner reminds us, can be used ‘as transfeminist practice’. As such, I encourage your own turning to ‘Terminology’: to follow its list of transfeminist writers, to think about your own version of Iris; mostly, to read and to listen, to drape this warmth over your shoulders, share it with others, without condition.

M.S

‘24 Hours Watching DAU, the Most Ambitious Film Project of All Time’, by Hunter Dukes and McNeil Taylor, Hyperallergic

This SPAM Digest might break the rules a little bit—it's a review of a review, and it has absolutely nothing to do with poetry—but do bear with me; I promise you I’m getting somewhere.

Last month, Mac Taylor and Hunter Dukes (yes, those are two real-life people; have you ever seen a better pair of names) went to Paris for the premiere of DAU, a film project of Tom McCarthian inclinations, and insane if not obscene logistic, aesthetic, and conceptual ambitions. Directed by the young Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky, DAU tells the story of Soviet physicist Lev Landau; Khrzhanovsky hired thousands of actors—or “participants”— as he refers to them, and deployed them to a custom-built set in Ukraine reproducing a research-facility. As Taylor and Dukes report:

From 2009 to 2011, the amateur actors stayed more or less in character. They lived like full-time historical reenactors, dressing in Stalin-era clothes, earning and spending Soviet rubles, doing their jobs: as scientists, officers, cleaners, and cooks. The film set became a world of its own. In all, 700 hours of footage were shot; this was eventually cut into a series of 13 distinct features, collectively titled DAU.

Apart from my obvious fascination with this Reamainder-like gargantuan re-enactment (did I mention I love Tom McCarthy), what really struck me was the format this project was shown in at the premiere:

To enter the [sprawling] exhibit, which runs through February 17th, you must apply for a “visa” through DAU’s online portal, choose a visit length (the authors of this article opted for 24 hours), and fill out a confidential questionnaire about your psychological, moral, and sexual history. Respondents answer yes or no to such statements as:

I HAVE BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH AN IMBALANCE OF POWER

IN THE RIGHT SITUATION, EVERYONE COULD HAVE THE CAPACITY TO KILL

Downloaded onto a smartphone, this psychometric profile becomes your guide to the exhibition. In theory, your device can unlock tailored screenings, concerts, and other experiences. In reality, none of this technology has been implemented in the theaters or museum. But it does not matter.

The premiere organisers chose to design and explicitly articulate the experience of a world around the experience of the world of the film; and to tailor this experience, in turn, around the premiere’s visitor themselves. Apart from sounding like a lot of fun, this exploitation and amplification (if not redoubling)  of film’s world-building capacity made me immediately wonder: what would this practice would look like when applied to poetry instead of film? (I know, I have a one-track mind.)

One of the traits that poetry and film seem to me to share is the potential to conjure up alternative worlds that seems obey to their own logic and set of rules. Like film, long poems or poetry ensembles (pamphlets, collections, sometimes entire oeuvres, or to a lesser extent magazines) often seem to respond to aesthetic parametres of their own making, and to establish a certain unique space for experience that can only be accessed through the artwork itself. We all know what the world of David Lynch is, and what it is like—we know what it looks like, what it feels like, what is allowed and what is not allowed within its limits. And we know the world of Gertrude Stein or John Ashbery or Sophie Collins the same way; there’s not only a tone to this space of experience, but a also a flexible and entirely nebulous set of rules that seems to dictate—to code, if we want to throw in a sprinkle of the gratuitous post-internet buzzwords we SPAM people are suckers for—how the world behaves and how it responds to our attention.

Dukes and Taylor rightfully call DAU ‘a beguiling collection of moving images that call into question our basic assumptions about film production and consumption’, and I wonder what a poetry project with the same goal would look like. Apart from the cool re-enactment part, I imagine what it would be like if poetry could be tailored to one's history or personality; spending a day moving from venue to venue to take in bits of an orchestrations of poetry readings running 24/7. It probably wouldn’t work; it definitely wouldn’t work. But it got me thinking about what an alternative modality to deliver poetry IRL would look like. There has definitely been lots of experimentation (although never enough, IMHO) with the visual presentation of poetry: I’m thinking of Crispin Best’s pleaseliveforever, a poem that refreshes itself every few seconds into new L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E/lol combinations of words (what is the poem, then? The structure? The algorithm?); his poem that fades into lighter gray, only to darken into normal text as you keep scrolling down the page (what was it call? where did it go? Help @crispinbest). I’m thinking of video poems and surreal memes (yes you can @ me, those are poems). But readings are rarely stranger than a just a reading. We should get thinking about they could become weirder. Does anyone know how to make holograms?

D.B.

Image from Internet Machine by Timo Arnall (2014). image credit: Timo Arnall.

Always Inside, Always Enfolded into the Metainterface: A Roundtable Discussion Speakers: Christian Ulrik Andersen, Elisabeth Nesheim, Lisa Swanstrom,Scott Rettberg, Søren Pold

Having been fascinated by Søren Pold's writing on literature and translation in relation to the interface, I knew when I saw this new roundtable discussion that it would most likely be making SPAM's February Digest. This discussion, made available on the Electronic Literature Review website, brings together the above speakers to discuss many of the ideas explored in Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Pold's 2018 publication, The Metainterface: The Art of Platforms, Cities, and Clouds (The MIT Press).

Covering a diverse range of theorists, artists, designers and academics, the speakers take as their focus the idea of the metainterface, examining how interfaces have moved beyond the computer into cultural platforms, such as net art and electronic literature. Forming part of this analysis are considerations of how the computer interface, through becoming embedded in everyday objects such as the smartphone, has become both omnipresent and invisible. Through exploring the different relationships that form between art and interfaces, the authors note that whilst during many smart interactions the interface becomes invisible, it tends to gradually resurface, the displaced interface then creating a metainterface. Their argument is that art can help us to see this, with the interface becoming a site of aesthetic attention.

It is the question of aesthetic attention, in varying forms, that runs through this discussion, offering the reader a profusion of references of artists whose work examines the metainterface. One piece that stood out to me was Camouflaged Cell Concealment Sites by the Canadian-American artist, Betty Beaumont. This piece consists of a collection of photos taken of cell phone towers disguised as pine trees or Saguaro cactuses. As Lisa Swanstrom notes in the discussion, they're terribly disguised, but ones that you could still overlook if you weren't paying attention. Similarly, Nicole Starosielski's The Undersea Network, is a book that makes visible the materiality of the internet through mapping the global network of fibre optic cables that runs along seabeds. In bringing these works to our attention, Swanstrom notes how both examples are questioning the aesthetics of infrastructure, as both are trying to reveal something about the ways in which we experience it, not just know of it.

Responding to the question of what our role as critical users of the metainterface is, Pold draws our attention to the fact that we are always a part of the interface and have to work from the fact of being embedded, as there is essentially no outside. This invites the question of how the artists and writers can respond to the conditioning of self into the metainterface. As Andersen points out, whilst there is no safe haven 'outside' of the interface, there are certain tactics that can be developed as a user. The example given, a chapter entitled Watching The Med by Eric Snodgrass in his work Executions: Power and Expression in Networked and Computational Media (Malmö University, 2017), points to how real users operate in the Mediterranean Sea (now a highly-politicized landscape) by switching between different GPS technologies and Twitter to 'recombine media in a tactical way'. The key idea to take from this is that whilst a reconsideration of our approach to tactical media in the condition of the interface is necessary, it doesn't mean we cannot operate on platformed versions of tactical media such as Facebook or Twitter.

Another point of focus in this discussion I found especially captivating was the consideration of the posthuman machine in relation to the reformulation of labour, in particular Scott Rettberg's consideration of the interface as an intermediate layer between humans and machines. In questioning whether we are moving towards a system in which the interfaces themselves generate human labour for the benefit of corporate entities, Rettberg poses the question of whether we can be alienated from our labour if we are not conscious of being laborours? This leads into a contemplation on the condition of cultural tiredness, an awareness that a certain media platform, such as Facebook, is packed with problems regarding social interaction and data protection, but still we continue to use its service.

Cautious of covering more than needs to be said in this digest, I will close by returning to the fundamental question that Pold and Andersen put forward in their work: the role of art and literature in shedding light on the behaviour and ontology of the metainterface. I find it interesting to learn that Pold started out by studying literature, before moving into a study of digital aesthetics. Perhaps it was the combination of these two domains that allowed him to see the act of reading the everyday interfaces of life as a literary act. This seems to be echoed in Andersen's response to the question of art and literature's role in an age of environmental crisis and metaintertface, whereby he looks to Walter Benjamin's definition of an author as a producer. To see the artist or writer as 'someone who produces not only the narrative, but who is a realist in the sense that he or she reflects what it means to produce in the circumstances that you are embedded in. So, the role of the author in the 21st century is to 'not only to use the interface as a media for the production of new narratives, but also use the interface, and reflect the interface as a system of production'.

With questions such as 'how are we being written by machines?' and 'how have we become media?' still yet to be answered, I encourage anyone interested in posthumanism and digital aesthetics to make their way through the full discussion.

M.P.

[kvotheunkvothe]

A long while back, I wrote an AU to one of my books, with a kind of Pygmalion story of the main characters involving cyborgs. @stradivariholmes mentioned it might be interesting to have another, similar story, with the roles reversed. This AU assumed they weren’t Summoners and how their lives might have been if the central conflict of the book was instead based on this AU idea.

Below is the first part, working title of Glassworks.

.

It was a good day for travel.

It was still a few weeks before the spring planting season, and the ground was only just beginning to thaw as he made his way overland under the sun’s first rays. His breath was just visible on the morning air, and Bailey walked swiftly so as to generate a bit of heat as he made his way onto the path in the thick forests beyond the fields.

Near dawn, he’d climbed his way up the winding way of the tree’s limbs to the home’s farther reaches, where his sister was already at work. This portion of the old home had been mostly empty for some years—“dormant” Pin liked to say, like it was something that need only be awoken. When the head of their House had died, her first heir already taken by the Wilderness, most of the bustling business had died away with it. Between the loss of basically all leadership and the harsh crop failures in those lean years that followed, nearly a decade later they were still only just clawing their way back. It warmed his heart to see Pin had taken this project on, though, slowly converting unused portions of the rambling home into indoor greenhouses. As long as Talus Mos was wintering with them and available to provide his glasswork expertise, it seemed a worthy endeavor.

Bailey had scrambled up the last wobbly ladder to enter the converted space at floor-level, looking up into the crisscrossing ropes and scaffolds. The two of them were in harness gear, their long blond hair pinned back from their faces. Talus Mos’s hair was braided somewhat sloppily with various violet beads, while Pin’s flowed relatively freely down her back. She’d grown in more recent years, nearly to Airiadnee’s height. And although she was not Violet, Pin acted as Talus Mos’s assistant, now, as he measured and planned how best to construct the necessary racks and shelves for optimal lighting. He’d almost grudgingly warmed to Pin over the years, as she’d grown more into her own person and stopped only being a reminder of his grief.

“Pin!” Bailey called up, and the girl left off to rappel down and dangle upside-down over his head, one hand collecting the pool of her blonde hair to keep it from her face. “How’s it coming along?”

“Par’quick’em,” she said, reflexively putting the hand that was still holding her hair over her cleft lip as she grinned down at him. “Should be’em done before our Sister-Houses visit. ‘S where get’ee, Bailey?” she added, looking to his ear. Unlike the two of them, Bailey kept his hair cropped short, leaving his ears visible. There were two blue rings there, today, the top one showing their House sigil.

“The House of Rush,” he confirmed. “I’ve got to recite the last part of the Dark Epochs, today, first, but afterward I’ll invite them.”

“Don’t forget to bring the House a gift,” Talus Mos called from overhead, still at work. Somewhat unsolicited. It was a hard habit to break; when Bailey had taken over the House at a young age, even his father’s somewhat clumsy advice had been appreciated. But it had been some years since that was really appropriate. Perhaps he read the silence well enough to recognize the gaff, because Talus Mos paused momentarily in what he was doing to add, “Although I’m sure you don’t need reminders, Warden Reed.”

“Of course,” Bailey answered, his tone neutral, recognizing the formal use of title as a form of apology and choosing to be mollified. And seeing that Pin had grown uncomfortable, he managed to dredge up a smile for her. “I should be back sometime tonight, after nightfall. I’ll check the traps on the way home.”

Here she shook her head, though, righting herself so she was no longer upside-down where she hung. “Not in’ee fancy clothes—don’t wan’ee bloody. I’ll check’em.”

He ran a hand over his clothing, and had to admit to the wisdom in that. The rich cloth was intricately embroidered, the colors vibrant, and even on his tall, skinny frame everything fit well. They’d had to carefully save over the past winter to each afford a set of clothing that wouldn’t embarrass them when they went to call on their cousins.

Still, he didn’t much like the idea of her out in the forest alone. Before the Wilderness took her, even Airiadne—who had been strong Yellow and hunting most of her life—often enough took a companion with her, to watch her back and help her take down anything too big. “Have Lee Parable go with you,” he conceded. “He’s wanted something to do while he waited for planting season.”

“Can’em look after myself,” she grumbled, but accepted the order before climbing back up into the higher reaches of the room, and Bailey set off soon after.

Bailey made good time, arriving close to noon at the House of Rush. Unlike his home, which was built in several parts into old, living trees, this Sister-House sprawled over a tributary from the river, their family’s generator mostly fed by its current. The House was alive with humming activity, both from the family and the many hired hands at work to keep the place functioning, much as Bailey remembered his House being when he was a child.

He eventually found a cousin high enough up the House’s ranking to honor their deal, and a short time later Bailey had an audience of some forty-odd to sit and listen to the last of the history lesson. The Dark Epochs of the days immediately following the Ancients’ downfall tended to garner better attendance than other stories, not only from the children first learning their histories, but also from adults who felt it was an important, cautionary tale. It was, by necessity, a long and complicated story to tell, and sometimes a Blue might spend half a season living in a House, further elaborating on minutiae from this tale alone. From the final days of the Ancients’ sprawling empire, to the madness that led them to containing the Word in print, to their deadly machine that captured the sun, and the monsters they left in their wake. In the dark years without sunlight, creatures from beneath the mountains, under the seas, and beyond the stars spread their blighted tendrils onto the sun-forsaken lands. When the sun escaped its prison, its first blast made wastes of the East and decimated what was once fertile land in the South, leaving only deserts. So powerful was the blast that what men it touched, their shadows were sheared away, leaving only these half-men creatures to crawl the earth, and even generations later the blight was on at least half of every one born. Their fleeing shadows eventually shaped the non-men, who it was said still crept these forests on moonless nights. And there were, of course, the clockwork men that still littered the countryside: these made-things that mostly had lost their purpose, who sometimes still awoke to do their long-gone masters’ deeds as servants or, often enough, as war-machines that slaughtered everything in their paths.

He was aware, near the end of his retelling, that the head of the House of Rush had taken time from his schedule to come and listen to the tale. Bailey had been told he looked quite like his mother’s brother, Rush Arlen, and although he’d had little to do with the man directly for a number of years, he could see at a glance it had been an apt comparison. His Blue training served him well in that he did not miss a beat, his recitation remaining precise, his gestures practiced. It was with some relief he finally concluded, but the feeling of being judged didn’t really abate as Warden Rush invited him back to speak more privately in his office. Once there, after he was paid for his performance, Bailey presented him with the twin vials of spices he’d carried from his home, trying not to think of just how dear an expense it had been. If this paid off, it would be worth it.

Warden Rush accepted them with some puzzlement, saying, “Your spice debt has long been paid, Reed Carson.”

“They’re a gift, as part of an invitation from the House of Reed for a gathering, a week from now.”

Honestly, Bailey wouldn’t be surprised if the Houses of Sedge, Fennel, and Runnel hadn’t gossiped to Rush about their own invitations, already, and Warden Rush was just giving himself more time to consider his answer.

He finally mused, “Your House has gone through hard times, since the Lady Reed Beatrice died. It’s been a lot of work for you, I know, but you seem to have grown into your own as a Blue. I’m glad to see you’ve managed to pull through so well.” He saved Bailey the embarrassment of glancing to his ear, many-times pierced to fulfill contracts outside his House. “And your House—it’s still just you and Reed Adelaide, isn’t it?”

Bailey fought the prickle of shame at the admission, “Yes,” their numbers were still pitifully small, with only he and little Pin left. The question also revealed Rush Arlen knew the purpose of this show of wealth and the invitation to the House, a point further clarified as he went on:

“The House of Reed was dwindling even when your mother, my sister, was born into it. Some forty years ago, these Sister-Houses gathered to judge its viability, and even though it was the weaker House in the union, it was hoped new blood would be enough to sustain it. At the time, the ancestral lands were still rich, even if the numbers had dwindled. A child born into that House would still thrive, so concessions were made to honor an old House that seeded so many others.” He set the vials of spice on his desk, and then bowed his head. “Well, I digress on this old history. Your extension of hospitality is well-received, Warden Reed, and I am honored to accept your invitation.”

Bailey bowed his head in kind, and after a few more pleasantries were exchanged, he graciously declined the invitation to stay the night and set off back for his own home. It had gone about as well as could be expected, he consoled himself, and had been a bit warmer reception than he’d had at the other Sister-Houses. Being reminded of one’s House’s poor resources was never a pleasant experience, but it was something that needed to be addressed in these kinds of delicate negotiations. If everything went well, his House only stood to gain, but he still had the long walk home to worry over how he’d handled things. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made the invitation when he was already there on business, somewhat undercutting his show of resources. He had never been very good with people as a whole, and even less so when he was feeling the sting of humiliation. But spending another entire day to deliver the message had seemed wasteful.

While Bailey was thus occupied, he was surprised to look up at one point further along and realize he’d left the path quite far behind. The woods around him were completely unfamiliar, this far from home, and even with many leaves gone from the winter-stripped trees, it was still rather dark under the shelter of their boughs. A cold wave of fear rushed over him, making him momentarily giddy as he tried to calmly reorient himself by the faint shimmers of sunlight and day-stars overhead. He struck out again, listening for the flow of water and alert for any recognizable landmarks. When he spotted a break in the trees up ahead, his long stride quickened a bit until he came abruptly into a clearing.

Or, well, not properly just a clearing. He shivered as he recognized the dark Ancient metal underfoot, that even these millennia later resisted even a weed’s growth. The space was nearly perfectly circular, and at its center was a cube of white stone, nearly as half as tall as he stood. Its sides were unnaturally straight, precise, crisp, not weathered in the slightest. Along the top, a few inches down, was a groove where the top of the cube would presumably slide aside. And he knew he should leave it alone—he’d just finished telling a long story of the folly of the Ancients and their ways, and there were hundreds of other tales of people foolish enough to meddle with whatever they’d left behind. But the pristine nature of the site made Bailey hesitate. Because yes, what the Ancients left behind was often terrible and destructive, but sometimes there were tools, machinery, weapons that were incredibly useful. They all denied it, but every House jealously guarded some piece of Ancient tech they would never admit to having. And if there was something in there that could help his House…

He put his hands on the top of the cube, bracing his legs as he pushed at it. He was not particularly strong, and he imagined he probably would have looked fairly ridiculous to anyone who happened along, trying to shift this enormous slab of stone all by himself. But in a moment, there was a curious kind of release as some internal mechanism reacted and the stone slid aside in one smooth motion, toppling over the other side.

Words. There were words everywhere, he could see now, written all within the cube’s interior. Like the old mantras against evil, the spells that had been meant to hold devastation back when the Ancients still thought themselves invincible. With creeping horror, he realized that whatever they had meant to contain, he’d released it now. And whatever ruin it visited on the land, that was on his head. He should run, if he wanted to have any hope of surviving this. He might even plausibly deny any involvement. But he forced himself to step forward and face this instead, and his knife—for all the good it would do him—was in his hand as he peered inside to where faint sunlight still only just reached.

There was a woman inside. Or the image of a woman, at least. The features so finely and delicately wrought as to be beyond the imagination of even the most skilled glassworker. Her skin was transparent, as was her arteries, veins, muscles, and bones, down into the center of her. Her hair was the most exquisite work he’d ever seen, so light and true-to-life he almost felt he could reach out and brush a strand away from her face. There were bits of cloth on the figure, apparently added after it was created, but time had rendered them little more than dust. Every line of her was true, every inch precise, perfectly formed. She was curled in the fetal position to fit into the box, one arm cushioning her head while the other wrapped around herself, in a posture at once guarded and yet oddly exposed. As if she only slept. The creation was not without its flaws, however. Thin scars marred the cheeks, too straight and purposeful to be made by time or accident. By now he had quite forgotten to feel frightened, and had nearly forgotten how to breathe. But seeing its damage struck something in him, so he almost felt he resonated in sympathy for the imagined pain. The ache just to smooth away the damage was almost overpowering, and he was already trying to imagine how he would get it home, as ungainly as that might be.

The sun had been shining on it for nearly a full minute when his avid gaze caught the first hint of movement. Within the center of her, the tiniest tick. And then another. Gears within her chest beginning to move, processes restarting. There was a spark, somewhere in its center. Not a sculpture, he realized, far too late—a clockwork. Not art, but a tool of the Ancient’s. A wretched shadow of their own minds, and capable of just as much destruction. While it lay there, still and unaware, he knew he should finish the job. Destroy this thing as well as he could. Or at the very least try to shut it away again. But he felt rooted to the spot as the internal mechanism took up a rhythm, and the outer glass surface began to change, clouding over to a skin tone, the hair shifting slightly even in the slight breeze as it darkened to brown. He’d thought it finely made, before, with only the liking of life to it, but that had been nothing to seeing it actually animated. He could see a faint pulse in the neck of what now appeared to only be a young woman, her chest stirring with long, slow breaths. The long dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks. Oh he should smash it to pieces. Stab it with his knife. Shatter it with a rock. Anything. Anything that would stop this tool of the Ancients from fulfilling whatever its awful purpose must be. He knew he should. He almost could.

She opened her eyes. And he knew he was lost.

Oh such eyes of liquid gold, of living flame—he was caught, mesmerized, at once drowning and burning in their depths. He’d half-climbed onto the lip of the cube, almost without his noticing, as he was enticed closer to their warmth. At some point he’d dropped his knife, his hands apparently having little idea what to do with themselves. The tiniest crease was forming between her brows as she looked up at him. A bemused smile tugged at her full lips as she blinked up at the strange man perched at the edge of her tomb, a slender shadow silhouetted against the still-dazzling light. Her limbs were fluid grace as she stretched, minutely, and made to sit up. But the cascades of hair falling all down her back made her startle slightly, drawing her gaze down. She took sudden stock of herself, grasping at the last remains of her clothes and pulling her waist-length hair about herself like a curtain as her face heated to a bright brand of red, the thin scars standing out white against her cheeks.

Strange to say, he hadn’t especially noticed until that moment that she was naked. Oh he had seen that the clothes had long ago deteriorated and her figure was visible underneath the remains. But in the way a sculpture may be unclothed, or a painting may display a form. As a thing that was meant to be viewed and appreciated. It was only when she reacted—not a mere subject, but a full actor in her own right—that she seemed to transform into being actually naked.

He might have made some small sound. His breath catching, or perhaps his throat working. A very minor reaction, all things considered. But apparently it was a step too far. Abruptly she was surging up, all the liquid power of her molten body coming to a point as her hands slammed into him, sending him flying onto his back nearly at the edge of the clearing. He had a moment to wonder if his spine had broken as all the wind was knocked out of him. But his digits all wiggled at his command, and in a moment he was able to dizzily lift his head in time to see the glassworks figure scramble her way out of the cube. Such a funny little thing, really. Her long hair catching on the wind, she cast him one last blushing look before her dainty glass feet hit the ground and she slipped away into the trees.

He let out what little breath he had, and let his head fall back against the ground. Feeling more dazed than actually injured. But somehow still loathe to move, trying to sort out the flood of emotions he seemed to be lazily floating through.

By the time Bailey had regained his feet, she was long gone, and the light with her. He had expected to make the last leg of his journey home in the dark, only that had been with the expectation of the familiar path. Even so, he knew his stars well enough he might have only been minorly inconvenienced. But a late winter squall had blown over the forest, stirring up a flurry, so that he had both the unfamiliar woods, the night, and the transfiguring power of the storm to contend with. The brittle bones of the trees rattled around him, every step just a little bit slower as the accumulating snow dragged at his feet. He put his head down and walked into the wind, squinting ahead for a familiar landmark. A few times he thought he might have regained the path, only to find he instead walked an animal trail. Even realizing his mistakes, he continued to follow them in the hopes they would eventually lead to at least a water source he might recognize.

Many hours later, when he saw the light up ahead, he thought at first they were stars dancing in front of his eyes. His feet were cold lumps in his boots, the wind seeming to pass right through his skinny frame every time it gusted. He forced himself to pick up the pace, teeth chattering too much to even call a greeting as he recognized a familiar face, but raising his hand as he came within the cast of the torch light.

Lee Parable startled as Bailey nearly careened into him on the proper path, almost dropping the torch as his hands naturally formed signed exclamations of silent surprise. Seeing the state he was in, however, Lee Parable quickly recovered and shrugged out of his own overcoat to sling over Bailey’s shuddering shoulders. Never one to waste words, he didn’t ask why Bailey had been so late, nor what had made him leave the path as he led the way back.

The only time he spoke, it was to say, “Something follows us.”

“Yes.”

Lee glanced back at him; seeing no alarm, his pace didn’t quicken. But there was something in the faraway look in Bailey’s eye he didn’t entirely trust, either, so that his guard stayed up. Bailey still felt somewhat dazzled by the light as he followed its bobbing head back to his door. His thoughts felt rather far away even when Pin descended on them both at the door, fluttering about them as they shook off snow and stomped their boots clear. He missed the anxious look exchanged between them as they got Bailey up to the kitchen, seated near the fireplace. Even in its warmth, back in his own kitchen, still he didn’t seem present until Pin stuck an iron needle in his finger to check whether he still bled.

“Ow,” he muttered, brows drawing down as he brought his bleeding thumb to his mouth.

“Apolo’em,” she said, looking less repentant than relieved. “Look’ee so distant and alien. Wasn’t sure Lee Parable hadn’t brought’em some seemling.”

Bailey glanced over to where Lee Parable was holding the fire poker, giving a somewhat more apologetic shrug than Pin had managed as he set the makeshift weapon aside. The Joplin provided quietly, “You left the path.”

“Yes, well. I’d hope if I were actually a creature wearing your brother’s face, you might have noticed before I was brought into the household,” Bailey grumbled at Pin as she pressed a hot mug of something that smelled medicinal into his hands. “Or leant it your coat. Thank’ee, for that,” he added, returning the heavy garment to its rightful owner. As Lee Parable was hanging it up to dry over the fire, Bailey caught Pin still giving him a narrow look. “What, a drop of blood wasn’t enough for you, you terribly suspicious child?”

“What happened out there?” she asked, quietly. “Look’ee… different. Like’ee not all here, still.”

“I’m a bit rattled. I got lost hours ago,” he side-stepped, drinking from his mug to buy time. Nose wrinkling as he gagged it down. “’Sblood, Pin, this is terrible.”

“That’s how’ee know’s medicine,” she answered, primly.

She still didn’t seem wholly satisfied with his explanation, but she stopped pressing while Lee Parable drew up a chair to sit with them and share their company for a while. They kept the conversation fairly light, for as long as he was there. He was very nearly family—he’d helplessly adored Bailey’s older sister, Airiadnee, before the Wilderness has claimed her, and he’d been a fairly dependable friend in all the intervening years since—but there were some things that really should only be discussed within the House. So they spoke in broad terms of their day. Lee mentioned that, for all that this was a late storm, most other signs pointed towards an early spring and an early planting. Pin shared that they’d had a minor setback that afternoon in construction when one of the giant birds that populated the region had tried to poke its enormous beak in through the open glass panel where Talus Mos had been working, and that it hadn’t gone away until Pin had shot at it—and missed—with three arrows.

After Lee Parable eventually left to get some rest, Bailey poked up the fire. Distracted by the dancing light, he found his thoughts wandering, yet again, to the glasswork woman. Wondering how it was her eyes had seemed to contain this same flame. Whether it had been caught at the time of her forming, or whether she generated it anew under those fleeting rays of sunlight.

“Was’t that bad?” Pin asked, stirring him from these musings. “The meeting with Rush?”

“Hmm? Oh,” he set the poker aside, coming to sit back down. “No. No, it was fine. They accepted our invitation. Warden Rush was a bit blunter than the other Houses have been: that they’re going to be judging us pretty harshly, to see if it’s even worth it to help us out. But if he’s not entirely sympathetic, I also don’t think he’s adverse to our position.”

“But might be all’s for nothing,” Pin said, hand creeping to her mouth in an unconscious comfort gesture.

“It might be,” he agreed, wishing he could spare her this frank discussion. It still seemed too heavy a thing to put on her shoulders, even recognizing he’d been even younger than she was now when he’d had to take over as head of the House. He knew she wasn’t a baby anymore, but over the years he’d tried to shield her at least a little from how dire their situation had become. “If they don’t think our House has a future, there’d be no point in naming one more Reed.”

She sighed, but nodded, the atmosphere primarily somber. Houses died, sometimes, when resources or members dwindled too low. They both knew that, intellectually, but it was another thing entirely to live it. On the whole, when a child was going to be born, the two Houses involved would negotiate to provide the new baby with the most resources—deciding which House was stronger and naming the child there. If the Houses were on approximately equal footing, sometimes the child was given to one family in concession for some other trade or promise. But if your House sank low enough, there was little negotiating power, and very few offers would tempt even the greediest House to allow a child to be born into an impoverished name. Occasionally a stronger Sister-House might step in on your behalf to help with negotiations, or they might offer up a fosterling of their own just to keep the House alive. An extreme measure, but sometimes a necessary one.

“Well,” Pin shook these heavy thoughts off, sighing as she stood. “Have’em impress, then, so’s favor’em.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Bailey said, feigning more confidence than he felt, toying with the end of one of his sleeves.

“Go to bed, gloomy,” she said on her way out, not fooled. “It’ll look brighter, tomorrow.”

He nodded, absently, but stayed where he was seated for some time longer, his eyes trailing to the gusts of snow blowing past the enormous windows. Telling himself that he’d primarily imagined he’d heard another set of footsteps trudging through the snow during the long trek home. That Lee Parable’s flame was the first and only light he’d seen in the dark. And that a glass creation couldn’t feel the cold.

The intent still hadn’t entirely formed in his mind when he made his way to the sewing bin. There were a few articles still set to be mended, and others that just hadn’t been put away. This simple old dress of Pin’s, for instance, had been in here for half a year by now. He’d put off repairing it for so long that by the time he’d mended the hem, the child had far outgrown it, shooting up like a weed last summer. So it wasn’t like she would even miss it, really. Wherever it ended up. He told himself he was only going outside to check when he dug out his coat and refastened his boots to his feet. What he was going to check he didn’t quite confront, nor the purpose behind bringing this old dress with him. He stepped into the yard, and from there back beneath the trees. Hearing nothing but the wind winding its way overhead and his own footsteps crunching a new path. When he came to a stump some little ways in, he casually lay the dress there. Pausing for only a moment to feel rather foolish before retreating to the house again. He kept his eyes on the welcoming kitchen lights, moving steadily onward and not looking back. Even when he heard the soft, distinct sounds of fabric rustling behind him.

***

The snow had stopped by early morning. Within hours of dawn, the sun had melted off most of the accumulation. As if to rewrite the prior day and erase all trace of its passing.

Bailey rather wished such a thing were possible. His first thought on waking had been a kind of wordless panic that sent him catapulting from his hammock to the window, his hands dragging distracted through the ends of his hair as he thought back on the day before, as one might recall a particularly bewildering dream. Had he taken complete leave of his senses? Bad enough that he’d awoken some Ancient evil and let it follow him home. Had he actually gone out into the storm last night and given it a Wind-bitten dress?

No, he couldn’t have been that thoughtless. Or self-destructive. Or selfish. Foolish. Irresponsible. Short-sighted. Reckless.

He was on around his third iteration for insults directed at himself when he firmly decided to just push it from his mind. He would just go on as if it had never happened. And hopefully that would be the end of it.

And it wasn’t as if there weren’t a host of issues to otherwise occupy his thoughts. He had a week to prepare for his cousins’ arrival and show off just how well they were doing. And then there was the seasonal hiring coming around again, the work orders to sort, a few more inquiries into whether a good herbalist wouldn’t be willing to apprentice Pin, do another check for any broken windows before the next windy season, and he still needed to go back through and catalogue what they might need from the next passing tinker or whether an actual trip to town would be necessary. Not to mention the seventh-year tithe would be due, and he’d sooner trust his own sums than accept the calculated tax on good faith.

When Pin finally tracked him down late that afternoon, he had therefore had a very busy day with legitimate House business to keep him entirely preoccupied. His long pipe was clamped between his teeth, the thick, colored smoke pooling around the ankles of the stool he was perched on as he distractedly puffed away. The little workroom he’d claimed was covered in little tapestry notations and glass panels of receipts and tallies. In his lap, he had a complicated tangle of strings and beads he was busy braiding together as he muttered under his breath and occasionally jabbed at a little button-covered machine at his side that gave very unhelpful dings at certain intervals. This only seemed to make him type in his sums in an angrier fashion, soliciting ever-shriller dings.

“Oughta just hire’ee Red,” Pin opined.

“Nearly finished,” he said around his pipe, not looking up. “What ‘s it, Pin, busy’em.”

“Found’em this outside, this morning. Know’ee where it came from?” Pin asked, setting something down on a small empty corner of the table.

Still trying to keep a running count going in his head, Bailey was leaning over to grab a red bead from the farther edge of the table when he glanced at it. And then promptly fell off his stool.

It was her. The glasswork woman he’d freed the day before. The creature of living light, of fluid art, of a solid fucking punch, and he was already quite winded again as he scrambled to his feet, choking on a breath of smoke and ignoring Pin’s surprised exclamation. Because of course it wasn’t actually her. It was only a figurine, barely the size of his ring finger. And yet so clearly it was her features: the little slope of her somewhat bulbous nose, the twin scars on her cheeks, the long hair, the rather bottom-heavy shape. As small as it was, every bit of it was still finely, carefully formed—if he squinted hard enough, he thought he could see little fingernails shaped in the clear glass.

“Where’d’ee get’s?” he demanded, eyes watering as he continued to cough up a lung.

“It was on the stoop, this morning. Bailey, what ‘s it? ‘S wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s… nothing to worry about,” he said, picking up the stool and avoiding eye contact. Busying himself with tapping out his pipe, pounding his fist on his chest to get the last of his coughs out. “Apolo’em, Pin, I just took a bad breath, there. I think I’ve been doing these sums for too long. Well, it’s a cute figure. Are you sure Talus Mos didn’t make it?”

“He’s good,” she conceded. “But don’t think’em ever done anything quite this close to life. Almost looks to breathe, doesn’t it?”

“Mm,” he had to agree, and though he had just finished telling himself he should feign indifference, his eye was dragged back to studying the figurine. Almost, yes, he could imagine its tiny breast stirred with breath. He remembered how the actual glasswork had begun with a small ticking of her internal mechanism to signal her return to life and motion.

“’S odd, it turning up on our door. ‘N it almost seems trying to say something, doesn’t it?”

This, too, he had to acknowledge. The figure was curtsying, wearing the dress he’d left outside. She was peeking from behind the curtain of her hair, but even if the little figurine hadn’t been designed with its face visible at all, the posture was obviously one of embarrassed gratitude.

“Strange subject, too. Not a classic beauty. But ‘s something charming about it.”

Something warm and brilliant, captivating and achingly alive. The way a trampled little flower with half its petals missing was still just as lovely, almost improved for its idiosyncrasies. Such a funny little thing, looking just rather unfairly adorable in that hand-me-down dress. Yes, he supposed it was possible someone might get that impression.

And maybe he should be more cautious. Maybe this figurine carried some bit of that Ancient thing’s consciousness and it was only here to spy on them, and he would do better to smash it. Or destroy it anyway, just because of where it came from. But even such thoughts were fleeting—he could no more seriously consider shattering this than he could the actual glasswork.

He glanced over to find Pin not trying especially hard to hide her grin. “What?” he demanded.

“Are’ee blushing, Bailey?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered, which only seemed to be making the heat in his face worse. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Pin gave a delighted laugh. “Oh, are’ee awful’some liar, Bailey. Should’ee just told me had’ee sweetheart, dolty-face. La, now it all makes sense! This’s why’ee’ve suddenly pushed so hard for our Sister-Houses to step in on your behalf, isn’t it? To help negotiate with her House? Oh, sneak’ee, should’ve just told me!”

“Pin, you know that’s absurd. This deal with our Sister-Houses has taken years of careful planning—“

“Is this where’ee were yesterday, when’ee got lost?”

“I don’t know where you get the basis for this fantasy you’ve concocted—“ he started, rather uncomfortable with just how close she was guessing.

“Know’em family? Wait, let me see,” she said, picking the figurine up and skipping back out of Bailey’s reach as she squinted at its features. “Her hair’s even longer’n straighter’n mine. But got’em almost a bit of a Mountain’some look about’em, doesn’t she? Ah, ah!” she cautioned, darting around the side of the table as Bailey tried to snatch the glass figure from her hands. “Let me guess the House. ‘S it Vale? Ponderosa? Luna? But no, stick’em close to home. Almost Aster, and get’em strong Violet. ‘S not Mountain garb, though—almost looks like one of my old dresses.”

“Well if you’re quite finished, I’m going for a walk,” Bailey announced, trying to salvage what was left of his dignity.

“Are’ee going to see her, again? Can I meet’em?” she asked, nearly hopping with excitement.

“No, no, you seem to be doing quite well enough playing make-believe over there.”

“I’ll quit teasing,” Pin pledged. “I know it can be delicate, these negotiations, early on, ‘n I won’t go blabbering to everyone.”

“That’s very fortunate, as there’s no one to meet, you silly thing. There isn’t,” he insisted at her disbelieving pout. “I just need to get some air and check on the traps.”

“All right, keep’ee secrets.” Pin huffed, taking his vacated seat. “But tell’em I said ‘hi!’” she called after him, so that he flinched and glanced around lest anyone else had heard her. At this point not really sure whether he should be more hopeful or horrified at the idea running into the glasswork girl again.

***

Under the cover of the trees, the sun had not yet completely melted away the new snowfall by the time Bailey made his way outside. He was better dressed for the weather, this time around. His fancy clothing he’d packed away again, but his homespun and thick jacket served him in good stead. He readjusted the quiver on his back and held his bow at the ready as he followed a different path from the one he’d tread the day before, walking south to check the traps and see if he could scare up some larger game.

A scant ten minutes had passed when he first spotted the footprints off the path. Relatively small tracks compared to his, carrying the imprint of a bare foot. Another hour’s melt might have obliterated their mark entirely, but he could clearly see which direction they headed: away from the house and towards where he knew there were some old ruins. And maybe he should leave it at that. Let this thing pass out of his life and just be grateful that it hadn’t brought ruin on them all.

His gut told him he’d only narrowly dodged tragedy. His head accepted this notion as sound. And yet he found his feet turned off the path as his heart beat rather too quickly in his chest.

These ruins had been picked apart, over the many years. Only a few sophisticated Red Houses knew how to rework some of the most durable of the Ancient metal like the site where the glasswork had been entombed. But the Ancients had also made their buildings of stone and glass parts that were more easily scavenged. What was left at these ruins was therefore little more than a skeleton of some of the crumbled buildings, not worth dismantling, overgrown with vegetation. It had been built on the edge of a steep drop-off, beyond which the Kin River could be seen still winding its way east before it flowed northward.

It was on the ledge of a dilapidated wall that he spotted her again. She was sitting with her skirts bunched up around her knees, bare feet swinging freely as she looked out over the ledge into the forest. She’d retained her color, but looking up at her profile, he could see that where, before, her expression had been lively and animated, she appeared more withdrawn, now. A cold wind blew, pulling her hair out like a long banner. And while she didn’t shiver, her posture was stiff, and she carried herself rather carefully, as if holding together all the cracks in her glass skin.

“This used to all be city,” she finally spoke. She had an accent he couldn’t quite place, reflective of a place and a time that no longer existed. Her voice a bit deeper than he might have imagined, for her little frame. Perhaps it was only a component of the glass, though, because the chiming resonance of the sound seemed to be finding a place somewhere in his sternum. “So much of what I remember before my long dreaming passes through me, like the sun through my palm,” she said, considering her hand as its color faded to clear and then returned. “But I do know this: the forests had only been lonely oases between the roads. And a city had thrived here, from one end of the horizon to the next.”

His eyes were still captivated by the hand she’d held aloft, and he spoke unthinkingly. “Why didn’t the Ancients make you in their image, with six fingers?”

“Make me?” She seemed to genuinely consider the question as she turned over her hand. “No,” she spoke slowly, her voice rather distant. “No, I made this. I remember shaping every finger to replace the ones I’d have to leave behind. Six was common, but, no, not everyone had that many. And when they said the end was coming, that what would be left of our bodies would be less than human anyway…”

She trailed off and then stopped studying her hands, instead using them to collect her hair and twist it aside. This done, she finally looked down to fully acknowledge Bailey’s presence. He was gazing up in some wonder, still reeling from this information, in many ways worse than he’d suspected: to be not only a tool of the Ancients, but one of them herself. Or what was left of one, under all that vagueness and formed glass. Created to escape the calamity of their world ending. She said she remembered little, but how much of it was forbidden and dangerous? She said she’d made this only to survive, but who knew what terrible purpose might be buried deep in her programming?

 She seemed to become more self-aware under his eye, now fidgeting where she sat. The little movements betraying some inner drive, a richer sense of self than any created thing could boast. Not a creature, not a tool, not an emissary of the Ancient’s evils. Just a young woman whose world had ended and who had survived it as best she could.

“I’m sorry I pushed you. It… I was disoriented, and you were perched there a strange man all bird bone and sunshine, and y-you had such a light in your eye it’s a wonder I could keep my glass innards from melting, but that’s… that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry. And thank you, for the dress, too I… I d-didn’t know if…”

Maybe there was something a little off in her wind-up. She was turning rather red again, and took the opportunity of hopping down from her high spot on the old wall to try to collect herself. She noted how he flinched when her feet touched down on the hard stone, and she offered a small smile that made the cracks in her cheeks shift in a strange way that ultimately was rather charming. She smoothed down her skirts, her hair spilling free around her shoulders and down her back. Such a comical little contradiction she made as she reassured, “I’m more durable than I look.”

Is that why he felt like he was the one who had been shattered? “Yes,” he managed, “I can see that, now.”

He hadn’t really been aware he’d taken a step closer to her until he saw the way she tensed. Not a strict fear response, perhaps, but a kind of wariness that made him immediately halt, to let the tension drain away again. Strange to think she would have anything to fear from him, but it didn’t seem a wise thing to confront just then.

“The cities aren’t all gone,” he offered, pointing over the drop off. “Another half-day’s walk brings you to a little town. And far beyond that, in the desert, is the empire’s hub.”

“Empire?” she murmured, mostly to herself. “No, that… doesn’t sound familiar. At all. How… how long have I been…?” She seemed to catch herself, though, focusing on him again. “Sorry, I guess you wouldn’t know, I was just thinking out loud and…”

“Oh. I might know,” Bailey said, tone casual, suddenly becoming preoccupied with his sleeve cuffs. He felt the burning light of her interested gaze on him and tried very hard to keep his voice lofty and academic. “If I had a few more details I could be more exact. But judging by the technology that went into forming your body, from your tomb, and from your memory of there being a city here—you were right on the cusp of the last of the Ancient Era, before we entered the sunless times of the Dark Epochs. I just finished reciting those histories to my cousins, as it happens, so I know the stories well. But even that tale is days in telling and, really, that’s only the beginning of it from your time. We’ve passed through many eras since then, just to get where we are now.”

“I suppose… I’ll pick it up as I go,” she began dubiously, looking off the way he’d pointed. “Because so much of my memory is a smudge on my mind’s eye, I could just try to make the best of what I have? Start fresh in that town down there?”

Her mouth was setting with determination as the thought seemed to take hold, her resolve firming. But was that really such a good idea? Walking in blind, without a House to speak for her, without a clue as to custom? Amongst strangers who could, at any time, divine her origin? He told himself that it was only the thought that this could somehow be traced back to him that made him feel a lurch of panic, his words a little rushed as he offered, “I could fill you in, on what you’ve missed. Not all of it. But enough to get by. If you like.”

She hesitated, and he tried to keep his face neutral, eyes directed to the side as she considered this alternative. “I don’t want to impose,” she began.

“You made that little figurine, didn’t you?”

“Y-es?” she said, stretching the word out. “Sorry, I didn’t know if you’d… want to actually see me again after…”

“How did you make it, out here? I didn’t see any tools.”

“Well, um, yeah, but there’s old glass all over the ground, here.”

He glanced to her and she colored a bit as if embarrassed, again. But she bent to the ground to demonstrate, shifting the old rubble between her fingers. As he watched, the glass bits—smoothed almost into pebbles by time—began to glow a hot red, growing malleable and stretching as she teased it into a little flower shape. And then, just as quickly, formed it back into a ball and dropped the red-hot glass back to the ground.

“That’s very useful,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “Can you also use tools, if someone were watching you?” At her hesitant nod, he said, “Well. If you’re that good at glasswork, you’ll have a steady career. There’s always more work to be done, even if it’s in construction and repair and not fine art. There are some projects around my home—you can help, there, while I tell you a shortened version of the histories. As kind of an informal contract.”

“That… actually sounds perfect. Okay, it’s a deal!” she agreed, moving forward and snatching up his hand in sudden enthusiasm.

He’d just watched her melt glass with those fingers. He wondered at himself, that his first instinct had still been to clasp her hand in return. Frankly, under the circumstances, he probably deserved to have his whole limb charred off for that. But her hand was only warm to the touch, as any person’s would be. Her beaming expression somehow making him feel a little brighter, a little lighter. How could someone have created glass eyes with so much depth to them—even if she had been some master worker in her prior life, how had she captured that nuance? Even from only a step away, her façade was flawless, every glass hair of her eyelashes perfectly formed.

To the eye. His hand knew better. She was warm, yes, but the texture of her skin was still smooth, hard, unyielding glass. It was worth remembering, he told himself sternly, even as she released him and danced back a few steps again, looking a bit flustered.

“Sorry, I… Yes, that sounds like a good plan. And thank you. Um. So what should I…? I actually forgot to ask your name.”

“It’s Carson, of the House of Reed,” he replied, somewhat relieved to have a protocol to fall back on. “And if your memory is still a smudge—I suppose you don’t remember what you were called.”

“Actually, there’s something engraved on my sole, so I think that must be right,” she said, balancing on one foot as she looked at the bottom. “See, it says ‘Catherine Derringer,’ so either that’s me, or someone was having a real laugh with me while I was—“ She looked up, startled at his sudden movement. He’d stepped away from her, and she was surprised by how bloodless he’d gone. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes were riveted on the words. “Can you get rid of that?” he asked, hoarsely. “The way you made your skin color, or even if burn’ee out’s—can’ee remove that?” She put her foot back down, and he was finally able to meet her eye, seeing how tense she was again. “The written Word can’t be suffered,” he started, but even trying to explain it seemed too much to bear just then.

Ultimately, he shook his head, the long gap of history between them. Taking his kerchief from his pocket, he knelt in front of her. And, although she was still quite confused, she permitted him to tie the fabric over her foot like he was wrapping a wound, hiding it from view.

He straightened, already visibly calmer. “Perhaps that’s where we’ll begin, then.”

***

They had a somewhat circuitous path back to the house as Bailey took the opportunity to first check his hunting traps and try to lay some groundwork for telling the histories. Although she was full grown and seemed to have some fuzzy memory of her life during the Ancient times, it seemed best not to rely on that recollection and just try to start from scratch. He therefore approached this latter task as he would for any very young student, which meant essentially going all the way back. The glasswork woman, he found, made for a fairly receptive audience, and once she’d forgotten a bit of her nervousness, she had copious questions about nearly everything: What was this Word? How does a Word speak itself? Why did the Wind have a will but most other things in the cosmos didn’t? How do you eat a Word? Was this supposed to be allegorical? And so on and so forth, but she had to outright stop him when he got around to talking about writing being part of what caused the Ancient’s end.

“That can’t be right,” she insisted, pushing her hair out of her face again.

The forest path here was a bit narrow, but she turned sideways and trotted to keep up just so she could confront Bailey on this.

“Writing is—it’s how you learn! There’s just no way to communicate aloud all that information. And if you had specialized knowledge, it would get lost if you didn’t tell enough people before you died.”

“We get by.”

“But how is this any worse than just speaking? Isn’t that also messing with the Word, or whatever?”

“Some think so,” he conceded. “North of here, the Joplins only allow the children to speak, and adults are expected to know better. So they sign—“ “See, that’s also language!”

“—as people were intended to, without treading into the specific domain reserved to the Word. But for most people, just speaking isn’t profane in the way trapping the Word in immutable forms would be.” He glanced to her, and seeing her somewhat mutinous expression, said, “This isn’t debatable.”

“It just seems so… backwards. And inefficient.”

“It’s the way of the world, Derringer Cater—Catherine,” he said, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar word.

“Cat’s fine,” she brushed it off, missing his look of quickly-controlled surprise.

“I can say it properly, Derringer Catherine,” he said, somewhat stiffly, as if to prove that he could.

“Hmm, well. So, wait, you don’t keep any records?”

“Oh. No, we do. In beadwork, or made in glass sheet grooves. As approximations of the ideas, and mostly to keep track of House business.”

“Seems like cheating,” she muttered as they stepped from the path to visit the third trap. She absentmindedly gathered up the hem of her skirt to lift it away from the melting snow, otherwise seeming oblivious to the cold conditions. “And it also just seems like the wrong lesson to learn, here. I know we must have done a lot wrong, but for you guys all to take from that that illiteracy was preferable to—good God!” she broke off as she spotted something caught in the trap, her feet scrambling backwards so that she nearly fell right on the slushy earth. “What the hell is that?”

Bailey wasn’t entirely certain, himself. Creatures could look so different, when they were as sick as this one was. He couldn’t tell if it had initially had that rat tail, or if that was another product of the mange that left clumps of matted, bloody hair scattered about the trap from the creature’s thrashing. The trap itself wasn’t designed to permanently injure, but it’s skin was so delicate even its attempts to free itself had resulted in most of the flesh sloughing off. It had what looked like six functional limbs, and one boneless one growing from about midway up its hind-quarters. Its milky eye told him it had likely been blind from birth. Its open sores wiggled with parasites that seemed to have come from within.

“Not fit to eat,” he sighed, drawing his knife to put it out of its misery. He avoided the snap of its spindly teeth to slit its throat. The blood that wept from the wound was sluggish and thick, and he quickly wiped his blade clean in some of the melting snow. He’d need to find another place to reset the trap, let the forest reclaim this patch while the carcass rotted.

Derringer had been quiet while he did this, her face a mixture of disgust and pity. “Are there… a lot of things out here, like that?”

“Not as many as there used to be. They’re born sick, so most don’t live long enough to reproduce. And we’ve done a pretty thorough job of killing the ones that do manage to survive. It’s been a slow process, but now it’s fairly few and far between you find one as bad off as this.”

She was more reticent, again, as she followed him back to the path. Her colors seemed a bit muted, the bright gold of her eye dimmed as she watched the ground. Eventually, she offered softly, “We really screwed up, didn’t we.”

He didn’t dispute it. “There’s more. And there aren’t enough steps between here and the house to tell it all. It’s more than just the writing on your foot: you’re going to need to be on your guard against anyone discovering your origins. The Ancients were powerful and fearless, but their ingenuity was often tainted with their own self-destructive tendencies. What we have from the Ancients, their machines or their medicines, we have slowly tested over the course of generations. Anything new—anything unexpected or potentially dangerous—we generally destroy. Clockworks are a mixed bag, sometimes still useful and able to repeat the functions for which they were made. I’ve never heard of one quite like you,” he admitted, “but as I say, that doesn’t help you much, because that means you’re wholly new.”

“You destroy things just because you don’t understand them?” she asked, and as shaken as she still was, she couldn’t quite hide the contempt in her voice. “Seems a bit barbarous.”

“You think so? Ah, well. Perhaps we are a barbarous people.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“In the Era of Coldstill, five generations from the Sun’s release,” he cut her off, making a sign of the era to signal the start of the lesson, “was the township of Casing, named for the Ancient tech casing in the town’s center. Near the base of the Mountains was it founded, during the times when the kingdoms were still forming and the fertile plains were yet unruled. Being so near the Mountains, they carried on the city-state form of government, where no family has any kind of direct political voice as our Houses give us. Casing was a bustling town that made use of the rich farmland, timber, natural ores from the mountainside, and, most importantly, the Ancient’s treasures they mined with impunity. They knew the dangers, but laughed at them as old superstitions from the ignorant and cowardly. And for a time, they seemed justified. The township of Casing grew and thrived, utilizing Ancient technology to tend their crops, to gather resources more easily, to subdue their enemies. It was a beautiful town, by all accounts. If you have the stomach for it, you can still go see it. The city is there, as it likely will be until the sun finally winks out: every inch of it, every paving stone, every child, every blade of grass, perfectly preserved from where they were covered in the Ancient dark metal that does not corrode. No one is sure exactly how it happened. Some think the Ancient artifact at the town center used to be some sort of city-maker, meant to create buildings in an instant, as some of the stories say, and that it was only that the controls had some internal miscalculation. Others think it might have been sabotage, from ones trying to punish them for their hubris. Whatever it was, it must have happened in an instant, to capture them like that, totally encased in metal, without a hint of fear or knowledge of their impending end. And so it remains, as a reminder to those who would needlessly meddle with the Ancient’s things.”

The forest path was a bit narrower, here, requiring that they go one-by-one. At his back, Derringer seemed to be absorbing the story, too engrossed in its implications to even interrupt with a question. Her steps were slowing, and when she stopped entirely, he turned back. She stood on the path, her hands twisting the fabric of her skirt in a nervous gesture. Her head was bent slightly, the long sweep of her hair partially obscuring her face. The angle of light through the trees showed her skin had become somewhat translucent again, casting refracted light onto the earth around her. At the neckline of her dress, Bailey could just make out a shadow of her inner workings as they hummed away inside of her, a perfect mechanism of engineering and art that still somehow didn’t account for the spark of living light in her eyes as her gaze darted up to meet his.

“If that’s all true,” she said, “if Ancient things are so terrible—why are you taking me back with you? Why did you wake me up at all?”

“Ah, well. It figures. All this knowledge of history, and apparently I’m still not very wise.” He could see she wasn’t satisfied with that answer, her silence prompting further response. “The histories are reminders. They help guide us. But we can still reason for ourselves. As I say, I don’t know that there’s ever been another like you. We’re warned from unintentionally injuring ourselves from technology left behind by the Ancients. But you aren’t a thing that was left behind you’re… a person. Misplaced in time. If you hurt me, it will be by your own volition. Is that your intention?”

“No. Not intentionally,” she said, and he rather wished she hadn’t sounded so solemn about it. She was looking at her hands, again, something pained flickering over her features. “I remember making this form. So there must have been something, before. But… I can’t really tell you I was that same person, for sure. Maybe this is only a… casing, for a very sophisticated machine with a facsimile of life.”

“Well,” he said. “If you are just clockwork—at that level of sophistication, is there really any difference?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She let her hand drop, her opacity returning as she straightened her back and gestured him on ahead of her towards the house. “But I can see why you might caution against putting that question to the public at large. It seems more something I’d rather work out for myself, rather than risk just having any old person decide it’d be a good idea to try and smash me.”

From behind, she saw a shudder run over his skinny frame. He tried to shake it off as owing to the weather as he readjusted his coat, but she could see his ears had reddened a bit with the emotion he’d suppressed. A curiously visceral response as he only gave a brief nod of agreement and swiftly changed the subject.

When they finally reached the house, the day was deepening towards twilight, again. The faint speckles of the stars that had persisted through midday now reclaimed the sky in earnest as the heavy red sun gave way for another night. One day closer to when the Sister-Houses would be arriving to judge their progress and determine their viability.

That seemed like something to worry about tomorrow, though. For now, Bailey was trying to figure out how to get the glasswork woman into the house without exciting unnecessary attention. It was inevitable that Pin would discover their visitor, of course. But he could only hope she would keep true to her promise of discretion, even if this wasn’t exactly what Pin had had in mind. Better to have everything sorted and above board even before he saw anyone else. So he avoided the front and the kitchen entrance. From a distance he had spotted Lee Parable heading in from the fields—his sensitive skin heavily veiled even against the weak winter sun, carrying a soil-testing apparatus slung over his shoulders—but Bailey had only given a wave of acknowledgement. He then hustled Derringer Catherine around the side at the base of one of the trees that made up a farther wing. The bark was worn smooth where generations had placed their hands, so that even if she weren’t following right behind, Derringer probably could have made her way up to his bedroom window. It was a rather charming little room, she reflected, shimmying down from the wide sill. A bit cluttered, perhaps. A hammock was strung up near the window they’d entered, with the thick coverlets on it rucked a bit. Elsewhere were incidentals people tended to collect wherever they might stay for long, the way dust gathers in the corners of a room: a half-finished tapestry, some baskets of yarn, a few little machines, clothing stored more or less in bins, a few glass figurines that caught the light. A kind of litter of life. She wondered, suddenly, what her room had looked like. It made her feel a little less real, to not even have such a banal way to mark her history.

Bailey had been checking the hallway. It hadn’t really occurred to him until they’d arrived, but he was not unaware of just how much of his private life he’d unwittingly exposed to her. Seeing the hall was empty, he hastened her out of the room with no small amount of relief.

They were curiously twisty hallways, rather narrow and tall for the most part, with sunroofs high above and more rooms and alcoves speckled down their path. Eventually they came back to the accounting room where Bailey had passed most of the day, and he was chagrinned to find that Pin had left the glass figure of Derringer right in the middle of his workspace. Determined not to let it rattle him, he merely cleared a space to quickly draw up a simple contract that would pass inspection. He also took the opportunity to supply her with an old satchel and directed her to make a bowl and utensils for herself from some of the glass—the bare minimum anyone would leave home with—so she at least had the appearance of having traveled there. He then dug out a violet earring for her. Trying heartily to ignore the little thrill that swept over him when her fingers brushed over his.

“This looks like your ring,” she said, turning over the earring to look at the tree design as she nodded to the ring on his hand.

“Well I should hope so; it’s my House’s sigil.”

“It’s pretty. Although some might say a symbol that means a specific thing is a kind of word,” she said, a smile breaking out across her face at his disgruntled frown. She pushed her hair back a bit from her face as she considered, “I don’t even know if my ears are pierced, come to think of it. Can you see if…?”

He kept his expression still as he managed a mute nod and got up to go to her side of the worktable. She was perched on another stool, there, her feet nowhere near the ground. She kept her gaze fixed ahead, cheeks only slightly pink, head cocking to give him better access. He was trying to still the trembling in his fingers as he finally was given permission to touch—and yet reigned in the temptation, so that he only lightly brushed her hair to the side. Still marveling in the warm flow of her locks over his fingers. Her eyes were lowered, eyelashes skimming the top of her scarred cheeks. He saw her shiver slightly as he uncovered the shell of her ear and found they were indeed pierced. Wordlessly, he took the glass earring from her and fastened it in place.

He stepped back, quickly, as she reached up to feel the earring, spilling her hair over her other shoulder. She seemed oblivious to the effect she had on him as she mused, “I suppose it must seem a strange thing not to know about yourself. To exist in a body you don’t seem to properly own. But every time I try to recall, it’s as if I’m looking back through fogged glass. I can make out… fragments. Sometimes the shape of it more than anything. But few details. I wonder if it was because of what I did to myself, to make me like this—or if in the long centuries of my sleep, it all simply faded out of me. Like an old book left out in the elements, the sun leeching all my colors and words away.” She stirred herself, glancing to him and saying, “Um. Or I guess not a book. Since you don’t… Sorry. So, what now?”

What indeed. He had been puzzling over it while he’d been drawing up the contract, until then mostly acting on instinct. He’d considered just trying to hide her in various projects about the rambling house and just make time to give her history lessons as well he could. But that ultimately seemed a recipe for disaster if Pin stumbled upon her and launched an interrogation. Better to act as if there were nothing to hide and keep this within his control. So he said, “I can show you to where they’re working on the new greenhouse. It’s glasswork, but less technical skill involved than your talents actually warrant—mostly grunt work—so it won’t take much of your concentration while I fill you in on more of the histories.”

“Who’s working on it now?” she asked, following where he led back out into the hall.

“Oh. Well. My fauder, Talus Mos, mostly, but my little sister has been assisting him.”

He spoke casually, but he was toying with the cuff of his sleeve and walking a bit quicker to try to cut off conversation. Eventually their windy path took them out on a farther limb and up through the floor of a rounded room perched on a higher bough. She squinted up through where the fading daylight was being caught by the clever play of glass panels. Grunt work, indeed!

Up along one of the high, sloping walls, she could see two people in harness at work: an older man and a teenage girl, carefully fitting one of the glass panels into the wall. The girl held it in place while the man made a few minor adjustments and then carefully ran a glowing-hot tool along the joining seam, to do a first seal. He nodded his approval, and the girl let go, glancing down for the first time.

“Oh!” she said, her eye immediately falling on Derringer Catherine. Her hand leap to her mouth, even as it split in a wide grin and she began to giggle uproariously.

“What’s funny?” the man demanded, also looking down but seeing little amusing about the situation.

Pin was already rappelling down almost faster than she could dole out the slack. “And who’s’ee, stranger?” she asked, in mock-shock.

“This is my sister, Reed Adelaide. And she’s Derringer Catherine. She’s been hired on to help out a bit.”

“Has’em, Bailey?”

Pin was grinning fit to burst while her brother pretended not to know what she was on about. Derringer wasn’t feigning being in the dark, at least, and could only try to return a somewhat confused smile of her own as the girl transferred her attention to the newcomer. Derringer could see the family resemblance between the two of them—both being rather tall and willowy blonds—and even with Pin’s cleft lip, the facial structure was fairly similar. She was also a bit annoyed that even with this sapling she had to look up to see Pin’s smile turn conspiratorial.

“So’ee came after all?” she stage-whispered. “La, but aren’t’ee na’much bigger’n your figurine’n all.”

“She’s here to help put up the greenhouse,” Bailey said, firmly.

“Don’t’ee worry. I won’t tell,” Pin assured her, ignoring him.

“Oh, uh, o-okay,” Derringer said, a bit dazed.

“And get’em lots’some time to talk, while we work!”

“You brought on new help?” Talus Mos was making his way down quite a bit slower. “I told you we’d finish before your Sister-Houses arrived. I keep my word,” he said, a bit stiffly.

“I know you do. But I need Pin elsewhere.”

Pin, seeing her chance to interrogate the newcomer slipping away, set up an exuberant protest that she was learning a useful skill and they’d already had setbacks, so they needed all hands on this to finish in time. At the same time, Talus Mos was arguing this wasn’t what they’d agreed to, they were all going to be in the way of one another, and that he still needed Pin to keep on-schedule. Bailey was trying to address both of their complaints at the same time, which just ended up with them all talking over one another, trying to get a word in edgewise. They certainly were a rowdy bunch, Derringer reflected, their words ringing off the greenhouse surfaces and right through her glass bones, until she finally interrupted, “I won’t be in the way!” which at least got their attention.

“I like odd hours,” she said. “I can work at night, and we’ll get it done twice as fast without getting in one another’s way.” She didn’t really seem to need sleep, as far as she could tell, so this seemed a good compromise.

“I’m amenable to that,” Talus Mos immediately agreed.

Pin was the only one whose aim was thwarted, now. But she ultimately had to content herself to that, telling herself she would still find a way to slake her curiosity. As Derringer Catherine claimed this a good a time as any to begin work, crying off that she had already eaten, Pin had to instead grill Bailey in undertones all the way back to the kitchen as they went to prepare the evening meal.

“Thought’ee say didn’t know’ee’em?” she sing-songed.

“Did I.”

“Is she staying long? Have’ee talked to her family? Where’s Derringer House? How’d’ee meet her out here?”

Pin didn’t seem to mind very much that he ignored her and just busied himself at making the meal, mostly just delighted to have something to tease him about. It had been a long, dreary winter of years for their House. She knew how he’d struggled to keep them afloat, always worrying about the family, putting it before all of his own needs. It relieved her that he finally wanted something for himself, which seemed to be making him happy in an embarrassed kind of way. So she didn’t push him too hard, mostly content to pester as she only hoped Derringer Catherine would stay with them for a long, long time.

***

Dinner was a busy affair. Beyond trying to tiptoe around Pin’s questions, an influx of House business snared Bailey’s attention.

First came agents from Harrington and Raise—Sister-Houses to one another who held longstanding contracts with the House of Reed for harvesting and land development. It still galled Bailey that in those early, lean years, he’d been forced to sell a long-coveted plot of his family’s land to the House of Raise. It had been necessary, and he had been sure the price was dear, but he couldn’t help the little twist of bitterness whenever he thought of it. His opinion of their Houses was not particularly high in any case. Their labor was steady, they fulfilled their contracts, and he envied them their numbers; but he’d yet to meet one of them who particularly interested him as people. True to form, these two were rather bland bead-counters who primarily seemed to enjoy one another’s company. They stayed for the meal after they had given confirmation of when and how many laborers would be supplied, but they declined to stay the night.

While they were cleaning up afterwards, the cook Bailey had hired weeks before arrived with his two assistants. This of course required some delicate maneuvering as contracts were affirmed, control of the kitchen was ceded, and proper housing was arranged. By the time Bailey was finished with that and left for them to start on tomorrow’s bread, he found Talus Mos waiting to ambush him, dancing around the insecurities that had seized him, given time to think it over. And so he had to be reassured that no, he was not being replaced, everything was fine, there was still a place for him here. And just when Bailey thought his working day might be over, Lee Parable had to politely request his attention yet again as regarded the soil sampling results, to work out which crops to plant where and how much seed and fertilizer they might need. This took some calculation, and they had each smoked approximately three pipes before they felt satisfied with their plan and left it for the day.

Bailey’s bones ached. Had been aching since his first growth spurt, although he hoped, by now, that he was nearing his full height. He decided to seek some relief in the steam room, down in the lower level. It was a large room, and he was grateful to sit alone in it, unbothered, and let the heat seep in. By the time he went to laboriously pump the shower cistern full, most of the aches had dissipated, and he was able to tolerate the cold shock of the drawn well-water. He looked forward to spring, when the river was not so frozen as to be dangerous and he wouldn’t have to do all this work just to get clean.

By the time he emerged, feeling marginally more human, it returned to him in a rush that he should really go check on Derringer, to see how she was settling into the work. He had meant to go back as soon as they had finished eating, but in the middle of everything else, he’d fallen back on his old routines and completely forgotten. A dread foreboding crept over him, his stride growing increasingly longer, as he only then realized that he hadn’t seen Pin since dinner.

Coming up through the floor, a glance skyward gave total vindication for his fears. For there was Pin, in harness again with a stack of glass plates, beside Derringer Catherine. They had paused in their work and—Bailey’s heart gave a lurch—Pin was holding onto the glasswork’s arm, tilting it as though to inspect it. Those dangerous glass fingers were held loose, the Ancient thing appearing calm and tolerant. When Bailey stumbled over the last ladder rung and clattered his way up with a hoarse shout, they both glanced down in some surprise, but still quite at their ease.

“Pin, let go!” he snapped, his fear putting an edge of anger into his voice.

“Derringer said’em I could look’see,” Pin answered stubbornly. As he was getting his own harness on, below, she continued talking to her companion. “And made’ee them, your own self? I’ve a cousin,” she continued, “lost a leg. Bone rot brought a fever that nearly took’em with the leg. When he’d recovered, get’em a mechanical in town, and barely slowed’em down. But’s just a machine—nothing like get’ee, here. ‘S like art. You’re wasted on the greenhouse. But how’d’ee lose both arms?”

“Not… all at once. I had time to prepare,” she put off actually answering, and was somewhat grateful for the interruption as Bailey made his way up to them.

The climb had given him a chance to cool the immediate spark of fear he’d felt, but Pin still felt it prudent to let go of Derringer’s arm and interject before she could be scolded: “I wasn’t snooping; get’em assist, and accidently brushed her arm, and ‘s only curious’some, anyway, and said’em fine, right, Derringer Casser—Catr…” Realizing she didn’t have much chance of pronouncing the name properly, she somewhat lamely repeated, “Derringer?”

“Um. Yes? She was helping,” she agreed, more firmly.

“I can take that over,” Bailey said. He was pleased that his hands were steady again when he gestured for the glass plates Pin was holding. “You should get some rest.”

Pin clutched them to herself instead, brows drawing down. “Why’s’ee not get’ee the same?”

“I have histories to recite. It’s part of the exchange for her work. You can stay if you like,” he shrugged, tone implying he didn’t care one way or the other. “But it’s all things you’ve heard before. And you’ll still need to be up with the dawn to help Talus Mos.”

“Thank you, for all your help,” Derringer Catherine put in at this point, so Pin’s expression was slightly less sour as she handed the glass plates over to her brother.

Even so, she lingered for a while longer, rather unsatisfied that they seemed to actually just be sticking to business. His recitation of the histories was such a basic primer, she wondered if he was deliberately doing it to bore her. But Derringer seemed to be listening attentively as she worked, asking appropriate questions. It was really quite dull. They worked easily, smoothly together, anticipating one another in their work and moving preemptively to meet the other’s needs. But Pin didn’t see any sign of the wistful looks or longing sighs she felt would have been more appropriate to two secret lovers. Finally, admitting defeat, she rappelled back down to the ground, sparing a last glance at them. Still working together in attentive synchronicity. Derringer’s skirt was bunched up almost scandalously over her knee, nearly bumping into his from time to time as they seemed drawn together, like two flames joining over the breath of oxygen between them.

When she was gone, Derringer set aside the tool she had been borrowing to switch over to just using her glass-molding hands, the work progressing at a much faster pace. Apparently preoccupied, she found the courage to broach the subject, “Sorry. I r-really didn’t plan that. It just kind of… I didn’t know what to say or… And it just seemed easy enough to let her think it was just my arms, and… I’m sorry, anyway, if I scared you, or…”

“It’s better than I could have come up with, on short notice,” he admitted. “And it was probably bound to come up.” There was a long pause. She had just about given up hope that he was actually going to address the real issue when he said, quietly, “It’s not you. Not entirely, anyway. If I really had doubts, I wouldn’t have let you in. I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near her. But…”

His hands were shaking. His lips twisted, holding back something vicious. A kind of fear lurked in the hollow spaces of his face. But when his averted eyes finally returned her gaze, she was the one who had to look away—the way one hides from the intense glare of the sun on a snowbank. She felt, again, a kind of aching emptiness in the heart of her. She found herself wondering if she had ever known someone who had cared for her the way he clearly cared for his family. Someone she must have entirely forgotten, somewhere in these many years. Strange to think even such passion could simply be lost.

When he began, again, to recite the histories, they both seemed only too eager to let the matter drop.

Even with a world of words to channel, the human body can only act as a conduit for so long. Bailey kept up for as long as he could, eventually settling in one place on a ledge to keep talking. Derringer set up a platform to take the glass panels from more swiftly, and she went ranging along the forming walls. The breaks between his stories began to stretch; his words began to soften and slur. Watching her work was hypnotizing. Her fearlessness when she’d slipped the harness and tied her skirts to one side, making new toeholds for herself as needed and smoothing the glass away as she finished. The little artistry she started to add to the panels, making landscapes and figures appear with a brush of her fingers. The steady sureness that entered her posture when she let herself get lost in her work. The distracted way she’d tucked her long hair away. The strength in her legs glimpsed when she would tense and shift from one part of her project to the next. Her body was fire licking the insides of this lantern room.

She could see the sun threatening the horizon when she finally sat back from her work, lest the rest of the family catch her at it. Only when she heard the first birdsong did it occur to her that the room was otherwise quiet. Had been quiet for some time.

At some point Bailey had dozed off. Perched on the ledge, still sitting in the safety harness, his cheek rested against the rope. It would be quite the rude awakening, should he fall. As she climbed up, level with him, she was struck by just how sleep changed him. The worry and caution eased away; his lips, slightly parted, lacking the somewhat mocking smile. Thin bones and gentle lines under threadbare clothing; almost breakable. It was only in motion, with the full force of his will and passions, that he seemed so formidable. Taking a seat beside him on the ledge, her hand hesitated before she tried to gently brush some of the hair off his brow—wild-growing wheat, it resisted the furrows her fingers attempted to make to tame it into line, springing right back. Under what sun did he fully ripen? He stirred at her touch, eyes opening blearily in some quiet confusion for the curious expression on her face.

Oh God. What had she been thinking? Her hand withdrew, swiftly. Apologies already bubbling out of her as she shifted over the ledge.

“Wait—“

The sound was tremendous in the quiet room. She had landed solidly, but steadily, uninjured. Only thrown off-center when Talus Mos poked his head up from the ladder she was approaching. He gained the room and looked around in some alarm.

“What was that? It sounded like a hammer falling!”

“It’s nothing to worry about. Derringer Catherine, wait, I—“ he let out a wordless gasp of discomfort upon moving his legs, the pins and needles spiking through him with a vengeance.

“Did you sleep in the harness?” Talus Mos demanded, disapproving, watching him fumble slack out of his line as he scrambled to get to the ground.

“If I could… if I could j-just get out of your way,” Derringer muttered, actually rather wishing Talus Mos would move aside and let her escape.

But now he was looking around, his face transforming with astonishment. “Eaten Word. What did you do? This is nearly three days’ work you finished. In a night!”

“Oh? I’m? Sure it wasn’t that much?” she tried to brush past, her heart sinking as Bailey made it to the ground.

“Maybe not. If you didn’t do it correctly,” he said, clearly dubious. “If they weren’t properly set—“

“Feel free to check,” Bailey said, still wincing as sensation returned to his legs and he limped over. Talus Mos didn’t go quite so far as to say that he intended to do so, but it was clear from the way he was setting up his own equipment that he was going to look back over her section of the wall.

Even with the way clear, now, she didn’t flee, waiting for Bailey to approach. But her face was rose as the dawn overhead, not daring to look at him. He missed the easy confidence she’d shown the night before; wondered, wildly, if there was some magical combination of things he could say that would restore her to how she had been. He felt at a rare loss for the right words.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, clearly mortified.

“No, you don’t have to—“

“I shouldn’t have—“

“You didn’t—“

Up the ladder, Pin finally made her way. She was still idly chewing on some of the breakfast she’d brought with her and wishing she’d heeded the advice to get to sleep earlier. But as she emerged up the ladder it all seemed rather worth it: Because there they were and she had just known it. There was little mistaking their postures. Her skirts were all tied to the side, exposing one leg almost to the hip. They were both a bit red. The edges of his fingers had found their way to her wrist. The gesture somewhat arresting, but less a demand, more a question. Gentle. Something she could have easily pulled away from, had she wanted to.

He only looked guiltier by immediately pulling away when he saw Pin. “Well. You’re up early. How did you sleep?”

“Better’n’ee, if’n had to guess,” she said, ever-so smug and wise.

He chose to ignore her tone. “I’m going after that egg today. Derringer Catherine,” he said formally, “if you would care to accompany me, we can continue from where we left off yesterday. On the histories,” he added, belatedly.

“Hasn’t’em working all night?” Pin asked, seeing all that had been accomplished and showing a touch of concern. “’S dangerous. If’n you’re caught…”

“No, I… I can go. I’m not tired,” Derringer said, willing to take just about any excuse to get past this awkwardness at this point.

It was only after she’d followed him through a brief trek to the kitchen to grab some breakfast and back outside that she thought to ask: “Um. Sorry. What egg?”

***

Things of that size really didn’t belong in the air.

That was Derringer’s first thought upon spying the enormous bird-creature up the tree. Even from this far away, it was impressive. It was the size of an ambitious sapling itself, nearly four times her own height. With leathery, triangular wings, and a beak large enough to swallow her without use of the sharp, black teeth within. It made strange crooning bugles from time to time that echoed through the trees, its long neck swaying as it made minute adjustments to its nest as it became more agitated, its bugling becoming more frequent.

Behind the house, Bailey had made a stop over to grab some equipment from a shed on the perimeter, including some climbing gear, two large satchels, and a strange kind of horn. The horn was clearly made of some kind of bone, but it was shaped less as a tube, more of a kind of thin, sloping wave. While they had walked along into the forest, he’d blown into it from time to time, reproducing a sound much like the one Derringer was hearing now. On closer examination, she realized now that the “horn” had actually been a bony kind of crest, like a miniature the one she could see on the bird—although how the animal was producing any sound from that, she wasn’t sure.

“There are eggs up there?” she whispered, dubiously, when he’d reached a temporary break in his recitation.

“Oh yes. I’ve been keeping an eye on them,” he assured, matching her low tones.

“It’s winter.”

“Quetzes’s eggs take three years to hatch.”

Well, when you’re the size of a flying behemoth, apparently you can stand to take your time. Still, it seemed rather a shame, given that, and she shifted, uncomfortably. “What’re you going to do with them?”

“I have cousins who train them. They can carry a rider well enough, although they’re a bit expensive in upkeep. They don’t breed in captivity, and you can’t train the adults. So there’s always a dearth. It’ll hopefully sufficiently endear me to them when they arrive next week.” He said the last somewhat dryly. His fingers drummed against his knees, straightened cuffs that needed no straightening, brushed flecks of mud away from his shoes.

“Your sister mentioned you have, um, cousins coming to visit. Is it a big deal?”

“Oh. I’m sure we’ll manage,” he didn’t really answer her, but just then he stiffened, murmuring, “There it goes!”

Sure enough, apparently fed up waiting for an answer that would never come, the bird was shaking its wings out, waddling in place, shifting from side to side. And then it launched from the nest. It was like a boulder, at first, falling from a mountainside in an inevitable battle with gravity—until, miraculously, those enormous wings opened with a percussive sound like a drum being struck, and away it swooped off into the trees.

They wasted no time in scurrying to the tree holding the nest. The borrowed shoes had spikes in the front of them, their hands holding hooks to drive into the bark. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do if that great thing came winging back early. She could perhaps act as moral support when it snipped Bailey’s head off. But even such dreary thoughts couldn’t sustain her for long. There was a kind of thrill in it, now, a bubbling mix of fear and excitement in her glass innards that almost felt to sting. The sentiment echoed on Bailey’s face as they scurried up the tree, his teeth flashing in a biting laugh.

His shirt was soaked through with sweat before long, despite the cold in the air. His limbs were quaking as the ground fell away, muscles protesting the unusual activity. She was keeping pace beside him, tireless and cool, as she had been for sunsets of generations—that inner ticking would run longer than the sun. As they neared the nest’s branch, she outpaced him a bit in her eagerness, face alight with expectation. He wondered if she would hunt like this: powerful and lithe, single-minded in her purpose. He was very much tempted to take her. Although before then, he told himself, averting his eyes, he should really probably see about getting her some trousers…

This was certainly a third-year nest. It reeked, that lizard, fetid stench of moulting. The heat was sunk deep into the twigs, so that moving over it felt like stirring live coals from ashes. And so they uncovered the eggs. There were nine in total, each the size of a human torso. One Bailey could tell at a touch had never quickened. But the others were viable, something healthy and living stirring within. Only waiting for their season of life. He looked up to find Derringer’s grin matching his own, the sweet warmth of her expression creating a strange kind of fire in his center. She had a smudge on her cheek from where she’d brushed it against the wet bark. Such careless artistry. Didn’t the Ancients make holy buildings of stained glass?

But then she was looking away, a hand at her chest as though she was trying to contain something, there. Or perhaps as if there was something already constrained. Her brow furrowed as she turned away to sling off her pack and carefully lay the egg she’d collected within while he did the same. They covered the other eggs as best they could with the precious time they had, and then beat a hasty retreat. On their backs, the eggs continued to radiate left-over heat through their delicate shells all the way back to the house, where they finally stored the eggs beside the fire they stirred in Bailey’s room. He had debated keeping them in the main sitting area, or perhaps in the kitchen, but he feared the temptation would prove too much and someone might abscond with them in the night. No, better like this, kept marginally secret, where he could keep an eye on them.

“Do you do that all the time?” Derringer asked behind him.

“No, this was only the second time,” he said, turning back.

He wasn’t sure why he felt quite so shocked to see she’d sat down on his hammock, her little feet not quite touching the floor. Most of the furniture in here was covered in projects he hadn’t bothered to clear away. So naturally it would be the most logical place to sit, enthroned among his heavy quilts. She’d drawn them around her shoulders in what must have been an unconscious gesture, because as he cautiously seated himself beside her, she seemed perplexed by the question: “Are you cold?”

“I don’t think I do that, anymore. Feel cold, I mean.” She toyed with the edge of the blanket, thoughtful, as she pushed it off her shoulders. He found himself staring at the delicate brown hairs along her arms, moving even with such a small generated breeze. “I’m not really… sure what I feel. I know it isn’t like it used to be, but it’s hard to say… how. The blanket is soft. It traps heat. But it’s not… comfortable? No, that’s not it, it doesn’t give comfort. It’s a thing that’s there, it has these properties, but something almost seems to interrupt it before I can properly feel it. Although there were a few times where I almost thought…” As she had spoken, her hand had crept to her chest, over where her heart should be.

She was startled from her reverie when he took her other hand. Glass, his fingers told him, but what did they know, anyway. “And this? What does this feel like?”

“Um. A h-hand?” she said, giggling nervously. Oh she wished he wouldn’t look at her with those big, pale eyes. There was that feeling again, like a creeping vine twining through all her innards, making them seize in her mechanism—was he trying to draw it out of her? “Bony? A bit cold? Distinctly hand-shaped?”

He could call on such a lazy smile. It had been a mistake to look at his mouth. If he breathed into her, would she grow warm and fogged? She was losing her opaqueness, the facsimile of skin. Could this glass reform into new shapes under the press of those fingers?

And no, actually, this wasn’t right. In her chest, there was something seriously wrong—something bound and breaking, something she wasn’t supposed to touch…

She dropped his hand, ducking her head so that her hair swept forward. Waiting until she felt the sensation pass. Grateful for the silence; that he didn’t press. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to feel all that, just yet,” she offered at length.

He shifted slightly, giving her a little more space. It wasn’t easy on a hammock, but at least he was making an effort. Eventually he just stood up, giving them both some much-needed distance. A few breaths passed as he apparently settled something within himself before he said, “Our original arrangement still stands. I have a few other things to take care of, today. But I can come keep you company in the greenhouse again, later?” his tone making it a question. Although he only watched her from the corner of his eye, a very slight smile tugged at his mouth when she avidly nodded agreement. Both of them trying not to feel entirely foolish as he left her there.

***

The days settled into a loose kind of pattern. There was a feverish amount of household work to manage in preparation for both his Sister-Houses’ visit and also for the coming growing season. Contracts made months before were fulfilled as the home filled with laborers, agents, travelers, and craftsmen. There were many rooms that still needed to be aired out, and he had a running checklist in his mind of minor repairs to see to. Bailey was fully preoccupied when the message reached him that there was a man outside. He had so far refused to come in or announce himself, but had asked for an audience.

When his schedule was somewhat clearer, Bailey finally made his way out to check on this mystery person. There were sometimes shy sorts, afraid to leave their Houses’ names until they were sure of the reception. A few had clearly fled without permission, carrying no token to allow them to negotiate a contract, their labor still rightfully owed to their House. Often these were better politely fed and then passed along, rather than potentially incurring their family’s wrath.

But the ones Bailey found outside were known to him. The man who met him at the edge of the clearing surrounding the home was a middling-age Red, his long hair very nearly hidden beneath all the beads braided into it. His face was wrinkled perhaps somewhat prematurely: with care, but also with smiles.

“Warden Reed,” Bailey was greeted, formally, but warmly.

“Solaris.” Leaving aside any family name still felt awkward in his mouth. A sad kind of reminder. But if there was any sting left to it, the older man didn’t show it. “And Marta?”

Solaris gestured back further into the trees, in confirmation. “We’ve come to fulfill our contracts, to see to your records and generator.”

“I recall. You didn’t have to wait out here.”

“You had quite a bit more activity around than usual. We weren’t sure… She wasn’t sure…” His face had balanced to slightly more care than smile for the moment as he glanced back into the trees again, where a very large shadow shuffled a bit closer.

Even hunched nearly double, as she was, she still dwarfed the men. Even since the last time he’d seen her, a year ago, she had grown again. Her limbs and digits each carried an extra joint to them, creating three segments of each. They said in the times of the Ancients, modification was rapidly becoming the norm. But born mods were rare these days, only occasionally cropping up in a family every few decades. Bailey rather suspected quite a few more were born than actually lived to adulthood. Marta, herself, had been unwanted by either parent House, the gossip went. What would have happened to her if Solaris hadn’t cut ties with his House and decided to raise her himself was unknown. But the two of them seemed happy enough: Solaris was an excellent weaver and recordkeeper, while Marta had a way with engines, even as young as she was. And although she was shy and generally awkward, she clearly looked well cared-for. Even now, Solaris’s concern seemed to be solely for her, showing little of the exasperation or sullenness one might expect after being made to wait in the cold for another’s comfort. Perhaps the loss of his family’s name wasn’t such a bitter thing after all.

“Warden Reed,” the girl mumbled, looking as if she would much rather stay hidden behind her tree. “Didn’t’em wanna disturb’ee guests.”

“No one is disturbed. Don’t be ridiculous.”

She was about Pin’s age, he remembered. They used to play together, when they were younger. And just as with Pin, she didn’t seem assured with the kinds of platitudes you might give a child. Her eyes were altogether rather too world-weary as she paused before saying, “If say’ee, Warden Reed. I’ll start now. But if please’ee, the work on’ee jenny will go faster if someone would bring’em meals and a cot down.”

There seemed little point in argument. When he had a moment to speak with Solaris alone, the man had turned fairly solemn as he explained that their last contract had been cancelled after too many workers quit rather than work alongside her. It had been a big project that required many hands, in close proximity, for long days.

She seemed relieved to be left alone in one of the root basements in the Reed home to do minor tune-ups to a generator. Bailey didn’t really have the time to try to fix what was broken in this situation, although it made him feel somewhat sick at heart to think of her cooped up down there. He was somewhat less than subtle in telling Pin she had an old friend who she really mustspend some time with and counted it as a minor victory when he spotted the two of them strolling the grounds in the evenings.

Bailey’s own nights were quite busy. Each day, he waited for the light to fade from the sky with ever-mounting anticipation until he could once again spend his time with the glasswork woman. He thought he had been fairly successful in pushing down any unwanted or unwarranted feeling of disappointment, but that didn’t stop him from reveling in what little time he had with Derringer. Trying to be concise in telling their history, but entertaining as well. Cursing that so much of the past was tragedy and warning; straining his memory for those stories that might bring brief delight or humor, if only because of the way her face would flush and her bright eye would turn to him to share in her joy. He busied himself with patching up some of his sister’s old trousers while he tried to keep his mind on reciting histories. Only to be continuously distracted by some of her questions, which would reveal something of the world she’d left behind. Or by her laughter, her smile, the way she kept losing herself in her work.

It was dangerous. He’d known from the start that it was, with anything the Ancients had touched. But there was another kind of danger. He’d felt stirrings for women before; he wasn’t made of stone. And of course he’d faced rejection. She had said, plainly, she couldn’t reciprocate. And he’d accepted that. Or he thought he had. He kept his distance, he didn’t press, he didn’t ask, and he certainly didn’t touch; they talked, and they kept to their work. So why were these feelings still so volatile? Seeming to rise and fall with the facsimile of breath stirring in her chest?

Maybe it was the closeness of the work. After the second night, she’d already finished with the greenhouse. So she took to roving his halls, learning the layout of the home as he directed her to minor repairs, or simply showed her around. The house was asleep, so to keep up conversation they had to stay close and speak softly. He was thus hyper-aware of her every movement, taking great pains to keep from any accidental touch, any misplaced word, until he felt his chest might burst with suppressed emotion. It was a wonderful kind of agony, at once exhausting and thrilling. It could go nowhere; it was completely unsustainable. But for those few brief nights, he tried to just enjoy it while it lasted.

Bailey sensed trouble when his father tracked him down a few days in. Talus Mos’s stance was tense, his face set, but he waited for Bailey to finish with the matters he was immediately tending to. Not an emergency, then, but still official.

“Warden Reed,” Talus Mos began, the formality in the address immediately concerning Bailey, “I would never cheat you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Bailey responded automatically, startled.

“And I am not lazy,” Talus Mos went on resolutely. “And yet I… have no excuse. That Violet woman you brought on, of the House of Derringer—I don’t know how she finished that work so quickly, but I’ve checked it over myself. It’s sound. Artistic, even.”

“Oh. That,” Bailey said, relaxing. “You needn’t judge yourself based on her work.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “And I tell you, with the equipment we had, I couldn’t have finished that in twice the time she did, working alone, and at night. I worked as fast and as well as I could, but I have no excuse—“

“You don’t need one,” Bailey said to stop this outpouring, as much for his sake as for his father’s.

Talus Mos had had somewhat weak spirits, ever since Reed Beatrice had passed. The risk of loving only one with such a blind passion. He was prone to melancholy, only slowly pulling himself back from oblivion when he saw how the children of his late lover’s House might still need him. He had done what he could, taking solace in his glassblowing skills as a sign of his continued usefulness and worth. Being outshone like this had therefore shaken him rather more than either of them could have guessed. He looked old. And lost. His shoulders rounded, little care gone into his braids. Bailey had a twinge of fear, realizing his burden had always been greater than he had initially imagined. He had spent so long worrying over Pin, trying to prepare for her future, he’d rarely put much thought into what would become of his father, if their House’s fortunes should fail. Talus Mos was not a young man, anymore, and his own House hadn’t had much to do with him for twenty-odd years.

Bailey couldn’t leave it like this. “She wasn’t… working with the same equipment,” he allowed. “It made the work easier for her.”

“Other equipment? She brought it with her?”

“It’s an heirloom,” Bailey said, to cut off further inquiry. Something from the Ancients, proprietary to her House, and something she would almost certainly be unwilling to share. Bailey told himself it wasn’t exactly a lie; she was something of an artifact, herself.

But this seemed to be enough. Talus Mos let out a breath of relief, setting aside that burden of inadequacy, at least momentarily. He even managed a smile. “Well, in that case. But heirloom or not, she’s certainly skilled. But I suppose you would know that. You’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”

Bailey turned back to the looms he’d been sorting through. “Have I? Oh. Yes, I suppose. She needed a brush-up on her histories.”

“That seemed to have worked out well for the two of you, then,” Talus Mos said, not blind to the deflection. He paused before saying, “I only met her briefly. But Pin seems to like her. She says she has the most peculiar yellow eyes…”

Bailey glanced over at that. “It’s not like with Nee,” he said, quietly. “It’s not the Wilderness. Her eyes are just like that.” Seeing a trace of pity in his father’s face, he had to smile. “I’m not deluding myself. And if you saw for yourself, you wouldn’t mistake it.”

“If you say so.”

Bailey had certainly spent long enough studying her eyes. It was true, they were a golden sort of color rarely seen in nature. When the Wilderness got a hold of you, it created a similar effect, leeching yellow into the eye. But the Wilderness distorted the iris, making it fill nearly all the white of the eye. There was nothing like that with Derringer Catherine, captivating as her eyes were: like bonny little flowers springing out of the snow.

“What?” she asked, the second-time she found him looking into her eyes a bit too long. He saw her fidget with nerves and immediately looked away, cursing himself.

“Nothing. My little sister only accidentally stirred up some trouble when she told Talus Mos about your eyes.”

“What kind of trouble?”

He paused, but she was likely to run into this again. “When the Wilderness claims someone, sometimes their eyes change to look a little like yours. It’s rare, and people mostly only hear of it. Those who have seen it first-hand are unlikely to make that mistake. So it’s not something you need to overly concern yourself over.”

Her hair had been slipping loose again. He fought the urge to brush it away from her face. They’d found another broken window in an out-of-the-way room in a farther corner of the house, and after she repaired it, they’d mostly been sitting in conversation for most of the night on the sill. The globes they’d shaken into life had slowly gone back to sleep. The moonlight on her skin was a scarlet wash. Her eyes had a soft kind of lighting to them, like dim candles behind a screen Still the most luminous points in the room.

“Talus Mos. That’s the older guy who was working in the greenhouse? And he’s your… father?” she asked, still not very clear. At his nod, she asked, “And who’s the other guy, the quiet one? Is that your brother?”

“Lee Parable? No, not exactly. He left Joplin, which is further to the north and has no Houses as we do, so they all take the House name ‘Lee,’ for political purposes. He has known our family for years, though, and he shares a kinship interest with Reed Adelaide, my little sister.” At Derringer’s inquiring glance he elaborated, “She was born of him, and of my older sister, Airadne.”

“So she’s…? Wait, what?”

“Before the Wilderness took her,” Bailey said, thinking this was what had confused her.

“But then she’s not… If she’s Parable’s and Airadne’s daughter, then she’s not your sister.”

“Yes, she is.”

“No, she’s your niece.”

“’Niece’? What’s a niece?”

“It’s—come on,” she said, getting flustered, standing up and starting to pace, “when a sibling has a daughter, that’s… that’s your niece.”

It seemed to be all semantics, to him. They were all children of the same House, raised in the same generation. Who the parent was generally made little difference except perhaps between said parent and child, should they form any kind of bond.

“I fail to see the importance of such a distinction.”

“No, it’s important,” she insisted. “I mean not just in terms of who’s your actual sibling, but also, just… Being an aunt or uncle is… I mean, it’s special! When my niece was born, I—“

She stopped pacing suddenly, her back to him. There was a wretched sound; it might have been her that screamed, or else only something internal starting to yield to pressure. She crumpled forward, a hand at her chest, another covering her mouth. He was on his feet in an instant, all the hairs raised on his neck as he approached, only to halt when she turned half-towards him. Her colors came and went, fading in and out with her labored breaths.

“My niece…” she croaked out. Her face was awful, the grief vivid. Her contorted expression created terrible canyons of the scars on her cheeks. “Oh God, I remember… her. Wh-when she was born, her little hands—the first time I held her, her hands couldn’t even close around my finger. She was��“

She gasped, and the shrill, piercing sound was now clearly coming from her chest, like tortured metal being reshaped. Panicked, Bailey begged her, “Let me help.”

Reluctantly, she straightened somewhat and let him approach, hand still at her breast. “Something is… wrong,” she admitted. “Loose.” She pulled down the front of her shirt a little, her chest wall abruptly becoming transparent.

Bailey was not a healer. He had a fairly rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. Once, as a child, he’d gone with a gaggle of other children with an Orange to see a demonstration in the closest little town, where a healer had preserved a cadaver for the class’s inspection. Looking, now, none of the glass-replicas in motion seemed to bear much resemblance to that long ago corpse. But there was one part, at least, that didn’t seem to be properly moving: at the source of the trouble, there was a still, dark little organ. Opaque where the rest of her was still clear. Something in what looked like a strangle-hold of metal, only feebly struggling in its grip. Three bands surrounded the little organ, with the uppermost metal bent slightly, as though ruptured.

“Your heart,” he whispered. Awe in his voice. “I think it’s an actual heart. It’s bound,” he said, looking up from its little prison to her face.

He hadn’t realized how close he’d actually gotten to her until then. How hard he would have to fight the desire to try to give comfort for the quiet pain he saw there. He knew he would likely only make it worse if he tried.

“Is that what hurts?” she asked, her voice as soft as his. “The binding?”

“The undoing,” he admitted. He should move away. Out of arm’s reach at least, so his treacherous arms wouldn’t so ache to hold her. A fool, he couldn’t bring himself to bring this plan to fruition. “One of the bands is giving way.”

He saw the flicker of fear, and then when she had mastered it. Her voice only shook a little. “Wh-what happens if they come loose entirely?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. A thousand terrible thoughts occurred to him, each more unbearable than the last. Somehow in thinking of all the potential ways she might pass back out of his life, he had never really considered any loss would be entirely permanent. She was a creature of flame, born countless generations ago. If the force of the Ancient’s folly and time hadn’t been enough to destroy her, it seemed unlikely much around here would. And even if he was overreacting, just seeing her in so much pain was sending him into a flurry of unexpected impulses and emotions.

He might have gone on to do something entirely foolish if behind him he hadn’t heard, “Reed Carson?”

Bailey spun around shielding as much of her from view as he could. Irrationally upset at the interruption, heart pounding in fear that someone might have seen her glass form revealed. When he saw it was Lee Parable, he barked out, “What? What is it?” with far less courtesy than he usually showed the Joplin.

There was a long pause. Lee Parable’s face was obscured in the dark. This is it, Bailey thought, feeling like he was in freefall. He should have been more careful. He never should have let it get this far, care this much. He only had himself to blame.

But when Lee Parable spoke, it had nothing to do with either impoliteness or Derringer Catherine.

He said, “Spores.”

The word hung there, drifting about the room. An evil cloud overhead.

Bailey’s legs nearly tripped out from under him as he bolted back for the window, all other thoughts forgotten. As if by looking he could change the narrative. Maybe Lee Parable had been mistaken. A trick of the eye, or a common dust cloud. But he could not long disbelieve his own eyes: the unmistakable miasma of scarlet, leaking from the moon’s bloody grin.

“Where’s it making landfall?” he choked out, holding the sill.

“Two days north,” Lee Parable answered.

Bailey’s hands were shaking, the wood creaking somewhat under his grip. “Spores?” he heard Derringer Catherine ask, tentatively, but his mind was already racing. If they left, now—right now—they might just be in time. The party, all of his careful plans; it was all for nothing, now. But there was no use thinking of that. Lee Parable was waiting for an answer, and there was only one he could really make.

He turned away from the window, saying, “Wake the kitchen staff, first. Tell them we’ll need rations. Then get Pin. Have her rouse the house and get everyone down into the front yard. I’ll be in the armory. Go!”

Bailey could hear the house waking around him, even as he ran, himself, down to the bottom levels. Voices calling, sleepy, panicked, confused, but there was no help for it. He almost didn’t notice Derringer had followed him down until, shaking a globe into life at the armory door to put in the complicated code, the light caught in her wide, glass eyes.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, trembling. There was something in her look—a hollowness, stark as the scars on her face. She may not have remembered the cataclysm that ended the Ancients. Not the specifics of it. But here in the dark with him, hearing the pounding of footsteps overhead in a heart’s stampede, an echo of it still sounded through her.

He busied himself at the door, hands dancing over the tapping sequence that would admit them. It unsealed with a hiss of stale air, the room long unused, but it swung open easily at a touch.

“The moon,” he said, already heading to the far wall where the apparatuses had remained untouched these many years. Trying to remember all the steps he needed to take, as they’d been explained to him. Checking the fuel gauges, straps, extra canisters. They were designed to be worn like packs, the canisters carried on the back, and the wand to spray the fire out like one was watering the earth. Each also came with a protective face-mask, to protect against inhaling either the smoke or the spores.

“Or rather, the forests on the moon. You Ancients did your job too well, there. You meant them to thrive, and they did. But the spores they began to put out, well… I suppose you couldn’t have predicted they could cross that narrow channel back. It took them a while to do that, apparently, but now it’s every 30 to 50 years. It’s early, this time; it’s only been 27.”

The equipment was sound, and he felt a moment’s rush of relief. There was enough here to properly equip a proper House’s size, and spares left over. Of all the things their tithes had to go towards, he was at least grateful that even the lowliest of Houses was always supposed to be well-supplied in this manner.

“Wh-what happens when they get here?” she asked, coming over to help him pick up the packs and stack them outside the door for easier retrieval.

“They grow,” he stated, wryly. “And grow. On anything. In the smallest hint of nutrients. But they weren’t designed for such a rich environment, or so heavy an atmosphere. They sprout and gorge and claw their way up and push out everything in its way until they collapse under their own weight within about a week; rotting, stinking corpses.”

“He said it’ll touch down north of here?”

“It’s too much for any House to handle alone,” he answered. They were now down to just a handful of the packs, each of them picking up as many as they could carry to take directly into the yard. “If we didn’t come together—is everyone ready?” he broke off as Pin trotted in, panting.

She gulped air, nodding. “’S get’em fast’em, ‘n’ cross bett’n ‘cease. ‘S mine?” Pin asked, eagerly, as he passed her a pack.

“You’ll need to keep a sharp eye out. Landfall will come at night. I doubt it will reach here, but—“

“Here?” Pin burst in, face coloring. “No, ‘s come’em with’ee.”

“Hmm. Well. No,” Bailey said, suddenly very busy in re-checking the equipment in his arms. “You’re staying here, to watch after our own lands. I’m going to ask Talus Mos to help you. You’ll need to keep the fire lit in my room, remember to turn the eggs…”

Pin had a few colorful phrases to say on this subject, rather too furious to care that they had a wide-eyed audience. “’S babies half’em age, going!” was the first semi-intelligible thing Derringer was able to pick up. “Any big’em’nough walk’s get’em ready!”

“Yes. Well. And they have others they’ll be leaving at home, to watch their holdings. No one expects us to abandon everything; we each give as much as—“

“Then stay’ee,” Pin said, inspired. “’S’more important, keeping the head of the House, ‘n if’n happen’some’em, ‘s’not as bad—“

“Don’t be absurd,” he said, coolly. And by now Derringer was quite wishing she could just squeak by and leave them to squabble this out, but Pin was still blocking the door.

“Why’s’t absurd’em? Don’t’ee strike the twig ‘n’ kill’ee tree, ‘s the roots burn’ee. So the House. If I’m a twig—“

“You’re not a twig,” he snapped, his voice cracking on the word. Derringer kept her eyes averted, but she couldn’t shut her ears. Oh why couldn’t she have just barreled past the willowy girl. “Pin, I can’t lose any more branches. And it won’t come to that,” he insisted as she started to protest, again. “Please. Stay here. We’ll be back in a few days, and it would be nice if we had a house to come back to and not a pile of splinters. Oh, now,” he said as Pin started crying, the fear finally reaching her past her indignation. He awkwardly shifted the packs he was carrying around to give her a one-armed hug, trying to reassure her that they were prepared, that nothing was going to go wrong. This, at least, finally freed the doorway, as Derringer slipped out, lugging as many of the packs as her arms could carry with the nozzles trailing along and bumping her knees.

The yard outside was a mass of shifting bodies, turned grotesque under the red moonlight. Derringer tried not to shiver as she began passing the packs out, saying that yes, more were coming, and no she didn’t know when they were leaving. Luckily Bailey followed her out shortly and was able to call them to order quickly enough, telling them where more of the packs had been stacked in the hall inside, checking that food had been distributed.

“All contracts can be considered suspended. If you need to renegotiate, this is something we can settle when this is over. Landfall is two days’ walk north of here, and we’ll need to walk through the night.”

“Have the other Houses been reached?” someone asked. “Do they know?”

“We don’t have a tuner,” Bailey admitted, “or any other way to directly reach them.”

“We could send a runner on ahead,” someone else began, doubtfully.

“I’ll go.” It was so dark in the yard, it was safe to say many had not even realized Marta was there on the outskirts of their ring until she had spoken and began to unfold her modified limbs. A few people stifled yelps of surprise as she abruptly loomed overhead. Bailey realized he had never actually seen her at her full height, before; even when standing, there had been a kind of stooped shame to her posture. It was absent, now, as she tossed back her hair and said, “I can be quite swift.”

“Marta,” Solaris cautioned, at once warring with pride and terror, “you can’t go on ahead, alone, not through those woods. I’ll… I’ll come—“

“You’ll slow me down,” she said, not unkindly, but as simple fact. To Bailey, she said, “I’ll get the word out. We’ll be ready.” And on her long, unusual limbs, she strode, disappearing into the forest as fast as a candle blowing out.

There was little else left for them to do but to sort the last of their affairs out and follow after her. Bailey managed to find the time somewhere in the midst of all the tumult and noise to convince Talus Mos to also remain behind, as people broke off either to go back to their homes for more supplies or further instruction, or else prepared to set off north. Frankly it was shocking to Derringer how fast order seem to emerge out of this chaos, and almost before she knew it, they were getting underway.

Bailey glanced back, once, at the tree line, looking back towards home. Spotting a little figure perched up on top of the house as a lookout. She was wearing the flamethrower pack and waving back madly in defiance of her own fear. Stained by the moonlight as they were, her tears almost looked like blood.

***

They moved under torchlight, their shadows writhing across the trees, over the frozen ground in a ring. They bunched together, closer than they might usually walk even with a neighbor. There was no sense in trying to be quiet; their presence was known, their actions closely watched by unseen eyes. Through the darkness outside of the fire’s reach, they could hear things rustling in furtive fits or deliberate treads. A knocking sounded through the trees several times, the noise tracking them. And so they hummed and sang, making a kind of net around them, as if the thin weave of light and sound could offer protection.

And maybe it did. They grew accustomed to being watched, and nothing came out of that dark to confront them. Many of them knew this path north, by daylight, and tried to take solace in spotting landmarks to track their progress and bolster their spirits.

There came a point in the night, however, when they all drew to an abrupt halt. There had been a movement through the trees. Not the wind, but a kind of sigh nonetheless. It swept over them, through them, an oppressive weight. It hit some harder than others. Some seemed not to notice it at all beyond the basic animal sense in the herd, seeing others be affected and halting to wait for them. A few merely shivered. Others stood blinking in confusion. And some were driven from their feet entirely. There was an alien sort of curiosity in the invasion, but whether it garnered their purpose was difficult to say. It passed on again, leaving them to gather themselves, wipe sudden tears from their eyes, and—for a few—to be quietly ill in the bushes. None of them wanted to discuss it, but by hasty agreement a break was called for.

Derringer had been one of those who had merely seen the effects, ducking under Bailey’s arm to hold him up as his knees buckled under him. He seemed somewhat dazed in the aftermath, staring off into the trees as though listening for something Derringer could not hear. By slow degrees his eye returned to tracking the flickering dance of the fire, and then to his companions, and finally to Derringer where she sat beside him under his arm.

“The Wilderness,” he managed on his second attempt, his throat creaking and wooden.

She opened her folded fingers to show him the stones collected there. A wry smile pulling at one corner of her mouth and stretching the scar on that cheek. “So they told me. And I told them it hasn’t got me, but it doesn’t seem to do much good. I’m forming a nice little collection,” she jangled them together before letting them fall out of her palm back onto the ground. “You don’t really throw rocks at them, after they’re taken?”

He shook his head. He was going to tell her it was only superstition. A stone given kindly, now, to remind them—when their minds turned—not to come seeking wrath by stealing livestock or crops. But he was still feeling too vague, a kind of restlessness in his own skin that failed to form the thoughts to words. He knew it was dangerous, leaving himself open like this, seeking after that seductive call at the edges of his hearing. With an effort he dragged himself back to the light and warmth of their company and was surprised to find Derringer still so near to him. Closer, even, having pulled the corner of his open jacket around herself. Giving a kind of embarrassed grimace as he shifted to slip that arm from the sleeve and drew it instead around her waist.

“They kept asking if I was cold,” she mumbled, toying with the frayed edge of the kerchief still tied on her bare foot, over the written words.

“Is this all right?”

She nodded, almost seeming to test herself—or her resolve, or how much she actually felt—as the rigidity melted away by slow degrees, tucking her chin down and settling against him. With her head so close to his chest, he only hoped she couldn’t hear how his heart was pounding, couldn’t feel how his arm around her trembled. His gaze traveling over the waves of her cascading hair as it puddled around them. He wished she would look up so that he could drown in the liquid flame of her eyes, but was terrified to move and spoil it all. All thought of the Wilderness’s dark mysteries driven from his mind. Oh if he could only extend the night, halt the murderous turn of the moon’s ill-begotten spawn and stay like this for a little bit longer.

“When this is over,” she began, her voice small.

But the group was stirring, gathering together again. She flinched back away from him, standing before he had even regained his wits. The absence of the warmth along his side felt a punishing brand as they set off again.

With the dawn, they were heartened to see signs of others having recently passed through here. When they passed near the House of Rush, they were actually greeted by agents of the House who offered refreshment and told them Marta had been through hours earlier. This lightened their steps a bit as they continued on, and before noon their path had joined with a larger and somewhat slower group that had formed from a number of lesser Houses. Many of these, too, had good tidings of having been awoken and warned in plenty of time to start out, while a few others were lucky to have simply spotted the coming spores for themselves. There was a feeling of buoyant comradery in the meeting, less festive than martial, and enough to make them all momentarily forget their sore feet and sleepless night. It likely would not have been sustainable for the full journey, but they were fortunate to have an herbalist in the group they had joined. In one of their brief halts, a fire was set and a cauldron yielded a vast amount of a stimulant the herbalist called the Traveler’s Spirit. It was a thick, green liquid with chunks in it that made it difficult to force down the gullet. It also smelled of wet grass and had an unpleasant turpentine aftertaste.

The long stretch of the road ahead seemed to melt away after that. Bailey could little recall what had happened between his first sip and dusk of the following day, when they found themselves nearing the encampment gathered to meet the spores. It was less that there was a blank spot in his memory so much as it felt that nothing that had happened had been important enough to remember, all the many steps blurring together into a haze of travel. With the effects wearing off, however, his body remembered the trip perfectly well. His feet ached and his legs shook with fatigue. There was an acrid burning in the back of his throat, and his stomach was painfully empty. Without the Traveler’s Spirit, he wasn’t confident they all could have kept up the pace to get as far as they had, so quickly. But it was not an experience he intended to repeat, if given the opportunity.

There was little time to dwell on it, however. Here, the hive of activity quickly swept over their group as people had food shoved on them and were then assigned to tasks and sections to cover. Overhead, the first groups to arrive had already been hard at work in the upper canopies of the trees, shaving off many of the higher branches and erecting platforms so people could fire at the spores overhead without catching the whole forest aflame. Others on the ground level were seeding competitive fast-growing mosses and fungi to make the earth even marginally less accessible to the descending spores. A group of Joplins who had made their way south into the empire were passing out chemicals that could be poured on anywhere they still managed to take root.

Somehow, Bailey finally found himself on one of the upper platforms, less than an hour from the expected landfall. Dotted out as far as his eye could reach were flickers of flame where others waited in preparation. His eye was mesmerized by the sheer numbers of people he could see still mobilizing below—more people than he had ever seen gathered together in one place. The wind set the platform to swaying, the chillness finding its way through his clothing. His nerves jangled unpleasantly, even his weariness being displaced as he glanced over to where Derringer waited with him on the other side of the platform. Lee Parable was initially going to join them, but had ultimately decided he was more comfortable sticking to the chemical route on the ground, rather than deal with the machinery. He could dimly see Derringer fiddling with her pack, now, frowning at the wand apparatus.

”Do you know how to use it?” he asked, and she startled.

“Oh, are you back? I mean, communicative?” She picked up her gear and moved closer, looking somewhat relieved. “Sorry, it’s just… It was so creepy. After you guys took that green stuff, it was like I was suddenly walking with a bunch of zombies. You were all silent, and you just walked straight through without a break for anything.”

Her description did nothing to relieve his stress, and he took out his pipe to distract himself. “That must have been exceedingly dull,” he said, dryly, to cover how his hands shook somewhat.

The red cloud overhead was fast descending, occasionally blotting out the moon entirely, so that Derringer seemed to flicker in and out of sight. “I tried talking to you a few times,” she admitted. “But it was like you were looking right through me.”

The colored smoke from his pipe drifted lazily on the wind. They were lucky it was such a clear, calm night. He knew he should feel grateful the spores hadn’t fallen during a storm or where heavier winds could have blown the spores across half the whole northern lands. But mostly he just felt sick, even the smoke doing little to cut the cold steel wire of tension in him.

“There’s something… I tried to say before. Maybe it can wait,” Derringer said, looking away. And whatever it was, he was suddenly certainly he didn’t want to hear it. However, his heart had only begun to lift when she continued with, “But it probably shouldn’t. It… has to be said. When this is over…”

“Derringer—“ he tried to forestall her words, perhaps with an inkling of where it was leading, even if he didn’t yet want to admit it to himself.

“When this is all over,” she said, firmly, turning to look at him again, “I need to leave. I’ll walk back with you, but then I need to go on. To that little town. Or further south. Maybe to Osla. I don’t know. But I have to go.”

Even in the dark, the crystal reflection of her eyes was a sun-glow. He felt scorched under her gaze. Like a weed drying up and crackling in the summer heat. Right in the heart of him was a sense of brittleness and withering. “I’m sorry,” he said, leadenly. “I… You told me not to, but I pushed you too far—“

“You didn’t. I pushed myself, maybe. But that’s not… You said there were bindings,” she said, putting a hand to her chest. “That they were weakening, bending. I can feel them breaking. I don’t know what will happen to me if the bindings break. But I can’t imagine I’ll survive the aftermath for long.

“While we were walking, I… tested myself a little. Trying to put pressure on just where I can still feel it hurt. It’s like a sore tooth, I just can’t keep my tongue from prodding it. And I… I need to leave. Now. Before the leaving is what finally breaks me altogether.”

His throat worked. He almost said, “Then don’t leave at all.” But it was a senseless and selfish request. Her bindings might hold for another year, or a decade. They might last the rest of his lifespan. And if she waited that long, how much worse would it be when he was finally the one forced to leave her, slipping away into death. It was delusional to think she would stay so long, anyway, a light contained in his tiny lantern, when she had all the rest of the world to set ablaze. Stupid to imagine she would waste even years with him when she could barely stand his touch as it was. And he was a fool twice-over for not having learned his father’s lesson: never to wholly give oneself to just one person.

Before the moonlight was covered again, she watched him swallow down his objections. It almost made it worse, seeing such terrible understanding in her expression. He looked away before the light could return, and it was almost with relief he heard the first shouts of warning from the other platforms.

The spores had arrived.

The sky was awash with red. The descending units, individually, were delicate, spindly things no bigger than a woman’s littlest finger. Along one end of them were wiry protrusions like tiny legs, the bottom section being more of a rod with a bulbous point on the top that contained the actual spores. It was this conversely delicate design that protected them from reaching too great a speed on entering the atmosphere. With the air resistance dragging at it, the weaker parts of it would sheer off, little by little, as terminal velocity was eventually reached just as the ground came rearing up and, on impact, the spores could be released more easily. Their form, luckily, meant that they tended to move rather closely together, caught up in one another’s protrusions. It limited the amount of space that needed to be protected against their invasion. Unfortunately, this also meant that when they did descend, it was en masse, like a hail of arrows already bloodied.

Flames sprouted up to meet the onslaught. The defenders waved their wands overhead, their protective masks in place, aiming at their targets as best they could. Small grenades, tossed overhead, took out still more. The light illuminated their targets, and it was gratifying to see how they sizzled and fell. But the onslaught was unyielding. For every fifty they singed, there were a thousand more directly behind, and still falling. Bailey almost felt he merely waved a torch at the dark, and that the great mass of red gnats swayed out of his path and back again. Below, the ground workers were kept just as busy, scouring the earth in wide swaths, only to go back to the ground they just tread and begin again. Children scurried along between the trees or jumped from platform to platform, bringing extra fuel or chemicals or shovels. At one point a little fellow who looked to be only a handful of summers old tried to carry two of the heavy canisters himself. He misjudged his leap between the platforms and there was a horrifying shriek he barely managed to gasp just before he hit the forest floor.

There were other accidents. The spores had not fallen in their area of the world for some time, and very few had much experience dealing with flames or anything like combat. More than a few people suffered burns, and others lost their heads entirely. Bailey remembered hearing one woman shrieking that the spores were in her eyes. She’d ripped the protective mask from her face and plunged her own nails into her eyes. The last intelligible thing she’d said was that they were burrowing into her, and then only dissolved into broken screams. Her partner on the platform had been forced to quit her own efforts in order to try to get the mask back on the inconsolable woman before the spores really did find their way into the nutrient-rich bloody chasms she’d left in her face. But Bailey had his own battles to fight, and could watch no longer. At some point they must have sent someone else to collect her, because when he looked again, she was gone.

They tried to work in shifts, as best they could, so there was always someone with a full canister while the other switched out. As the night dragged on, however, Bailey began to flag. His hands were clumsy, numb, each burst of flame a smear on his eyes—red and black and white, swirling together into a long nightmare. And then there came a point: there was barely a shout of warning before one of the grenades, thrown too carelessly, exploded directly overhead.

Bailey didn’t remember the blast, exactly. He found himself flat on his back, precariously close to the platform’s edge. Her ears were ringing, eyes almost too painful to open. One leg was dangling into darkness while the other was crumpled uncomfortably beneath him. His protective mask had been blown clean off, and the smoke was nearly unbearable, so thick he almost felt it lodged in his throat. He felt a warm, inhumanly smooth hand on his brow, and his streaming eyes opened to find Derringer kneeling over him. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears, the roar of fire, the panicked screams. Over her shoulder, he could see the sky was still filled with spores. Their wretched journey nearly at its end. Greedy for the rich soil beckoning below.

Her fingers found his cheek, and his eyes were dragged back to hers. Her other hand clutched the front of her clothing, over her chest, in a fierce, agonizing kind of grip. And amidst all of this, perhaps it was strange that his first clear thought was to worry what this was doing to the bindings over her heart. If his ears were properly working, would he hear that awful creak of bending metals again?

“I’m all right,” he tried to say, but when he attempted to sit up, she put a hand to his shoulder, firmly propelling him back down. But perhaps this was the push she needed. There was a steady kind of fire burning in her eyes, now, a look of purpose settling over her features as she set aside her own equipment and stood, looking up into the sky.

Her hands were moving together. Almost as one might roll a ball of clay. Palm to palm, they slid, smoothly gliding together, faster and faster, until between her fingers he began to see sparks. They moved between her hands until there was too much for her to directly contain, there. Little spits of lightning began to crawl over the fine bones of her wrist and creep over her fingers until they seemed bathed in the light. Only then did her hands start to move apart, the electricity sizzling as it leapt from one hand to the next, finger to finger, and back again, building louder and brighter all the while until it held steady: arcs of lightning held between her hands, growing thicker and more powerful the farther she spread her arms. Until at the last she made a motion as if hurling it into the air.

It was as if she’d called a thunderbolt directly from the night sky. The white-hot energy burst through the swarm of spores all the way into the stratosphere, burning everything in its path. Bailey, whose eyes were still only recovering from the grenade, thought he might actually have been blinded. He rolled to his side, still coughing wretchedly. And he must have fallen unconscious at some point, because the next he knew it was daylight that was weakly making its way through his eyelashes. He was lying in a canvas hammock, and he could hear the groans of the wounded around him. His lungs still burned, but at his first movement, water was pressed to his lips to at least satisfy the worst of it. When finally he could properly open his eyes, he found Lee Parable and Derringer Catherine hovering over him.

“Take it easy,” Derringer quickly cautioned when he immediately tried to get up.

“The spores?” he choked.

“It’s pretty well sorted,” she assured. At his somewhat frantic look, she said, almost too casually, “We ran into some luck at the end, there. I guess all that atmospheric disturbance was good for something: some heat lightning took out a lot of it all at once.”

Lee Parable was frowning, but he didn’t directly refute her, instead saying, “I saw the sky lit up white through the branches.”

“So you didn’t miss much, and a lot of people left already. Lee Parable says he’s going to stick around for a few more days to help try to kill any we might have missed. Oh, and someone stopped by? He was kind of tall, blond? I think he said he was, oh, Word in Rust?”

“Warden Rush,” Lee Parable provided, which made quite a bit more sense.

“And he wants to talk to you—oh not right now,” she protested when he started to get up again, looking like she might just bodily pin him to that hammock if he kept up in this ridiculous manner. “When you’re feeling well enough!”

“I’m all right,” he said, trying to wave her off and feeling primarily uncomfortable they were making such a fuss over him.

“No, you’re—Bailey, stop, just wait for the healer,” she finally snapped. And perhaps she merely took it for docility, that he abruptly lay perfectly still, his face turned a rather bright shade of red as he tried very hard not to look at anything at all. Although how she could be so oblivious to how perfectly embarrassed her companions were, he wasn’t sure. Lee Parable was reduced to hand-speech, giving abrupt apologies for why he had to leave, right now, immediately, and be elsewhere. Bailey wished he could do the same. Of course, it wasn’t like she had intended to publicly address him in quite so intimate a manner, he had to remind himself. She likely had only picked it up from hearing his family address him, and hadn’t realized the significance of it. And right now, he was far too mortified to even broach the subject with her.

At the very least, it kept him lying still long enough wait for one of the healers to take the time to come check him out. The healer was a rather frazzled-looking older lady who checked his ears and eyes and listened to his chest, frowning when she heard he’d had smoke exposure.

“I don’t like the sound of your breathing,” she said, frankly, “but you otherwise seem well enough to travel. If the cough keeps up for another few days, see someone.” And then she was off, seeing to someone with a burn covering half of his exposed skin.

Bailey’s legs felt rubbery, and he moved stiffly at first, grateful for Derringer’s arm. But by the time he saw Warden Rush still organizing a few of the ground units, his stride was fairly sure again, even walking alone. He had only time to feel freshly embarrassed for his poor state of dress before his uncle spotted him, giving an approving nod.

“You organized things quickly,” Warden Rush said, after the initial pleasantries were over. “It’s one thing to plan at one’s leisure, but doing things right under a time constraint is another thing entirely. That modified girl, the Houseless Red—I’ve spoken with five Houses who said she was their first news the spores were even falling.” He considered Bailey a moment longer before saying, “Don’t concern yourself too much, setting up another meeting with all of our Sister-Houses. We’ll all expect a delay. But when it does happen, you have my support.”

“Y—I… Thank’ee,” Bailey managed, nearly swaying on his feet at the unexpected rush of relief he experienced, only for Warden Rush to laugh and clap him on the shoulder.

“We’ll take it from here. You should get back.”

There did seem to be little enough for Bailey to do, there, and those with bigger stakes in the land or with more resources seemed to have it fairly well-covered. The walk back would certainly be a more leisurely one, following a trickle of people heading back south either to hunt the ground for any missed spores or simply to go home. Bailey might have felt glad to have the walk back to spend as much time as he liked with Derringer Catherine, if it weren’t for the fact he knew this journey was the last he would see of her. He wished he could somehow contrive to drag the trip out a bit longer. But it wasn’t wholly contrivance that resulted in somewhat frequent stops as his breath was stolen away and his coughing worsened.

Still, he didn’t think very much of it until he coughed up the first drops of blood.

In his palm, the droplets glared crimson against the pale linen of his kerchief. He had touched his nose, at first, to find that, no, this could not be blamed on a nosebleed. He thought, then, perhaps it had been only the force of his coughing. The ache in his chest had not abated, as they had walked, and now—mere hours from home—the sensation in his chest had gradually built to a stabbing pain. As the pain had worsened, so, too, had his cough. But maybe it was only the smoke damage.

He could not long lie to himself. The hand he held to his chest could feel the frantic beat of his heart, but it rested near a darker secret: an unspooling of deadly tendrils where it had nestled in his lungs. The blood in his hand blurred with bitter tears, his legs becoming shaky beneath him. It was only fear of further indignity that kept him from fainting entirely, as with a force of will he closed his hand around the soiled cloth and made his shoulders straighten. He had retreated some few steps to get some privacy while the latest coughing passed, and now he forced a look of unconcern on his face as he put the offending object in his pocket and rejoined Derringer.

“Are you all right?

If he told her, he might well undo all the effort that was going to be put into sending her away in the first place. There was nothing that could be done, and it would be selfish and cowardly just to put this burden on her so that he wouldn’t have to carry it alone. Better to smile, now and let her make a clean break of it.

“Of course,” he reassured.

She hesitated, seeing how he had picked up the pace rather significantly, before she ventured, “We could rest a bit longer, if you need to?”

“There is no need.”

She bit her lip, accepting this as something of a rebuke, no matter how airily he spoke it. Perhaps she had misread the situation, and it was only his injury that had kept him dawdling before, rather than any kind of reluctance for the journey’s end. Maybe she had been projecting, all this while.

As much as she had tried to soften it, leaving would still be enormously difficult. That night they fought the spores, after she had called out some of the deepest energies she could feel percolating within her—there had been that dreadful moment when she had turned back and found him lying so very still, with his limbs still all at awkward angles from where he had been so carelessly flung. He didn’t answer to her call, her touch, and the little flutter of a pulse in the delicate curve of his neck had seemed such a fragile, thready thing. She hadn’t intended to feel anything, then, but it hadn’t stopped the terrible wrenching ripping its way inside of her as she gathered him up to take down to the healers. Later, given some time alone, she had allowed her skin to become translucent and taken a cautious survey of the damage. There was now only a single band still in place over the trembling heart, the strain visible even on brief review. If she was smart, she would avoid any further stress she could possibly manage until, perhaps, she could find some way to fix what had already been done.

As they neared the house, she wondered if she wasn’t entirely a fool that she hadn’t broken off from his path, already. There was nothing she had left at the house that she could not replace, and listening to the wretched hacking of that painful cough wasn’t doing either of them any favors. But she kept by him, anyway, increasingly concerned, the paler he became. A few times he had to stop and lean against a tree and cough into his kerchiefs. But he waved aside assistance, managing a smile, and not slackening their pace in the slightest.

As they entered, at last, into the courtyard around the house, he at least allowed his shoulders to sag in relief. The home was quite intact, even if the ground were a bit scuffed-up, still, from when they had had their impromptu gathering. There were a few chickens hissing warnings at them, flashing tiny black teeth in a challenge, but Pin shooed them away as she came at a gallop towards them, giving a brilliant smile she didn’t bother to his behind her hand.

Before Pin could reach them, Bailey said in undertones, “I’ll be sorry to see you go, but it’s perhaps better done sooner than later.”

“I… Yes, you’re right. I should probably…”

But then Pin was upon them, nearly sweeping Bailey off his feet in her enthusiasm. “Oh, slow’d’ee, had neighbors pour’em through all day, and get’ee lead feet ‘n’ all!” she said, but rather too excitable for her scolding to have any weight. But this turned rather to concern as he abruptly bent, coughing heavily into the kerchief he fumbled from his pocket. “Are’ee hurt?”

“Just… smoke,” he gasped, eyes streaming a bit as he was wracked with another cough. “Derringer,” he said when he could speak, the word almost a plea, for she hadn’t made any move to leave.

At Pin’s curious look, Derringer shuffled her feet, guiltily, starting to step towards the house. “I… I have to go.”

“Now?” Pin asked, blankly. “It’ll be sundown in a few hours, get’ee fresh start if’n—“

“No, she has to—“ Bailey started, grabbing Pin’s shoulder in his desperation, but then he could feel it coming on again. And he knew, within the first few coughs, that this time was different. When the blood came, it wasn’t the small droplets he’d managed to conceal so far, but a flood of red spilling past his lips onto the churned earth.

His sister shrieked, now holding him up as he shook and shook, giving weak gasps as he drowned in the torrent. Pin was sobbing, terrified, and when he finally got the breath to whisper something to her, she shook her head violently.

“What’s going on?” Derringer asked, hovering, uncertain. “Let me help, I can help get him to the house, we can get a healer—“

“This doesn’t concern you,” Bailey snapped at her, the viciousness of his tone making her stumble back. “Go. Now.”

She watched Pin help him make his limping way to the house. Neither of them looked back. Pin was trembling nearly as much as he was. When they got to the door, they were met by a number of people who had returned to fulfil their contracts and come, curious at the noise in the yard. Pin didn’t answer their questions, but instead simply requested they help him up the stairs to somewhere comfortable.

To Pin fell the unhappy task of the arrangements. Talus Mos had to be told, of course. Although she kept trying to sort that duty to the bottom of her list, she went to him first. It was as terrible as she had anticipated, but she didn’t have time for his grief. There was the wood to gather, and the spice to collect. Bailey would have told her her to skip most of the ceremony, but he wasn’t consulted, and it was with an obstinate air she put all of her efforts into making all the proper arrangements. Trying to push away the heartsick by falling into the work.

When it finally came time, she looked desperately for tasks unfinished; for any way to delay the inevitable. But there was nothing left to do but the final step.

He’d changed out of his bloody clothes, and he was at least strong enough to walk to the pyre under his own power. He would not—could not—be buried in the family crypt, as their mother had been. Not with the spore aching to burst its way out of where it had nestled in his chest, borne there on the wind when his mask had been knocked loose. But she was determined that he would still have a proper send-off.

It was a House affair, and they were given their space to manage it privately. Talus Mos would have been permitted to attend, but neither of them had really expected him to; he wasn’t really strong enough to endure it. The house was shuttered and dark as the two of them made their way to the little clearing as the sun dipped low over the horizon. All the earth was dark, even if the sky held traces of light.

The wood they had gathered was stacked high enough that he had to hoist himself up, to sit on top. It was not the most comfortable place, perhaps, but he didn’t expect to be there long. He felt curiously detached, once sitting there, taking out his belt knife. Almost unable to believe it. Just a few days ago, there had seemed to be so much promise still left.

“Warden Rush pledged to back us,” he said. “They don’t expect to be called soon, but you should… use this. Call it a funeral feast. People get… sentimental on such occasions.”

He stifled a cough, determined to have his say. There had been no more hemorrhaging since that first scare, and he would not have his last words lost to another.

“Lee Parable can manage most of the planting supervision this year alone, if he has to. We settled what seeds we’d need, and where. But pay attention, and rotate them next year.”

He was pushing it, talking this much, and he couldn’t restrain the cough that tore through him, then.

“Don’t waste the spice on me,” he said when he could. “And remember to take the ring, after I…”

Pin was trying to keep her crying quiet, and he couldn’t bear to look at her as he positioned the knife at his chest. It wobbled in his grip. And he was afraid that, at the last, he wouldn’t be able to do it. But the alternative was to ask Pin to do it, and that could not be tolerated.

And he might have found the courage, then, if he hadn’t looked up to see her approaching through the trees. With her long, long hair floating along in her wake, coming from the gloom, her step slow and sure and her wide eyes alight, she almost seemed an apparition. He opened his mouth, intending to beg her to leave, but he didn’t have the will to ask it of her, again. Instead he was silent as she approached, curiously expectant, though he knew not of what.

Preoccupied as she was, Pin didn’t notice Derringer had arrived until she was standing on the other side of the pyre. There was something frightening in her expression: distorted not by pity nor sadness, but a with avid ferocity as she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me, about the spore?” And when he could give no response, she began climbing up on the bundled sticks and snatched the knife from his nerveless fingers, letting it drop. She pressed, “You would have let me leave without telling me?” Seizing his shirt-front, pulling herself up entirely, he could see the swirling, living light in her eyes as she hissed into his face, “You were just going to die, without saying anything?”

She was too near. Her powerful limbs were almost a cage around him, the heat in them a sweet balm to the wretched shivers he’d been repressing. They were both nearly breathless, and of their own volition his hands had come up to seize her upper arms, fingers partly buried in the molten flow of her hair. Oh if he had to die, would this be such a terribly bad way to go? But—

“Dear, your heart,” he said, weakly.

“Damn my heart,” she growled, closing that last distance.

It was, perhaps, less a kiss than a calculated attack. Her mouth found his, but then so did the flame. It drank on his inhalation, trailing down into his lungs, until it touched the coiling tendril of the sprouting spore, and that burning agony was worse than anything the spore had yet inflicted on him. His fingers spasmed, ineffectually, but there was no breath left in him to scream, no strength to resist. She had gone entirely translucent, focused as she was, and the light in her was nearly too bright to look at. She blazed, little more than fire in a woman-shaped casing, as she held him, burning out the last of the contagion and cauterizing its many wounds.

His first breath of the cool night air was almost unbearably sweet. It rushed to his head so that he swayed, still held up by Derringer’s arms.. But then she let go. She was stepping down and back, away from the pyre. Her hands held at her chest in a staying motion. He could hear Pin, sounding utterly bewildered, shouting questions. She’d ran around and collected his knife, holding it at Derringer in a terrified but determined manner, but Derringer wasn’t even looking at her.

“Wait,” he said, trying to get his feet under him. But she had fled, and Pin had latched onto his arm.

“What was’em?” she demanded. “Are’ee hurt? It was wearing her face—“

“I’m not hurt, she burned it out of me. Let go.” And then, knowing that wasn’t nearly good enough: “Please, I have to go, I’ll explain when I get back.”

There were no footprints to follow, as he had that first day. But there were occasional little signs of her passing: the bent undergrowth, broken twigs, scorched earth, and the smell of lightning. And really, there was only one landmark nearby that she would recognize.

He burst onto the ruins to find her standing at the ledge, her back to him. The light had fled, and it was only under the stars he picked out her form. When she turned, her hands were still clasped at her chest, but her expression was clear.

“It’s breaking,” she said, plainly. “And… I knew it would. I had to get here, before… But I think I’ve figured it out, now. It’s all right.” She took a small step backward.

“Stop! What are you doing?”

“I’ve figured it out,” she repeated. “This… this glass skin. It isn’t me. Even if I lived in it for another thousand years, it was never me.” She took another step back, her heel at the rock ledge. Not even she could survive that drop.

“Don’t. Please, don’t. We’ll fix it. We’ll put the bands right. Please.”

“Shh, Bailey,” she said, giving a tremulous smile. “I know you’re frightened. And I’m sorry. But… it’ll be all right.”

The wind tugged at her, her hair arching out over the ledge. She took a step. And then she was gone.

.

Concluded-->

[jmrphy]

Social science and the radical politics of not knowing

The amount of bullshit circulating at the moment is astounding. And to be clear, it appears to be just as bad in left-wing circles. In fact, what I see happening on the left is the most troubling to me because that’s where I’m positioned. There’s this idea you should “punch up” or focus one’s criticisms on one’s “enemies” but I think that’s a fatally mistaken notion. If you and your friends are thinking or doing something incorrectly, that is the most urgent issue.

As a political scientist, the truth is I usually don’t have that much to offer regarding current affairs. I think most social scientists, if they are being honest, have to admit this with respect to most issues at most times. But if there’s one thing my “expertise” gives me, if I have one valuable thing to offer in a time of crisis, it’s a highly refined bullshit detector. If there is one thing you learn as a well-trained social scientist, it is this: it is so hard to make correct inferences about what is going on in social phenomena. Most of the training of a social scientist is learning all the reasons why you cannot make certain inferences. So in times of crisis, when most people seem over-eager to make inferences (as a way of dealing with all of the cognitive and emotional anxieties), it is perhaps here that social scientists are most useful, to remind you that, whatever you think is going on—you are mostly wrong.

To be clear, when I say most people are “wrong” about most of their inferences, I don’t mean that nobody ever gets anything right, or that nobody understands anything. We all know a great deal, but it’s mostly embodied, practical knowledge. We know not to put our hand in a fire, and a million other important things. But when our mind starts trying to identify causal patterns in a hyper-complex situation (and really all social phenomenon are hyper-complex), collectively we will generate thousands of hypotheses and most of them will be false. Some will be true, but remember that some would be true even by accident. Monkeys typing on a keyboard long enough would produce true statements in some portion of the text.

Recognizing our incapacity to know things shouldn’t be distressing or disempowering; it’s humbling, liberating, relaxing, and empowering. It reminds you that the little ball of fat in your skull is actually a pretty faulty device and it’s not really your job to figure out everything going on in the world. Nobody can do that, but a lot of people think they can (and should); if you think you have this responsibility, not only will it drive you crazy but, as I said, on net you will not actually be contributing or helping anything. Again, don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has a lot to contribute—but not in the form of objective explanations of what is happening in the world. We have this ridiculous, faux-democratic notion that everyone is entitled to their own reading of what is happening, but this is wrong. We are all equal, but if anything, I would say we are all equally disentitled to our own readings of what is happening—we are disentitled by objective reality, which is ultimately chaos, and which does not allow any of us the privilege of knowing exactly what is happening or what is causing what. I think we can find a radically more true, honest, and ultimately connective/solidaristic community in the shared realization that I don’t know, you don’t know, but we both know we have each other in this moment. Crucially, you can adopt this attitude in good conscience as well, because it’s nobody’s moral or political burden—not even social scientists’—to save the world or a country or a people by pretending to have knowledge nobody can have

We are seeing right now the extraordinary mass-delusional implications of a media environment in which every agent believes they are capable of understanding what is happening, there are cultural and often monetary incentives for pretending to know what is happening, and no mechanism for sorting true from false. The primary problem isn’t fake news or purposeful deceit; the problem is massive new injection of noise in the system, everyday cognitive biases, and perverse incentives to perform knowledge where there do not exist mechanisms for testing and sorting knowledge claims (and I would add, absurd Western notions about personal control and responsibility which were temporarily useful in early modernity but are now leading to a kind of mental heat death in the context of the information age).

One of the other reasons an academic social scientist comes in handy here is that we do not primarily get paid to make prognostications about what is going on in the present moment. Sometimes people think this makes us “useless,” but indeed our “uselessness” is what makes us useful in times of uncertainty, deception, and mistrust: it is precisely because we generally don’t care about pretending to be useful that if we feel compelled to comment on current affairs, if only to say it is impossible to know something with any confidence, it should be relatively more trustworthy than someone who gets paid to provide useful commentary on a daily basis. In other words, the uncertain offerings of an academic social scientist are more likely to be a signal and articles by professional commentators are more likely to be noise. There is certainly a new cottage industry for academics who wish to enter the culture market of disingenuously over-confident inferences, but our real value is that generally if we are shooting from the hip with little to gain or lose, then you should be able to trust the academic social scientist, relatively. I would ask you to remember, especially if you are passionate about contributing to politics, that false answers are typically more responsible for evil than honest admissions of uncertainty.

We have to remember that the human mind has evolved to find patterns, even where they don’t exist. This is because, for the greater part of our history, if there was a snake in the grass and we failed to identify it, we could be fucked. But if there was not a snake in the grass and we thought we identified one, no big deal. So we evolved to err on the side of identifying patterns even where there is nothing. But what’s useful for avoiding snakes may very well be collectively suicidal for avoiding an infinite set of possible global threats via the internet. Right-wing people do this with crime and terrorism but left-wing people are doing this just as badly with the new semi-global, right-wing shift. As we now have screens that fling unprecedented volumes of noise at us all day and night (and which allow us to fling noise back into it!), I think we are really underestimating the degree to which our highly faulty human cognition, combined with our individual incentives to perform knowledge, can generate extraordinary harm to individuals and groups, sending collective understandings down systematically erroneous and divergent paths, and ultimately shaping actual behaviors of masses of people. And when the behavior of people is based on any degree of systematic error that is not being corrected over time, this is arguably the most potent recipe for almost all of the worst historical disasters.

To put it yet another way, even highly educated and otherwise trustworthy people right now are doing what social scientists call “overfitting their models.” In other words, developing theories that can fit all of the data they are observing, without realizing that a great deal of that data is noise. The thing is, a good explanation of noise is a really bad explanation of reality; what this means is that if you act or behave as if such explanations are true, almost by definition it will produce consequences other than the ones you are hoping to produce.

Again, this should all be liberating and relaxing to reflect on. If there is honestly a lot of uncertainty, and one honestly does not know, then one honestly deserves to try and relax, pay attention, learn, think, consider possible hypotheses, update them as you go, and in the meantime patiently focus on what you do know (inner convictions, empathy and solidarity for the people you encounter, etc). You are not obligated to go “do something” or “say something” immediately if the actual reality is such that really you are just scared because you don’t know what is going on.

Of course, be vigilant, be courageous, say and do what you believe in, but radicalism is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you want to be politically radical, you better also be radically honest, radically humble, and radically transparent. All I’m calling for is intellectual honesty regarding uncertainty. I’m not saying anyone should dampen their convictions or compromise with anything they find unjust. I’m just saying there’s nothing radical or even defensible about effectively making shit up because you want to produce some consequence, whether it be the soothing of your own anxiety, the production of “hope” for others, or the recruitment of others into your group. One of the most radical things you can do at any time is be correct. And in highly uncertain times, the most correct diagnosis of many things will be “we do not know.” You can still maintain deeply held convictions, and act passionately on various projects, while also maintaining the basic self-discipline of trying to honestly separate signal from noise. Speak and act decisively, at the highest intensity you can sustain, but only on the most correct possible interpretation of information. This is where I think social science converges with the most radical, progressive politics.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2k3ohGF