#I may very well be remembering incorrectly because I am an idiot

[are-we-really-doing-this]

John Cena vs uh…Brian. Of Philadelphia.

WWE Velocity. February 8th, 2003. Yeah.

[saphronethaleph]

Midlife Crisis

In the year Fifteen of the Galactic Empire, Sheev Palpatine contemplated a glass of wine.

Proper wine. Wine from Naboo.

In his opinion, which was legally speaking the only one that mattered, he deserved this.

As he began to drink, however, Vader spoke. His dark shadow, his creation, his enforcer.

“Master,” the Sith Apprentice said. “When are you going to teach me the power to heal?”

“...what?” Palpatine asked, then put the glass down again. “What are you talking about, Vader?”

“I thought it was extremely clear,” Vader replied. “When are you going to teach me the power to heal? I realize that your memory may not be what it was, but I distinctly remember that you told me that Darth Plagueis had the ability to cause the Midichlorians to create life, and that he could even use it to keep those he cared about from dying. So. When are you going to teach me that power?”

“Why do you even want that power?” Palpatine asked.

Vader’s mask looked at him.

“I currently find myself with a great deal of time on what would be my hands if I had any,” Vader stated. “Travelling between star systems, for example. I appreciate that you are busy and do not have the time to heal me, but I would have the time to heal me if you could teach me that ability. Which is why I am asking.”

Palpatine frowned.

“If you recall, I said that, ironically, Darth Plagueis could save others, but not himself.”

“I recall that, my Master,” Vader stated. “It was very ironic.”

“There, you see?” Palpatine asked. “If you learned that power, you could save others, but not yourself.”

“I don’t think that really works, Master,” Vader said, thoughtfully. “Because Plagueis was killed in his sleep. He wasn’t using the Force, for the obvious reason that he was dead. However, I actually am alive, and consequently I can use the Force to heal myself.”

He paused. “Well, I can’t, but I could. If I were to be taught, which is… what I’m asking about.”

“You don’t like your cyborg body parts?” Palpatine asked. “I thought you’d appreciate those, since they’re manufactured. Or did I remember incorrectly that you like tinkering?”

“I would be more able to tinker if I had better hands,” Vader stated. “Master, I am beginning to suspect you are avoiding the question. When are you going to teach me the power to heal?”

“You still haven’t given me a good answer,” Palpatine said, snidely.

“I have,” Vader pointed out. “My reason is that I want you to. We’re Sith. That’s a good enough reason.”

“You have a point,” the Emperor admitted, very reluctantly. “However, I think you will find that you already know all I can teach you.”

Vader looked at him.

“I do not,” the masked Sith said.

“You do,” Palpatine countered. “The Dark Side is more about maintaining your life in a decaying husk of a body, clinging to life regardless of the cost to others or the degradation of your own physical condition, than it is about… healing.”

“Are you saying that healing would be a Light Side power?” Vader asked, and there was a dangerous undercurrent in his voice.

“No, no,” Palpatine replied, hastily. “It’s not a Light Side power either. The Light Side is about accepting the natural balance of things, like idiots, and the Dark Side is about violating the natural order of things. Using the Force to heal is unnatural.”

At that, Vader made a confused noise.

“So is healing a Light Side power or a Dark Side power, Master?” he asked.

“It isn’t either,” Palpatine replied, with a shrug. “The closest I know of is Plagueis’s ability to cling to life in a body that should be dead, which you’re already doing.”

“I see,” Vader said, thoughtfully, then turned and walked away.

“I hope you’re not disappointed, Vader,” Palpatine said, leaning back in his seat and picking up the glass of wine again. “You must realize, I never lied to you.”

“You also don’t know everything,” Vader replied. “I am taking a sabbatical.”

“A what?” Palpatine said, scowling at his wine glass because apparently he wasn’t going to get to drink it just yet. “What is one of those?”

“It’s when you leave work for a period of time,” Vader explained. “I am not expecting to be paid during that period.”

“Why are you leaving at all?” Palpatine asked, in some confusion and trying to work out what Vader was getting at.

Vader shrugged slightly.

“There’s got to be lots of Force users out there, and you’re only one Force user,” he said. “I am going to look for someone who knows how to heal. Then I will return.”

Palpatine swallowed down the order that sprang to his lips, because he was uncomfortably aware of the verbal minefield that talking with Vader could be. Especially when he’d nearly set the man off less than two minutes ago.

Really, he didn’t have much choice but to trust in Vader’s loyalty. A Vader who was angry at him would be far too dangerous.

In the year Eighteen of the Galactic Empire, Sheev Palpatine was significantly more aware of just how useful Vader’s brooding, deadly presence had been in holding the Empire together.

He hadn’t been able to just refer people to his enforcer (Vader) or his supreme commander (Vader) or his complaints department (also Vader). He’d had to do actual work, and he didn’t like it.

Becoming the ruler of the galaxy had not been something he’d done in order to do work. He even had to actually listen to Tarkin, who was a tedious little lickspittle whose only redeeming quality was his enthusiasm for the idea of blowing up planets.

Then, during a rare period of respite, he felt a familiar presence in the Force. It approached his private chamber, advancing steadily, and Palpatine actually felt something like pleasure at the idea Vader would soon be back.

Admittedly, mostly because he could offload work onto Vader again.

Then the door opened, and Palpatine smiled.

“My boy, you-” he began, then stopped.

He’d been expecting Vader still wearing his suit.

He’d been ready for Vader to be a man of about forty, fit and healthy once more after discovering some Force secret.

He had not been ready for a wolf. Especially not one ten feet tall at the shoulder, with black and red fur and scaled paws.

“...explain…?” he said, in what was supposed to be a command but which turned into more of a plea.

“I sought out many ancient Force spirits and wielders of lost and arcane arts,” Vader said, in a voice even deeper than he’d had before – which actually turned out to be possible. “Eventually, I found a way to gain a new body, unwounded and healthy, but the one who taught me only knew how to do wolf.”

He tilted his head a little. “Incidentally. I also visited my only remaining family, who are moisture farmers. I have a nephew; he likes me. I wish to tender my resignation, because I am going to kill you now and it seems only fair to give you warning.”

Palpatine sighed, because, really, this was in keeping with how the year was going.

[madnessofthespirits]

cu alter lost in translation masterpost

after comparing the original japanese to NA’s translations, i’ve found a few instances where things said by or about cu alter were translated unsatisfactorily or incorrectly. while this issue is hardly limited to him in particular, i’m focusing on him here due to the fact that i am in love with him. there’s so many little nuances to his character and interactions that get left out in these translations, and this is mostly just me venting my grievances around that, but if anyone else happens to find it interesting, too, then cool. i might add to this if i remember/notice more later. 

here i’ve screencapped the fan translation for this line as i agree that the word “original” is more appropriate than NA’s “real” here. it’s the words “light” and “shadow” (which NA uses as well) that i want to talk about, though. as opposed to using the more standard words and kanji for “light” and “shadow”, the words used here can also be translated as “yang” and “yin”, and given the word choice, it may be that that meaning was intended. shadow and light aren’t incorrect or anything - they just don’t capture the full nuance of the original.

now this is aggravating! for some stupid reason they decided to translate a word that just means “ghost” here as “empty, hollow”. there is no need to rephrase here when all medb is saying is that one side of him is “like a ghost”. in fact it’s actually a very bad idea to do so because it removes all other implications and meaning that might have been intended by that choice of words. it also breaks with the pattern of the japanese - she says that one side of him is “like an animal” and the other “like a ghost”. 

this exchange between him and nero before they battle is a little nebulous meaning-wise even in japanese, but i don’t agree with the choice of “imposing” here for “isamashii”. “imposing” has something of a sense of being lofty and/or intimidating, and that’s not quite what’s meant by the japanese word in question, which means “courageous”, “valiant”, or even “heroic”. i get that it sounds weird, but that’s what she’s saying.

here we have cu’s reply, and yet another case of NA just throwing a whole word out the window and replacing it with something vague instead. what he actually says is “this is me holding myself back as much as i can.” y tho NA. there are actually times where it makes sense to do this when translating japanese to english, but this is not one. not even sure i like “holding back” here - i think “suppressing” actually might have been better.

this might be my biggest beef of all. i really do not like the translation of 律儀/richigi here. in all fairness, it’s a word that doesn’t have an exact english equivalent, and whatever you pick here is gonna fall short on some level no matter what. that said, “honest” clearly wasn’t what was meant. while the word can mean something along the lines of “honest” in some contexts, it’s usually more in the sense of being sincere rather than truthful. “richigi” typically just means something along the lines of “excessively dedicated to fulfilling one’s duty”, and that is what scathach is praising (or rather, bemoaning) here. “dutiful idiot” has a strange ring to it, although it’s pretty correct from a technical standpoint. “noble idiot” sounds better but doesn’t convey the meaning as well. anyway, i still probably would have picked one of those two words over “honest”. “righteous” might work in a way as well.

none of these are incorrect that’s not the problem. the problem is that for this very thematically significant phrase, which is the same in both scenes in japanese, they chose to use a different phrase each time in english. what you’re supposed to hear is cu claiming he will not do something (take detours) and then later on him admitting that he’s been taking a hell of a lot detours this whole time. sure you can still get that sense, but the repetition of the phrase is clearly meant to draw attention to an important aspect of the story. translating it different ways each time waters down the message and i hate that. even for the sake of eloquence, it’s not really excusable, as there are definitely ways this could have been avoided while still maintaining sentence quality.

[merakiui]

hey!! i was lucky enough to stumble across your blog, & i'm enjoying your writing!! could i request something for a first date w/ sian? maybe something more casual, like a cafe!

(I’m glad you like it! Hopefully this is what you had in mind with your request! I went for a “friends to lovers” vibe in a modern setting if that’s okay. Please enjoy and thank you for such a fun request!)

Courtesy Coffee (Sian)

You met under unpleasant circumstances. Sian was in a rush to get to his destination, and you were staring down at your phone with a cup of iced coffee in your other hand. Like that banal trope in shoujo manga, the two of you crashed into one another, and your drink spilled all over his outfit. As complete strangers, it was obvious that the one who was drenched would be incredibly frustrated. That was an exact observation, only Sian didn’t feel the need to use a filter that day.

“Are you kidding me? Watch where you’re going!” he had yelled, gripping his soaked shirt and glaring daggers at you. “How am I supposed to show up to work looking like this?!”

Anyone would feel frightened with his exasperated tone of voice and the intimidating aura that surrounded him, but you weren’t one to surrender immediately.

Straightening your shoulders, you met his heated stare. “I’m sorry. At least it wasn’t hot, right?” Hoping to dispel his anger, you smiled a little. “I can buy you a clean shirt if it’ll make you feel better.”

He puffed his cheeks out, suddenly bashful as he avoided your gaze. “It’s the least you could do! Seriously, this is the worst. I smell just like your stupid coffee.”

“Hey, don’t diss my iced coffee. It’s delicious and you know it.”

“If it’s so good, why is it all over me?” he snapped, crossing his arms. “This’ll stain, you know!”

“I offered to get you another shirt.”

“It’s not just on my shirt, you moron! I can’t face my colleagues like this. You have no idea what they’ll say.”

“Suck it up then!”

“No!”

You sighed heavily, gripping your empty coffee cup. “There’s no need to be difficult. Just let me get you a clean polo and slacks. Unless you’d rather parade around in wet, coffee-smelling attire. You’re making a scene with all of your yelling.”

“You were just yelling, too. Fine, whatever. I guess you can do that.”

Even as you spied his blush, you couldn’t ignore your thoughts. Is he seriously embarrassed by the fact that I’m getting him clothes? Anyone would do this to repay the damage. 

“That’s all I needed to hear. Oh, and for the record you’re the one who should watch where you’re going.”

He didn’t take those words too well. Regardless, that was how you met the guy with a loud mouth and an even louder personality. You ran into him twice after that incident, and each time he seemed to stumble over himself. He tried to thank you for the clothes, but all he could manage was a huff and an angry comment about how the fabric was uncomfortable. Weeks later, that same boy just so happened to feel bad about starting a few shouting matches with you during those three times you interacted. He saw you in a café by chance and secretly covered your drink fee, making the barista promise not to reveal his identity. It was a sweet gesture, despite being anonymous and a bit of a shock on your end. You’d never experienced the magic that was receiving your drink for free, but it was great nonetheless.

You enter work that morning with a cheery disposition, passing by coworkers and even engaging in kind banter with those who aren’t the friendliest. You clock in and make your way towards the elevator while scrolling through an online article. Hearing a familiar ping, you glance up, urging whoever’s inside to hold the door. There are four other people crammed within the area, all of whom are silently waiting for the elevator to rise. You push the button for your floor and relax. Momentarily, you glance around the enclosed space to see if you can recognize anyone from your department. Your eyes sweep from one person to the next, and you spot polite Nine at the very back.

You’re compelled to greet him, but someone stands in your way. Someone who bears an uncanny resemblance to the guy who was showered in iced coffee two weeks ago. You gasp and turn away, hoping he won’t notice you.

No way! We work for the same company? What’re the odds? This must be a bad omen! I don’t want to start another fight with him, you think, having done your best to erase those memories.

The elevator pings, and you’re completely distracted. Though you don’t miss the hand that taps your shoulder. Your gaze follows his arm. It’s that guy again.

“Hey. This is your floor, isn’t it?”

The number doesn’t lie, but Sian’s memory might as he struggles to recall your familiar features. It clicks just as you bolt out of the elevator, the doors slipping shut and obscuring your backside for good. Sian blinks rapidly as his face heats up. That was...

Coffee idiot! he thinks. There’s no mistaking that stupid look on their face. He’s thrown into a bad mood at once, internally grumbling as he remembers that day. Even if he changed into new clothes, he still smelled of coffee. It was embarrassing, and his bothersome colleagues wouldn’t leave him alone. And now we work in the same building. Maybe I should just quit so I don’t have to face them.

"Can you believe it, Youssef?” you ask your deskmate, having ranted to him while typing up the progress of this week’s publication. At least that’s a monetary positive for the company. You can’t say the same for your mentality, though. “I do something nice in return and he yells at me. And then we meet again—twice—and he’s still rude.”

Youssef tilts his head, a childish gesture for someone his age. “Are you sure you’re not incorrectly reading his actions?”

“I’m positive. When have I ever been wrong?” You frown as your fingers slow their pace on the keyboard. “I just found out today that we work in the same building. This is totally unfair. Why do I have to bear the burden of knowing this information?”

“I’m sure he means well. What does he look like? I might know him.” You describe him to your helpful colleague, who nods and taps his chin in thought. His expression lights up with recognition. “If I remember correctly, his name is Sian, and he’s in the marketing department. We’ve only talked briefly, but I can assure you he’s quite diligent with his work.”

“Well, everyone’s got their own personality outside of their jobs.”

“I suppose, but it’s not polite to label someone based off of such little knowledge,” he advises lightly, turning his attention back to his computer screen. “Rather than using all of your energy painting a bad image of him, you should spend that time getting to know him. It’ll fix any negative impressions you may have.”

“Something tells me he wouldn’t like that...”

Since then, you haven’t run into Sian once. At first you made it your mission to keep an eye out for him, but now that you’ve been busy with this new project you can’t be bothered to let his image clutter your mind. So you brush him aside like a cobweb, certain you won’t bump into him again. Your floors are far enough apart, so it’s unlikely that that’ll happen. But you’re not always the luckiest, and fate tends to tease those who aren’t on good terms with one another.

You’re close to running late on a rainy day, having missed the train, so now you’re doing everything you can to catch a taxi. Cars speed by on the road, and you fail to flag down a vehicle. Dejected and soaked to the bone, you drag your feet along the slick sidewalk, wishing for your next paycheck so that you can put it towards a used car. Speaking of cars, one slides past you as it makes an effort to park along the walkway. In doing so, the tires kick up a huge puddle, effectively soaking your lower half. As if the day couldn’t have gotten any worse. The car almost moves out of the spot before it halts, and the window steadily rolls down to reveal the face of your greatest enemy.

Well, he’s not technically your greatest enemy, but it really feels like it in that moment.

“Do you need a ride?” As if correcting himself, he quickly adds, “I’m not doing this because it’s you! I’m just sympathizing.”

Does it matter? you wonder, bitter and cold and wet. Karma is so brutal.

“You’re Sian, right?” You approach his car, peering in at the flustered man. “From marketing.”

“Y-Yeah. So what?”

“I’m in publishing.” Awkwardly, you look up at the cloudy sky. “It’s really coming down. The forecast didn’t call for this much rain.”

“Are you getting in or not?”

“But you’re a stranger,” you jest, fixing him with a pout. “I don’t want scary Sian to kidnap me.”

He glowers at your joke. “I’m leaving now. I don’t have time for this.”

You hold back a chuckle, tearing open the door before he can drive off. “Wait! Sorry, I’ll get in. I can’t stand another minute in this rain.”

The window slides up, and he sets the car in motion after you’ve buckled up, easing back into the flow of traffic smoothly. Now that you’re sitting there with the AC blowing cool air at your face, you shudder. Oh, how wonderful it must feel to be in clothes that are warm and untouched by the rain. In his peripheral, Sian catches your shivering form, and he switches the AC from cold air to hot. You might not dry as quick as one would hope, but at least it’s something.

The silence is utterly tense. You almost expect him to bicker with you like he did in the past. Instead, he’s focused on the winding road ahead. Though you don’t miss the pink hue that tints his cheeks and gradually rises to his ears.

“So,” you say, if only to get a conversation going. “How’s work?”

“Fine, I guess. How did you know who I was?”

“My friend Youssef.”

“Oh.”

“You probably don’t know me. I’m (Name).”

“I already know.”

“Really? Stalker.”

“I’m not a stalker!” he exclaims, glaring hard at the windshield. “You’re kind of hard to miss.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re always so loud at our company parties. How can anyone ignore that?” Sian then proceeds to bless your ears with a story from this year’s holiday party. A few departments got together and went out for drinks and karaoke. Naturally, you had a drinking contest with your colleagues, which led to a tipsy night of bad singing and stumbling from one bar to the next. You were surprised Sian remembered that, mainly because you couldn’t recall seeing him there. And it’s been months since that rowdy night. “Do you see my point?”

“Don’t remind me. That hangover hurt my soul.”

He quirks a smile at that. “It’s not flattering when you sing high notes in the wrong key.”

“Like you could do any better.”

“I can because I was sober.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You roll your eyes, gazing out at the scenery that passes by in a blur of dull colors. Without meaning to, you eye Sian’s reflection in the window, taking note of his side profile. He’s actually quite handsome when he’s calm and not acting so stubborn. “I guess we’re even now.”

“Even?”

“I spilled coffee on you, and you splashed me when your tires hit that puddle.”

“Am I supposed to buy you clothes now?”

“If you’re offering...”

“I wasn’t offering!”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a spare uniform in my locker.”

I wasn’t worried to begin with, you coffee idiot, Sian thinks, gripping the steering wheel. He keeps track of your occasional trembling, and he can’t help but feel troubled. You’ll catch a cold if you don’t dry off soon. Suddenly, he regrets pulling up beside you and accidentally sending water flying in your direction. This time it was definitely his fault, wasn’t it? Sian wants to make it up to you, but it’s impossible. He’ll die of embarrassment before he succeeds in performing a good deed in front of you.

Truthfully, he’s always noticed you. The very first instance was last year at the company’s drinking party. You were glued to Youssef’s side, engaging in idle chatter with him and another guy he wasn’t too familiar with. At the time, Sian thought your behavior was obnoxious. No one wants their younger coworker clinging to them. It just made you look like an attention-seeking puppy. Although you were definitely upbeat at that party. He had watched you chug an entire pint of beer like it was nothing and then join in on a pointless game of Ten Fingers with enough energy to put a child to shame.

He thought you were annoying at first, and yet there was something captivating about your personality. He’d never had the guts to approach you outright, so when he ran into you that day all of his frustrations just spilled over. He was angry at himself for not having the courage to talk to you at every company party, and now that he had a chance he couldn’t think of what to say. He hadn’t mentally prepared anything! So he said the first thing that came to his mind, which passed through his unfiltered lips in a very abrupt manner.

But you didn’t show any fear. You hardly flinched. Instead you met his words with a few of your own, and that’s what ruffled Sian’s feathers. You were so good at communication, and he was very much unskilled, usually relying on phrases he prepared in his head. It’s not like he couldn’t talk. He could when he was interested in a certain subject or whenever he was reading from a page, but in front of someone he admired... Sian knew he’d make a fool of himself.

Now that you’re sitting in the passenger seat of his car, he has every opportunity to say what he wants. Yet the words scramble in his brain, and he can’t calm his racing heart. Before he can think of anything witty, the building comes into view, and the parking garage has never seemed so dismal. Sian’s kicking himself as he parks, disappointed with how he handled that situation.

“Thanks for this. I’ll go on ahead.” You unbuckle, holding your briefcase and squeezing water from your blazer. “I’m sorry if I got your seat wet.”

“It’s...fine.”

You’re going to walk away and then he’ll become the coffee idiot. He opens his mouth to say something that’ll stop you, but you turn around at the right moment.

“Let’s get coffee sometime in the future. You deserve it after all the trouble I gave you,” you propose, smiling earnestly. And I feel guilty for my initial judgement. Youssef was right.

Sian’s eyes widen, and he struggles to remain stoic. “Oh, uh...”

“That’s okay with you, right?”

“I guess. Whatever works for you.” He shrugs.

“Great!” You retrieve a pen from your case and close the distance between the two of you. Humming, you snatch his hand, spreading his fingers so that his palm is wide open. And then you scribble something on it, grinning in satisfaction. Sian stares at you the entire time, his face blank and head filled with static. “Text me the days you’re available. See you later!” You tuck the pen away, hastily dashing in the direction of the elevator.

Sian stands there for a moment, slack-jawed. He forces himself to look down at his hand. Your number is written on his skin in smudged ink. His face erupts in a flurry of red. That coffee idiot...

------

“It’s not a date,” Sian mutters as he walks to the café. “It’s not. Stop thinking that way.”

But maybe it is a date, the voice in the back of his mind whispers, goading him into believing so. He dressed as casually as possible, but he still hopes it’ll impress you. There are plenty of fears that flood his head, and he almost turns around as soon as he gets to the entrance. But he’s come this far, and he’d regret it forever if he left now. This might be his only chance; he can’t afford to pass it up. So he pushes open the door in search of you. It doesn’t take long to locate your form amongst the few who are inside. Sian’s pulse rushes into overdrive, and he clenches his jaw.

It’s not a date. Act natural.

You look up from your phone just as he slides into the seat across from you. A warm smile blossoms across your face, and you tuck your mobile away. “Sian, you made it! I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

“It’d be rude if I didn’t show up after you made all those plans.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Well, thank you. Now I won’t have to feel bad about Monday morning.”

You had felt bad? Sian’s cheeks must be burning intensely bright now, but there’s nothing he can do. “It’s your fault for being an idiot.”

You chuckle. “That makes two of us. One idiot ignored the forecast, and the other wasn’t watching where he was going.”

“Whatever. Just so we’re clear, I’m not as stupid as you.” He crosses his arms and huffs. “And you don’t have any taste. I mean, iced coffee? Really?”

“It’s good!” you insist. “You’re missing out. Everyone knows iced coffee is better than hot coffee.”

“Is it now? I don’t agree with that statistic.”

“You’re allowed to have your own opinion, Mr. Sian,” you tease. “Give me your drink order. I’ll go get it.”

“What? No way. I’ll pay.”

“As if! I’m treating you.”

“You already bought me clothes.”

“And now I’m going to buy you coffee. It’s to say thanks for picking me up during that storm.”

“I would’ve left you on that sidewalk if I knew you were going to make it a hassle now!”

“Just accept my kindness!”

Sian shuts his mouth, giving into your demand. He grumbles his order, and you’re very happy as you make your way towards the register to get the two of you drinks and pastries. He watches as you pay, releasing a soft sigh. It’s hard to say no to someone you’ve admired for so long. Sian’s not sure when he started to like you, but he’s certain these recent interactions have only added fuel to the burning fire residing in his heart. It’s embarrassing to think he’s even on a romantic outing with you, but it’s not like the two of you are close friends. So then what does that make this?

When you return to the window table, setting down the drinks and a plate with two strawberry bread puddings, he’s shaken from his daydreams. This is actually happening. It’s not just another fantasy he’s imagined while witnessing you drink your sanity away at parties.

“I’m not sure if you like strawberries, but I—“

“I guess it’s okay,” he interrupts, trying to hide the fact that he actually likes it very much.

“Good!” You ease into your chair. “You’re not as bad as I thought you were.”

He raises an eyebrow as he takes a sip from his latte. “Huh.”

“You seemed really upset when I spilled my coffee on you. But anyone would be, so it’s completely understandable. I thought you hated me because of that. When we saw each other again, you were pretty sensitive.”

“I’m not sensitive!” he snaps, proving your point. “That was a white shirt you ruined.”

“Will you feel better if you dump coffee on me?”

“What? Why would I do that? I’m not going to do something as petty as that!”

“Aw, so you do care.”

“I don’t. Get lost.”

You break out into a laughing fit, genuinely amused at his coldness. Even if he doesn’t want to show it, he’s quite nice, and you’re relieved that he didn’t turn out to be a bully seeking revenge. Then again, it’s been weeks since that incident. 

“It’s not funny!”

“Sorry, sorry. You’re just so expressive. It’s hard not to laugh.”

A furious red darkens his face, and he decides to fumble with his fork in order to give his hands something to do. The bread pudding is surprisingly delicious. He fumes in his embarrassment while he eats.

Eventually, the two of you converse about work and that project your department took on. Sian listens to your rambling as you go on and on about how irksome it is when last-minute changes are made to a finalized draft. He enjoys every story you tell him, and by the time the plate is empty he feels as if he’s grown closer with you. Could this be the beginning of a friendship? He’s hit with a sudden wave of inspiration for lyrics that will never be sung. At least they can fester on a page in his notebook, where he’ll return on countless occasions to proofread and debate over the meaning of each line. Oh, how he’d love to share his music with you. It’ll take a while before he does something as bold as that, though.

“I just got an idea! There’s this awesome bar thirty minutes from work. I usually go with my friends because they’ve got a bunch of games you can play. Board games, card games—you name it. We should go one of these days.”

“R-Really?”

“Yeah! You seem like a fun guy to hang out with. Card games might sound boring, but they’re actually really fun when you’re playing for money. And when you’ve got a few drinks in your system.”

Sian struggles to hide the giddy smile that threatens to split his lips. “No... It sounds perfect. I’m actually really good at Slapjack, so be prepared to lose miserably!”

“Is that a challenge? What should we wager?”

"How about a meal? Loser has to pay for the winner’s lunch.”

“All right. It’s a deal. I’ll keep you updated on my schedule so that we can choose a weekend to meet up.”

“Sure!” Sian’s face won’t stop heating up and he can’t slow his erratic heartbeat. “I mean, I’ll only do it so I can get a free lunch. It’s not like I’m agreeing for your sake.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever floats your boat.”

His chest feels airy and light, almost as if he’s in a dream. Your words weigh on his conflicted heart. How can anyone make plans so easily? If the roles were reversed, he’d be an absolute mess. It’d be so embarrassing; Sian would probably want to curl up and disappear if he ever tried to ask you out on his own volition. You probably don’t even feel the same way. After all, this is merely two coworkers having a normal conversation. But he can’t get stuck in the friend zone. That’d be the worst outcome to all of this. So in the meantime he’ll do his best to act cordial. He can hide his shy demeanor and fluffy feelings behind a blunt attitude.

“All of this planning makes it seem like we’re a couple,” you muse with flirtatious intent. Leaning back in your chair, you gauge Sian’s reaction. Just as you figured, he’s turning crimson. It’s honestly endearing to see him get so flustered. “What do you think, Sian?”

“I... I don’t know. Don’t say stupid things! It’s really annoying.”

No matter how sharp his words are, you know he doesn’t mean it. After all, his expression clearly refutes those claims.

“Sian and (Name), sitting in a tree—“

“Shut up!”

If this isn’t a date, then what’s with all the flirting?

Sian’s going to have to take a cold shower when he gets home to lower his body temperature. And to scrub away the embarrassment that’s washed over him like rain.

It’s not a date. It’s just coffee with an acquaintance. Yeah. Just courtesy coffee.

He couldn’t be any further from the truth.

[shrinkthisviolet]

Author Interview Tag!

Tagged by @maipreciation, thanks for thinking of me! This looks really fun :D

(Note: I’m keeping this as a running list, so if you’re ever wondering what fics im working on/brainstorming, make sure to check here! Last update was on 12/12/2020)

Name: Lavi! As of 12/5, I’m no longer going by my real name (see this post)

Fandoms: so many 😂 check my bio, I think I have them all listed. I’ve posted fic for Hamilton and ATLA, and then there was a huge Inktober compilation I posted last year with a whole host of fandoms. Currently, my major fandom is ATLA, and probably Kipo as I’m starting to move through S1

Where you post: I have an AO3 (lavi0123)! I used to have an FFN and a Wattpad, but I don’t use either of those anymore :/ tbh, I’m embarrassed of anything I still have up there 😂

Most popular one-shot: Most definitely we’ll give the world to you (and you’ll blow us all away), one of my contributions to Maiko Week! I’m not surprised it’s an ATLA fic, but I find it interesting that a fic with Izumi in it blew up so quickly. But hey, if y’all want more Izumi content, you won’t be disappointed 😉

Most popular multi-chapter fic: ...I’m really embarrassed to say because I don’t think I’ll ever finish it...but En Hamilton Heights is the only multichap fic I’ve published so it’s gotta be that one 😂 hopefully soon I’ll have another fic to add to that, since I’m working on one (sorry EHH fans but it’s been too long and tbh I don’t remember where I was going with it :/ I’m thinking I might orphan it)

Favorite story you’ve written so far: you think this world is a dream come true (but you’re wrong) for sure! It’s super niche but it’s something I wrote out of love for a movie I discovered this Halloween and absolutely love. Though all you’ve got to do is want something (and then let yourself have it) is a close second. Basically, anything I write that sounds absolutely bonkers as a concept is one that I love 😂 (and it’s no coincidence that both fics are Mai-centric! I love all my Mai-centric fics nearly equally)

Fic you were nervous to post: Is there an “all of the above” option? 😂 I’m always nervous to post. But in particular, I was nervous for if you ran away (come back home), because it was Mai-centric and longer than any one-shot I’d written thus far, and also you think this world is a dream come true (but you’re wrong), because it’s Mai-centric and a Coraline AU, which makes it BONKERS as an idea

Why was I nervous to post Mai-centric fics, you ask? Two reasons: 1) Mai is very different from who I am as a person (I vibe a lot more with Aang and Ty Lee, sometimes Katara and Sokka), so I didn’t want to upset the Mai stans by writing her incorrectly. 2) Mai is generally not well-liked in the fandom at large, so I especially didn’t want to attract antis who would accuse me of writing Mai as too emotional and loving (which is why I tried to justify that in my tags). Luckily, my comments have all been lovely, and I’m far less afraid to post fics about her now that I’ve written three fics with her as the focus! And the shoutout from @nonbinary-crafter-aang praising my portrayal of her?? I was touched 🥺 still am

How you choose your titles: Song lyrics or movie/book lines that speak to me, occasionally a pun. Remember that post I rb’d about how authors title their works? My tags pretty much say it all 😂

Do you outline: Ehh...define outlining 😂 for my one-shots, nope. But for my upcoming multichap works (see below) and Nanowrimo work (original fiction, so I won’t talk about it on here, but send an ask if you’re curious), YES ABSOLUTELY!

For my Nanowrimo work and one of my upcoming AUs (a Soulmate AU), the worldbuilding is so complex that it’s an absolute necessity. For the other upcoming AU (a time travel AU), there are just too many things that need to happen at certain times so as not to interfere with canon events, and things I want to change from canon and things I want to keep...I think you get the idea 😂

Complete: Basically my entire maiko halloweek series! Check it out if you want some fics about the most underrated canon ATLA couple :)

In-progress: ...En Hamilton Heights again...but not for long, sadly. Still trying to decide between a quick conclusion and just flat-out orphaning it. Still haven’t made up my mind, but either way, it won’t be what I originally planned, unfortunately.

I’m also counting my ATLA Soulmate AU on the basis of forever in my mind (only you), which has the worldbuilding and fits into the AU without much problem (the AU is going to be a series of one-shots, not a multichap fic, because there won’t be enough deviations from canon imo to justify multiple chapters. And one-shots are just less pressure for me 😂)

[EDIT 12/12/2020: added another fic because I’m an idiot and forgot about this too 🤦‍♀️😂 it’s a year-old idea that I started writing but I’m picking it back up thanks to the Heist banter in MatPat’s St Jude stream!]

-A fic series combining Escape the Night and Who Killed Markiplier (Heist and Date are part of it too, but only tangentially at the moment. Depends on how involved I want DA Y/N to be). Tentatively titled A Heavy Cost, and definitely won’t happen in any of Mark’s projects, but in a way that’s actually for the best 😂 the canonicity for me stops at ETN S3 (with some S4), then it’s canon divergence

Coming soon/not yet started: OOOH YESSS HERE WE GO

Okay okay sooo we’ve got two main things:

–An ATLA Soulmate AU, featuring platonic and romantic soulmates! I know I called it in-progress, and I stand by that even though I haven’t actually set up the series on AO3 yet, but this AU is about to be SO MUCH MORE than just a few Maiko moments. Because...drum roll...it’s gonna be entirely Aang-centric (with maybe one or two exceptions)! Like Mai, Aang is a character that doesn’t get as many -centric fics as he should (and being an Aang stan also isn’t unanimous for some reason??), so I’m gonna fix that. Plus I want to dive further into his mind, and I think I’m more equipped to do that than I was with Mai, since Aang and I are very similar in attitude.

–Bumizumi time travel AU, which can be read as platonic until the last couple chapters (it’ll be multichap) but definitely has a romantic agenda throughout. So just. Be warned if you don’t ship them. It’s gonna be chock full of comedy and antics! Also A LOT of platonic affection between Izumi and teen Zuko (and just between Izumi, Bumi, and the Gaang in general), because platonic affection is underrated and also I can :D I’m also probably gonna make fun of how some elements of affection have become solely romantic territory, because...um, no, hugging and holding hands and cuddling can be done between friends, thanks! (Maybe it’s the ace in me talking. But regardless)

There are also vague concepts I’m spitballing, like:

-Zukaang telepathy AU (Platonic Zukaang, the only romance I’ll ever write in ATLA is for the canon ships, prompted by a dream because apparently ATLA lives in my head rent-free forever now 😂)

-Evil Zuko AU (Azula doesn’t exist, mostly prompted after watching Aang make fun of Zhao and realizing that if Zuko had been in any position of power during the War...the Gaang would have stood no chance at all)

-Bumizumi Arranged Marriage AU (Bumi and Izumi both think the other is hotheaded/reckless (Izumi @ Bumi) or uptight (Bumi @ Izumi). So Kataang and Maiko (along with Sukka, Ty Lee, and Toph because...duh) set them up in an arranged marriage, with the presented reasoning being that they already know each other’s families, it’ll be a great symbol of unity, and this way Izumi doesn’t have to worry about suitors. They both agree to it (it’s arranged, not forced), and over time, they warm up to each other...and maybe even...fall in love?? Prompted because we need more arranged marriage fics! On that note, I’m gonna plug shadows and steel by @dearestpartnerofgreatness because arranged marriage needs more rep and this fic does it and with Maiko to boot!)

-Zukaang as Brothers AU (I saw a fic about this, but it wasn’t complete. If it’s not done by the time I get to this concept, I’m gonna write it, because just...imagine the possibilities! Zuko and Aang are already basically brothers in canon anyway, this is just making them brothers in blood as well as in their hearts. This is especially vague because I have no concept of how this is gonna work 🤷‍♀️ I’ll get to it eventually)

(Can you tell I’m obsessed with Zuko and Aang’s friendship? Because I am!)

[EDIT 11/25/2020: I’m adding two more because I forgot these have been swirling around in my head too 😂]

-A fix-it fic based on May You Always Be Satisfied, a backstory fic for Who Killed Markiplier by @blackaquokat! I recently reread it and remembered that I was gonna write a fix-it for that fic. Not because the fic sucks, it’s actually amazing! I’m just a sucker for the main (requited unrequited) pairing, and there’s at least five ways to make that pairing canon and avoid the mess of Who Killed Markiplier. And THEY ALL DESERVE TO BE HAPPY OKAY

-A Finnrey fix-it for the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (this one is especially vague, and I probably won’t write it since a bunch of these already exist, but it’s fun to think about. Maybe if I ever run out of WIPs 🤷‍♀️)

Upcoming story that you’re most excited to write: I’m equally excited for the Soulmate AU and the Bumizumi Time Travel AU! I’m also excited for my Nanowrimo work to be finished, but that’s more so in-progress than upcoming

Tagging:

@nonbinary-crafter-aang @dearestpartnerofgreatness @ohsalamanders @blackaquokat (no pressure ofc, only if you want to! But please tag me if you do, I’d love to see it!)

[whereconfusionisarhyme]

First Reactions To Logan’s Playlist

K first song let’s do this

White and Nerdy-Weird Al Yankovic

Wtf this song was definitely Joan’s idea I mean who else would think of ‘White and Nerdy’ for Logan

Is this like canon he listens to this stuff or like songs about him???

Not Perfect-Tim Minchin

TIM MINCHIN

Bo Burnham better be on Logan's playlist

#deep

Is this about the mindpalace/inside of Thomas’ head??? Cause like???? Ouch???? I think????

Lol nvm it’s not sad lmao

I take back my take back it is sad

So this could be literally “in his mind” or it could be figurative and it’s really messing with my funky flow

Streaks-ANIMA!

Cool instrumental

Love the voice sounds a little like MARINA and Regina Spektor

Oh no I’m two lines in and I can tell it’s gonna be sad

OH NO CONFORMITY RELATED ANGST AHHHHH

Wow Logan is just out here being relatable isn’t he smh 😔👊

"Cause you're a smart kid, but you're still a kid" LOGAN REALLY BE OUT HERE BEING RELATABLE ON MAIN

The Elements-Tom Lehrer

Sounds like what piano class would sound like if I took piano class

Something you would listen to in science class

Bop

Medicine-STRFCKR

A Fever You Can't Sweat Out vibes

Lmao nvm

Gonna go look up the lyrics rn brb

A sad bop

Philosophy cool

Human-Tank And The Bangas

Logan playing this to comfort himself because this singer is the only person who has ever told him this

WHO HURT LOGAN WITH THEIR WORDS

LOGAN THE HEART SKIPPING COMMENT ARE YOU OKAY IM GIVING YOU A HUG

GUYS LOGAN IS TRYING TO CONVINCE HIMSELF THAT HE MATTERS IM NOT OKAY

Last???? Relationship???

Okay I'm not a shipper BUT my theorist analysis obsessed brain is just SCREAMING about Roman and Patton

Observation: Logan is probably atheistic and this song covers God a lot. I don't have a conclusion or anything just pointing that out

This woman do be calming tho like yes I'm beautiful yes I'm special thank you

Okay so I already knew Logan wasn't okay but he 100% isn't okay

Fittet Happier-Radiohead

K two words in and I can tell this is gonna be sad here we go

Employees? Or maybe…other sides?

Minor key ok

SELF HARM ISNT OKAY

"WILL NOT CRY IN PUBLIC" NONONONO

So I heard of a good therapist just downtown-

The Watchtower-The Dø

I paused it cause I need a second after the last one

Guys as someone who dissosiates a lot I think Logan might be dissosiating

Dissosiating to protect himself from his emotions

Y'all just trust me in this one

Coming for the TØP brand I see

K ready to start again here we go

Fire beat I'm vibing with it

Is he trying to distance himself from his emotions to try and perform his tasks better like watching from a Watchtower???

This is the first character I've seen that might dissosiate which only means one thing

I'm gonna be projecting an unholy amount in my fanfiction

"No one in particular" hon who hurt you

City Lights=Emotions (which he considers distractions)??? Maybe??

I'm a William Finn fan come on this isn't my first rodeo

Art Is Dead-Bo Burnham

BO BURNHAM I WAS RIGHT

We all love some good Imposter Syndrome (tm)! :D

This gives Learning New Things About Ourselves' a whole new meaning

Ngl this is the first time I heard the degrading of the piano at the end and I'm here for it

In My Mind-Amanda Palmer

Oop we LOVE setting up impossible expectations for yourself to the point you have a cripplingly horrid self esteem! :D

Logan I've done this before and trust me it isn't worth it the mental breakdowns are too taxing

I'll do it when I'm older=I'm never gonna get around to it

I don't wanna be the person I wanna be either

Why do I perfectly understand every lyric am I ok

Live!!! While you!!!! Can!!!!

At least there's a happy ending

Okay so I've decided that once I'm done I'm gonna make a list of songs I think would fit in the playlist

Algorythym-Childish Gambino

K its spelled incorrectly get ready for some metaphors my dudes

Intro is cool definitely very very Logan WOAH OKAY CHAIN SMOKER

Gonna go look up lyrics I don't understand shit

The chorus sounds like Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house where like 100+ African American relatives blast house music and dance until their feet falls off

Nvm no it doesn't

GO OFF

ELPHABA BETTER WATCH OUT CHILDISH GAMBINO IS COMING FOR YOUR BELT

Adlibs are everything

Letter C-Zach Sherwin

This gives off the same vibes as that one pickle video by Charlie Puth

Roman vs Logan rap battle but it's this

I don't really see why this is related but sure

Time Adventure-The Marcus Hedgehog

Nostalgiaaaaaa

Okay Logan has too many songs talking about one (1) person who is it

I have a gut feeling that it's about Thomas and how Logan used to be enough "back then" but now he thinks he's not cause like let's be honest when was the last time someone gave Logan a strong sincere thank you for all that he does????Excluding DWIT (which doesn't really count in my opinion cause they said he was cool, not like an integral and arguably the most important and powerful side) nobody really appreciates Logan???? Hugs???

Anyway plz ignore this is just how my brain works

K next song

The Breach-clipping.

OKAY SLOW DOWN IM GONNA LOOK UP LYRICS

Is this Daveed Diggs???? I haven't listened to Hamilton in like forever is this Daveed Diggs???

LITERALLY PERFECY PARRALLEL TO LOGAN AND THE SIDES

Sound effects

Really just gonna fry my eardrums like that huh

What I Do For U-Ra Ra Riot

Okay scrap anything and everything I said about it being the sides Logan is 100% talking about Character!Thomas

Erase Me-Ben Folds Five

Ooh this intro reminds me of this one particular musical songs but I don't remember which one

Wait have I listened to this before????

I've listened to this before!

Okay I need to stop being distracted

NOOOOOO don't Erase Yourself!!!!

Logan really just do be having no Self Esteem don't he

Okay so theory: Logan didn't pop up in person in the last video because his eyes were too red from crying

I have 0 evidence so it's not a very good theory but…

Just throwing it out there

One More Time with Feeling-Regina Spektor

Oh no it's Regina Spektor

Oh no I'm gonna cry

Okay so Logan doesnt wanna block of all emotion, only permit some to show???? But most of the time block everything????

Did I get that???

Nobody!!!! Thanks!!!! Logan!!!!

Awww he just wants love and recognition

Tbh this sounds a lot like Roman they have so much in common despite their constant arguing

Galaxy Song-Monty Python

Ooh Monty Python

I haven't listened to Monty Python so I sadly don't know the context

Really just dissing all of the other sides aren't we

Can't really blame him tho

Very scientific

"Yeau~"

Sweet with dark undertones. Love it.

Equation-Hans Zimmer

Later I'm gonna check the equations if they're correct XD

Sunrise-In The Heights

!!!!!!

WHO???!!!!!

K to this is one of my favorite love songs ever it's just so sweet and as someone who's bilingual the concept is just amazingly wonderful so yeah I may be freaking out

Also because WHO??!!

Okay I said I wasn't a shipper but let's be honest this is probably about Roman not romantically but like

OR MAYBE JANUS???

IM SO CONFUSED

But Logan is definitely Nina in this situation it just fits so well with her character for the same reasons I really wanna play her (but never will cause I'm exactly 0% Latin American smh) yeah the pressures to be the smartest and then it backfiring horribly and oh God what if Inùtil is also in the playlist ahhhh

Okay moving on

Lifeboat-Heathers

WHAT

NO

NO

CONFORMITY RELATED ANGST LOGAN STOP BEING RELATABLE AHHHH

IS THIS CAPTAIN THOMAS??? THE OTHER SIDES AS A WHOLE??? AN ABSTRACT CONCEPT???

IM NOT OKAY

Bohemian Groove-Will Connolly

Okay I'm still not recovered from the last song but I need to continue or else I'm never gonna finish this playlist

Eeecccchhhhhoooo

Your friends haven't surpassed you Logan you belong with them okay????

Emptiness despite success??? Millennial who???

Vibing with it but also are you okay

Nvm I know the answer already

Hug All Ur Friends-Cavetown

Okay so Logan is a Cavetown gay noted

Self validation??? Who's she???

Lies. You care so much about what other people *sides* think about you

Maybe Logan listens to this song to remind himself to not care too much

But it doesn't work and it's getting to him more and more

Oh

That took a turn

Breathin'-Thomas Sanders

Good move

Don't really have much to say on this

The Bidding

Spoopy

Alchoholic!Logan

New idea for us fan writers

The pronunciation of beurgoise

Okay I'm like pretty certain at this point that all of the songs that mention a someone else is about Character!Thomas

A Better Version

OHMYGOD I LOVE THIS MUSICAL ITS SO UNDERRATED I HAVE LISTENED TO THE SOUNDTRACK AND UNGODLY AMOUNT OF TIMES YESSSSS

But also since I know the song in terrified cause the feels are gonna come in I just know it

Wait so is Jayce supposed to be Thomas???

I am suddenly feeling much more uncertain about my certainty

Okay let me unpause and just listen to it (even though I already know all of the lyrics)

Okay so I'm a dumbass and apparently this song isn't even part of the playlist

Okay so I'm an idiot and the last few songs have all been "related to playlist" and not in the actual playlist I'm big dumb.

Anyway here's my list of songs I think would fit. (BTW, I only went off of lyrics for these ones. I realize that there’s a general sound and vibe for the playlist, but I decided not to follow it.)

Oh No! ~ MARINA

Hug All Ur Friends ~ Cavetown

Bohemian Groove ~ Will Connolly

Guiltless ~ Dodie Clark

Lifeboat ~ Laurens O’Keefe

The Bidding ~ *idk who*

I Am Not A Robot ~ MARINA

Inútil - Lin Manuel Miranda

Through The Eyes Of A Child ~ AURORA

Community Gardens ~ The Scary Jokes

Let me know if I should do this with the other playlists as well! :)

[voyager-into-the-unknown]

The Dumb One

By PlanceGardener21 on AO3

Lance allowed Red to fly on autopilot as the Paladins soared through the void on their long journey home. He leaned back in his pilot’s chair, listening to his teammates’ comm chatter, but saying nothing. Allura was having a discussion with Pidge and Hunk about quintessence conversion efficiency and the necessity of allowing the lions to recharge. They would have to find a habitable planet to land on soon. Keith and Allura had some ideas about which one would be suitable for their needs. Pidge made some quick calculations which she sent to Black Lion, and Keith adjusted their route towards Earth, which they apparently weren’t going to reach anytime in the near future.

Lance sighed. What could he contribute to this conversation anyway? It was like they had forgotten he was even there. He thought about their recent encounter with the mysterious alien entity known to them only as Bob. The dumb one, Lance thought. That’s what he called me, and that’s who I am. Everyone seems to agree on that. He closed his eyes. He just wanted this war to be over. He missed Earth. He missed his family. He could feel the moisture welling up beneath his eyelids. He just wanted to go home.

“Lance!” Hunk practically shouted over his comm. “Are you with us, buddy? You’ve been really quiet lately.”

“Sorry. I must have been napping for awhile.”

“Are you sure you’re awake back there?” Keith asked. Red, the normally the fastest of the lions, had drifted to the rear of their formation.

“Keep up, Lonce,” Allura chided. “You don’t want to get left behind.” After all this time she still pronounced his name incorrectly. At first he thought it was cute, but now it was beginning to get on his nerves every time she said it. Lance pulled a face that he was glad the princess could not see.

That’s just great, he thought. Now, I’m the slow one, too.

“Lance?” Pidge’s voice was more gentle than usual for some reason. “Would you like to play Killbot in tandem with me? It would be a great way to pass the time.”

“How can I play when I’m over here? The game console is with you, Pidge.”

“I’ve downloaded the game’s code into one of Green’s auxiliary computers. I can send a copy of the program to one of Red’s auxiliaries and broadcast a signal link that will allow us to play together in real time. It’ll be fun.”

Lance was impressed. “That must have been a lot of work for you. Why did you go to so much trouble?”

Pidge hesitated. “Well...you did go through a lot to help me get the game in the first place. And even though it’s fun to play alone, I’ve always thought that it’s even more fun to play Killbot with you.”

Lance smiled crookedly in spite of the gloomy mood he had been in a few moments before. “Well, what are you waiting for? Send me the program!” He then grinned broadly in anticipation of another gaming session with Pidge. Somehow, She managed to bring him out of his foul mood with just a few words. He noticed that she did that a lot lately.

“Ugh, can you two put all of your gaming talk on a private channel.” Allura sounded annoyed.

“Will do!” Pidge replied cheerfully. There was a brief burst of static, and then he heard Pidge’s voice on a different channel. “Lance, you there?” He activated his viewscreen.

“Your favorite Paladin’s right here, Pidgey,” he said with a smirk while pointing finger guns at her. “I’m cuter than a yelmor, and I smell better than one too!” He really didn’t know what made him say that, but it made her giggle, so it must have been the right thing to say. It may have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that Pidge blushed a little as she smiled at him.

She typed quickly, then pressed a button. “Sending now. Let me know when it’s finished downloading to your auxiliary terminal. It will take several minutes.”

“Thanks for doing all this for me, Pidge. I really missed gaming with you.”

“l missed you too,” Pidge declared absentmindedly as she studied one of her data screens. “And it was the least I could do for you after what happened on board the pirate ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zethrid and Ezor were gleeful about the idea of torturing me, but you wouldn’t let them take me. Even though you were restrained, you fought to defend me, to keep me safe. What you did was selfless, reckless, and very brave. For the longest time I just wanted to say...” Pidge’s voice cracked. Her eyes were shining. “Thank you for that.”

Lance’s mouth fell open in stunned silence. After a long pause, he softly murmured, “No problem.” He watched as she wiped her eyes quickly and swallowed. Lance stammered, “I...uh...I really didn’t have time to think. I just reacted. Someone I care about was in danger, and something inside of me just...snapped. I had to protect you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t done something. Pidge, if they had taken you, if they had hurt you, I—“

She gave him a watery smile. “But they didn’t hurt me. Ezor beat you up instead.” Tears streamed down Pidge’s cheeks, and she wiped them away with the heel of one hand. “If Coran, Acxa, and the mice hadn’t arrived to rescue us, no telling what they might have done to you.”

“It’s all right. I only had a few bruises. I’m fine, really. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.” His face suddenly felt very warm.

She looked at him in astonishment, and then smiled shyly. She was definitely blushing this time, and looking at him with what could only be described as admiration. Selfless, she had called him. Brave.

“I guess you’re my hero, then.” The look she gave him was the softest he had ever seen from her. He was speechless.

It had occurred to him, and not for the first time either, that Pidge was growing up. She was taller now, her hair was longer, the subtle curves of her slight figure had become more obvious recently. There was no way she could pass for a young boy anymore. She’s too pretty to be a boy, he thought, and then suddenly felt warm all over. Where had that thought come from? Pretty. Delicate. Graceful. Brilliant. Sweet. Courageous. Determined. She was all of those things and so much more. And she saw him as a hero. He was her hero.

Hero...How many times had he hoped that he might be regarded as a hero by some attractive young woman? How much time had he spent in idle daydreaming about rescuing a fair damsel in distress who would fall in love with him? How long had he fantasized that one day a girl would look at him the way Katie Holt was looking at him at this very moment? Well, it was time to be really brave then. He looked back at her and said aloud what he had been meaning to tell her for the longest time.

“You—you’re my hero too, you know. You saved me. Remember when Bob put me in that vat of acid?”

“Don’t remind me. That arrogant little creep could have killed you, Lance. I was furious!”

“Yeah, I am not a fan of that guy either. I was so nervous that I couldn’t think straight. Every time I got an answer wrong I felt like I was letting the team down, and I could never forgive myself if we lost because of my stupidity.”

“You’re not stupid, Lance. Don’t ever call yourself that.”

“Why not? Everyone knows that I’m the dumb one. Bob kept saying it over and over, and he’s some kind of ancient being with godlike knowledge and power, so it must be true.”

“That is absolute nonsense. Bob doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And you’re not dumb! I can prove it to you.”

“Good luck with that,” he said skeptically.

“Are you familiar with Howard Gardener’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences?”

“No. Wait, multiple? Are you saying that there is more than one way to be smart?”

“That’s exactly what I am saying. Even before we became Paladins, I hacked the Garrison’s computers several times when I was searching for Matt and Dad. I saved nearly everything I could find that was classified, including data about Shiro, who was missing too, and Keith because of his connection to Shiro. I researched you and Hunk also, since the three of us were training together as a flight crew. I wanted to know everything there is to know about you two. I made a dossier on each member of our team.”

“Yeah, you told us. I mean, normal people do scary stuff like that all the time.” He rolled his eyes.

She glared at him. “Lance...”

“I’m just saying! Look, you got angry at Hunk for being nosy when he tried to get a peek at your diary. In a way, this is even worse!”

“I’m sorry! I was desperate to find my family, okay? And I wanted to know more about you and Hunk. I wanted to know if I could trust you. I entered the Garrison illegally, under a false identity, and sooner or later one of you would figure out that Pidge Gunderson was an alias. If Iverson found out that I was really Sam Holt’s daughter...”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry too. I know you were probably in a constant state of anxiety back then. I honestly thought there was something very weird going on with you all the time, even though I was too dense to figure out that you weren’t really a boy.”

She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment, remembering their time together as cadets. “You kept trying to be friends with me, and I kept pushing you away. I felt terrible about that, you know. I really wanted to be friends, but I was afraid you and Hunk would figure out who I really was.”

“It’s alright, Pidge. I understand why you did it. And I hope you noticed that we didn’t give up on you.”

“I know. You and Hunk were the first real friends I’ve ever had.” She smiled again, her eyes shining.

He smiled back at her. “You and Hunk are like, my favorite people in the entire universe, okay? You’re both so brilliant I often wonder why either of you would want an idiot like me around, unless it’s for comic relief.”

“Lance! Stop that! I already told you, you are not dumb, so stop saying it.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll stop. What was it that you were saying about multiple intelligences?”

“I have all of your files from our days at the Garrison: standardized test scores, pilot trainee stats, physical fitness data, psych profile, and MI survey results, as well as everyone else’s. We both scored pretty high in Visual/Spatial Intelligence.”

“You have to in order to be a pilot trainee.”

“And to be so great at video games. It’s also necessary to be a skilled sharpshooter,” she grinned at him. “I may be a genius in Logical/Mathematical, but your score in Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence is much higher than mine. You also scored really high in Linguistic, Musical, and especially Interpersonal Intellligences. That last one is my weakest area.”

“Wait a tic, are you saying that I’m smarter than you in some areas?!”

“Yes, without a doubt. The data is right here. I can send it to you...”

“No, I...” Lance looked shy all of a sudden. “It’s enough just to know that you think I’m not dumb. I mean, you’re one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, not to mention that you’re one of the people I love most in the entire universe, so your opinion means everything to me. I guess what I am trying to say is...thank you.”

Wait, did he just say love? Out loud?! Oh no, she heard that. That’s why she isn’t saying anything. Idiot. There was an awkward silence between them.

The computer console chimed softly, signaling the download was finished.

“You’re welcome, Lance,” she said carefully. “And I think you should know that even though you are dense as a neutron star about some things, you are brilliant as a supernova in many other ways.” She paused again. “I guess that’s why I love you so much, you Goofball.” She said all of this with a dazzling smile that made his heart beat faster.

Lance’s heart was racing for quite some time, and he could not stop smiling for the next varga or so. He and Pidge became absorbed in excitement of the video game, but in the back of his mind Pidge’s words reverberated through the cavern of his memory, echoing again and again without diminishing in intensity: Selfless. Brave. Hero. You’re not dumb. I love you.

I love you...I love you...I love you. His mind replayed those words over and over as they battled digital monsters. With each victory he felt more confident, more sure of himself. He whooped with unbridled joy when their teamwork took down one foe after another.

He loved her. He knew that now, and he had already wasted so much precious time flirting with girls who really didn’t matter to him. He vowed he wouldn’t do that anymore. They were fighting in an interstellar war that had been going on for thousands of years before they were even born. Who knew how much time they had left? Days, months, years, a lifetime?

A lifetime. He realized at that moment that he could spend a lifetime talking or gaming or just growing old with Pidge. He wanted that, if they survived this endless war. He wanted her.

When they finally landed on the planet that Keith and Allura were talking about earlier, he might be able to walk around with Pidge for a bit and enjoy the fresh air of a planet with a breathable atmosphere. He would try to hold her hand, of course. And, maybe, if he could find a place to be alone with her, he could tell her face to face how he really felt about her. He wondered if she would let him steal a kiss...

“Team, look alive!” Keith’s voice over the main comm channel broke Lance’s concentration. Pidge paused their game. “There’s a renegade Galra battlegroup straight ahead. Incoming!” Galra fighters swarmed around Keith, Allura, and Hunk like a hive of angry hornets.

Quiznak! Well, it was time to put that Visual/Spatial Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence to use. Red soared ahead with Green right behind him and Lance opened fire on the fighter drone who was tailing Black Lion. It burst in an explosion of color and light in front of him.

“Nice shooting!” Hunk exclaimed.

“Way to go, Sharpshooter!” Pidge cheered. “That was a genius move.” Was she teasing him?

Lance grinned as he bullseyed another fighter.

[nero-the-truth-sable]

I have to laugh at this nasty piece of crap. She spreads crap about my friend, and then plays the victim, mind she has always been very good at this, anyone remember that scamming incident early last year, the one where Judy said there had been a miscommunication, and she didn't realise she had broken the agreement, well she played the victim there as well, and basically accused the ACTUAL REAL Victim of setting her up and trying to make her look bad. Yeah because everyone wants to make you look bad, you don’t do it yourself. Judy always plays the victim, shes very good at it, there has been a number of incidents she has caused over the years, and she has always been the one responsible for causing the incident, she then plays the victim and spreads crap about the REAL victim.  so what actually happened, there was an argument between Judy and another player in game and to be honest it was in my opinion her fault as always, she jumped the gun and started being funny to this other player, and this other player told her where to go and called her a scammer. So I will now explain the situation, Judy likes mounts, but she refuses to Mount farm (at least she used to) unless it was set to Loot-Master (there is actually past proof of this on her actual blog where she posts these things about my friend all people have to do is look), This one particular day Judy decided to make her own mount farming party,  and invites us, we accept not knowing that she set it to loot master she said nothing to anyone, we couldn't get the last DPS so Judy puts the party up in party finder, we soon get the last DPS. We went in to the duty and that’s when the random person asked why it was set to Loot-Master, we also were like . . .wait loot master . .so we all left the duty. Well out of the duty Judy kicked off demanding she would get the first mount as she was party leader, and any items the boss would drop again as she was party leader. Now Im going to say me and the other people in the group were not okay with this, and we were not aware she was like this, before we had only farmed 2 mounts with her, and she complained and whined through each one, she was very annoying to be honest, and if I am honest, she was carried through the previous 2. Anyway Judy claimed it was clearly displayed and she had clearly explained to everyone it was loot master, but she didn’t and it was not displayed we didn’t have a clue until we got in there and the random person saw it. But instead of saying sorry, Judy basically insults this other player saying she herself is Chinese and has better reading skills than this person and they them self must be stupid, so in linkshell my friend said to her Judy you should just say sorry and stop this and set it to normal loot roll please,  a number of the group who were in this linkshell agreed with this. Well Judy refused so after say 5 mins the rest of us left, and started a new group and put that up in PF, the random person joined us, and Judy joined us and she carried on bickering with this random person, who was not replying and seemed like they had blocked Judy. We then kicked Judy from the party.  So all of this started over Judy attempting to scam someone in Early September 2019. Judy wont admit to this though, she says it all started in November and December when my friend Freya’s account was inactive.  The second incident was in early October 2019 and was in the linkshell, so Freya and myself were in a PvP group with Judy and 2 of her friends, now it was not a pre made group, we just got unlucky and got matched with them, we were not really on good terms with Judy from the first incident, I mean I dont like people who try and SCAM others, why the heck would anyone.  Well Freya spelt something wrong in the party chat, and immediately Judy and her 2 friends started having a go at Freya, they were literally AFKing at base throwing abuse at her in party chat. Well unlucky I voted to kick Judy, and it passed. Well then Judy probably annoyed because she got kicked started having a go at Freya in the Linkshell that we were all in, and carried on insulting her. Freya has got dyslexia and English is not her first language so yeah she does spell things incorrectly, however I know people who do not have dyslexia and English is their first language and they spell things incorrectly, and in Judys case, I mean has anyone seen her take on English, I mean the above screen shots are traumatic enough its broken English at the best, I mean really no reason on this earth for Judy to actually have a go at someone for their English. The funniest thing was Freya didn't sit there and put up with it, Freya told Judy, which Judy didn't like, and then proceeded to kick Judy from the linkshell, it was so nice and peaceful with out the constant shrill tone of that bitches complaining, because let me tell you she complained about everything. I seriously think she has a queen complex.  So the next thing Judy claims is that we deleted our discord, we didn't we kicked her from it, because she was harassing people on it, we only invited her in the first place because she was a friend of one of the people we farmed mounts with. So harassment wise she contacted the daughter of one of our mount farming members and showed the daughter some stuff Judy claimed had been said by the daughters father to Judy over discord. . .I will use the word fake because these discord conversations had the other persons name blocked out, you could not see who the other person was everything had been blocked out. Basically Judy was trying to make a father look bad in front of his daughter by sending her altered screen shots. So we kicked her, she actually mentions her version of events in her blog posts, she says  “ I was suddenly pulled into the conversation team by them in discord. I didn't say anything before and thought I was worried. Fear of a fart, I had expected that you would come to play the big dragon and the phoenix. I was not surprised, and he also added the shrew to that group of conversations and Just say I design traps, I am a bad guy or something. I told my father and daughter that I left because I chose it because I had read what they said. As for which shrew finally said his desire to destroy my reputation, I will say on the spot that you continue to roar. I don't care anyway, all the so-called evidence that passes through your hand is the conversation you ps.”  (PS=Photoshop) so This blog was posted on  28/10/2019, I want to point out now that no one else seemed to know about any Photo Shopped images at this point the first mention of these from the other involved people like Yuri Fairytale comes in late November early December, So my question here is why does Judy mention Photo Shopped images, how does Judy someone who claims she is on the PS4 know these images are photo shopped when no one else even knows they exist until late November early December 2019, Yuri didn't know until November 30th so how did Judy know a month before everyone else ??? I think it is because Judy made these photos herself, she certainly made / altered the discord screen shots she sent to the daughter, i also know Judy is not using a PS4 all the time, Judy did start out playing on the PS4, but she bought copies for the PC, when she had a better PC, I know for a fact 1 persons account can be multi platform, I have had 2 different friends who have started with PS4 accounts and then gone on to the PC, it is an actual thing. So saying her account is PS4 doesn't mean shes still playing on the PS4, it means she originally started on the PS4.  Also going to point out Judy mentions Yuri and herself looked at these screen shots they claim are fake, Judy actually says they (Judy and Yuri) EXAMINED them closely personally I think this is very suspicious, I mean why would you need to examine something so closely, especially when you claim like Yuri does and has in the past, he has no idea when it comes to things like discord. Very Strange Judy also mentions she has access to a discord account which she calls the FAKE discord account and says she checks it and in fact has access to it, Is that the account that’s been pretending to be my friend seems like it Judy says it is anyway, and the only way Judy would have access to this FAKE account is if she was the one who made it.  I will say myself and my friend have involved discord, they have been very decent and have provided my friend with proof that her account was not active during the months of November and December. I mean I understand people may not be interested now, but people should be interested in the truth, these idiots from the lich congress for no reason set out on a witch hunt against my friend, and to a point myself, and a few of our other friends. They have spread lies about us for no reason, and we are not the first people this lich congress has done this to. They are idiots, they are people who love drama and thrive on it, so much so that they make it up themselves. 

[calleo-bricriu]

Three questions: How were you getting paid if you were a "prisoner"? Where you really a prisoner or is that just the excuse you used to get out of punishment? Did he even TRY to kill you?

Oh no, no, not an excuse at all.

I was a prisoner and the only reason I walked right into it was, more or less, to spite @directoryandle  and, going in with the assumption that I was going to eventually be let out again, also be able to come back and hopefully still have him working there so I could claim however many years I was stuck there because he’d sent me to deal with the ‘request’ instead of going himself that it was official Ministry business, work, and I absolutely expected to be paid for it.

Essentially, the Ministry ended up paying me five years’ salary to be a prisoner and largely did continue doing things that were part of my actual job anyway, just from an entirely different location surrounded by largely competent, if a bit mental, people.

Nice temporary break from being surrounded by largely incompetent, if a bit mental, people.

Nobody else was really allowed to take a serious swing at me, which is a shame, as it never hurts to get a decent amount of experience having a scrap with very different sorts of people. I still maintain that one General would have killed me outright if she’d been allowed; she didn’t like me from the start, though I never bothered to ask why and I doubt she’d have answered me anyway.

I don’t know that @absintheabsence ever necessarily was trying to kill me so much as he was trying to make me think that he was, but there were a couple of times that I almost believed it.

I’d like to note here that “almost believed it” doesn’t mean I was anything approaching frightened; I lost the ability to be afraid of death or dying before I was thirty. After enough close calls, it loses its bite.

And I really do need to point out that I am definitely the one that caused it every time. That isn’t blame of any sort, let alone victim blaming as I never have viewed myself as any sort of victim (a target maybe, but not a victim), it’s a statement of fact. See, he’s got–or had, I’m not exactly sure how short that fuse is now–one hell of a temper, but also never seemed to really care to put that on display which isn’t a bad thing at all; makes one seem unbalanced.

And I enjoy running my mouth specifically to see what and how much it takes to get someone who likes to come off as on a very even keel to wobble a bit.

That’s exactly what I did and after awhile I either got very good at figuring out just how much I could push before I’d have to ease off or he’d snap or he knew what I was doing and was refusing to play because of it.

There were several times the first few years I was kept there in which either I missed a non-bluffing signal to back off or, instead of storming off and leaving me alone for awhile the storm in question was directed at me as opposed to whatever poor idiot he ran into first after leaving the tower.

There are two instances that I remember clearly, however:

- In the first instance, while I know it wasn’t the terrible, terrible puns that caused it, they did end up in that 'last straw’ pile and that is so worth it. I could only hope to die over something as ridiculous as making a terrible pun to the wrong person and would want that on my headstone.

- In the second, and last, despite the fact that I would have been fifty-seven at the time, I was being a brat. There’s no other way to say it, and I was doing it on purpose just to see what would happen.

The first one happened the first few days I was there; the thing about the stone used to build Nurmengard, particularly down in the prison areas where it wasn’t so nicely decorated, is that the stone siphons magic from anything that’s kept in contact with it and that was then used to power a lot of the automation. Even where it was mitigated by decor, it was still able to function in that capacity to varying degrees. That’s how the automation kept running with nobody to maintain it.

Walking right into the trap landed me in one of those cells, which is a very good way to render a prisoner harmless; if everyone around them can use magic and they cannot, they’re easier to handle. I started off on the wrong foot with the guard who had to deal with me for the following reasons:

- The stone was interesting, and I lost track of time to the tune of not really sleeping for two solid days, while I was studying it as much as I could by just looking at it and poking at it.

- So when the guard came to haul me upstairs, I first wasn’t listening to what he was saying and his English wasn’t all that good, no to mention heavily accented, and I didn’t respond at first.

- When I did, and realised he’d said something to the effect of I was going to see “the Emperor” my immediate response was, “The what now?” which, and this will be come relevant, caused him to hit me with an incredibly mediocre Cruciatus cast.

- …and I just sort of…stared at him and asked him what he was doing, and that got me grabbed, thrown out of the cell, and walked at wand point (as though that was necessary, it’s not as though I could have left without being able to use magic anyway; effect, I guess) to the less prison cell filled areas of the building.

- Got mildly distracted by how over the top everything was decorated and failed to stop at the door the guard stopped at, got dragged back again.

- Very impolitely herded into the room, see who’s in there and, in a case in which my mouth did get ahead of my brain for a few seconds, went with, “Oh! It’s only you! This guard said we were going to see an emperor.”

The guard actually took a few steps away from me with that one but, nothing happened because we can’t lose our temper in front of the help, can we?

- …and I kept talking. Specifically, I started complaining about the mediocre Cruciatus and got–I’m still not entirely certain if it was sarcasm or if he was being seriously, but something about maybe I should start training them how to use it.

“Yes, and anyone who can’t manage it gets to be used as the practice dummy,” probably was not the kindest thing I’ve ever said but, in fairness, this is a curse I’ve done extensive research and fine tuning with and it’s always so disappointing to see it done poorly.

- Much to the guard’s relief, he was eventually allowed to leave and now there were no witnesses. And, as my brain had caught back up to my mouth, the first thing the duo decided was appropriate was, “Well, this is certainly a grave situation isn’t it?” because I wanted to see what he’d do.

He started by hitting me with the massive compliment of not only having read that paper but having not dismissed it out of hand, and having clearly read it to the point where he knew the cut off before I’d be damaged to the point of being vaguely useless for several months. I’m sure it was meant, on some level, to be horrible but when you’re used to other people (at best) explaining your own work back to you incorrectly it’s positively lovely to see it demonstrated without hesitation. I’m still pleased about that!

There was a great deal more after that, largely blood magic based if I recall, though not anything I was familiar with beyond having a general idea of what it was at the time; if I had to choose between that and the more familiar (if modified) well cast Cruciatus, I’d take the latter as it’s far less unsettling than a great deal of what can be done with blood magic.

That all said, I was never really convinced that he was planning to or intending to kill me; if he’d wanted to, he would have. Still, where physical death is concerned, I did get to hover right on the line of it for some time.

Great fun, actually, if you’ve never done that before. One hell of a rush too, and it lasts for weeks if it’s done right.

Which it was.

- The second time was in 1943 and he was definitely not pleased with me for that one. The one I just wrapped up, I still don’t think he was nearly as angry as he was trying to come off and I’m also fairly sure I saw him trying not to laugh at the awful pun.

I had my cards and my runes with me and, of course, they’d been confiscated by guards on intake years before, but he’d let me have them back to play with now and again. Wouldn’t usually stick around, just sort of drop them on the desk in the room I was in and leave. Half the time I’d just check to see everything was still there then set them aside, and occasionally I’d let the cards gossip with me but never mention what they said to anyone because it’s all a bit silly.

I can’t recall now why they’d been taken before this particular incident, but he’d come up to give the cards back and this time he stood in the doorway watching me until I figured out he was waiting for me to pick them up and do something with them.

Because I am the way I am, I went with what amounted to, “Oh, you want us to gossip about you, do you? All right.”

I kind of knew what to expect as that deck is nothing if not consistent and, to that point, any time they’d been gossiping about him specifically there were a lot of swords and the Tower, both of which had been consistent for over a decade at that point.

The thing is, despite the cards technically backing up what I was saying, a great deal of what I said was largely based in subtle things I’d seen or overheard that I likely wasn’t supposed to have seen or overheard in the first place and it started out warning of an ideology split within his own ranks that, if not dealt with swiftly and decisively, would lead to everything collapsing.

I don’t know if he knew that on some level and didn’t like hearing it or if he simply didn’t like hearing that those in his inner circle and high levels of command may have decided along the way that he was too unpredictable and erratic to be effective and had begun trying to organise a split–the main problem the cards saw was that those people thought he wasn’t being, I don’t know what the word I’m looking for is, but they thought he was too tolerant of things that weren’t “Pureblood” or human.

That’s saying a lot as, by that point, there had been several genocide campaigns directed at non-human beings and beasts that he’d greenlit.

At that point, the cards split as they often do when they gossip like that; down one path, he’d ignore it and continue on, trying to keep control of a crumbling empire and taking everything down with him in the process.

Down the other, it was a purge the ranks, get back on the original track, and–the cards predicted that would end rather well and be at least somewhat long lasting. There would be initial losses and a period of uncertainty while rebuilding, but it wouldn’t be such a massively destructive nightmare.

You remember that part where I said I like to run my mouth? If not, just a reminder: I like to run my mouth, and I definitely ignored the fact that, in the doorway, as I kept tossing cards up into the air in front of him, it was looking more and more like I was about to have an attempt to make me regret my entire life up to that point happen.

I made some comment about how we both knew he wasn’t going to take that second path as that would be admitting he’d made mistakes, and let the cards talk down the more destructive path.

That’s about when the Tower appeared because of course it did.

And I kept pulling cards because, the thing about the Tower card that most people overlook when they see it, is that, even among the destruction and ruins, it’s already being rebuilt; whether it’s rebuilt into the same thing or into something better depends on a lot of things, but the fact is that something gets rebuilt in the aftermath.

Figured, at this point, why not?

I thought that’s where it got interesting but it seemed to just make him even more livid than he already was and by that point I’m not even certain he was still listening so much as he was mapping out exactly what was going to happen as soon as I quit talking.

Unfortunately for me, I quit talking immediately after saying, “Looks as though you’re going to cheerfully self-destruct, while taking as many people with you as you can manage on the way down, as this deck has consistently indicated only after this Tower hits, you’ll slowly rebuild–with the assistance of someone else, it appears–into a reasonably decent person.”

Or, to condense it down, “You’re a landfill on fire but, hey, ashes eventually turn into decent ground again, so that’s something!”

Still don’t remember large pieces of what that exactly was but the thing is–if you’re not killed by something as abrupt as a killing curse, physical death happens before complete death in which you’re severed from your physical body one way or another and I do recall brief spots of physical death and–

–now that I think about it, there’s a great deal of overlap and interweaving between–

At any rate, I’m fairly certain not everything that was done during that one ever fully cleared up but I’m so used to the side effects of it now I’d be alarmed if they stopped.

For the most part, though, I suspect he figured out what I was doing just in general and would either ignore it or would do that thing where you know someone is telling you you’re not worth their time or effort and sort of–do things in a very mediocre fashion.

Since I didn’t like that one bit, I eventually stopped jabbing him with a proverbial stick because it’s not any fun at all at that point.

[slytherinknowitall]

Potion Fumes and Cauldron Leaks

Chapter 5: The Dungeon Bat’s Wrath

(Click here for chapter 4!)

(Click here to start from the beginning!)

Disclaimer: I don’t own the “Harry Potter” book series. The story of “Harry Potter” is the property of J. K. Rowling, it is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Severus stormed into his classroom and slammed the door shut behind him with a loud bang. He was boiling inside.

“That brat!” he spat angrily. Just seeing the Gryffindor Princess enter the Great Hall had already forced him to make use of every single ounce of self-control obtained from years of living as a double spy under the surveillance of the most evil dark wizard of all time – he had wanted nothing more than to just jump up and grab her to try to shake some sense into her petty little mind.

Why on earth would she want to become his apprentice?! Yes, it was true that she was one of the most gifted students in the entire history of this school and even Snape himself couldn’t deny the fact that she had at least some amount of aptitude when it came to brewing potions. But no student in their right mind – not even Little Miss Perfect herself – would ever voluntarily spend two additional hours per week in the cold and dark dungeons just to study one of the most unpopular subjects under the most loathed Hogwarts professor in centuries. Not to mention that he could certainly think of countless other things he would rather spend his time on than being bombarded by her infinite questions.

The Potions Master was pacing up and down. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Granger’s application must have had some sort of hidden agenda behind it – she did belong to the circle of Potter and Weasley, after all. Those two idiots had probably talked their prudent friend into signing up so that they could play some sort of practical joke on his expense or even steal from his storage room again.

Oh yes, these nitwits might think that they’d gotten away with it, but Severus had definitely noticed some of his bicorn horn and boomslang skin supply – ingredients for the infamous Polyjuice Potion – go missing nearly five years ago. The only reason that they hadn’t gotten expelled that very same day was that he hadn’t had any distinct proof of their guilt at the time. And even if he’d had that, Dumbledore would have never punished them. That imbecile would have most likely just smiled away their “little shenanigans” since The Boy Who Lived and his cult-like followers were simply too precious to experience any real-life consequences. Damn that old fool! (Severus did have to admit, however, that it was quite impressive for a 13-year-old to be able to brew such an advanced potion. But he would never say that out loud, of course.)

The thought of his ungrateful students made him more irritated by the second. Well, two could play this game. If Granger really wanted to be his apprentice, then he wouldn’t make it easy on her. He started to make a mental list of all of the strenuous and tedious tasks he would assign to her. He thought about how he could send her into the Forbidden Forest to collect some much-needed fresh knotgrass or even into the icy cold waters of the Black Lake to gather a few handfuls of those squirming, squidgy flabberghasted leeches. And if that was not enough, she would definitely come to regret her decision once he made her manually extract every last bit of mucus from the three stone flobberworm delivery he was going to receive next week. The former Death Eater even cracked a slight smile at the idea of having her stay up all night to harvest fluxweed, which needed to be picked during full moon to bring the best results.

While thinking about all of the horrible errands he could plan for his unwanted mentee had certainly been able to lighten his mood a little, this quickly changed when his gaze settled on the slip of paper lying on his desk. It was his new apprentice’s schedule, which he’d received at the end of the staff meeting this morning, and it acted as an instant reminder that his first lesson with the know-it-all was about to start.

A quick look at his old-fashioned Muggle wristwatch – the one that he always kept well-hidden from both his colleagues as well as his students – told him that it was exactly 9 o’clock. At that very moment, there was a knock at the door. Punctual as always. “Enter!” he snarled.

The classroom door opened to reveal the petite figure of Hermione Granger. Severus immediately noticed the Head Girl badge attached to the right side of her grey sweater and he grimaced as he remembered how smug his nemesis James Potter had acted after being appointed to the prestigious position during their final school year almost two decades ago.

“Good morning, Professor,” the witch said quietly. “Thank you so much for letting me study under you. I appreciate it greatly.”

Snape scowled. “It is not like I had much of a choice,” he growled before turning around and strutting towards his desk. Sitting down in his big black leather chair, he beckoned her over with a vague hand gesture.

“Here is how this will work, Miss Granger,” he said, looking at her sternly. “I am not delighted by the headmaster’s decision to bring back the apprenticeship programme, but there is nothing I can do about it. I can, however, decide how all of this is going to go down.” He noticed how the student couldn’t quite conceal the nervous expression on her face.

“As my apprentice, I will expect immaculacy from you. You are to come to every single one of our fixed hours as well as any other dates I may set. You will be on time and you will work hard. You may be required to teach the younger students as my assistant at some point during the school year. During those times, you are expected to act just like any other professor here at Hogwarts. As such, you must demand respect and you will have ability to award and deduct house points as well as give detentions to misbehaving students. These detentions will take place in my office under my supervision, but I will require you to be present as well since you were the one who handed them out. As the assistant professor, you are also responsible for the pupils’ safety and must ensure that there will be no accidents whatsoever. In addition, I expect you to excel during regular Potions class as well as all of your other classes. I will not accept slacking of any kind from my apprentice, even if said apprentice was forced upon me.”

He saw her gulp as he continued, “I sincerely hope that you thought long and hard before applying for this position, Miss Granger – because I will not go easy on you. The art of brewing potions is a particularly delicate craft, something that only few have a talent for and that I take extremely seriously. Now –“ he said, ignoring her clearly growing anxiety. “You may start right away. After our lesson, I will be teaching the fourth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors. To start off the new term, they will have to repeat the material that they have already learnt over the past three years. You are to put together an assignment which tests their knowledge and requires them to identify at least two dozen and a half potions ingredients. They shall also have to describe each one’s effects when used both correctly and incorrectly. You may sit down over there –“ He motioned towards a desk in the front row. “And start.”

It took a few seconds before the girl realised that her teacher’s speech was over. “Yes, sir,” she then mumbled before sitting down at her assigned seat. Severus had to admit that he was rather surprised that she only gave a brief answer instead of harassing him with her annoying enquiries as usual.

For a while, they both worked quietly. While Granger was preparing the examination for her fellow students, the Potions professor was going over his lesson plans once again. He’d already arranged them all during the summer, of course; but there was always room for improvement – he was a perfectionist, after all.

After about twenty minutes of silence only interrupted by the sound of quills moving over parchment paper, the brunette cleared her throat. “I hope that you had a nice summer, Professor,” she declared shyly.

Snape was taken aback by her sudden attempt at small talk. “Miss Granger, I assure you that there is no need for making conversation. Do not for a second think that you are in any sort of special position just because you so happen to be my apprentice now.”

Hermione turned bright red. “No, no, that’s not what I meant! I –, I –“ she hastily stuttered. “I didn’t –, it’s not … I apologise, sir.” He saw a look of embarrassment on her face before she hung her head in defeat and continued working. He believed that he could even see her shake a little.

“It’s her own fault,” he thought grimly. “As a professor, I can still demand some respect – even from a member of the idiotic trio!”

(Click here for chapter 6!)

[forgottenrealmsrp]

Hello, I am very new to DnD and I would really like some tips on how to play and roll for certain things (Im not too good with examples) etc. etc.

Howdy! Mod Nate here coming at you with some Tips for Beginners. There’s a hell of a lot to cover that I cannot fit into one post (because, let’s be honest, that would be a nightmare), but I will try my best. So, without further ado, hold onto your butts.

The Three R’s

I find there are three main aspects to remember (and master!) when starting off in DnD or other such TTRPG’s. You can sort them into three categories: 

Rules,

Rol(l/e)s, and

Roleplaying

Of course there are heaps of other things to consider in game, but for a beginner, it can get overwhelming very quickly, so we’ll just stick to the Three R’s for now.

Rules

What better thing for a game than rules! The first thing you hopefully would have done if you were gearing up for your first game is to get your hands on a Player’s Handbook (For DnD 5e), or your RPG’s respective rulebook. Hobby stores, book stores, libraries, even video game shops might stock a physical copy of our favourite WotC volumes, but you can also secure them online wherever you may find them. 

Once you have your grubby little goblin hands on a handbook, give it to a friend, and have them read it to you. If that gets too boring, have them explain the rules in detail - you’ll need a pen and a notebook! If that is too time-consuming or - more likely - you don’t actually have any friends, you’ll have to settle for a hurried and often last-minute explanation of the core mechanics of the game, the finer details of which will be left unaddressed until you get your creative spirit crushed by your mean Dungeon Master, or local rules lawyer. 

(Remember kids, if you aren’t sure of where to locate one of these “rules lawyers”, simply talk out loud about your homebrew weapon or Pathfinder game, and they will be sure to find you!)

In this fabled Player’s Handbook you will find a fun breakdown and walkthrough of the game’s races, classes, and backgrounds, all of which you will need to read through several times and then immediately forget. Only after you have asked yourself “Which Bard School is going to make Sildaar Hallwinter not a steaming pile of crap?” for the fifth time in 10 minutes, can you move on to “equipment” and “rules”. Make sure to read these thoroughly, because you’ll learn them pretty quickly after your party’s Paladin once again forgets how many d10s to roll. It’s two, Derek. You asked the exact same question last round. 

Idiot. 

Rol(l/e)s

Once you manage to wrap your head around the rules, you get to the meat of the sandwich - rol(l/e)s. Whoever came up with this idiotic word hybrid (me) needs to report to their editor (also me) and get his ass whooped (still me). 

Now, I know you’ve gotten this far and thought “Wait, Nate, that may have rhymed but you haven’t actually given any tips yet?!??!?!?!!/1!?!?!?!?1?!???????????”. To that, I say yes (or no?), I have(n’t?) given you tips for how to play and roll for certain things, because the biggest tip I have for you is coming right up.

Wait for it.

You cannot build a dragon’s tower without strong foundations. 

Meaning: Only once you have “mastered” the rules and basics of roleplaying (and rolling!) will you be able to spread your beautiful dragon wings and soar as a damn good DnD player. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have to learn and remember every single mechanic or rule in the book! Because that would be a nightmare and if you can do it, you will be God. No questions asked. But hey! People make mistakes, or remember things wrong, or guess incorrectly, or even make it up as they go along. Having the handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide on hand for these occasions will save everyone’s sanity at least once, but knowing when to draw the line between fairness and fun will make everyone’s play a whole lot better. 

So! Now that you’ve become God, rolling and role-ing (not a word) are your new best friends. And you know who makes the best friends? DICE! Just google it and have fun, kids, but remember that you have to eat and sleep somewhere warm and cozy tonight, so try not to build your hoard of shiny forbidden snacks too quickly, now. All you will need for starters is your standard 7-dice set: d4, d6, d8, d10*, d12, and d20.

*The d10 often comes in pairs to act as a percentile dice. The die with the ten’s (00, 10, 20, 30, etc.) will act as the ten’s place, and the other die will act as the one’s place. So, if you roll a 60 and a 9, you get a really funny number. If you roll a 00 and a 0, that’s 100! If you roll a 00 and a 1, however, that’s a 1. You die in game and you die in real life. Goodbye.

The handbook will tell you all the dice you will need to roll in order to both run the game, and make your character! That’s right! Maths begins even before the game does. Even Death themself cannot escape the point-buy system. Just submit. 

Stats are fun. 

What do they mean? What do they do? Who even knows what Constitution does?! I certainly don’t! But that’s where you’re in luck, bucko.

This post is already long enough without getting to the good stuff, so I’ll keep it simple. 

Strength - a measure of how well you can do stuff with your muscles. Skills like Athletics (aaaaaaand nope just athletics, huh, really? No fish-lifting skill? Huh? Cowards) will benefit from having some damn good muscles. Also you can stab stuff real good.

Dexterity - a measure of how deft, nimble, and stealthy one can be. Contributes to skills like Acrobatics and Stealth, unsurprisingly. If you can move good, you can groove good. I’d add a skill for dancing if I were you, WotC. 

Constitution - I lied before when I said I had no idea what constitution does, but it was only partly a joke. Constitution contributes to skills like not dying, staying alive, and stopping being dead. Sometimes it determines how much health you have. Sometimes it means you can drink an entire frog. Don’t ask.

Intelligence - Are you a smart cookie? Can you learn languages fluently in a short span of time? Can you destroy scores of defenceless troops with a single pillar of flame? Can you read? Are you kept awake at night by their screams? Intelligence makes you good (or not) at skills like History, Religion, Arcana, and being a nerd. Oh wait. No one is good at being a nerd. Sorry nerdlord. Also, if your intelligence is under 10, you can’t read! Just like me.

Wisdom - Not the smartest cookie in the shed? Like to eat leaves? You and me both, kid! Wisdom is a measure of your STREET SMARTS! so you can throw those nasty pervert kobolds off their rhythm. Unfortunately, starting equipment does not include a money clip. It makes you good at eating dirt and walking through forests and stuff. Also I think you can pet dogs really well?

Charisma - If you’ve ever played a bard, you would know what this is. If you haven’t played a bard, it’s not too late! Quick! Choose a Warlock or a Cleric if you want a Charisma based build! Choose the entertainer background if you must! -sigh- but if you insist, charisma is a measure of how easily you can quite literally charm the pants off a dragon. Also, sometimes you can roast people really well?

Having high skills is all fine and dandy, but the next tier of DnD player character power is owning your low skills. Have low constitution? Your tiefling is sickly or has a weak stomach! Low intelligence? Your character can’t read or write! Low charisma? You cause every single npc interaction to end with you being punched in the face. There is colour and interest in every aspect of your character, so make sure to let your character sheet represent your character as well as you can!

But how do you determine these stats?

Looking in your class description, you will see under the ‘Quick Build’ section the recommended stat scores, backgrounds and/or spells for that character. These are NOT mandatory, but I find them to be a helpful guideline for how to keep your character functional and, well, alive. Stat scores themselves can be determined a few different ways: Point-buy (I have no idea how this works but it looks like a lot of maths and that’s homophobic, so); Cascading, and rolling. 

Cascading (or at least that’s my name for it, I have no other way to describe it) is where you take the values 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 and assign each to one of your stats. For example, before adding racial stat modifiers, I could assign my barbarian’s stats as follows:

STR: 15, DEX: 13, CON: 14, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 12.

I may have a character-based reason for assigning my barbarian a relatively adequate Charisma score. Maybe he was a particularly intimidating character, or perhaps his iron-will makes his Constitution a 14. Maybe he likes to dance. You could have a particularly burly mage with a strength score of 15, just because you feel like it. Maybe your cleric is part of team sweet-flips? Or your monk could study tomes night and day to get her Intelligence to a lofty 17 points post-modifiers. Balancing stat scores so that you don’t die is awesome, but having a change to shout “YOU DO NOT SEE GROG!” and win 9 times out of 10? Priceless.

Rolling your stats is perhaps the most widely-used way to determine stats, but to be safe, ask your DM (or get crafty if you’re the DM!) about their preferred method. It’s pretty simple: roll 4d6 (the six-sided dice four times), noting down each individual roll. After four rolls, you cross out the lowest roll, and add the remaining three. Repeat five more times and you have some good good stats, bro! Don’t forget to add your racial stat modifiers before you assign your stat scores! 

Modifiers seem pretty confusing as a newbie, but there is a handy table in the PHB to help you keep track. Alternatively, you could subtract 10 from your score, and then half what you have left, making sure to round down! A score of 19 would have a modifier of +4 (19 - 10 = 9/2 = 4.5 ≈ 4, rounding down). A score of 8 would have a modifier of -1 (8 - 10 = -2/2 = -1). Pretty simple, right?

So now I think I can finally address whatever the F*$# I mean by ‘Roles’. What the heck is a role? Do you mean roleplaying? No, dear reader, I do not. A ‘role’ is what I like to call your position in the party. Because yes, on the unlikely occasion that you do manage to wrangle a group of people willing (or able) to play DnD with you, you still have to play with other kids, Derek. That means that the typical balancing applies. You cannot just have a 7-person party filled entirely by bards. Or bees. Though I would prefer the bees. Who would want 7 bards? That sounds like the start of a bad joke. 

A good rule of thumb is to make sure you have enough bases covered in the traditional party makeup that you won’t die immediately, but you also don’t have to deal with 7 goddamn bards, Derek, I swear to God-

You’ll want someone to hit stuff, someone to get hit, someone to help those who get hit, and someone to hit things when you don’t want to get hit. This could be solved any number of ways. Get creative, go hog wild. But not buck wild, Derek. I will not have the “Seven Buskateers” at my table again, do you hear me?!

This brings us to the finale. I’ve been writing this post for half an hour, and we’re finally getting to the good stuff. Thanks for stick with me so far. How about dropping your favourite stardew valley bachelor/ette down in the replies if you’ve read this far? Mine’s Elliot, because he’s beautiful and I love him, just like I love you. :3

Roleplaying!

It’s in the title! The very mechanics of the game! So, the question you’re asking me is: “Nate, how the Flippity Doo Daa do you roleplay?????????” 

And I reply, “How are you making those noises with your mouth? Where am I?! Who are you? Why can I hear each individual question mark even though they shouldn’t have a place in the mortal coil? What are you?!”

And then I tell you about my favourite thing to tell my own players. 

The easiest character to play is one that exists. So? What does that mean???

It means that YOU, my dead, dear nerd, can’t just pull a self-insert every single dang game, Damn it Derek! No one LIKES YOU! GO HOME! You have this opportunity to think of a fun, unique concept, and roll with it. So, how can you create the next Taako, or Nott, or Yashee’rak or Caduceus? 

If you have a concept to work from, that’s great! If not, start from the ground up. Who is your character? What are their likes, dislikes, loves, hates, loyalties, vendettas? I often like to establish both a backstory and a goal for them to accomplish, the simpler the better, to get you on the right track. Perhaps a Neverwinter begger wishes to open their own tea shop in Ba Sing Se? A cursed child of an angel and a demon takes it upon themself to avenge their brother’s death? A simple farm girl falls in love and follows her princess Buttercup across Faerûn? You name it!

Some good questions to ask yourself about your characters personality could also include:

What would they kill for?

What would they die for?

What would they watch someone else die for?

What are some rumours your party members would have heard about your character?

What would they think of your favourite meme?

How do they treat their mum? How would they treat your mum?

Do they have any recurring nightmares? Why?

Etc. Etc. Think of them as a real being, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and fears! The more detailed you can get in theory might help in the long run. If you find yourself deviating from these details, however, don’t sweat! That’s a character’s natural development and progression as a character! In fact, if things don’t change as you play, you might have to have a look at your play style. Loosen up. No one is one emotion their entire lives. Characters lie! They hide things and change details and cheat and steal! But they also act kindly, even randomly, and change and grow. Encourage that. Let them grow. They (and your party members!) will thank you for it!

I think that’s all I have in me for now, and oh man there are so many more things I could mention. DMing in itself will have to wait for another day, of course, but I hope this helped! I’m going to die now. 

[mittensmorgul]

With a name like Fluckers, it’s got to be good!

For anyone who doesn’t know the reference, that’s the premise from a 1976 Saturday Night Live sketch (that link is to the transcript which takes 2 minutes to read, and is kinda necessary for understanding the point I’m trying to make here), so I think it’s the perfect metaphor for understanding our own Fluckers, aka Bucklemming.

But this is also a bit of Meta Meta, because this is poking fun at using the right words, at words having subjective importance that may differ from the speaker’s intent, and the fundamental relevance of understanding the speaker’s point of view as possibly distinct from the audience’s expectations, and the resulting misunderstandings leading to negative reactions.

(oh, and dramatic irony, the other big bad of s13)

Since this is even one of the main narrative themes of season 13, I think it’s well worth diving into, because there’s some real-life takeaways here that I think might be useful to bear in mind. We keep talking about characters using their words, using the RIGHT words, and the consequences not only of using the wrong words, or even just interpreting words incorrectly and not understanding the intent, I think this is doubly important right now. But I’m also gonna use this as a chance to explain a real-life phenomenon that I’m about reaching a state of ultimate exhaustion over. I’m gonna refer to it as the Fluckers Phenomenon. So I guess I need to explain what the heck Fluckers even is and why this is so painfully hilarious.

Back in the 1970’s, an American jelly company called Smuckers had a series of television ads that proclaimed, “With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.” And really? Wtf? WHY should that admittedly odd-sounding name automatically imply a quality fruit spread product? I remember watching the ads as a kid and being absolutely baffled, because I personally don’t care for jelly at all and couldn’t think of a reason to justify ANY jelly being good. But that’s kinda besides the point.

Anyway, the ads featured a couple of kids talking about their family business, because their last name is Smuckers, so it’s kinda their legacy to make delicious, quality jams and jellies. That was the extent of the entire ad campaign. It kinda left a lot of open questions, you know? We’re Smuckers so we make good jam, and our jam is good because we’re Smuckers.

This isn’t even accounting for the snickering about the name itself… which SNL being SNL, used to excellent advantage in the Fluckers skit above. If you don’t know it, go read that link about it. Once again, it’s a very “Bucklemming Era” kind of joke, and considering they put a sideways sort of John Belushi reference into 13.18 as well, I figure this is the sort of thing that can go a long way toward explaining the disconnect in a lot of Bucklemming writing.

“Mangled Baby Ducks!”

“It’s so good, it’s sick making!”

“The brand so disgusting you can’t say it on television!”

Let me backtrack for a moment, because I’ve had a lot of people come to me in the last few days thanking me for trying to dissect a Bucklemming episode with any sort of objectivity, as if it’s some sort of magical power to overlook the expected knee-jerk reaction-worthy blech, for lack of a more descriptive term for it. The fact that Bucklemming is gonna continue happening to good people-- and to canon-- is a fact I’ve resigned myself to. Their episodes still exist, they’re still part of canon, and I, for one, will continue to watch giving them the benefit of the doubt for that reason. Not that I won’t be critical of them, or that I’ll just overlook when they are unnecessarily gross or terrible, but that I won’t allow the expectation that they are entirely awful to blind me to the fact that despite their reputation, they do actively write to the narrative themes, and they do actively understand the larger story here.

Yeah, Bucklemming Bingo is hilarious. Yeah, they have relied too heavily on horror tropes used poorly, and they’ve proven they can be tone-deaf to some of their more problematic choices. I’m not suggesting we forgive them for that, but I am suggesting that fandom vitriol for those things has warped our ability to give them any credit at all.

Think of how many times we’ve said or read, “Oh no, it’s bucklemming. I’m not watching it live. Somebody tell me if it’s even worth bothering to sit through 43 minutes of their bullshit.” Their reputation precedes them. People go into their episodes actively LOOKING for and expecting The Worst Possible Shit.

With a name like Fluckers, it’s probably filled with mangled baby ducks!

Which is… losing all perspective. Because the name might be terrible, but it’s still fruit spread in the jar. It ain’t actually mangled baby ducks.

I’m not saying that you have to be happy about everything they write, but this mindset of only expecting shit is gonna yield a lot of shit. The assumption that everything they write is inherently bad, or problematic, or somehow an obvious and inexplicable retcon, or OOC nonsense… it’s just flat-out misguided. Sorry, folks.

The fandom reaction to some of their episodes has been so over the top vitriolic when similar themes, characterizations, and plots from other writers are praised. Or at least examined objectively. So I’m not suggesting we just blindly accept everything they write is praiseworthy or good, but I am suggesting we afford them the same open-minded benefit of the doubt we give to the rest of the writing staff. And that starts with understanding and accepting the fact that their writing style is on a different level.

Sure, it’s disappointing that it feels as if the rest of the writing room is starting at a different baseline level, and that bucklemming episodes tend to drag down the tone a bit (okay, sometimes more than a bit), and that they seem to be more interested in being clever or self-referentially cute than elevating their stories to the same level as the rest of the team, but they aren’t going away, either. Either we accept that and learn to make some peace with that fact, and at least attempt to engage their episodes on the level we should’ve learned to expect from them by now, or else this is gonna be an ongoing source of fandom Fluckery.

I’m not saying we should just handwave some of their more egregious missteps, but the fact that they seem to be ALL we can focus on sometimes, to the exclusion of the 90% of their writing that’s serviceable, if not Pulitzer-winning, is one of the most frustrating aspects of fandom to me.

We’re all so quick to find that GOTCHA moment. We’re all so ready to be offended by everything in their episodes, to declare them problematic, to expect them to just get everything wrong, I see post after post nitpicking minor details that nobody would even question in a Dabb episode or a Bobo episode. I’ve seen far too many posts mischaracterizing or misconstruing past canon just to nitpick non-issues in Bucklemming episodes.

“But why was she called Charlie Bradbury in the AU?! They probably don’t even know her real name was Celeste Middleton. Those Bucklemmings are at it again.”

Why is this even an issue? Why is this even a question? Because she used the name Charlie Bradbury before she ever met Sam and Dean. That had already been her alias, probably since the first time she evaded the law as a young teen. So, long before the Apocalypse started. But because it was Bucklemming, folks didn’t even try to understand, knee-jerk assumed that they must just be idiots who don’t understand canon, and let themselves get mad about it. Then just… magnified the anger until it touched every aspect of the episode.

(and this is obviously just one example of this sort of reaction, and by far not the only one I’ve seen after this episode)

Charlie Bradbury would canonically be the correct name to use here. Of all the aliases she’s used in canon, this is the one that lines up with all the facts we know about the AU-- that Sam and Dean never existed there and the apocalypse happened anyway. She only changed her name again after 7.20. From 8.11:

Charlie: Charlie Bradbury is dead. She died a year ago. You killed her. My name is Carrie Heinlein. Oh, and guess what. Now you killed her, too.

It just feels like the fandom's actively, and with all dramatic irony, playing out the miscommunication themes.

(and since dramatic irony and miscommunication are two of the major meta themes of the season, I find this particularly fascinating, you know?)

I’m simply asking that we stop conflating Fluckers with Mangled Baby Ducks. I mean, if I expect jelly and get mangled baby ducks, I’m gonna point that out, but 99% of the time, I’m actually getting jelly here. Complaining it’s grape when I prefer black cherry isn’t gonna change the fact that I have, in fact, been served jelly.

[skarabrae-stone]

Get Killed, Walk It Off

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR.

If there's one thing Steve has learned, it's that when someone falls off a cliff, you should ALWAYS look for them. With that in mind, he persuades Peter Quill and the Guardians to search for Gamora, just in case.

Read it on tumblr here

“Do you really think it’s worth it?” Quill asks hoarsely. His eyes are red and puffy, and there are tear tracks in the grime on his cheeks. “I mean, she’s…” His voice breaks, and he rubs his face, roughly, like he can’t be bothered to find gentleness even in that simple gesture.

Steve steals a glance at Bucky, who is standing next to him, alive, and tries to shut out all the ways he’s seen him die—or almost die—in the past seventy-odd years. He hasn’t let go of his hand since the dead—disappeared?—were brought back two hours ago. “In my experience, when someone—falls—it’s better to make sure,” he says gently. “At the very least, we should find out what happened.”

Quill nods, clearly trying to pull himself together. “Okay,” he says, as if convincing himself. “Okay.”

Footsteps echo down the hall, and T’Challa appears, looking as tired and careworn as everyone else. One of the Dora Milaje hovers at his elbow, and it feels wrong not to see Okoye there.

“Captain Rogers,” he says formally, then, coming closer, “Steve.”

“King T’Challa.” They don’t really need the formalities, not after the past two years, but Steve feels the need to cling to something, to anchor himself with the certainty that T’Challa is still the king, still in some semblance of control. He so dearly wants, for once in his life, not to be the person in command. “It’s good to see you—” alive. “Well.”

“I am alive,” says T’Challa, with his usual straightforwardness. “I am told you are going on another mission.”

Steve nods. “We’re hoping to retrieve Gamora. Unless you need me here…?”

“No,” T’Challa says. “Strange bought us enough time—we have a few days. But I have something for you.”

He unclips a pouch from his belt, and hands it to Steve. A glowing purple flower is nested inside.

Steve stares at it, then at T’Challa. “Is this…”

“The heart-shaped herb,” he confirms. “It has many healing properties, and under the right circumstances… it may bring a person back from the brink of death.” His eyes take a faraway look. “I have… experienced this myself. If the lady has any spark of life within her—she may yet be saved.”

Quill reaches out, as if to touch the plant, then pulls his hand away. “Why are—why are you giving me—us—this?”

T’Challa gives him a small, grim smile. “Because I can. Because it is the right thing to do.” He pauses, then adds in a more business-like tone, “There is a ritual you must perform, if the herb is to do its work. Nakia will go with you, to show you what to do. She will meet you at your ship.”

Steve nods, then lets go Bucky’s hand to give the Wakandan salute. “Wakanda Forever,” he says in Xhosa, then adds in English. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” T’Challa replies, returning the salute. “All of you.” Then he steps forward, and pulls Steve, then Bucky, into a hug.

“Take care. Don’t get killed.”

Steve casts an accusing look at Bucky, who just sighs.

“I’ll do my best.”

 Nakia is waiting for them at the Milano, along with the remaining Guardians and, to Steve’s surprise, Thor.

“Are all of you coming with us?” Steve asks.

“Of course,” says Drax.

Mantis and Rocket just nod, and Groot manages a soft, “I am Groot.”

“She was a brave lady,” says Thor. “I would see her brought home, and honored.”

He doesn’t say that he expects them to bring home a corpse for burial, but Steve knows he’s thinking it. Of all of them, Thor has perhaps lost the most; it’s understandable if he’s run out of optimism for the time being.

“Let’s go, then,” he says, and gestures to Quill. “Captain?”

Quill, for some reason, winces at the title, but leads the way onto the ship.

Steve and Bucky board last, squeezing into a seat that’s not really meant for two people. Steve doesn’t care; right now, he craves physical contact, needing to reassure himself that Bucky’s really here, that he’s not going to disappear again. Bucky must feel the same, because he curls half into Steve’s lap, resting his forehead against Steve’s collarbone.

Steve wraps his arms around him, not caring what anyone else might think of the sight. “Hey, Buck,” he whispers.

“Hey” Bucky mumbles.

Thor slumps down next to them, staring at the floor like he could burn a hole through it. In the right mood, he probably could.

“Hey,” says Steve, when the other man hasn’t said anything—or moved—for several minutes. “You okay?”

It’s a stupid question, but Thor doesn’t call him out on it. “Fine,” he says, and resumes floor-gazing.

Bucky raises his head slightly. “Steve,” he says, “You idiot. Tell him to come here.” While Steve and Thor both stare at him, he flaps his arm in invitation. “Everything sucks, we’re all sad,” he says. “So come here.”

Thor moves closer, hesitantly, like he’s not really sure, and Bucky uses his metal hand to pull him the rest of the way over.

Thor and Bucky are both heavy, and Thor is significantly bigger than Steve, but Steve doesn’t complain about the two of them huddling half-on, half-off his lap. They’ve all been through the wringer in the past few days, and he needs the comfort as much as they do. Thor has his arm around Bucky’s waist, and Bucky’s head is tucked into Steve’s shoulder, and Steve buries his face in Bucky’s hair and just breathes.

At some point, there is a general shifting, and Steve ends up with Nakia tucked in between Thor and Bucky, and Drax leaning against Steve’s legs with Mantis’s head in his lap. He’s not even sure how they’re all managing to fit, but doesn’t question it. In the cockpit, Rocket and Quill handle the controls, with Groot sitting on the floor between them.

The journey takes two hours, and none of them speak.

 They don’t talk on the hike to the foot of the cliff, either. Steve can’t think of anything worthwhile to say. Instead, he just tightens his grip on Bucky’s hand—whether to give or receive comfort, he doesn’t know—and tries hard not to think about what’s waiting for them. He doesn’t know if he can forgive himself if he’s gotten Quill’s hopes up, only to have them dashed again—but he knows he couldn’t forgive himself if they just left Gamora there, either. If all they can do is bring back her body, then he will at least make sure they do that.

As they near the cliffs, Bucky nudges him and points to a dark shape in the snow. “I see her.”

“Quill,” says Steve, and the others stop, looking startled at the sound of his voice.

Quill doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, misery written in every line of his face.

“Let me and Bucky take a look. If it’s… bad… you don’t want to see.”

“I’ve seen bodies before, Rogers,” says Quill, but he sounds tired rather than argumentative.

Steve shakes his head. “I know. But some things, no one should have to see.”

When nobody else says anything, he starts forward again, Bucky keeping pace easily. Nakia catches up on his other side, her face grim. The three of them have no emotional connection to Gamora, but that doesn’t make this easy.

She’s lying in a heap among the rocks and snow, limbs bent at unnatural angles. Blood matts her hair and soaks her clothes, and Steve has to take a moment before he kneels down and places a finger under her jaw.

There’s no pulse—but it’s cold here, there’s a possibility…

“If she’s enhanced, the cold would just put her in stasis,” Bucky says quietly. “The question is whether she died on impact.”

“We need to turn her over,” says Nakia. “I can do a scan, see if there’s—if there’s any hope.”

“Let’s put a stretcher down first,” Steve says. “We’ll need it either way.”

He doesn’t say If she has spine injuries, we could make it worse. He doesn’t say, we are arranging a corpse for burial.

They can observe all the same things he does.

Bucky pulls the stretcher from his pack, unfolding it and lining it up with Gamora’s body. Together, the three of them carefully roll her over, onto the stretcher. She is stiff, and her jaw looks to be broken, her ribs caved in and her eyes open and sightless. Steve remembers teenage boys bleeding out in the trenches, and his hands do not shake.

“I’m starting the scan,” says Nakia, and waves a small, handheld device over the body. Blue light bathes the wounds and twisted limbs, and Steve reaches blindly for Bucky’s hand again. He doesn’t see how there can be any hope.

The scanner beeps, and Nakia makes a surprised sound, rocking back on her heels. “She’s alive,” she says disbelievingly. “I picked up—the brain is still sending signals. They're very weak, but she is alive..”

“Can she— is it survivable? If we… if we thaw her out…”

“She would die instantly,” Nakia says. “Luckily, the ritual does not require her to be taken out of stasis.”

Bucky inhales sharply at the word, but his voice is steady. “How do you know this?”

“I have done this before.” Nakia meets his eyes. “You and T’Challa have something in common, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he corrects, apparently automatically. “It’s… safe, then? To tell Quill?”

“I don’t know if we can save her,” Nakia answers. “But we will try. I think… yes. Tell them to come here.”

Bucky gives Steve’s shoulder a quick squeeze, and heads back to the others.

Nakia turns to Steve. “We need to align the broken limbs, so they don’t heal incorrectly.”

He nods, face grim. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

 At Nakia’s instruction, they cover Gamora’s body with snow, leaving only her head uncovered. Nakia teaches them the chant, going slowly until everyone can pronounce it properly.

“I don’t know if Bast will hear us here,” she tells them. “We are a long way from the home of the Black Panther. But I am one of her children, and Gamora has fought bravely in defense of the Earth, so there is hope.”

“She will hear,” says Thor, speaking for the first time since the Milano. “She is bound to you. She will hear.”

“Then let’s start,” she says, and begins to chant, pounding the flower to liquid with a mortar and pestle.

The others pick it up, too, Drax and Thor’s voices rich and booming, Rocket a thready rasp, Mantis high-pitched and uncertain. Groot, unable to pronounce the words, beats a rhythm with his hands, and Bucky’s rich baritone harmonizes effortlessly with the rest. Steve himself has never been much good at singing, but he can follow the beat of Groot’s—for lack of a better word—drumming, and he lets himself sink into the flow of the chant, pronouncing the unfamiliar words with all the energy and conviction he can muster.

Nakia pours the glowing liquid into Gamora’s open mouth and covers her face with snow.

The chant continues.

They wait.

 Darkness. Nothing but darkness, endless; no sound, no sensation. She floats, endlessly, without thinking, or attempting to do anything. Time does not pass in the boundless dark, but at some point, it occurs to her to wonder where she is, what she is doing here. Surely she has not always been here? There is an image of herself, as a something—legs and arms and a head—something other than a small spark of consciousness in the empty void. She explores this thought, curiously, dispassionately, but cannot quite make sense of it.

There is only nothingness here, and yet she is something—why is she here? Is she the only one?

A light appears, like a pinprick in a black sheet, far away or perhaps just very small. It is golden and beautiful, and illuminates absolutely nothing in the surrounding darkness.

Eventually, or perhaps immediately, she decides to approach it.

In moving, she discovers that she has arms and legs, and that she can direct them easily. There is no surface on which to walk; she walks anyway.

The light does not get bigger, or smaller; it simply exists, and she walks toward it, and the darkness remains unchanging around her. She can feel her body, the beat of her heart and expansion of her lungs, but she cannot see it. She has a feeling this should bother her, but it doesn’t.

She walks.

The light remains the same.

She keeps walking, and nothing changes, nothing moves, until it does, and the light is all around her, and she is standing amid thigh-high grass on an endless plain. A black sky arches above her, full of stars, but the grassland is illuminated as though by a sun. She is warm, and she can feel wind on her face, in her hair.

It occurs to her that this is the first time she has felt these things.

Her body is green, clothed in some kind of armor, and it feels… comfortable, lived-in, and she feels a profound sense of relief. Whatever else is going on, this is her body, and it feels familiar.

The grass rustles, parting, and a large black cat appears, coming to a halt in front of her. Its head is nearly level with her stomach.

She feels, somehow, that it is rude to be taller than this creature, so she kneels instead, and waits to see what happens next.

“You are far from home, child,” says the cat, and its voice is that of a woman’s.

“I don’t know where I am,” she admits.

“You are wandering.” The cat tilts her head, assessing her. “Gamora, they call you. They have called me, begging to return you to them. Yet you are not one of my children.”

Gamora feels tears sting her eyes, though she is not sure why. “I don’t think I belong to anyone.”

“And yet they call to you. Sister. Mother. Friend… Beloved.”

“Groot,” she says, the name heavy with familiarity on her tongue. “Peter.”

“They call to you,” the cat repeats. “Will you go to them?”

“I… don’t know.” She rubs her hands over her eyes. “I don’t know how.”

“You are nearly dead, Gamora,” says the cat. Her voice is gentle, soothing, as if she is telling a story to a child. “The last spark of life in you is fading. If you ask, I will take you, for I have been summoned, and no other god has claimed you.”

“And… the alternative?”

“I can send you back.” The cat sits, tail curling neatly around her feet. “Make no mistake, it will be no easy road. You will return to pain, and suffering. You may yet lose everything you’ve fought for.”

She considers this, remembering, now, Groot’s wide-eyed smile and Rocket singing while he tinkers with an engine; Drax shaking with laughter over some stupid joke, and Mantis clasping her hands together when she talks, and Nebula’s concentration when she fights. She remembers Peter’s arm around her waist, the warmth of his mouth on hers.

It’s not a choice, not really; this is her family, and she will always choose them.

“I want to go back to them,” she says quietly. “I want to live.”

 There’s a stifled cry, and Gamora’s body jerks once, twice, then goes still.

Quill flings himself to his knees, brushing the snow off Gamora’s face with quick, frantic strokes, and Gamora’s eyes flutter open.

“Gamora?” he whispers.

“Pete—Peter,” she mumbles, and her lids droop shut again, her body going limp.

Quill looks at Nakia, his eyes wide with terror. “Is she—will she be alright?”

Nakia consults the scanner. “There is still significant damage,” she says. “We need to get her to Shuri as soon as possible. But… yes. The herb has done its work. She will survive.”

Drax bursts into loud, raucous laughter, Mantis starts crying, and Rocket swears at the top of his lungs. Groot shouts, “I am GROOT!” over and over, while Quill just stands there with a look of shock on his face.

Steve himself feels giddy with relief, and he grabs Bucky and kisses him on the mouth before he can think better of it. He pulls back a moment later, grinning sheepishly, and Bucky smiles back.

“Hey,” he says over the commotion. “Let’s get her out of here. Thor, Drax… c’mon.”

Thor and Drax take the front of the stretcher, Steve and Bucky the back, and the rest crowd around them, still reeling with the day’s events.

“Thank you,” Quill tells Nakia fervently. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

She smiles at him. “You’re welcome. But remember, this isn’t over. She has a long way to go before she recovers.”

“I know. I know, but… thank you. I thought…” He doesn’t finish, just hurries his step a little to keep pace with the stretcher.

 Steve and Bucky visit them that night, once things are more settled. Gamora is awake, propped up on pillows and hooked up to an IV, and looks, all things considered, far better than could be expected. The other Guardians have taken over the recovery room, sitting around her bed and (in Groot’s case) sprawled on the floor. Steve can’t blame them; he still hasn’t let Bucky out of his sight for more than five minutes.

It’s only as Mantis lets them into the room that he realizes Gamora will have no idea who they are.

“Um, hi,” he says awkwardly. “I’m… uh, Steve Rogers, and this is Bucky Barnes, and we, uh… we just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Peter told me what you did,” she says in a raspy voice. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t not,” he says honestly.

Bucky makes a disparaging noise and brushes past him to her bedside. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “’Cause I’ve tried the falling-off-of-cliffs thing, and let me tell you, it is definitely on my top ten of least favorite things to do.”

She cracks a smile at that. “I’m not dead, and I’m on a lot of painkillers, so. Not as bad as I could be.”

“I see you’ve got both your arms,” he notes. “So you’ve already done a better job of it than I did.”

“Why, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Steve can’t help but smile at the exchange, at Bucky’s courage in exposing his own painful past to help someone else. Then again, he wouldn’t have expected anything less.

“It’s late,” he says. “We’ll let you get some rest. I’m glad to see you’re… alright.”

“For a given definition of the word.” Her gaze slides from him to Bucky, and back again. “Really, thank you.”

“Of course,” says Steve, and Bucky follows him out.

In the hallway outside, he takes a deep breath, leaning his head against the cool stone wall.

Bucky frowns at him in concern. “You okay there, Steve?”

“I… yeah, I just…” He rubs his face, tired beyond belief. “When you fell, I—I didn’t check. I didn’t make sure. I guess I… I guess this feels a little bit like… payback, maybe. Fate. I don’t know.”

“Hey,” says Bucky softly. “Hey, look at me.”

Steve does, meeting those clear blue eyes, and finds nothing but love there.

“You did good, Stevie,” he murmurs. “You did good.”

Steve nods, unable to speak around the lump in his throat. He brushes a hand through Bucky’s dark hair, still matted with sweat and grime and who knows what else, anchoring himself in his presence. “Take me back to our room?” he asks quietly.

Bucky kisses his forehead, then his lips, and wraps his arm around his waist. “Yeah, baby. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

[alittleoptimistic]

Shutdown

AN: Will it help if I say sorry in the first place?? Probably not. This story took on a mind of its own. It will get a happy ending, I swear.

Summary: Thomas is stuck in his own head. When Thomas is in a car accident, Virgil has to enact a ‘failsafe’ that shuts everything and everyone down but himself. To his shock, Thomas, who is convinced that his sides are characters he has made up, appears inside the control room. And he... can’t leave.

Warnings: Anxiety. Arguing. Lots of Arguing.

Taglist: @Justanotherpurplebutterfly @prplzorua @michealawithana @istolelittleredshoodie @pumakittycat  @tree4life25 @sunshine-goblin @anxious-but-whatever @poisonlyra @sanspie122 @itcouldbegay @thilb0burrit0 @cinquefoilelove @demonickittykat @istolelittleredshoodie @pumakittycat @just-fic-me-up @lynlinked @tripleaaaqueer @five-hour-anxiety @emphoenixcat @annimooz @sea-blue-child@citygjrl

Previous chapter

Chapter Two

Things hadn’t always been like this.

Virgil remembered when he used to be the older brother. He and Patton had watched over two small puffs of Logic and Creativity as they struggled to figure out just what they were supposed to do. When Thomas lost his two front teeth, everyone turned to Virgil for direction. When Roman nearly ran them into the road, Virgil was the one that took hold of the situation. Virgil kept them calm when they fell off their bike and when they got lost in the grocery store. Virgil had been the one they all turned to.

He didn’t miss being in charge. No. But he did miss the looks they used to give him. Trusting. Open. Willing. Virgil knew what was best for Thomas, they believed, and they weren’t going to argue that.

Until they did. Or, really, Logan did. Neither Logan nor Roman recalled how small they had been once upon a time. Logan used to have to stand on his tiptoes to snatch Patton’s glasses before he got his own, and Roman used to play with army guys all by himself (well, he still did that, but you get the point). Unlike Virgil, the other sides had to grow up.Virgil had always been like this.

Well. Not exactly like this, but he’d always been the same age anyway. Nowadays, there was a tossup between Logan and Roman on who exactly was in charge. It fluctuated by day, but for the most part, it was not Anxiety. He had his fair share of input (too much, Logan would say) but he didn’t try to take charge anymore. Because the other sides were right. There was something broken in him.

“I do not see the purpose of standing back,” Logan had said a very long time ago. “They are similar in age and have not shown any sign of malice toward us. Mom said that we ought to ‘make friends’ which entails talking to them. Are we to talk from such a great distance? It is impractical.”

At the time, Virgil hadn’t really had a name. Well, he had his name but he didn’t have anything for the other’s to call him. ‘Brother’ had been in common usage, he recalled. “It’s not that simple, Lo,” he explained. “People don’t always show it on their faces when they don’t like you. They might not like us. They could just be being nice because their moms made them.”

“That is preposterous. There is no reason that they should already be disposed against us.” Logan had a stool to reach the board. He climbed up it and toggled the buttons. “Watch, brother.”

Virgil watched.

Something in the base of his chest curled and tightened. It was a mostly new sensation. A constant jitter inside him. Like he was being knotted up inside. His hands suddenly seemed to move on their own. He jumped forward and quickly counteracted Logan’s commands.

Thomas backed away quickly and hid in the playground tunnel again.

“Hey!”

“Let’s just play by ourselves. We can do that, right, Roman?”

Roman had grinned up at him, dressed head to foot in hot pink chainmail. “Yes!”

The knot in Virgil’s stomach loosened slightly. “See? It’s fine, Logan.”

But Logan wasn’t having it. He hopped off his stool, straightened his too-large glasses, and walked off with a straight back. “This is absolute hogwash.”

Virgil sighed. “Logan-”

“Let him go.”

Virgil turned. Patton was spinning slowly in a swivel chair near the control board. He was perhaps twelve years old. He smiled even though Virgil glared at him.

“I could have used some support there.”

Patton shrugged. “He’ll get over it.” Standing, he took Roman’s hand and led him off to his room. “Let’s play, kiddo.”

“So I was thinking you could be the princess this time?”

“Alright?”

It had never really gotten better, and Logan never seemed to ‘get over it’. He was not built for forgiveness. Or compromise.

Course, it wasn’t all his fault.

“You act against reason!” Logan shouted at him. He had his hands in the air, overcome with frustration. “You limit him!”

Now, Virgil wondered how things would have turned out if he’d agreed with Logan. If he’d tried to work with him. He wondered if he even could. But he hadn’t tried. Instead, the knot in his stomach wound tighter, and he’d come nose to nose with Logan. “I am doing my job. And I will do whatever it takes to keep Thomas safe.”

He remembered the very first flicker of fear in Logan’s upturned face. That stubborn set in his eyes.

Logan had every right to hate him now.

And Virgil had no right to do anything but take the abuse. In the control room, the tension was high and had been ever since he’d been allowed slight access again. But the tension was reaching record-breaking levels now.

They all stared.

Frozen in complete disbelief and shock. Logan was the first to recover. “I apologize. I appear to have heard you incorrectly. It is not possible for Thomas to be here.”

Thomas cocked his head. “Really? Virgil didn’t say that.”

“I was busy.” Virgil winced as he walked toward the group. None of the Sides took note.

Thomas was growing increasingly uncomfortable under their stares. He rubbed the back of his neck. Why was he still here? He should have woken up when Virgil turned everything back on. Logan’s gaze narrowed.

Instead, the screen was still black, and Thomas was standing there, looking a bit lost.

“I don’t understand,” Roman started.

“Wait, so like that’s Thomas? Thomas Thomas?” A huge grin spread over Patton’s face. Without further ado, he threw himself into Thomas, who yelped.

“P-Patton?”

“Yupa-daisy, kiddo! Don’t you worry, we’re going to get you all sorted. But it is so good to actually meet you!” He hugged him tightly.

Thomas was smiling, but he slowly took himself out of Patton’s arms. “I’m hugging myself,” he whispered to no one in particular.

Meanwhile, Logan was calculating under his breath. He cocked his head at Thomas. “Salutations, Thomas. While I agree with Patton, this is most irregular.”

“Dear lord, You actually talk like that.”

Virgil cracked a smile. “Mr. Thesaurus likes to sound smart.”

“I am smart, Virgil,” Logan said. Probably harsher than necessary. Thomas frowned, but Roman and Patton were all over him, babbling and hugging and gesturing.

Logan and Virgil watched this display, arms crossed. “What did you do?”

Virgil sighed inwardly. He’d figured this was coming. “I saved our life, thank you very much.”

“Perhaps. We may be alive, but if Thomas is unable to leave here, we will be rendered completely comatose.”

Virgil nodded. Of course, he knew this. He scowled at Logan. “Look, dude, I did the best I could.”

“That isn’t good enough.” He nodded toward Thomas. “You must have gone through some procedure incorrectly.”

Virgil absolutely had not done anything incorrectly. And it was a pain that Logan would accuse him as such. Then again, even if Thomas hadn’t been here, Logan would have found something in Virgil’s performance that was lacking. That’s just how he was.

“I don’t know why he’s here or how he got here, or how to get him to leave. He just showed up.”

Logan pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “Yes, well. That is all remarkably useless information.”

He was right. It was.

Thomas was laughing and Patton dragged him back toward where his door would usually be. They reached the wall and Patton stopped.

He stared at the smooth metal surface.

“Um, guys?”

Virgil crossed his arms.

“Virgil,” Logan said on a low voice. “Where are the doors?”

They were still gone. Every door had been erased. Every window. Virgil swallowed thickly. We’re trapped. We’re trapped in here.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked.

They all turned. One by one. To stare at Virgil. In a way, it shook him because it was so similar to how they used to act. But it was different now. These were not questioning looks, ready for him to give an answer. They were worried. Accusing. Afraid.

Gosh, why was he such a freaking screw up?

Virgil’s stomach tightened. “I don’t know. I thought the doors might come back once I turned everything on again.”

Their faces fell. Logan cursed quietly. He raced up to the control board and tapped on the keys.

Nothing happened.

“Well, shoot,” Roman supplied to the silence.

They all gave various murmurs of agreement and joined Logan at the control board, even Thomas, who was looking steadily more and more worried.

“Okay, so there’s got to be a way out of this. I’m not… I can’t just stay stuck here.”

Virgil’s stomach rolled. He reached a hand toward the board but retracted quickly when Logan glared at him. “You’ve done enough damage, I think.”

Virgil said nothing. In fact, no one said anything at all. Patton grabbed Thomas’s hand tightly and Roman stared at the screen, as by the sheer force of his will, he could turn it on. Virgil hugged his arms around his chest (his ribs seemed to be alright now). And the just stood there.

“Ideas, anyone?”

They glanced at Roman, who grimaced. “I could… cut a hole with my…” He reached down to his belt and suddenly paled. “My sword! My sword is gone!”

“You left it in your room when we were tidying up, remember?”

Roman groaned. “I am the most abominable of idiots.”

And now it was Thomas’s turn to grimace. “Well, I mean, I don’t think-”

“Making a hole is an interesting option, however,” Logan cut in. He chewed his lip, tried the unresponsive keys again, and sighed. “Do we have anything sharp?”

Woah, woah, Virgil did not like where this is going. “Guys, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go around cutting holes in Thomas’s mindscape.”

Thomas held up a hand. “I second that?”

Logan just rolled his eyes. “It’s minor surgery at the worst and not even physical so-”

“Minor surgery. Think about what you just said right there.”

“Look, do you want to get out of here?”

Thomas shifted his weight. He hugged his arms to himself. “I… yes. Yes, I do. But Virgil has a point. I mean, what if it like, damages me somehow?”

Roman shrugged. “I’d like to counter that I cut up things in here all the time.”

Thomas stared, horrified. “But-”

“Then again, I am only cutting up things in my realm, not the base mindscape so perhaps it is different. Not that I am unwilling to risk it.”

“Of course you’re willing to risk it, you’re a freaking hazard.”

Virgil regretted the words once they left his mouth, but he really couldn’t control these things. He was the bringer of negative thoughts and they weren’t really in his control. Especially not right now.

Of course, the others didn’t see it that way.

“Virgil, what the heck. We don’t need that right now.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, stuck his hands into his pockets and sat down on an upturned piece of something that may have been a swivel chair before the room went through a blender.

The room went quiet as Logan kept poking the keys, muttering to himself. They were getting nowhere. Thomas was going to be stuck here with their lame butts until they got old and died. And it’s your fault. You didn’t keep him safe. Virgil wanted to be sick. He wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and bury his face in a blanket and not think about anything. He wanted to be oblivious. He wanted to never have to see Patton’s eyes filled with hesitation when he looked at him. He didn’t want Roman’s pity or Logan’s… man, Logan’s hatred. For someone who advertised being unemotional, Logan certainly had strong feelings when it came to anxiety.

He supposed it was because anxiety was, above all, illogical.

And it was only logical that Logan would not be able to stand that.

Virgil almost didn't notice Thomas’s bewildered look. “Hang on, what is wrong with you guys? I thought… I thought you were getting along?”

Romans shifted his weight guiltily. “I… may have altered some elements for the video series, Thomas.”

“It was agreed,” Logan began. His voice was clipped and sharp like little metal cubes. “that it was better for your emotional health if we do not have obvious animosity.”

“And it makes me feel good,” Patton mumbled.

Thomas digested that. Virgil could feel his stare, but he kept his eyes on his shoes. Thisisyourfaultallyourfaultyouidiot.

Apparently finished with the keyboard, Logan walked quickly toward his bookcase (which was strewn everywhere) in his corner of the room. He continued speaking over his shoulder. “Although it is an interesting idea, it is simply not possible to ‘accept’ a trait so deeply trenched in negativity.”

“Screw you, Logan.”

“Thank you for the demonstration.”

He’s such a jerk. He’s such a freaking jerk.

Logan paid them no mind as he searched through the piles of books scattered around his area. “The manual is here somewhere…”

Deep inside, Virgil boiled. Why did he always have to take this, huh? What the heck did Logan want from him? Suddenly decided, Virgil stood up and stalked to Logan’s corner. “Okay! Whatever! I just saved your freaking butt, so a little less I-hate-you is maybe in order!”

Logan sneered and shoved a book into Virgil’s arms. “Maybe you should read the rule book and stop messing everything up.”

There really wasn’t any talking to him! Virgil gripped the book tightly and searched for something to say. Anything. “I don’t deserve this!”

Logan pursed his lips. There was a spark there deep in his eyes. Something sharp and pointed and hurt. “You don’t deserve anything.”

He stormed past him, up the stairs and back to the dashboard. Virgil followed him. The other sides had backed up, taking Thomas with them. Virgil could see them out of the corner of his eye and something in him twisted, but he was too focused on said-jerkface to do anything about the tears in Patton’s eyes or the complete emotionless shutdown Roman was pulling off or the panic that was swallowing Thomas. Logan needed to stop.

“Stop ignoring me!” He was shouting now, although he wasn’t sure when the argument had escalated to that degree.

Logan said nothing. He slammed open a book and messed with the keyboard.

“Logan, please!” He could feel it. The very slight tremor at the base of his being. It echoed slightly in his voice and Logan stiffened.

shoot, back down now. Before you do something-

“Listen to me!”

Too late.

There was a click, almost audible in his mind, and all at once, Virgil was powerless.

Patton screamed and Roman was babbling mindlessly and Thomas scrambled back away from all of them as Virgil’s shadow grew. Larger and larger until the room was cloaked in a thick darkness. Virgil’s head buzzed. He couldn’t move. Not like he wanted to. Everything was small and dark and he c o uldn ‘t.

He couldn’t scream.

With calculated calm, Logan closed the book and turned toward Virgil. He straightened his glasses.

“See, Thomas,” he said, “This is why it is not possible to accept Anxiety. This is the true Virgil.”

Noitsnotnoitsnotnoitsnot.

Instead, a smirk forced itself onto his face and he raised his arms, casually perusing the room. “Goodness me, it really is a mess in here, isn’t it?”

Stop please stop

It wasn’t going to stop. This thing which lived inside him, festering like a rotting wound, was never ever going to be finished with them.

“Thomas, dear, wouldn’t you come closer?”

RUNTHOMAS

Thomas stared up at him, his eyes red, his skin deathlike in the purple light that must have been emanating from Virgil. And then there was something unexpected.

Thomas’s eyes were not afraid. They were… sad.

That was the last semi-normal thought he had before something shattered behind him. Virgil turned around to feel a great wind push him backward. No, pull him backward.

The screen.

Roman was standing a good distance away, his eyes wide as he registered what he’d just done. In his hands was, presumably, another piece of metal.

The one piece had disappeared into the hole he had just made on the screen.

Virgil’s stomach dropped as pieces of glass came loose and were sucked into the hole. Bigger and bigger until the hole was a yawning mouth filled with jagged teeth, inhaling all the while. Virgil’s feet slipped on the smooth metal, and with a sound of rage, he went spinning toward the hole. Virgil screamed, but his mouth didn’t move, and as he struggled to stay on his feet, Logan was doing the same. They clung to the railing and Logan was shouting. Everyone was shouting. Virgil caught glimpses.

Patton crying. Roman holding Thomas back. Logan screaming, reaching out for Patton.

Then Virgil’s hand slipped.

And he fell. Into a great expanse of darkness so thick he could breathe it. As the light from the console room faded, another figure fell through as well. Virgil’s last thought before he lost consciousness was that someone else is stuck with me.

Chapter 3

[eldritchwyrm]

what goes around comes around (a fic for the glorious 25th of may)

The first time Lu-Tze learned of the Glorious People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road was long before Sam Vimes got caught in a thunderstorm and was swept thirty years into the past. In fact, when Lu-Tze was young and light on his feet and had only just moved to Ankh-Morpork for the first time, he took a wrong turn and stumbled upon a narrative temporal phenomenon the likes of which he had never seen in his life.

He was picking up some groceries for Mrs. Cosmopolite, who was graciously allowing him lodging, because was it not written that What Goes Around Comes Around? He was also lost.

He tried asking random passerby for directions, but his attempts were all rebuffed with variants on “up yours, mister” and the slurs that were generally leveled at anyone who looked too foreign for their own good. So instead of turning onto the Pitts as she should have, he missed the intersection and continued straight ahead.

It was the 25th of May. Spring was battling valiantly against the smog and grime of the city, and contrary to all expectation the few shrubs that had survived were putting out green shoots.

Lu-Tze hitched up the bag of groceries and thought the sacred wisdom: My Joints Aren’t What They Used To Be. He was a bit young for that one, he reflected, but was not all wisdom valuable?

He turned onto Treacle Mine Road.

It was noon. Bright and sunny. The street was loud and busy with carts and animals and people, as you’d expect on any weekday. And yet as he walked forward, the sun dimmed. The air cooled. The hustle of the streets became muffled, farther away.

The scent of lilac filled in the air.

The hairs on his arms tingled like a storm was approaching.

He took a good look around, really looked rather than focusing on the unimportant surface bits, like the buildings and the people—and nearly choked on his own tongue.

This—this was—it was a disruption in the space-time continuum so extreme that it was a wonder anyone in the immediate vicinity was still alive. This was a rift so profound that rationally speaking, he should be standing in the equivalent of a smoking crater where a chunk of functional reality used to be.

There were no words to describe the wrongness of this place. You could say that the passage of time in this location was like a length of yarn which had been bundled into a ball and left unattended in a room full of eager-eyed kittens. (It would be blatantly incorrect, but you could definitely say that.)

“Ye gods,” said Lu-Tze, because some words always worked.

He ditched the groceries and started running.

He burst through the door of Mrs. Cosmopolite’s boarding house with a crash. The hostess jumped in surprise and nearly hit him over the head with the plate she was drying, but restrained herself, because that wasn’t Done. Instead she shouted, “Young man, just what do you think you’re doing?”

“No time!”

If he’d stopped to think properly he would have realized how stupid a statement that was, but he was busy racing up the stairs and into his room. He grabbed his emergency supply pack from under the bed and dashed out again.

There were images in his head that didn’t make sense—darkness and rain and a silver cigar case, gleaming on the cobbles, and lilacs blooming in the night, over and over again.

When he returned to Treacle Mine Road he knelt down in the middle of the street, right in the middle of traffic, and the carts moved smoothly around him without a blink, despite their relocation occasionally involved a minor rewriting of the conventional laws of physics. He barely noticed. He found a bare patch of dirt and got to work. He would be hard-pressed to construct a sophisticated detection mandala on such short notice, but he would damn well make do...

The air crackled with energy as he finished the last curve on the mandala. He dusted his hands and waited.

It began to turn.

The patterns shifted, then stilled.

He frowned. “No,” he said. “That can’t be right.  Historical imperative? But this is so obviously a narrative disruption. An unfinished story.”

A rift in time that didn’t exist, memories of events that never happened... it had to be a result of an incomplete narrative unable to achieve a single resolution. Something, somewhen, had gone wrong, and a major role had gone unfulfilled, and now the phenomenon was scrabbling for a solution.

“Must be incorrectly set up,” he muttered to himself. “I mean, this thing is telling me there should be a major temporal incident any moment now—”

Unfortunately, the young Lu-Tze had not yet learned some valuable wisdom. For is it not written that You Are So Sharp You'll Cut Yourself?

There was a sound like an elastic band snapping, and the world turned sideways.

He stumbled upright once the universe had returned to something close to normal and scrambled to get his bearings. He was still in the present day, but another time was—how to describe it, how to describe it—layered on top, one moment falling over the other like snow. Fog and wind and darkness swirled in, obscuring the sky, wreathing around the figures in the courtyard before him.

The men were wearing Watch uniforms.

“Okay, lads,” said one of the men. He had an eyepatch and a battered breastplate, and a voice that echoed as if it was coming from very far away. Years ago, thought Lu-Tze. “What we’re going to do is keep the peace. That’s our job...”

If Lu-Tze concentrated, he could still feel the rush of wind from the passing street and hear the sound of the busy city. But here, in a much more real sense, he could see the watchmen shuffling anxiously as they listened to the sergeant-at-arms. He talked about duty and right and wrong, and then he drew a line in the sand, and then the men made their choice.

History struck a chord.

The world shifted.

A barricade climbed into the air, higher and higher, packed with furniture and upturned carts and spare wood, held up by desperate hope and bottomless fear, the rawest emotions of humanity. When sufficiently concentrate, those were capable of twisting time into knots so complex that only a master of the temporal would ever be able to undo them.

And why would they want to? So what if someone thought it was odd that time crawled by while they were under stress, or if it went by instantly during a fun afternoon? That was what made people human. 

That sound again, and the world changed again—

A battle was raging around him. Men in battered uniforms, not many, fighting for their lives, wearing the lilac...

...the man with the eyepatch leapt forward, sword a blur in his hands, hacking wildly...

...and across the street, untouched by the carnage, was a little old man in a robe. He was sweeping peacefully at a patch of dust, undisturbed by the blood and guts and destruction whirling around him. It was surreal.

The old man looked up and winked.

Time stood still.

(Well, it didn’t really stand still, but the true answer involved multivariable calculus and besides, it was a useful metaphor and at this moment in time Lu-Tze was not the type to spend valuable effort messing about with the sneaky kind of sums with letters in them.)

The old sweeper carefully plodded across the frozen tableau, ducking under an upraised sword and stepping around the body of a watchman who had not yet hit the ground.

Ah, so another monk was on the problem, then? The young time-traveler stood up straight and tried to act like this was an expected development.

“Hey, kid,” said the sweeper. “You look like you could use a cup of tea.”

* * *

Lu-Tze was convinced that this particular branch of the No Such Monastery did not exist in the present day, which made it quite worrying that it appeared to exist in both the past and the future.

He sipped his tea with yak butter and eyed the old sweeper suspiciously. He distrusted older authority figures on principle.

“So you spotted the incongruity, did you,” said the sweeper. “Historical imperative’s a tricky thing, isn’t it.”

“It’s not historical imperative. It’s narrative causality.”

The sweeper sighed. “You’ve got a lot to learn, kiddo. It’s both. The Glorious People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road... it didn’t take long for the city to forget, but the story still leaves echoes. It wants to be remembered.”

The young man frowned. “I kept having memories of things that never happened. Deja vu without the original vu.”

“Sounds pretty standard. Lilacs, right? You smelled the lilacs? That’s the anchor. On the Glorious 25th of May, the lilacs are in bloom. They will always be in bloom, forever and ever, for as long as time exists, and whenever the survivors see it, they’ll be brought back here. Even poor sods like you with receptive enough minds will be saddled with this piece of history.”

“But this doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t understand why a bunch of men would just get themselves killed like that just—just to be heroes.” Lu-Tze knew a dramatic last stand when he saw one.

“Yeah, see, that’s 'cos you’re seventeen and I’m old and wise,” said the sweeper. “Why do we fix time? Is it because we want to be heroic? Is it because we have to? No, we do it because we could just let time curl in on itself and extinguish all the complicated bits like sentient life, but we decide to make fixing this mess our job.”

“But—alright, fine, but there’s still a gigantic rift in reality and I’m standing in it. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“You heard me. There’s no reason to muck about with a story that’s looking to be told. This case is unusual, mostly ‘cause it’s a bit under-construction if you know what I mean, but yea, is it not written that There’s A First Time For Everything?”

The young time-traveler sat bolt upright. “You—you’re a follower of the Way? But none of the senior monks—it’s just a thing that I made up so—I mean—”

The sweeper shook his head sadly. “Hoo boy. I really am paying for how much of an idiot back then. I suppose What Goes Around Comes Around.”

The young history monk’s eyes widened, realization dawning. He opened his mouth to speak, but the old man interrupted him. “Now, this is slightly more complicated than a standard closed time loop, since you’re not here in any physical sense. So if I just...”

He slashed his hand through the air. The air began to sing with mounting tension, time itself groaning under the weight, and the world snapped back to the present.

The city streets bustled around him. Lu-Tze's mouth was slack with shock. Had that really been...?

He looked down at the mandala he had scrawled in the dirt. The wind had scrubbed it out.

Overhead, the lilacs were in bloom.

[187days]

Reflections On My Spain Trip

They say that after traveling one should sit with the experience for a bit before writing anything down, so- aside from tweeting about it a couple times- that’s what I’ve done. Now, though, it’s time to write...

I think it was a fantastic trip, overall. For me, it was a chance to return to a country I'd visited when I was in high school, to share my favorite things with my students, and also to see new things with them. For Mr. W, I think it was largely the same. And, for the students, it was just a massive experience. They’re small town kids. Most of them had ever been to foreign countries before, and none of them were really used to traveling in cities. But they all embraced the adventure wholeheartedly; they took in all the opportunities to learn, they tried everything, they spoke in Spanish... I’m very proud of them for that.

We flew into Malaga, a beautiful beach town on the Mediterranean with perfect weather (at least while we were there). It’s a slow-paced place, and we were free to wander around, hang out at the beach, listen to live music, etc... until dinner that evening. That’s when we met our tour guide, Laura, and the other two groups we would be traveling with. Unfortunately, our students didn’t really gel with the others (ours were a little older, more capable of speaking Spanish, and- how do I put this?- markedly less privileged), but they didn’t really mind. And Mr. W and I did get on well with two of the other teachers, which was nice. 

In the morning we traveled from Malaga to Granada to see La Alhambra, which I was super excited about because I’d never seen it before. I think that was one of our students’ favorite sites, too, because it’s so stunning. We had a great tour guide, as well. She was really good at explaining things in an engaging way. Lunch in Granada was also amazing; we were seated on the rooftop of this cool little restaurant that made awesome tortilla espanola (I assume they made awesome everything, but that’s what I ate). 

That evening we headed to Sevilla, which is one of my favorite cities. The other two groups opted to do a river cruise thing after dinner, but we decided to stay on land and have a wander. One of our boys, amusingly, found a Dunkin Donuts and ran in to see if it was any different from the ones here, but otherwise we stayed away from American things. The only bad bit: I discovered that in the summer (I’d only ever been there in the winter), Sevilla is full of horse-drawn carriages. For those of you who haven’t been following along at home, I have a severe allergy to horses (the kind I need an epi pen for), so I had to be pretty ninja in avoiding them. Bless my students for their patience, and for looking out for “los caballos” every time we went somewhere new.

I got really nervous the next day when we went to La Catedral de Sevilla and ALL the carriages were lined up right outside. Buuuut I had an allergy mask, Benadryl, and a guide who convinced the ticket folks to let me cut the line and get inside quickly. So, y’know, I managed. And I got to climb La Giralda again. That’s the old minaret that’s now the cathedral tower. In high school, me and one of my idiot friends actually ran to the top. It was too crowded- and I’m too old- for that this time, but the view was as amazing as I’d remembered it being.

After we climbed down, our group decided that we wanted to get away from the super touristy area around the cathedral (and away from los caballos!), so Laura took us on a search for awesome tapas. She asked random locals on the streets to give directions to their favorite places, and we did our best to hit all of them. The hands down best place, according to our students, was called La Gitana Loca. But there was also this gorgeous restaurant on some random side street- low lighting, artwork everywhere, and a flamenco stage that they let us climb on for pictures- that served us fabulous oxtail stew. That may not sound good, but IT IS. And the waiters were so nice! One of my students said that if we’d been at home, she’d have figured they were being nice to get a good tip, but there is no tipping in Spain, so they were genuinely being that nice to us. I said it’s because good travel manners go along way; we were speaking the language, appreciating the food (and the rest of the culture), behaving politely... All of that is important, and it has a big impact on one’s interactions. 

So that was a great lesson. 

From Sevilla, we travelled to Madrid, with a stop along the way in Cordoba to visit La Mezquita. Cordoba is a fun place to wander around- all narrow streets, white walled buildings, and little shops- and I think we all bought a lot of souvenirs there. I got my oldest nephew a chess set similar to one I’d gotten my brother back in high school; he gave his away to another friend of ours years ago- with my blessing- so I figured it would be a cool thing to get. 

After few hours on the bus- during which Mr. W and I chatted with Laura and our James Bond-y (so our students said) driver, Alfonso- we reached Madrid. This is my favorite city in the world; it’s a treasure trove of history and culture, the site of some of my best high school adventures, the home of my favorite soccer team (Real Madrid)... It’s always going to have part of my heart, you know? 

We arrived during Pride, and there was a metro strike (if you want a fun teaching moment, take kids who have never ridden a subway ever onto a jam-packed one in a foreign country), so it was crowded, chaotic, and totally awesome. The structured tour time was pretty cool; we went to the museums (I loved that way more than Mr. W because I love art and got to geek out about it to our students), the monuments, the palace- and it’s all beautiful. There was one day when we were exhausted because we’d stayed up super late eating junk food and playing games, so that made the pace feel a little rough. No regrets, though. And that night we had a really cool dinner at this place on the outskirts of the city that teaches Spanish cooking- the chefs had the students cook and serve all of us teachers- and we all perked up.

Our free time was the best because, with Pride going on, there were all these cool events everywhere. Our group actually got one whole day free (the other two groups went to Segovia), so went to Santiago Bernabeu so Mr. W and I could get our Real Madrid fix. Then we went into Plaza Mayor, and Mr. W and I found a table where would could sit, drink some tinto, and people watch while the students explored (with boundaries and using the buddy system) on their own. I think we all loved that.

We spent our final day in Toledo, which I only had vague memories of from my high school visit. I don’t know why it didn’t stick with me more because it’s amazing. Nothing else looks quite like the old city. I love, too, that inside the Cathedral’s sacristy there are a bunch of Greco paintings just kind of there. I think the students’ favorite part was the damascene workshop (I think it was Mr. W’s favorite, too, because he could buy knives there). I did remember that from my previous visit; I still have the damascene jewelry I bought back then. I bought some new bracelets, and an icon of La Virgen for my friend who is a priest. Then we had lunch near Puente de San Martin. The restaurant served us lamb and potatoes, and it was delicious. I think that’s my favorite meal. 

I did have some killer gazpacho back in Madrid that night, though, after a final wander around the city. There were mounted police out (there were lots of police in general, but, y’know, I’m not allergic to them if they’re not on horses), so I was a bit twitchy and irritable- and I’m sure I annoyed our students- at first. But we found a concert in Puerto de Acala, we danced, we laughed, and then we had that awesome dinner. So it was a good way to end our trip.

Wv flew home the next day, and went back to our little lives. I’ll close by saying again how proud I am of our students, and how happy I was that I was able communicate in Spanish myself. I hadn’t studied it since AP class my senior year of high school; the other chaperons had all studied the language in college- and Mr. W is a native speaker- so I was worried about my ability to keep up. It was difficult to follow conversations, at first, but after about half a day I acclimated. I probably said a few things incorrectly, and I know I spoke more slowly than anyone else did, but I did it. Woot.