#I think I need to get a second job or try and find some illustration work or something

[slightly-awkward-sunshine]

Really worried my car might be kaput for good :///

The irony when I need to drive for work, so if I don’t have a car they’ll let me go, but they don’t pay me enough to maintain a car or buy another one

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

MO'S FANFIC BEAUTYFYING MASTERCLASS!👩‍🏫

So it seems like you guys like how I do my banners and layouts on @xxsycamore ! I wanted to share a few tips about making similar ones, along with some of my observations on their importance! Be warned, some of the screenshots I'll use to illustrate my point will be of my smut fics! This post is intended for the ikemen series community. While the tips could be found useful for other fandoms as well, it's important to note that it's only this fandom that I've taken into account and because of that my observations could be unreliable if you chose to follow my advice outside of the fandom!

The importance

First of all, a good layout is a subjective term. Second, a "good" layout is not guaranteed to boost your fic's popularity. Not all of us are able to put the time and effort into fancy banners and dividers, but the good news is, you don't really need them! You should always strive to do only as much as you can without straining yourself. Here you can see a minimal effort fic layout vs one that took 30~ minutes to put together, both posted around the same time, both having a similar reception when it comes to notes! Keep in mind that a layout is just one of the many factors to take into account for your fic's popularity status, and you shouldn't obsess with it either way.

2. The minimum: Banner + Title

Not everyone checks out every single post on their dash while they scroll! I follow around 1100 people and while not all of them are active, it's easy to miss a post that could as well have been the best thing I'd see that day. Your brain recognizes what a typical fanfiction post looks like - a rectangular picture with a title above/underneath, followed by text. As long as you scroll past a post with a similar construction and you're interested, you might want to scroll back and check it out.

3. Banners

The information that you get from a banner is typically about the character(s) featured in the fic. Using the example above, you'll see that a simple cropped picture of the character gets the job done! (an in-game sprite at that, not a fancy card photo)

If you decide to use a card, you can browse google for a good one of your character(s). I try to select a card that depicts something similar to what's happening in my fic, either the action or the "vibes" (daytime or nighttime, outside or indoors, canon or modern, etc.), but sometimes it's better to choose the one that will look good instead of the one that's more fitting.

Finding cards of good quality is also challenging, and I'd advise you to avoid blurry/low-quality banners even if those would be best fitting.

Stick to the rectangular horizontal format if possible. I like square banners sometimes, but it's better when you can see the whole layout at once!

4. Editing the banners & photo coloring

If you decide you want to go out all, you'll need a photo editing app or a program. I use one called Snow which is mainly for selfies but gets the job done. It has many filters to choose from, but inputting text there could be a hassle sometimes. Another one I use is Pixlr. Yeah, I couldn't let it go ever since the days it was just a website...it's been about 10 years but I still rely on it (now as an app) for some stuff, like cropping down images with very big height to width ratio (like thin strips for dividers). In very rare instances I use my (paid) art program, Clip Studio Paint. I know that many people use Canva for their banners but I can't get used to it, I guess it's not my thing, haha. That's why you should see what works for you. I prefer a certain amount of limitation, like having filters to choose from, simply because I don't want to think too much about it and to be able to spend too much time on it (I'm a perfectionist)...

Maybe you just want to give your picture some nice coloring, nothing too much, just a slight change of tone that it's noticeable but not in a screaming way. There are still some things to avoid, mainly old-looking filters. I'm talking about the ones that were mainstream on Instagram during the last decade, the pinkish sepia one for instance. Ones that have too high exposure value and make the bright parts practically glow are not a good look either, same for the too dark ones. Making the character unrecognizable is also not good, and some filters can do that, especially in the case where they have fair hair and the filter makes it appear as another color. Again, those examples are bad only in my own opinion and could look good in certain circumstances or if it's a desired look!

Here's the collage for the banner used for my fic Nine Nights (MDNI) before the filter (first picture), a variation I did but scrapped (second pic) and the one I went with in the end (third pic). While the bottom pic is in contrast with what I said about making characters unrecognizable, here I rely on the fact that it's enough that it's obvious this will feature all of the Crown members just by looking at the bunch of them. I liked how the colors pop up, almost as if each one gets assigned a theme color (interestingly I didn't pick the cards for that purpose), and it's just a pretty coloring in my opinion as a whole. I achieved this by tweaking the RGB values from the "Curves" tool in Snow.

Another cool thing to do with your banner is adding transparent elements in it, like how I did with this one (see it from the link below, it's not depicted here on the pics). The thing is, this could be very energy-consuming, you'll need an app/program that can do that as not all of them work with transparent images, and in the end, it could be just barely noticeable. But it can be fun from time to time.

5. Titles

A title is the other main element of your fic's layout and it should stand out. If you hate coming up with titles (understandable...) you can just put a "(character) x reader fluff", for instance. If you look at the example in point 1, I simply used the character's name in place of a title! It doesn't have to be a stressful aspect of putting your fic out there. As a side note, you can try centering your title simply by putting some spaces at the front, but leaving it aligned to the right could be a stylistic choice.

6. Colored text

This one is very optional but good if you want to fancy it up. Tumblr already gives you a bunch of colors to pick from and you can make use of them if they fit the style of your fic, but they're very limited. Luckily we can use just any color we want. (This only works on the fonts tumblr supports! The ones you can choose from when you highlight a text) Unfortunately, the way to do this will make you work with the HTML editor which you can access at the top right corner of your post editing screen (from desktop, click the settings, scroll down to Post editor) and things might seem pretty scary if this is your first time looking there. It's not too hard! You need to use a site that takes your desired piece of text, lets you select colors, and then gives you a code that once pasted in the HTML editor will make it colored when switching back to the Rich text editor. Here's the one I use because it also allows me to blend colors. At the bottom right of the page, I put the text in the first box, select the colors, and upon clicking Run it gives me the code in the bottom box. I use colored text for my title, and sometimes for my information tags.

7. Information tags

This is how I refer to the part of your layout dedicated to showing the pairings, genre, content warnings and wordcount of your fic. This is all optional even to add in the first place. I personally don't bother too much with beautifying that part, but a good tip is using some kind of symbol to separate these pieces of information if they're all in the same paragraph (I use big dots), or to place in front of them if they're in different rows (like bullet points). This gives a lot of creative freedom for text art, you should explore it if that's your thing!

8. Fonts & font size

You can experiment with Tumblr's fonts, or you can look for more fonts online - here's a handy site. It's good to find one that is legible enough. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞. Again, be warned, those fonts that are outside of tumblr's post editor cannot be colored (as far as I'm aware of)

You can spell your title in all caps if you deem that's a good look for your fic.

Play around with bolds and italics instead of making everything a different font.

The "Biggest" font option here on the editor is not the best one to use as it's simply too big. Big title fonts should be avoided if your title doesn't fit in a single row.

Having different font sizes for different things in your layout can be eye-catching! Besides the obvious upscaling of the title, you can also upscale your information tags. Using small text is also nice and prevents your post from getting too long, but this should only be done for the part of the fic that is not the fic itself. Small text could be harsh on the eyes if it's in big quantities.

9. Dividers

Dividers are another crucial part of a fancy layout! They divide different parts of your layout, like the information tags and the fic's body. There are tons of styles to choose from. Some people like to use dividers that spell out something, like a "minors DNI" warning, a "support your creatives" reminder, the name of the character featured in the fic... You can make your own set of dividers for repeated use. I like to use very thin lines which I color differently according to the fic's theme colors. I also find dividers online, mostly here on tumblr, as there are tons of them if you look them up. It's important to use dividers which are marked free to use, or to otherwise credit their creators.

10. Additional tips

Use gifs. Everything that moves is eye-catching. But don't go overboard with it - one or two moving objects on your layout is plenty. They shouldn't be put too close to the fic's body too, as people might find it distracting. Avoid flashing and glitching gifs, or if you use those and you deem it necessary, tag the post with an epilepsy warning. You can make your banners into gifs by putting a moving filter on them, making it into a video, and turning the video into a gif (the site I use for this is called ezgif and it has plenty of other options for working with gifs and videos), and you can also make or find gif dividers.

Banner themes are nice, but they don't always look good. I'm talking about making a series of banners (like for a bunch of fics made for the same creative challenge) look the same, with the same coloring and filters. I used to make all my banners purple to follow my blog's tumblr theme but I realized not everyone looks good in purple...

Try adding a synopsis for your fic! I know, this is worse than coming up with a title, but we love flipping the book over to look at the synopsis before jumping into it. Keep it very short and try beautifying it with symbols or fancy quotation marks.

Use the "intended" font from the tumblr post editor to make your information tags or synopsis stand out and shrink the overall length of the post!

Put the body of your fic under a "read more" (the last option when you hit a new row in the post editor). This is very important, especially if you're writing smut - you wouldn't want to make people scroll through all of that if they're not in the mood for it. Putting your whole fic on the dash doesn't make it more likely for people to stop and read it, or at least that's just how I see it.

Use emojis! Emojis stand out!

Take inspiration from other people. Get out of your bubble and look at how other fandoms do it, but obviously don't steal.

11. Final thoughts

Making this post felt weird to me! I was motivated by my mutuals complimenting my layouts but also because some of them said "they can't do that" and I wanted to show them it's easy. I also wanted to show them it's not that important and that they shouldn't stress over it at all! At the end of the day it's your fic that matters, not how pretty you can make it work. But instead of simplifying it, I ended up with this massive post of 11 parts, and now it looks scarily big. It's not, okay! I went too much into detail at times, and I want to stress once again that it's all optional anyway. I, personally, don't follow all of this advice. I don't go through the 10 steps of constructing my layout every time I'm about to post a fic. I typically post my fics just before going to bed, and 99% of the time I need it to happen ASAP because it's that late in the night. It's a way to beat my perfectionism, really, and I find it to work for me. I also already have these steps tested and memorized so it all happens quickly and mechanically for me. Making the layout is extremely fun for me and this is my sole driving force for putting in the effort. At the same time, I remind myself not to go overboard because it's stupid to focus on it more than on the fic itself. I love ao3 because everything looks equal on there, but I also love tumblr because I can unleash my creativity in one additional way.

In the process of making this post, I started to wonder if it seems like I'm making this out to be way more important and difficult than it really is, and I want to assure you that this is not my intention at all!

My only hope is that this proves to be helpful for whoever feels like they can use some of the information above. If it leads to just 1 additional note to those criminally underrated fics I see, then I'd be beyond happy!

Have fun posting your fics :)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

The True Story: An Epistolary Novelette

An intrusive fantasy story for @inklings-challenge

I. Christine Hendry to the proprietor of Wright and Co.

Sir or Madam:

I feel like such a fool for reaching out to you--a stranger whose business card happened to be tucked in the pages of an ancient book on my grandmother's shelf. I don't even know if your shop exists anymore; signs are against it, because I can't find so much as a phone number to contact you by. Nothing but an address and a name: Wright and Co.: Specialists in Rare, Antique, and Nonexistent Books.

That last category is the only reason I'm bothering to write at all. I'm looking for what seems to be a nonexistent book, so I may as well try writing to a shop that may or may not be real.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother read to me from a copy of Song of the Seafolk by Marjorie A. Penrose. It was an American children's fantasy from--I believe--the 1950s, all about a family getting mixed up with mermaids on a tiny Atlantic island. It had beautiful black-and-white illustrations, and language so lyrical that I still remember passages even though I haven't read it in nearly twenty years. My grandmother loved it to bits, and read it to me a dozen times after I came to live with her. I went off to college, and jobs, and travel, and I haven't much thought about that book--or, to be honest, my grandmother--since I left the house.

But now Grandma has a broken hip, and there's no one else to care for her, so I've come back. The moment I stepped back into that house, I found I wanted nothing more than to read that book. To her, if possible. I need to return the favor.

But the book is nowhere to be found. I've searched through all her bookshelves (extensive), closets (messy), and storage boxes (many and varied), to no avail. I resigned myself to the necessity of buying a new copy, but there are no new copies for sale. Or any old copies. None in any library. Not even a hint of its existence online. All my inquiries to cashiers and librarians have been met with blank stares. It seems like no one in the world has even heard of that book except my grandmother and me.

So I write to you from sheer desperation. A cry into the void. If your shop does exist, and you are a real person, is there any chance in the world that you have the book I want? Knowing now how rare the book apparently is, I shudder to think of the price you'd charge, but as long as I don't have to sell any limbs to pay for it, I find myself willing to pay almost any price. Of course, that's assuming you're a real person reading this, and you by some miracle have the book, and you haven't thrown this letter away while sneering at the lunatic who wrote it.

If all those things somehow manage to be true, please write back to me at this address, and I assume we'll be able to arrange some method of payment.

Yours, in desperation,

Christine Hendry

II. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

I am pleased to inform you that Wright and Co. does still exist, and it maintains its specialty of supplying books that can be found nowhere else. It is unsurprising that you were unable to locate a second copy of the book, because a glance through our sales records show that the book was purchased from this very shop in 1968 (which is likely why your grandmother was in possession of our business card), and comes from our specialized stock of books that exist nowhere else in the world.

These books tend to appear on our shelves at unpredictable times, and rarely in batches of more than one or two, so I feared I would be unable to grant your request. Yet I have sometimes found that these books appear in response to a need, so I searched the shelves, and to my delight, found the book tucked into a corner of our children's section.

The books from our special selection sometimes wander back to our store's shelves when they are no longer needed by their purchasers, and it appears that this is what happened in this case, because the book I found bears signs of ownership by a Mrs. Dorothy Hendry. Since I cannot charge you for your own book, I have taken the liberty of shipping the copy of Song of the Seafolk along with this letter.

I humbly beg your forgiveness for the suffering this has caused, and I sincerely hope Wright and Co. will be able to serve you in any future literary needs.

Faithfully yours,

Benjamin Wright

III. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Mr. Wright:

I'm glad you couldn't see how red my face got when I received your response. It's one thing to send a letter when there's a miniscule chance of a reply, but getting a reply and knowing that a real, living person read your words is a very different (mortifying) thing. I would never have written that letter the way I did if I had fully comprehended that it was going to be read by a complete stranger.

My only consolation is that my letter wasn't half as strange as your reply. What do you mean, the books appear on the shelves and wander back? How on Earth did you send me a copy of my own book??

Because you're right--it's the exact copy I remember from my childhood. The same purple clothbound cover with the mermaid and lighthouse stamped into it. The same jelly stain inside the back cover. Page 54 has a torn corner, and the mermaid on page 126 has a unibrow penciled onto her face. Even if my grandmother hadn't written her name in the cover, I'd have known it for the same book. Yet she would never have donated--or even sold--Song of the Seafolk, even after I moved away. She loved it too much.

Yet somehow you sent it to me. I'm so grateful that I won't even accuse you of sending a ring of book thieves to raid my grandmother's shelves.

I read the book to my grandmother this weekend, and it was like the years fell away, and we were back in the warm glow of my childhood bedroom, completely at ease with the world. The pain medication leaves Grandma foggy sometimes, but there were several points when she smiled, closed her eyes, and recited the book along with me word for word. I'd try to repay you in some way for facilitating that, but some things are priceless.

However you got the book, it seems to prove you're able to achieve the impossible, and because of that, I'm going to bother you with another request. Grandma loves fantasy, but her true love is mystery novels. She has a whole bookshelf devoted to them, mostly Golden Age paperbacks--country house novels, a smattering of noir. I feel like there's so little joy in her life right now, but the one thing I could provide would be a new mystery. Yet, looking at her shelves, I suspect that she's read every book of this type that exists. So I'm going to ask you to live up to that Nonexistent in your name and find me a Golden-Age-esque mystery that no one--not even Grandma--has read yet. If you can achieve that, I would be grateful for whatever you can send me.

Yours with gratitude,

Christine Hendry

IV. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

I am afraid I can answer very few of your questions as to the workings of this shop, at least when it comes to our specialized stock. Among the shelves of Wright and Co., there will on occasion appear a book which no employee has ordered--books with unfamiliar titles by unfamiliar authors, which have the appearance of age and wear, but cannot be found in any other shop, and have no history of publication by any firm. Yet there is always a reader--sometimes several, if the shop staff takes to reading it--who finds that it perfectly satisfies their tastes and fills some unmet need, as if the book was dreamt up just for them. These books seem to come into existence just when needed, and sometimes wander away when they're not.

We have several theories about the origins of these books, very few of them sensible. Perhaps they come from other worlds, where history went just a bit differently from ours. Perhaps they are books that authors dreamed up but never wrote. Perhaps they are spontaneously created in response to a reader's desires. I have learned not to question it. I merely accept the books as a gift--and bestow them as gifts to those in need.

To that end, I have honored your request for a mystery. Though I've no doubt there are many more ordinary books that could fulfill your desire (any seller of used books could tell you that this genre is far more extensive than most individual readers suspect), there is a book that appeared on our shelves last autumn that I feel will exactly fit your grandmother's tastes. The Wings of Hermes by Elizabeth Tern casts Oxford don Joseph Quill in the role of amateur sleuth, as he is pulled into the intrigue surrounding a piece of ancient Greek statuary. Quill is a very literary detective, in the vein of Gamadge or Wimsey, though his story has a touch of noir and more than a tinge of melancholy. I feel the book will be satisfying to a woman who has been a patron of our shop, and I hope it will fulfill its intended role of aiding in her recovery.

Yours faithfully,

Benjamin Wright

V. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Darling Benjamin,

Do you think I'm stupid? Or are you just insane? Do you expect me to swallow all that rigamarole about magic teleporting books? If it's a joke, you tell it with an alarmingly straight face, and frankly, it seems in poor taste (and poor business practice) to dump it all onto unsuspecting customers. If you don't want to explain how you got my book, fine--I'm sure it's a boring story involving mistaken donations or something--but I wish you wouldn't insult my intelligence by making up some whimsical fairy tale.

But for all that, I can't fault your taste in books. The Wings of Hermes was stupidly good. Grandma LOVED it. I stayed up until nine at night reading it with her--which is practically the middle of the night by her standards--because she was so desperate to know the culprit. It's a cut above most of the books on her shelf, and it's taken a place of pride there.

You weren't kidding about the melancholy. Grandma didn't mind--she was too wrapped up in the mystery--but I'll admit it got a bit depressing for my taste in places. The world seems dark enough right now--Grandma's hip isn't healing as well as we'd like. I'm having trouble adjusting to the move, and balancing work with Grandma's care is getting a touch overwhelming. I don't need fictional darkness on top of that.

What I need is something to lift my spirits. I've searched Grandma's shelves, and though she has plenty of comedies, there's nothing that catches my attention for more than a few pages, or elicits more than a wan smile. I don't know if there's a book in the world that could cheer me at the moment, but if any shop could supply it, I suppose yours can. Do you have anything like that? If you could, please send it my way.

At least, if you're willing to send it to a sponge. It seems you forgot to bill me for my last book, so if I have to settle the debt first, please let me know the price and I'll pay up. But please spare me the fairy tales.

Yours in respect,

Christine Hendry

VI. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

Your skepticism about the origins of our shop's unique books is understandable. Yet I told you the honest truth in response to an honest question. Any of our shop's past or present employees, and many of our long-term customers, would be able to verify the truth of my account. I do not typically disclose the story to new patrons, but your long history with Song of the Seafolk led me to believe you were already among those who would value it, and perhaps the faceless nature of letter-writing prompted more than usual candor. I apologize for your confusion, but I do not retract so much as a syllable of what I've said. I have told you only the truth as I know it. You may believe or doubt as you desire, but I would ask that you fling no further insults toward my honesty or my sanity.

In light of the struggles weighing upon you, the staff of Wright and Co. have forgiven any insulting insinuations, and are only too glad to do what we can to ease your burden. We have honored your request for a comedy, and have sent you a slightly worn copy of Mercator Must Walk the Plank by E.G. Delaford. It is worn because it has been read so many times by the members of our staff. It has often been stored behind the counter for staff to read in slow moments, and many of the quotes have become bywords with our little band. We sometimes read it aloud at the Christmas party. Yet by mutual consent, we have agreed that it is exactly the book you need (working here gives one a sense for these things--another Wright and Co. oddity), and gladly send it to you. If we have need of it after you've finished, we trust it will find its way back.

The book appears to have been written in (some version of) the early 20th-century, about a gentleman who takes to high-seas adventure despite his complete lack of sailing knowledge--a Don Quixote of the sea--and the woman he rescues from a shipwreck who tries in vain to set them on a sensible course. The humor is absurd, the characters memorable, and the story--I have forgotten myself. It's best for you to discover these things for yourself.

I have enclosed an invoice detailing the price of The Wings of Hermes. The price is modest compared to the extreme rarity of the book, and you may pay it if you wish to own the book outright. However, Wright and Co. also maintains a sort of library system for those who understand the unique nature of these one-of-a-kind books. For a nominal fee that covers the cost of shipping, patrons may keep one book at a time in their homes, and send it back to Wright and Co. when they wish to request another. If you wish to experience the widest variety of our unique selection--and keep these books in circulation for other readers--I recommend enrollment in this system.

I will not send an invoice for Mercator Must Walk the Plank, because we could not sell that book at any price. You may keep it for as long as it is of use to you, without interfering with your ability to borrow other books per our normal system. We consider this loan not a business arrangement, but an act of charity in your time of need.

Yours faithfully,

Benjamin Wright

VII. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine,

I hope you don't mind that I slipped a note inside Mercator before Ben sent it off. We've never let the book outside the shop before, so I just had to say hello, and welcome you to our little band of Mercator fans (because I know you're going to love it). Please don't worry about sending it back too quickly. I must have half the book memorized, and I can always recite the silliest bits if Heinrich gets too grouchy.

I am so glad you're going to get to read this book, but I have to say that I'm surprised Ben agreed to it, because I could tell some of the things you said your last letter made him upset. These books mean a lot to him, and he doesn't talk about them to just anyone, so I don't think he liked being called a liar.

Not that I blame you! I'd have trouble believing the story, too, if I hadn't seen it myself. But I have! Hundreds of times! We'll be stocking the shelves or dusting, and all of a sudden we'll see a new book there--you usually just know there's something different about it. It'll have all the stuff that a normal book does--cover and endpages and copyright stuff and publisher names, and sometimes even those order forms to buy other books from the publisher. But they're all about companies that don't exist. Or by people we can't even find on the internet. There are too many books in too many styles for them to be the work of some prankster--especially since it's been happening for years and years and years.

And sometimes the books come back to us. I can count at least a dozen times that I've sold a book to someone, and then a year or two later I'll come across the very same copy on our shelves again. It's weird, but after you've worked here long enough, you get used to it, and you forget how strange it all is to people who don't know.

So anyway, I know you're going through a lot with your grandmother (I'm so sorry! I hope she's getting better!), and I'm sure you must be a really lovely person if you loved Song of the Seafolk so much (I hope you don't mind that I read it before Ben sent it back. Delightful book!) which is why I don't mind at all sending Mercator to you, even if you think we're all crazy. But we're not, really. And I hope we can be friends.

Lots of love,

Penelope Brams

(You can call me Penny!)

VIII. Heinrich Gross to Christine Hendry

Madam,

You have the only existing copy of Mercator Must Walk the Plank. I must ask you to use caution when handling it. It is beloved by many in the shop. Please do not consume food or drink while reading it. Do not dog-ear any more pages. Please be gentle when turning the pages that are coming loose.

This book is a gift we do not give lightly. Do not abuse our kindness.

Respectfully,

Heinrich Gross

IX. Christine Hendry to the staff of Wright and Co.

Everyone,

I'm overwhelmed. I had no idea this book--or the story behind it--meant so much to all of you. I feel like I've been sent a priceless family heirloom--and you know me from only three letters! I don't know what I've done to deserve so much trust, but I will care for this book as though it were a priceless work of art (which, from the sound of it, it basically is).

In the name of honesty, I have to say that I don't believe the story of your shop. Frankly, it all sounds like nonsense. But as I'm reading Mercator (we're on Chapter Nine!), I'm beginning to see more than a little bit of Katherina in my objections. Maybe you're all mad, maybe you're mistaken, but I'm not sure it matters much. There are worse things in life than a little nonsense. Especially when you're all so very kind.

I hope all of you (especially Ben) can forgive me for the snide remarks in my last letter. Grandma and I thank you for all the books--wherever they came from--and would be honored to consider you friends.

Yours,

Christine Hendry

P.S. How do I get enrolled in that lending program? I've sent back The Wings of Hermes.

X. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine,

Have you finished the book yet? What do you think?

When you're done with Mercator, I have so so so many books I want you to read. I'm making a list. I know you probably don't have as much time to read as we do here, but I'd hate to think of you missing out on any of my favorites.

I don't want to rush you, but I've never talked to anyone outside of Wright's who had the faintest idea what I was talking about when we referenced Mercator. I've enjoyed having it as our inside joke, but it's even better to have more people in on it.

Write back soon!

Penny

XI. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Penny,

Grandma and I finished Mercator Must Walk the Plank last night--and started it again this morning. I can see why you all love it so much. What a wonderfully absurd book. Exactly the type of comedy I was looking for. Your instincts were correct: it was just what we both needed to cheer us up. It's removed enough from our world both in time and plausibility to take our minds away from ordinary things, and there's nothing mean-spirited about any of the humor. So many good characters among that crew. And the plot! High comedy! It's been almost a week since I read Chapter 14, and I'm still giggling over the fishing scene.

I would be overjoyed to read anything else you might recommend. If any of them are half as good as Mercator, they're sure to become my favorites, too.

Yours,

Christine Hendry

P.S. Grandma's hip is doing much better. Still a long road to recovery, but maybe the reread will help. Laughter being the best medicine and all.

XII. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

I've enclosed the forms for enrollment in Wright and Co.'s specialized lending program. If you will fill in the required information (though we obviously already have your address) and submit the proper payment, we will be able to begin sending books. The catalogue is yours to keep. I'm afraid the selection is rather outdated, and the summaries less than ideal at conveying the merits of each book. It was assembled by my predecessor, and I'm afraid that my uncle's genius for books did not translate to marketing skill. Amid the cares of business, I have not found the time to put together a modernized version, especially as I find that bespoke recommendations from our staff are far more likely to result in successful pairings of book and reader.

You will note there is a section on the third page where you can request a book. If I can offer a recommendation, I believe that the Alfred Quicke mystery series by Glorya M. Hayers, with its blend of comedy and mystery, would perfectly fit the tastes of your household. The mysteries solved by idle-rich amateur detective Alfred Quicke are always intriguing, but the cast of comedic types--and the farcical situations that arise in the course of the investigation--keep the stories lighthearted. The best way I can describe it is as if Wodehouse wrote a mystery series. The setting is much like that of his most famous stories, though with curious details that suggest it is set in an intriguing alternate world. With seventeen books in the series, you would find enough material to keep your grandmother in mysteries for a long time--though I suggest starting with the fourth book, The Counterfeit Candlestick, as the point where the series finds its voice.

I appreciate the handsome apology in your last letter and accept it wholeheartedly. However, I admit I had hoped for more than agnosticism toward our story. Despite your assertions, the truth does matter, whether we can discover it or not. Though the strange behavior of these books is outside our usual experience, it does not mean it is impossible (you will find a similar truth expressed by most of the great fictional detectives), and I had hoped your respect for us would open you to the possibility that there is more to this world than what we can understand. Perhaps it was too much to expect under the circumstances. But I hope we have garnered enough goodwill that you will not take offense at this expression of my honest opinion. If you do, I apologize, and will attempt to keep future letters focused purely on business.

Respectfully yours,

Benjamin Wright

XIII. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Mr. Wright,

I respect your opinion, though naturally I don't agree. I don't doubt you're sincere in believing what you do, but I can think of a dozen more mundane explanations of how these books mysteriously appear and disappear on your shelves (most of them involving poor record-keeping and less-than-stellar search engine skills). I suggest we drop the subject in the future, as neither of us is likely to convince the other, and my lack of belief about the mystical origin of these books doesn't keep me from fully enjoying the experience of reading them.

I hope you won't think it rude that I filled out your forms twice. Grandma and I do count as separate households, and if I'm going to keep Grandma in mysteries and experience some of the other books, I'm going to need two separate streams of supply. For now, though, I think books 3 and 4 of Alfred Quicke will suit our needs nicely.

Many thanks,

Christine Hendry

XIV. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine!!!

I'm so so glad you loved Mercator! I just knew you would, but it's always a little bit horrible when someone else reads one of your favorite books, because if they hate it, it crushes a piece of your heart, and I don't have that many pieces to spare.

But when they love it! Oh! I can love a book twice as much when I know someone else who loves it! I wouldn't think it was possible I could love Mercator more, but thinking of you and your Grandma laughing over it in her sickbed makes me so--this is going to sound strange, but I'm proud of it. As if we sent out a friend to do a good work, and he succeeded in working miracles. I hope you read it as many times as you want. Trust me, it gets better every time.

But I hope you'll find time to read some other books, too! I'm glad you got your own account along with your Grandma's. Alfred Quicke is lovely (I love his books almost as much as Mercator--please let me know what you think of Bright Folly when you read it), but one cannot live on mysteries alone. There are so many genres, so many moods, so many eras of literature to explore, and Wright's has wonderful examples of so many of them, so I'm so glad we'll get to send them to you.

I know Ben sent you that horrible little catalogue. Ignore it. It makes so many of the very best books sound so dull, and half my favorites aren't even in it. I can do a much better job of telling you what books to read. I've got pages and pages written up about the best ones, but I don't want to overwhelm you right away, so I'll just tell you about a few of the very best at a time. I've included a list of some of the ones I think you'll like best.

You can read what you like, of course, but I can't help thinking you should read The Autumn Queen's Promise by Rose Rennow just as soon as you possibly can. If you loved Song of the Seafolk, I'm sure you'll love this. It's another children's fantasy (a newer one--'90s, maybe?), with the same type of atmospheric historical setting, though this time, it's the most vivid autumnal woods you've ever read about in your life, which makes it perfect for this time of year.

The story's all about this fairy queen who stumbles into this little village in colonial America and can't get home. And she hates them all at first, of course--she's this horrible arrogant thing--but she comes to care for them and it's just lovely to read about. A little slow, but no slower than Seafolk. A nice, relaxing kind of slow. I'm sure you'll love it.

Whatever you pick next, I hope you'll keep me posted with reading updates. I so love talking with you about these books. It's so nice to have a pen pal!

Lots of love,

Penny

XV. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

Your account has been opened and the requested books have been shipped. We at Wright and Co. are pleased to count you as one of our trusted patrons.

I am afraid I will find it difficult to honor your request to drop the subject of the origin of our specialized books. Perhaps it is a fault, but I have never been able to bring myself to "agree to disagree". It has always seemed to me the coward's way out of engaging with the search for truth. However, you are correct that endlessly rehashing the subject is unlikely to assist either of us in continuing that search, so I will refrain from mentioning it unless there is further evidence to discuss. If you would be so kind as to patronize our shop in person, I would be happy to offer you further proof of the phenomena that I describe, but further discussion via these letters is likely to remain futile.

Faithfully yours,

Benjamin Wright

XVI. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Mr. Wright:

My offer to "agree to disagree" was a courtesy to you. I'm sure you don't want to lose a customer over the issue, so I was giving you the chance to let it slide so it wouldn't interfere with our working relationship. You think that makes me a coward? How can you say I'm "refusing to engage with the search for truth" when you've admitted that you don't know what the truth is? You said yourself (I still have those first letters) that you don't know where the books come from. Just because you can find no record of them doesn't mean they just appeared out of thin air. And these supposed "returns" of books could come from donations or poor record-keeping. You say you have evidence, but from my point-of-view, you could just be a quirky small press that prints old-fashioned books and tells whimsical stories to draw in customers. With all the stress surrounding Grandma's health, there's no way on Earth that I could make a cross-state trip to see your supposed "proof" for myself.

Frankly, if it weren't for Grandma, I'd consider canceling my accounts with you. But she's been tearing through Alfred Quicke so fast and enjoying it so much that I don't dare to cut off her source of supply. And the books you've sent are wonderful--you've been so kind about Mercator, and you gave me back Song of the Seafolk, and The Autumn Queen's Promise is turning into a lovely story I wouldn't have been able to find anywhere else.

I can't wrap my head around you people. Every time I give you the chance to back away from this weird story, you double down, and frankly, it's freaking me out. Penny's so bubbly that it's easy to see how she could get caught up in it, but you write with such a serious professional voice, and you seem (in your bland professional way) personally offended at my refusal to just go along with your story of mysterious magical books. Why does this matter so much to you? Why can't the books just be wonderful, obscure stories instead of mystical teleporting tomes that respond to feelings or whatever? I can't understand you.

Maybe you'll burn this letter and cancel my accounts, but if you dare to engage, I would like to know what you have to say for yourself.

Yours,

Christine Hendry

XVII. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine,

What did you say to Ben? He's usually so nice and sensible and kind and ordinary--really a great boss--but every once in a while, he broods. And he's been brooding ever since he got your last letter. It's like he's walking around with this big old cloud over his head. He keeps wandering the shelves and then going into his office and glaring at his computer and staring at the wall.

It's got me worried. Is your Grandma okay? I guess he'd tell me if she wasn't. Or you would. I hope.

Are you dying? Maybe that would explain why you haven't written in so long.

Please don't die on me. I couldn't bear it.

Write back soon.

Penny

XVIII. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Dear Penny,

No one's dying. Grandma gets more mobile every day, and I'm in as good of health as you can have when you're running mostly on caffeine and a couple of hours of sleep a night. I've just been so busy between work and Grandma's care and insurance (so many stupid phone calls) and trying to figure out our finances, and trying to find senior housing for Grandma (her house has way too many stairs), that I barely have time to eat, much less write you back. I'm sorry if I worried you.

As for Ben, well, long story short, I majorly overreacted to some minor thing he said, and wrote a sleep-deprived response that I never should have sent. I really don't want to get into it with you, because you'd probably side with him, and I'd like to keep our friendship intact, at least.

I did manage to read The Autumn Queen's Promise a few pages at a time, and it was just as lovely as you promised it would be. Exquisite fall reading. I almost hate to send it back--that lovely cover alone, with its painting of that beautiful queen in that autumnal woods, added so much atmosphere to the house just by being here. It'll never replace Song of the Seafolk in my heart, but it came closer than almost any other book to recapturing what it felt like to experience it for the first time. I send it back with warm thanks for the recommendation.

I'm also sending back your beloved copy of Mercator Must Walk the Plank. I've held onto it far longer than I deserved to. You were so gracious to send it to me, and I can't take advantage of your kindness. (You can tell Heinrich that I haven't added a single scuff to the cover).

Since Ben seems to be in no mood for letters from me, can I send my book requests through you? Grandma would like Books 8 and 9 of Alfred Quicke (she can use my account for the second, because I don't have much time for reading at the moment.)

Thank you,

Christine

XIX. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Miss Hendry:

You say that you find us at Wright and Co. difficult to understand, but I find you equally baffling. In a single letter, you will thank us profusely for our friendship and the books we provide, while at the same time attacking that very thing which we hold most dear. In expressing my difficulty with the phrase "agree to disagree", I was not attacking your morals. You will note I was more than willing to honor your request to drop the subject. Yet in misconstruing my words, you have sounded the horn of war, and honor and duty--and, to be honest, personal inclination--demand that I engage.

You ask me why these books--and the phenomena surrounding their existence--matter so much to me. I can answer only by biography. Wright and Co. is a small, cluttered, dim, obscure shop--you could find a thousand used book stores like it anywhere in the world--but from a young age (the shop was owned by my uncle then) it seemed a place of unique enchantment. I would spend summer days racing among the stacks and losing myself in books. I grew more jaded and cynical as I aged--most teenagers do--but whenever I was in danger of becoming a disaffected youth, there was something about the shop that made me feel there was something more than the meaninglessness of everyday life.

Learning about the miracle of the books felt like getting the answer to a question I hadn't realized I was asking. Here was proof there was something beyond the mundane and predictable. Something too wonderful for the human mind to understand. Some wondrous power cared enough about the patrons of this shop to help them get the right story in their hands at the right time--even if that story had never been written. Other books have authors and publishers, but these books seemed like a gift from the author of imagination itself.

When I took over the shop, I became a steward of that gift. Caring for these books and matching them with readers makes the running of this shop, not just a banal business arrangement, but a calling. Stories have the power to shape our imagination, our outlook, our relationships with others--and these stories, coming as they do unwritten, unbought and unlooked for, seem to have more power than most. Caring for that power is a great responsibility, one that I take very seriously. I have seen its good effect again and again. You cannot deny you have experienced it yourself.

You are correct when you say that I do not know the exact origin of these books. But I am not intellectually lazy just because I am content with no answer. Making peace with mystery--knowing that some things are ever unknowable--is not the same as refusing to believe the truth that comes before your eyes.

You have closed yourself to even the possibility of an explanation that goes beyond the reality you can comprehend. I have spoken of evidence that proves there is no rational explanation for these books, and you call me an unreliable witness. You have seen hints of the wondrous that you dismissed out of hand. I understand that you do not have the same evidence that I have, and I have not been as gracious as I should have been in making allowance for that. But saying that my refusal to seek an exact explanation makes me intellectually lazy is inaccurate in the extreme.

I may not know how these books come into my shop, but I know from whom. I may not know the exact mechanisms of the miracle, but I firmly believe there is an author of all that has allowed my shop to be a source of minor--and yes, rather whimsical--wonders. I need not know more than that to do my duty well.

Perhaps that explanation will help you to understand my position. More likely you will think me crazier than ever. But since I have explained my inner self, perhaps I have some right to ask for an explanation in return.

Ever since your response to that first letter, when I hinted at the miracle surrounding these books, I detected not only disbelief from you, but disdain. I was troubled to see such disgust toward the concept, especially from one who has proven herself an enthusiastic fan of fantasy. Why do you seek wonders in your stories, but resist it so fiercely in your own existence? Would it be so terrible for these books to have a supernatural origin? Is there not some appeal in letting the wondrous into your life?

You need not respond to such prying questions if it makes you uncomfortable. But I ask that at least, if you do respond, that you deal gently with one who has made his inner self so vulnerable to your scrutiny.

Yours faithfully,

Benjamin Wright

XX. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Ben,

Wow.

When I asked for an explanation, I didn't expect that.

I don't know how I can possibly respond.

I definitely understand why it matters so much to you, but somehow, this conversation has shifted from magic to theology, and I'm even less equipped to engage in a conversation about that. Not to get into too much detail, but that's part of the reason I haven't seen my grandmother in so many years. Grandma's comfortable with that stuff. I prefer my fantasy to remain safely in stories.

If what you say is true, if there's some grand wonderful power--call it magic, call it God--that does things we can't understand, then we're completely powerless against it. Which is fine if the power is good, but if the good things are real, then the bad things can be, too. There are too many ordinary problems for me to want to live in a world where there's some grand plan I can mess up by doing the wrong thing, and greater powers are waging in a war for my soul.

Fantasy is great. I love stories of mermaids and magic and the wonders of life. But it's not reality. I learned that young, and every year I live only proves it more. I'm content to live in the ordinary world with its ordinary problems, and get my escape through literature--where none of the monsters on the page can hurt me.

I'm glad--I really, truly am--that you've been able to make yourself believe in some grander purpose behind these silly little stories we've been reading. But I can't believe in that. I've seen no proof to make me believe it. Maybe you have, but most people can barely trust their own eyes, so how can I trust yours? It's not that I think you're crazy or stupid. Your personality and experiences make you want to believe. Mine make me happy to doubt. It's nobody's fault, and neither of us can change it, and it's fine. I'll stop calling you a crackpot if you stop calling me a coward, and we'll leave it at that.

Wherever the books come from, we all agree that they're wonderful, and if you don't mind dealing with a dirty nonbeliever, I'd be honored if you'd let me continue doing business with you.

Yours,

Christine Hendry

XXI. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine,

Where is Mercator? We got your letter, and The Autumn Queen's Promise, and your most recent Alfred Quicke, but no sign is there of Mercator Must Walk the Plank.

Oh! Oh no! What if it got lost in the mail? Could we survive such a tragedy? Silly old John Quackenbush and fiery Katherina, and grumpy little Pegs and that whole lovable crew--gone forever! If the U.S. Postal Service is responsible for their destruction, I'll...we'll...we'll make them pay! This is a murder and there must be justice!

Don't worry, I don't blame you. But the next mailman to cross my path better watch out. We'll find that book if we have to tear through every mail box and bag and truck in the country!

I'll keep you posted about the search if I can find the time to write.

Frantically,

Penny

XXII. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Dear Penny,

I'm so extremely sorry. When I sent you that last letter, I truly thought I had packaged and mailed Mercator Must Walk the Plank, but after receiving your reply, I discovered that the book was still on its usual shelf in my grandmother's house. I've been so sleep-deprived lately that I overlook things, but I didn't think I could possibly have overlooked something that.

Don't worry. I'll be sending it out as soon as I get another box to ship it in. And this time, I'll make 100% sure it's inside before I ship it.

Please forgive me.

Christine

XXIII. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Dear Christine,

You've asked me not to call you a coward, but your wording leaves me almost no choice. Denying yourself the good and wondrous out of fear of evil and danger is the definition of cowardice. Staying within the narrow world of rationality makes for a bleak and colorless life--and you're none the safer for your denial. Good and evil exist whether you acknowledge them or not. Closing your eyes to them only makes you vulnerable to ambush should they come upon you unaware.

Can you not open yourself to the possibility that the good can overcome the evil? That it can offer strength to face the dangers? Great stories can do that by showing us how to act in such situations, to give us examples of victory over darkness, to open our minds to possibilities that we might not accept in our ordinary lives. You've experienced such stories. Is it so strange to think they might reflect the reality we live in? Is it so strange to think there might be some greater power offering us those stories to sustain us?

To you, I'm sure it seems impossible. But you know there are those who think otherwise. I only ask you to consider the implications of the choice.

Respectfully yours,

Ben

XXIV. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Ben,

I don't think you can call my position a choice. You're acting like I'm picking between favorite foods or something--picking one position because I don't like the other one. But as far as I can tell, my position is the only choice. I have no reason to believe any other option exists.

It would be wonderful if I could believe the way you do. It seems to have brought you a lot of peace. But I'm not built that way and I'll just have to struggle along. Your concern is touching, but I've been doing just fine so far.

If I ever see proof, I'd have reason to reconsider, but as it is, I have enough trouble in the world I can see to worry too much about one that I can't.

Respectfully,

Christine

XXV. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine,

Still no sign of Mercator. Did you forget to send it again, or do I have to lay siege to the post office?

Penny

P.S. Have you been reading any more of the books?

XXVI. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Penny,

I have tried to send off that package no fewer than three times, and every time the book somehow makes its way back to my shelf. Maybe I'm just so used to seeing it there that I keep putting it back. I am so sorry for the delay.

It makes me feel guilty that I'm still profiting by reading your other books. Now that winter is upon us, Grandma and I have started reading aloud from the longest of your fantasy suggestions--The Queens of Wintermoon. You're right that it's an odd book--Russian-flavored science fantasy, with all those complicated family ties and political intrigues--but it's just what we need right now. Grandma is unfortunately dealing with a bout of pneumonia at the moment, which means I'm spending a lot of time at the hospital, but a big, thick, lush and lyrical literary book with a huge cast of vividly-drawn characters is just what we need to take us away from the sterile white walls and the scent of disinfectant.

It's great to sink into that snowy world with its royal glamour and underground orchards and mystical machines. Grandma and I spend ages talking about the four sisters and their royal husbands--all their flaws and heartaches and complicated relationships. I'm most attached to Vitalia and her political intrigue plot, while Grandma most loves the storyline of Inessa and her mysterious woodcutter husband. I have my suspicions about both their secrets, but I'm more than willing to wait the 800-or-so pages they'll need to resolve everything. It's nice to have something to take my mind off of other worries.

But I will keep worrying about Mercator. I promise somehow or another, it will make its way back to you.

Yours,

Christine

XXVII. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Penny,

I don't understand it. This is the fifth time I've tried to send Mercator Must Walk the Plank back to you. This time I waited until I'd had a decent night of sleep so my mind was clear. I put it in the packaging (extra padding). I took a picture of it inside the box. I took a picture of the sealed and addressed box. I took a picture of the box when I took it to the post office and left it at the counter. And then I returned home to find the book sitting on the same shelf where I'd put it this morning.

Are the darn things breeding? Did you send me extra copies? There is no other explanation for what happened.

It's got my head spinning, and until I've got it figured out, unfortunately Mercator is going to stay right where it is.

Sorry!

Christine

XXVIII. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Christine,

Penny has made me aware of your difficulties with Mercator Must Walk the Plank. It's clear to me (as I'm sure it will be to you) what has happened. If you wished for proof, you now have it. The Powers-That-Be have determined that you have more need of the book than we do.

Please don't distress yourself by (or waste postage upon) any further attempts to send the book back. We have plenty of other books to read, and if we ever have need of Mercator, I trust that the same powers will ensure it makes its way back to us.

Yours,

Ben

XXIX. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Ben,

It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep. I'm trying not to think of that book and I can't. It just doesn't make sense.

This can't be happening. But it is. And if this part of your story is true, then that means the other part of the story is true, which means your theories

This doesn't mean you've won. I'm sure there's some rational explanation that I've overlooked. I shouldn't even write to you because you'll just try to convince me that this is proof we live in a world of angels and fairies who bother themselves about the books we read. But it's not like there's anyone else I can talk to about this.

If you have nothing to say but, "I told you so," don't bother writing back at all. But if you've anything useful to say I'm all ears (or eyes, I guess--weird that I've never actually spoken to you. I don't even know what you look like. How old are you?)

I should sleep. But I'm going to go off and mail this letter like a moron because it's the closest I can come to a conversation.

Good night.

Christine

XXX. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Christine,

This is me not saying I told you so.

That doesn't leave me much else to say.

I'm 39.

Picture the word "man" in the dictionary. Imagine there's an illustration there. That's pretty close to what I look like.

If you want to hear my voice, you'll have to come to the shop and talk to me in person. Or I suppose we could call each other. We do live in the 21st century. But I admit I've enjoyed this 19th-century correspondence we've been keeping up.

I wish I had something more useful to say, but I doubt I can say any of it in a way you want to hear.

I hope you've been sleeping better.

Ben

XXXI. Penelope Brams to Christine Hendry

Christine

CHRISTINE!!

I know you didn't order another book, but I was wandering through the shelves the other day when this book just about jumped out at me. It's like it had your name written in it. Like how your grandmother wrote in Song of the Seafolk.

Your name's not in it. I checked. But something about it still made it seem like yours. Like we were keeping it from you. Ben agreed (he's got a good sense for these things), so I started preparing the box to ship it. But I read a bit of the first chapter before I packaged the book, just to get an idea of what I was sending you. I didn't move from that spot until I'd read the whole thing. Ben just about locked me in the shop before he found me sitting in a daze in the back room.

Christine, you have to read this book. Now. It's the most beautiful...well, not fantasy. But it's not not fantasy. It's so real and yet so magical and you could maybe read it both ways. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished it.

But what's the book? If you've opened the package by now, I'm sure you know it's called Cardinal's Map by someone named Dorothy Cannes. It's from the eighties, it looks like, but it feels older. And newer. Does that make it timeless? I suppose all of the books in our "special" selection feel that way. Anyway, it's about this girl named Miranda, and she's this terrible grouch, and she goes to work for this old guy named Cardinal (that's where the title comes from) who needs help writing his book. And he's got the most beautiful map of all the countries in world of his fantasy book. Except the countries might be real? And just....ack, I don't have words! The book has a lot of them. Read those instead.

And then write to me because I need to know what you think about the ending!!

Lots of love,

Penny

XXXII. Christine Hendry to Penelope Brams

Penny,

You were right.

Thank you.

Christine

XXXIII. Christine Hendry to Benjamin Wright

Ben,

It's been three hours since I finished Cardinal's Map, and I haven't moved from my chair. Everything you said about the power of story is true. It's like this book reached into my soul and rearranged the furniture. Cleared out the clutter. And it did it by sweeping me along with the characters and the story and the beautiful prose so I didn't even know what was happening until it was already done.

Everything we've been fighting about for the last few weeks was in this book. It talked about all the things you were trying to tell me, but instead of just telling me, it showed me and made me think and feel and helped me make sense of it all. And I never felt like it was preaching. I'm not even sure it was trying to preach. It's just...a story, so I let my guard down and it got under my skin. Just like Cardinal's map got to Miranda.

I don't know if you've read the book or not, but the premise is that John Cardinal is writing this extensive fantasy work and Miranda's this jaded college kid hired as a secretary to help him arrange all his notes. And she's fascinated by the fictional map and gets swept up in the book, until she realizes that Cardinal is telling the story of his life. That this character who traveled to this other fantasy world is supposed to be him. And she's got to figure out if he's using this as a metaphor, or if he's crazy, or if this other world really is a real place.

And by the end of the book, we don't know. You could read it both ways--the world in the map is either a metaphor or a real country that he’s been to. But it doesn't really matter which one is true, because the bigger truth is that Miranda knows there's something beyond the rational world that we can see. And it's not terrifying. It's wonderful. It's not this place full of monsters waiting to pounce--it's this exciting, dangerous, beautiful place to explore.

If Penny wants to know what I think of the ending, I believe that Cardinal's world is real. And I believe your story is true. I've seen evidence. That terrified me, because that means the world no longer makes sense. But the truth doesn't have to be a terrifying destruction of the reality I know; it can be an expansion of it. I don't understand why any of this happens, or how, but maybe I don't have to know how. I just need to be thankful that it did.

You said that Mercator stayed with me because I needed it more than you guys did. Maybe what I needed was evidence of the miracles you told me about. Then I wondered why Song of the Seafolk wandered away, because I very much needed it here when it was at your shop. But maybe what I needed was to write to you. The correspondence we've shared, the books you've sent me, they've strengthened me through a lot of difficult weeks. They've given me and Grandma a lot of joy, brought us back together after so many year's apart. And they've helped me straighten out a lot of questions I didn't know I was wrestling with.

There was someone's hand in all this--an author arranging all the pieces of the story in a way I'd never have been able to achieve on my own. Maybe before that'd make me feel helpless, but now, I don’t know, I guess I feel cared for. Like someone’s watching out for me.

I feel like I should thank you, and I don't know how. This is too deep for words. Thank you for writing, even when I was horrible to you. Thank you for the books. Thanks for being a part of my story.

Grandma's doing better now. If she's up for it, I think it's time for a road trip.

If you're ever going to see Mercator or Cardinal's Map again, I might have to hand them to you in person.

Love to all of you,

Christine Hendry

XXXIV. Benjamin Wright to Christine Hendry

Christine,

You may not believe me, but I did not read Cardinal's Map before sending it to you. I simply had the notion that it would be the ideal book for your circumstances--and I was as surprised as you were to find just how true that was. Another gift, I suppose.

I look forward to reading it, if you can ever spare it (I look upon the book as belonging to you now). I also greatly anticipate the opportunity to see and speak to you here in the shop. I hope you will not wait long to make good on your promise.

Yours faithfully,

Ben

XXXV. Christine Hendry to the staff at Wright and Co.

Everyone,

I can't say how wonderful it was to see you all in person. You all looked just like I pictured you. Your shop is too wonderful for words. I could have moved in. But alas, Grandma and I don't have the resources for a move right now.

We'll have to continue the friendship long-distance. Now that I have the shop's phone number (funny I never thought to request it before), and your personal numbers, I suppose we can call whenever we like. But if you don't mind, I'm going to keep corresponding by letter, too.

Love to you all,

Christine

[stychu-stych]

Hi, sorry if this is weird but I'm saw in your bio that your a tattoo artist but I found your account theough some cult of the lamb art (it looks cool af) and I've been planning to do illustration and animation at unj but I've also been considering a tattoo artist apprenticeship after i finish that msybe? could you possibly tell me what irs like as an apprentice and if you think I could do my courses at uni and then do an apprenticeship after? I've really been struggling considering my choices and if you had any advice or information about being a tattoo artist weather its on an apprenticeship or actually as a career I would really appreciate it if you had any information for me! I'm so sorry if this is weird and of course you dont have to tell me anything if you don't want to or am uncomfortable too but I'm really curious and with no other sources 😭 (also finding your account may just be like my idol and inspiration while I struggle through school and what I do in the future 😭❤️)

That took me a while to answer because I never feel experienced enough to advise people 😭 Or maybe I should say - I don't feel in a position to advise because, as I once said, I'm mostly a self-taught working at home studio (now almost in my own art workshop with my fiancée) and I don't have much experience working in typical tattoo studio and with other tattoo artists. But I'll try my best ✨

There're many differences between apprenticeship in different countries (and tattooing in general) for example - Poland has one of the lowest price list in Europe but still a lot of people can't afford tattoos. Or that in UK being a tattoo apprentice is a long process. I know for sure that a lot of tattoo artists I know struggle with number of clients compared to previous years. And it won't change for a long time for sure because of inflation. So if you want to start tattooing you need to know that you won't earn much money for a year at least (as I said- it might looks different in another countries)

Also as a tattoo artist (even as a apprentice) you still need to take care of your social media which sometimes can be exhausting and depressing. And I'm telling all of this because I know that you probably won't find this kind of information on other tattoo artists' profiles (unfortunately strategy "look how my life is perfect" works for social media and for getting clients)

But on the brighter side - being a tattoo apprentice isn't something you have to dedicate your whole life to it. Lot of people I know have a second job to be financially stable. I myself don't live only from tattooing - I also help my fiancée with our online store (with our fanmerch and original artworks) and go on conventions with our booth. So you always can do multiple things at once and if you'll decide that tattooing isn't for you - nothing is lost!

The best way to know more about tattoo apprenticeship in your area is to check some groups - for example on facebook- dedicated to learning tattooing

I know that this post is sooo long but believe me, I barely touched the topic. I could write an entire essay about that topic djdbdjdh

Have some wolf lady because I like adding pics to posts sjdbsjsb

[lover-of-mine]

#anyone want to hear my season 7 buddie spec that has no basis besides the voices in my head? sdoaksoaksokasokasoak yes ! me i always like to read your metas and what you have in mind

thank you for the support oaksoaksoaks

okay, I'm gonna start this off by saying this whole thing hinges on whether or not the show is gonna keep mirroring Buck and Eddie's personal journeys and this is mostly about Buck, I have no idea what they're gonna do with Eddie lol. First of all, @aziraaphales made this set back when the finale aired about the similarities between Buck and Taylor and Buck and Natalia and that illustrates it beautifully, the whole she came back, they seem happy, are they really? and that's a point against Natalia lasting in my opinion. But the thing is, I think Bucktalia also mirrors Eddiana, and that's when things start to get interesting in my brand of insanity. You have Buck treating Natalia's hand, you have Eddie treating Ana's, Ana and Natalia being reduced to their jobs, the first date in broad daylight in a cafe of some sort, a second date at home being interrupted by the rest of their lives (if you push a bit and think about Kameron's pregnancy, both dates are interrupted by their children even if the baby isn't Buck's on the ways that matter), you have the picture-perfect ending at home after a near-death experience, so the parallels are there too. And that means one important parallel, Buck holding on for the wrong reasons the same way Eddie did, which could doom that relationship further, but also leave Buck spiraling. Because if we're comparing personal journeys, Buck is in a state that's a mix of season 4 Eddie trying to be happy through the trauma and outside looking in/fear-o-fobia Eddie. I think we can even directly parallel some stuff, like, I truly believe the cemetery is the way Buck would handle the outside looking in kitchen talk if that went the other way around.

But the thing is, Buck needs to deal with the shit that happened to him before getting together with Eddie so I'm choosing to look at these as fuel for my Buck Breakdown beliefs. Unlike Eddie, Buck actually died, so that changes the dynamic a little bit, there's also the way that Buck doesn't care about his own life enough to break over dying, but while Eddie's PTSD has many triggers, the thing that actually breaks him is the knowledge that he didn't save the people he thought he saved. So my grand theory here is something happening to Maddie, Bobby, or Christopher that makes Buck lose it. I don't really think they would do something to Chris, but using him would have a similar effect if it wasn't for the fact that it would also break Eddie. Eddie himself doesn't count in this situation unless is both Eddie and Chris, because Buck would be forced to keep it together if something happened to Eddie for Chris' sake. Or maybe if they like, killed off the Buckley parents and forced Buck to deal with that grief. But Maddie or Bobby, dangerous situation, close call, hospital stay, honestly, something that would leave them in enough danger to trigger Buck, low-key don't think you need much to trigger that man. But trigger, Buck losing it, Eddie talking Buck down (how would Eddie find out Buck is losing it? I don't know, plot convenience, I like the idea of divorced-era Buddie and Eddie storming the loft because he's tired of Buck's bullshit and finding him, or maybe someone from dispatch calls Eddie because there's been a call from Buck's address, I don't know, they can get creative there), Buck working towards working his own shit out. But we're in this weird season 4/season 5b mix, right? How do we end s4? Near-death experience that calls back to a previous trauma, big revelation, aborted love confession.

One thing I refuse to compromise on is the fact that Eddie had his oh! moment during the shooting (it's my truth I am not letting it go) so you can probably see where I'm going here, right? A Buck in a better mind space almost dying by chance, getting saved by Eddie, and realizing something. You see the vision? Current vision goes back and forth between equipment malfunctioning, Buck falling, and Eddie being the only one close enough to get to him, this usually goes around a cliff, a bridge, and Buck falling into water (I know the truck bombing is not technically equipment malfunction but equipment did try to kill him, and water is Buck's worst enemy lol), or Buck and Eddie stopping to help someone, and shit going to hell, this vision usually goes with Buck and Eddie seeing a car crash of some sort, again someone drove off a cliff or off a bridge, they go to help, Buck gets trapped in the car, Eddie needs to save him (trapped under a vehicle, water) or just straight up having them drive of a bridge. Because something really big about the shooting is the way that, one it happened by chance, two they weren't supposed to be there, three Buck didn't have anyone he trusted there so he did the saving alone, and four by having Eddie get shot, you're bringing up why he left the army. So with Buck, if they stick to this pattern, you need to drown him or trap him under something, or both. And you have the way the lightning parallels the well and the shooting, and the well triggered something for Eddie, you have the whole you need to keep fighting, find your own way out, the suffocation aspect for both of them when you realize Eddie is about to drown and Buck's lungs are not working, and also the way Buck is supposed to learn something during his coma that could lead to a conversation similar to the will reveal. This is when the vision gets cloudy. Because ideal world, the reveal is Buck's feelings and we don't have an aborted love confession, we have a plain old confession, but the aborted route is always a possibility with a see you in season 8 thing.

But yeah, Buck breakdown, Buck starting to deal with his shit, near-death experience, Eddie having to save him alone, tense conversation after. I'm also slightly obsessed with what could happen in a scene where Eddie is dragging Buck out of the water, cpr, mouth to mouth, "you're not doing this to me again", Buck coughing up water while sitting up, Eddie catching him, "I got you, I got you". The possibilities are ENDLESS. Just put Ryan's emotional power to work. All those fun things oskaoskaoskoaksas

Also, this mostly hinges on Buck doing something to change their relationship because considering Buck tripped into 4 relationships, he needs to start this one. I'm a firm Buck needs to do something first believer. Buck's endgame relationship needs to start with him making a move. Also, my whole Buck needs to choose thing is all about Shannon saying that Eddie keeps making all the choices, so Eddie needs to let go of control and Buck needs to go for what he wants.

[shadowredfeline]

Five in One Post

For my Filipino Friend's National Dog Day Drawing

Looks really cute of how Spot, Rita and Aace got to be with Dogday for National Dog Day. Even Rita is great is helping with dogs whenever they're in need.

And for my Filipino Friend's Sketch Comic

It has been a while since you've done a sketch drawing, and same goes for me, because right now, i'm doing some sketches and then finish them on my Cellphone or IPad by editing out by adding the line art and color at the same time, which i know that's what our A-Pal does. But when you made the comic, ever since our A-Pal did that pic with Unikitty back in 2018, i was wanting to another drawing where we had Nicole, Richard and Anais get attack by the Giant Chicken from Family Guy because otherwise the three should no better into falsely accusing their sons. But if Panini saw Anais badly hurt by the Giant Chicken, maybe she can fight the Giant Chicken as well. But normally Mung Daal and Truffles are the only two who can also fight the Giant Chicken. And it'll be something the Giant Chicken would do is take a break from fighting Peter Griffin and fight someone else for a change.

And two Reponses for both my A-Pal and my Filipino Friend.

First off, i sometimes do drawings when i was in school and i can sometimes draw at work during my break or lunch time. But even one day when i get a better job somewhere else, i'm sure i'll find a great one that is perfect for me on writing, illustrating or even do Coding and voice acting. And i can sometimes draw when i'm over at social club anytime i don't want to craft something, and i can sometimes craft on something that i would like or am interested in.

Second Response.

I have remember Pig, Goat, Banana, Cricket. I wasn't a fan of that show myself, but i remember Phantomstrider has talked about it in Worst Nickelodeon shows since on the cartoon was ugly and gross, and that show was also trying to redo the Ren and Stimpy Style of how more Gross and Intense it is. But i do love We Bare Bears since it's a really good show on Cartoon Network, plus i also remember that my Aunt also likes that show too. When she used to be alive, we do talk about it anytime i used to hangout with my Aunt. And also, i know Shadow will be extra careful when he tries to avoid stepping through the flesh and the goo.

And a Response to the three,

That sandwich does look really good to what our G-Pal got for his lunch. And when you mentioned "Shells" It sounds like you're thinking of Gas station and it also has a minimart. And i remember that Gas Station company ever since i was young "Shells" Because ever since the 90s, i always remember another Gas Station company called "Texaco" Which it's another Gas Station i remember since the 90s. And yeah i hope the Mochi taste really good. Since i never had one ever since my sister brought me home some Macaroons. Which are also pretty good, and i'm always about the sweet sugary taste which i'm sure our OCs would enjoy anytime they crave a sweet tooth. But i only went to a shop that sells Boba Tea, and i know my sister has tried Boba tea before.

[commentaryvorg]

The Great Ace Attorney Final Trial Commentary: Day 2, Part 2

This is an ongoing mini-commentary covering the final trial of The Great Ace Attorney (Resolve) in line-by-line detail. It’s written from a perspective of already knowing the full truth of things, so there will be spoilers for facts that only get revealed later on in the trial. This is not a commentary to read along with one’s first playthrough!

(The commentary will update on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Check this blog to find any other parts currently posted, and if it’s not yet finished, follow to catch future updates!)

Now that we’re below the readmore, I can add that this isn’t quite a commentary for everything going on in the final trial. It’s focused specifically on Kazuma and what’s going on in his head, only covering things which are relevant to him in some way (for the most part). I already had a lot to say about him in a big analysis post over on my main blog – but I have even more to say about him during the trial in even more detail, so here we are!

We left off after Gina had delivered her second testimony but before starting the cross-examination part of it.

--- Testimony 2 – [Cross-Examination] ---

If you want to see every possible bit of dialogue from this testimony, you need to press statement 5 first, because it gets replaced with something else once you press statements 1 through 4.

Van Zieks:  “Every single person killed by the Reaper was a criminal of the first order. Lowlifes like that have no compunction about robbing hundreds of others of their futures.” […] Van Zieks:  “Their ludicrous acquittals in court give them the freedom to make hundreds more suffer.” […] Kazuma:  “So what? You justified your actions because you were protecting innocent people’s futures?” Van Zieks:  “…I’m not suggesting that the Reaper’s methods are justified at all. But life isn’t black and white. That’s all I’m saying.”

Van Zieks speaks up to try and console Gina in some small way, with a lovely nuanced view of how what the Reaper does is understandable even though it’s still wrong. And Kazuma is having none of this nuanced view that implies maybe van Zieks (who is totally the Reaper, he’s clearly talking about himself, right) isn’t 100% a monster and his actions might be justified. There was nothing justified, no protecting innocent people involved in murdering his father, must be what Kazuma’s thinking.

It’s interesting how Kazuma’s even temporarily able to entertain this idea that the Reaper acts to protect innocent people, when, as will be illustrated extremely clearly in just a little bit, he’s convinced himself that there is no sense or rationality at all behind any of van Zieks’s (the Reaper’s) actions. Seems this is one of those things that he brushes aside almost immediately because it doesn’t fit his very firmly-held view of how van Zieks definitely is.

(I’m skipping over Gina’s parts in this because she’s not directly relevant to Kazuma, but it needs to be said: she deserves hugs, I love her.)

The recap dialogue as the testimony loops back to the beginning is also something that’s easy to miss out on.

Susato:  “…Did you notice how Kazuma-sama reacted to Lord van Zieks’s words?” Ryunosuke:  “When he called him an even more sinister Reaper, you mean?”

I like how Susato, probably the most emotionally intelligent person here, picked up on Kazuma’s reaction to being accused of corruption. She cares about how her friend/brother is feeling about all this!

Ryunosuke:  “Well, I’m sure Kazuma intends to eliminate any shred of doubt that the man is guilty. He’s looking for revenge against the person he considers to be his father’s killer, after all.”

In theory, Kazuma’s certainly intending to eliminate all shreds of doubt about van Zieks’s guilt. But in practice, he’s doing a terrible job of it, since he seems to genuinely believe that his ridiculously flawed argument here is going to do just that.

Van Zieks:  “The ‘Reaper’… is an organisation.” Kazuma:  “With you at its head?” Van Zieks:  “………”

I love how much van Zieks is just not having any of Kazuma’s nonsense. Just a pointed silence and then continuing on with what he was talking about, not even bothering to acknowledge Kazuma’s completely unfounded accusation.

Kazuma:  “As shown by the passport found in the victim’s metal trunk.” Ryunosuke:  “…!” […] Susato:  “Is something wrong, Mr Naruhodo? You seemed a little shocked by something a moment ago.” Ryunosuke:  “Oh… No, it’s… it’s alright.” (I’m overthinking this, aren’t I?)

Oh, Ryunosuke. He’s very much sharp and observant enough to notice when Kazuma’s being subtly suspicious, but he doesn’t want to suspect his friend of wrongdoing, so he pushes it out of his mind and tries not to think about it – even though that means running away from the truth! It seems like his go-to method of dealing with something painful – as we also see with his grief over Kazuma’s death – is largely to Not Think About It. I had a lot of fun playing with Ryunosuke’s mental avoidance of his nagging suspicions about Kazuma in my fic.

It's also interesting to think about why Kazuma made such a slip-up. He didn’t need to go and mention that the passport was found in the metal trunk! If he was focused on revealing as little as possible, you’d think he’d have avoided saying that. But perhaps, the knowledge that the passport was in the trunk and if Ryunosuke somehow got hold of the former then he must also have seen the latter, with all that entails, has been bothering Kazuma to the point that it slips out.

Ryunosuke:  “Ah! Then perhaps what it said on the passport document… ‘Permission for the applicant and one additional person to travel’. Could that additional person have been…?” Kazuma:  “Clearly the assassin, who was meant to take Seishiro Jigoku’s life.”

It’s remarkably bold of Kazuma to just offer that up, considering that he was said assassin! I suppose he’s calculated that simply suggesting this fact can’t reflect badly on him, since it’s easy enough to figure out – perhaps he even thinks that by volunteering this idea, it’ll subtly make everyone less inclined to think that he could ever be the assassin himself.

Ryunosuke:  “Gina! Can you confirm that?! Against the final entry that listed ‘Grouse’ and ‘Seishiro Jigoku’… what name was written?”

Ryunosuke seems particularly urgent about learning this, given that this is preceded by a frantic desk-slap as opposed to one of his more confident desk-slams. I wonder if some part of him is beginning to put two and two together about who this assassin might have been, given other facts he’s noticed, and he’s desperate for confirmation or denial.

Gina:  “It, it just ‘ad like a question mark or summat there, I think.” Stronghart:  “In other words, Gregson himself didn’t know the identity of the assassin in that case.” Van Zieks:  “But Gregson was the one making the plans, was he not?”

Presumably what this is implying is that Kazuma was officially designated as the assassin for this job before he regained his memories, and therefore when Gregson didn’t know what his name was, rather than that the assassin hadn’t been determined when he wrote that entry.

(Really, though, Stronghart, what the hell were you expecting to do if Kazuma didn’t regain his memories before the mission? Did you actually seriously think he’d just agree to kill a guy for you out of absolutely nowhere?)

Ryunosuke:  (A nameless assassin…?)

Since Ryunosuke lingers on this for a moment, I wonder if a part of him is thinking about a certain someone in this room who was apparently “nameless” until a not so long ago.

Ryunosuke:  “What do you mean, a criminal?! Judge Jigoku is no criminal!”

Oh, Ryunosuke, if only you knew. (And if only Kazuma knew.)

But in this case, they’re talking about his petty crime of breaking a witness stand and saying some rude things about the British Empire during Genshin’s trial – which I assume was in fact genuine! There’s no evidence that Jigoku was involved in the half of the plot that framed Genshin, only the later half about the prison escape.

Kazuma:  “And there you have it.” Van Zieks:  “Have what?” Kazuma:  “Surely the accused hasn’t forgotten his own rule? That there’s no saving anyone who faces the Reaper in court… guilty or innocent alike.”

Yes, Kazuma, that’s definitely van Zieks’s own rule, obviously. It couldn’t possibly be that the idea that anyone would decide to kill Jigoku over such a petty indictment is so irrational that it didn’t even cross his mind, because he’s not actually the Reaper.

Kazuma:  “But then – ten years later – the mark returns to Britain once more.” [he smirks] “Perhaps now you start to see… just how vindictive the Reaper is.”

Kazuma really is so heartbreakingly convinced that van Zieks is just that petty and vindictive.

(When really, the pettily vindictive one here is looking a lot more like you, Kazuma.)

Ryunosuke:  “Come on, that’s absurd! To take someone’s life for that?”

The whole time he’s been engaging with the concept of the Reaper, Ryunosuke has been perfectly aware that there’s a point to it, that the idea is to stop actual criminals from getting away with their crimes through corruption and going on to hurt more innocents. So of course this is absurd to him. Even the Reaper – whoever he actually is – wouldn’t wait ten whole years just to murder someone over something as petty and minuscule as this.

Kazuma:  “Isn’t the whole premise of the Reaper absurd, killing those who have been found innocent? Clearly the rules by which the man operates… are beyond a sane person’s comprehension!”

But to Kazuma, the Reaper is supposed to be absurd. He has never engaged in this concept while imagining that there must be an understandable motive behind it, because he first heard about it from the angle of “the Reaper is Barok van Zieks, the monster who murdered my father even though he was innocent”. So there doesn’t need to be any rationality behind it for him. Killing innocent people for no reason is just what van Zieks does, in Kazuma’s mind.

This is such a heartbreakingly telling line which made it so clear to me that Kazuma has to have hated van Zieks for the better part of those ten years, ever since he read the newspaper clipping that came with the letter. His hatred is too irrational to not have festered within him for all that time.

Ryunosuke:  “But…”

Ryunosuke is bewildered by this, clearly sensing something off here but unable to find the words to articulate just how irrational his friend is being.

Not that he’d get to say much even if he knew how to, because he’s promptly interrupted by Gina objecting.

Gina:  “All this nonsense about the boss plannin’ to kill people… It’s cobblers! Come on, ‘Oddo!” […] Gina:  “You’ve gotta find a flaw! You do usually! Someone’s lyin’ ‘ere, no question! You’ve gotta work out who it is!”

Gina’s desperately begging for Ryunosuke to figure out some way to prove that Gregson wasn’t really part of the Reaper. But unfortunately for Gina, he can’t do that, because… Gregson was, and that’s just the truth.

Gina:  “I’ve ‘ad it wiv the lot o’ ya! It’s lies every bleedin’ place ya look in this world, innit? Well I’ve ‘ad enough!” […] Ryunosuke:  “So have I. After that little speech of Gina’s, I’ve made up my mind.”

Yet it’s interesting how Gina’s outburst (and Stronghart’s callous cruelty in firing her from the police force in front of the whole courtroom) nonetheless sparks something in Ryunosuke and spurs him to finally face the truth he’s been running away from for most of this testimony. Even though said truth is absolutely nothing to do with what Gina was begging him to prove. (And it also doesn’t involve anybody lying, just a certain someone knowing more than he ought to.)

Ryunosuke:  (I’m not going to let Gina’s plea for help fall on deaf ears.)

…Except this really isn’t so much about helping Gina as it is Ryunosuke helping himself and facing up to the truth at last.

Ryunosuke:  “I want to thank you, Gina. You helped me find my resolve.”

The resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo to not run away from the truth! …Even if it means his best friend has been up to some very shady things.

Kazuma:  “What do you mean?”

I like that Kazuma responds to this, taking an interest in his friend suddenly being more resolved than before. He may or may not yet have any inkling that this involves Ryunosuke zeroing in on him.

Ryunosuke:  (I don’t quite know what it means yet, but…)

Don’t you, Ryunosuke? Even though you examined the trunk as well? I have a feeling he may still be lying to himself just a little about exactly how much he’s able to piece together right now regarding Kazuma’s actions.

If you present either Gina or van Zieks as the person who said something inconsistent, the game will entertain the idea and allow you to attempt to present evidence to prove how, since they are testifying right now and I suppose the game thinks a player might assume it was one of them. If you present anyone else other than Kazuma, the game just tells you that no, they aren’t testifying and so can’t have said something inconsistent – even if it’s Stronghart, who perfectly well has also been speaking enough to have potentially said something suspicious, just like Kazuma! Alas.

Ryunosuke:  “By you… Kazuma Asogi.” Kazuma:  “Me?” Stronghart:  “Is this some attempt at filibustering, Counsel? Prosecutor Asogi has given no testimony.” Kazuma:  “What are you suggesting I said that was inconsistent?”

I enjoy how Kazuma isn’t trying to use the technicality Stronghart brings up, that he hasn’t been officially “testifying”, to get out of this. He knows he’s been saying things and that his words deserve just as much scrutiny as anyone else in the courtroom, and he has confidence in his ability to have not let anything slip or said anything incorrect. He’s very aware of how good he is at hiding things without lying, after all!

Ryunosuke:  “Which means that nobody should have known anything about the trunk. Unless of course… we’re talking about somebody who was present when the victim was killed.”

Kazuma was not, in fact, present when Gregson was killed. But by saying this, you sure are making it sound like he must have been, Ryunosuke! Ouch.

(Which, of course, would mean a lot more if Kazuma was actually going to be arrest—)

Kazuma:  “………”

Props to Kazuma for being able to remain silent and unresponsive even as he is likely beginning to realise exactly how he messed up. Perhaps because he’s already planning to brush it off as proving nothing, as he goes on to try and do, since he could totally have guessed or assumed about the trunk without having been there, right.

Ryunosuke:  “Answer me honestly, Kazuma!”

Ugh, it stings that Ryunosuke makes a point to demand Kazuma to be honest with him. He’s realising now just how much Kazuma’s been hiding and being evasive about lately and he just wants his friend to tell him the truth already.

Ryunosuke:  “On 31st October… where exactly were you?!” Kazuma:  “……… At the Port of Dunkirk, on board the SS Grouse…” [he smirks] Kazuma:  “Is that the answer you’re looking for, Ryunosuke?”

And Kazuma responds in what has to be the most infuriating way, seeming for a moment like he’s giving a straight honest answer, and then immediately deflecting into a “well that’s hypothetically what you want me to say, isn’t it?” Goddammit Kazuma just talk to your friend and tell him the truth, you know he’s going to drag it out of you anyway if you don’t.

Ryunosuke:  “Kazuma! What did you…?!”

Even though Kazuma phrased his words in such a way that they were an admission to precisely nothing, hearing him say this apparently shocked Ryunosuke into properly facing the fact that yes, he really was there.

Ryunosuke:  (I hadn’t considered the possibility before, but… if Kazuma was there on the ship, it can only have been for one purpose…)

And here Ryunosuke is only just beginning to consciously entertain the idea that Kazuma must have been acting as the assassin, even though that’s something easy to piece together from the moment it became apparent why Gregson was on that ship and that Kazuma was most likely with him. I really do enjoy the way Ryunosuke is so incredibly hesitant to accept each tiny step of the picture of what Kazuma was up to that day, even as he’s mentally resolved to face the truth now. He really doesn’t want to think any of this about his best friend!

Susato:  “Oh no, Mr Naruhodo! Surely… surely you don’t think…?”

And apparently Susato, too, didn’t want to think about this until now, until she sees some hint of it in Ryunosuke’s expression and realises just what he’s thinking.

Kazuma:  “Ha ha ha ha hah! Come on, Ryunosuke, you know the rules. The only thing that really talks in the courtroom is hard evidence.”

It’s pretty impressive of Kazuma (and also painfully jarring) that he’s able to break into one of his big hearty laughs over this, despite that he knows just how cornered he is. He must surely expect Ryunosuke to be perfectly capable of proving he did indeed do something very shady and illegal that day.

Kazuma:  “As I understand it, Gregson always took that case with him when he travelled. So as it stands… you’ve proved nothing.” Ryunosuke:  “Kazuma… are you challenging me to prove it, beyond all reasonable doubt? That you were there that day… in the same place as the inspector!”

I love how Ryunosuke can read his friend well enough to know that, despite Kazuma’s evasive phrasing, he is in fact challenging Ryunosuke to prove this. On some level Kazuma must know Ryunosuke can prove this and just wants to see his friend show off his awesome lawyer skills that he’s so proud of, even if they’re being used against him.

Van Zieks:  “He, he was there? With Gregson?”

Meanwhile, as Ryunosuke implies that he has strong proof of this fact, van Zieks has a notable reaction. What with his own grudge against Kazuma and the Asogi clan, I strongly suspect van Zieks is beginning to think that this may well mean Kazuma’s the real killer.

Ryunosuke:  “There’s a clue that you’ve overlooked! A secret this trunk can tell us.”

“Overlooked” is a bit much, since I highly doubt that Kazuma is unaware of his precious sword having been broken. And it’s not like he could have checked to see whether the tip ended up embedded in the trunk or not, as he hasn’t been able to examine it himself.

Ryunosuke:  (I can’t be sure at this point. I’ll need to verify it. But I have a nasty feeling… that I’m going to be right.)

It’s very notable that Ryunosuke’s thoughts here are not at all phrased like he is only just realising the significance of the blade tip in the trunk. It reads very much like he was already aware that this was a potential clue to Kazuma’s involvement and just thoroughly Did Not Want To Think About It until he had no choice right here.

Ryunosuke:  “And when it says ‘permission for the applicant and one additional person to travel’…” (…I can’t believe it was you, Kazuma…)

When you’re looking at the trunk in order to present the sword tip, you can examine the passport instead and get this new dialogue. Kazuma has not yet explicitly confirmed that he was the one on the passport, but of course Ryunosuke knows it anyway.

I also suspect Ryunosuke may be somewhat lying to himself about the extent to which this surprises him (or that his “I can’t believe it” statement isn’t precisely one of surprise but rather of hating to believe this about his friend). After all, his approach to cornering Kazuma here in general rather suggests that he already had a inkling things would be going in this direction and just really did not want to confront it until now.

Ryunosuke:  “Won’t you draw [Karuma]? Here in this courtroom… for all to see.” Kazuma:  “………”

Kazuma hesitates for a moment, despite that he must know how refusing would look. On some level he must just not want to reveal it – not only the conclusive proof of his crime (and not just that he was with Gregson, but that he attacked him because he wanted to kill him), but also simply the fact that he desecrated his clan’s esteemed blade.

Van Zieks:  “Exercise caution, my learned friend. That man is the son of London’s most notorious killer.”

Yikes, van Zieks! He is definitely low-key thinking that Kazuma might have killed Gregson, what with implying here that Kazuma might take the chance to attack someone with his sword just because he’s the Professor’s son.

Stronghart:  “Bailiff! Watch Prosecutor Asogi like a hawk!” Kazuma:  “…That won’t be necessary.”

And it’s that – and Stronghart going along with van Zieks’s implication that he’s dangerous – that compels Kazuma to stop hesitating and obediently draw his sword. The last thing he wants to do is make anybody think that he (and the Asogi clan in general) is some kind of vicious killer hiding his true nature. No doubt van Zieks’s words made his skin crawl.

There is an ever-so-slight quiver in the sword at the very end of the animation of Kazuma drawing it, just before it becomes a still frame like most AA animations end on. The animators did not have to include that tiny quiver, but they did. I enjoy this.

Susato:  “Oh no!” Ryunosuke:  “The tip… is broken…”

Susato is shocked to see it, but based on Ryunosuke’s body language, he isn’t, and is simply stating this as fact. He already knew, didn’t he – since probably long before he asked Kazuma to show them.

Van Zieks:  “…!”

(Van Zieks is also shocked to see this confirmation that Kazuma did indeed show aggression towards Gregson that day.)

Ryunosuke:  “If the fragment of metal from the trunk fits together with the end of the sword… the question of who was there with Inspector Gregson will be answered. Agreed… Kazuma Asogi?!”

Guh, Kazuma’s usually the one doing it to him, but here Ryunosuke’s using Kazuma’s full name. It’s like he’s trying to make this accusation and proof of Kazuma’s crime more formal and distanced, so he doesn’t have to think so hard about the fact that this is his best friend.

(He could have said “Prosecutor Asogi”, which would be even more formal and distanced – but no, Ryunosuke uses an exact mirror of the way Kazuma keeps addressing him.)

Kazuma:  “Expertly done, Ryunosuke! That’s a point to you, and well deserved.”

It’s also just really disorienting how Kazuma responds to this. Rather than showing any kind of agitation about what this means for him, he’s just… praising Ryunosuke’s lawyering skills? Kazuma is, after all, frustratingly good at bottling up any kind of distress he might be feeling, and in this case it seems he’s doing that by choosing to focus on just how proud he is of his friend’s abilities.

Stronghart:  “And the mission was…?” Kazuma:  “…The assassination of the mark.”

Kazuma is deliberately not naming the mark here, so as to hide the truth without having to lie. On the one hand, the mark technically was still Jigoku for the purposes of the Reaper mission they were supposedly on (which Kazuma definitely believes was genuine, because as we’ve seen he very much believes van Zieks would have wanted Jigoku dead for petty reasons) – but on the other hand, he’d have been able to figure out that this mission was also due to the exchange mastermind, who has to be the same person as the Reaper, expecting him to use this as his chance to kill Gregson.

Ryunosuke:  “Wha… WHAAAAAAT?!”

Ryunosuke, did you not basically figure out that Kazuma must have been the assassin just a little while ago? It seems that even then, he still didn’t want to properly face that fact, to the point that hearing it confirmed still elicits a shocked reaction from him. He is so hesitant to accept his best friend being an assassin, aaa.

Ryunosuke:  “You mean… you’re the killer whose name was omitted from this notebook?! You were following the Reaper’s orders… to dispatch Judge Jigoku…?” Kazuma:  “……… Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I have killed no one.”

Kazuma is somewhat dodging Ryunosuke’s question here, in order to avoid mentioning that the assassination mission he was on that day was in fact not quite the same one that Ryunosuke’s referring to.

But yes – he really hasn’t killed anyone. That’s the truth. I distinctly remember on my first playthrough, what with all of my own doubts and worries about what Kazuma had got up to, feeling relieved when he said this. Even though I actually (wrongly) thought Kazuma must have been lying about several things to do with the case, something in me knew he wouldn’t lie about this. I wish Ryunosuke was shown having some kind of a reaction to this line, too.

(But then, it doesn’t really matter, does it, because Kazuma never bloody gets arreste—)

Stronghart:  “Explain.”

Stronghart responds to this assertion of Kazuma’s with a curt demand and a very displeased expression, with the implication of “are you sure you didn’t kill anyone, you’d better be able to prove it.” Except no, he’s not thinking that, apparently, because he doesn’t do anything about Kazuma’s very likely-looking guilt, does he, grrrr.

(Maybe instead his irritation is more along the lines of “okay but you should have killed someone, that was the point.”)

Kazuma:  “But I never had any intention of carrying out the plan.” Ryunosuke:  “You were never going to do it…?”

Guh, Ryunosuke echoing that as soon as he hears it. He so desperately wants to believe that yes of course Kazuma was never intending to kill anyone, that makes sense, that’s the Kazuma he knows, unlike everything else he’s learning right now…!

Also, note Kazuma’s phrasing. He never intended to carry out the plan, which is the truth. He does not say that he never intended to kill anyone, because, um. About that. Saying that would be a lie.

Susato:  “…We can believe Kazuma-sama, I’m sure. After all, Judge Jigoku arrived safely in London the following day.”

Yes, Susato, because the fact that his target did not end up dead is definitely 100% ironclad proof that he had zero intention of ever killing him. That is definitely logic with no holes in it. (Oh, Susato, also just wanting to believe in him.)

Kazuma:  “Then we boarded the SS Grouse and made for the cabin deck – as indicated in the plan.”

Huh. So I talked earlier about how Gregson being here surely meant this was an information-gathering mission, but the way Kazuma mentions a “plan” here implies this was at the stage where Gregson had already gathered his information and finalised the plan to kill the target. In which case, I still can’t help but question why Gregson even needed to be there at all for the actual killing! (You know, in theory, if this were hypothetically a real Reaper mission and not a get-Gregson-killed mission.)

Kazuma:  “He wasn’t there, though. We decided to wait, but…” Ryunosuke:  “But you’ve already told us you had no intention of going through with it anyway.”

And again Ryunosuke butts in to remind the court that it’s fine, because Kazuma never meant to kill anyone, right? okay? Definitely nobody he needs to reassure of this, he’s just, you know, mentioning it. Again.

Kazuma:  “I didn’t come to Great Britain to take anyone’s life.”

Guhhhh. Knowing that Kazuma came to Britain with an assassination mission already weighing on his shoulders makes this line hurt a lot more. He really didn’t come here to kill anyone at all, despite the promise he was forced to make!

And yet. Again, this is very specific phrasing. He had no intention of killing anyone when he came to Britain. But after that, during one very specific moment in that cabin…? He’s not talking about that. To include that as part of his statement here would be a lie.

Stronghart:  “Then what became of Jigoku?” Kazuma:  “Gregson was no assassin. So the mark was spared.”

Given the ambiguity of Kazuma using the word “mark” here, what he’s really saying is something to the effect of “Gregson wasn’t exactly going to assassinate himself.”

Kazuma:  “I’m sure it’s easy enough to imagine what happened after that.”

On some level, his belief that van Zieks killed Gregson is bound to also be down to the idea that van Zieks is the exchange mastermind who wanted Gregson dead and had to do it himself when Kazuma refused to do so. But he can’t argue that in court without incriminating himself in another assassination mission, so, never mind, arguing that van Zieks killed Gregson for the failure to assassinate Jigoku it is, an argument he goes on to outline once again for the court as if it makes perfect sense. That still does make twisted irrational sense in Kazuma’s head as half of the reason why he would have done it, anyway.

Van Zieks:  “Objection! But if you did nothing as you claim… how did the tip of your sword come to be lodged in the inspector’s trunk?”

I like how van Zieks is the one to try and force Kazuma to answer this. Ryunosuke certainly doesn’t want to think about it, but van Zieks would very much like to know. And the timing of this, just after Kazuma’s yet again argued that van Zieks totally killed Gregson, feels almost like some kind of attempt to counter him and get back at him, just a little.

Kazuma:  “……… I don’t need to answer that.” Ryunosuke:  “…!”

I enjoy Ryunosuke’s little reaction there. Why doesn’t Kazuma want to answer that? If he really did nothing wrong, what would be so bad about saying what happened…?

Kazuma:  “The victim was killed by a gunshot. A small fragment of a Japanese blade isn’t relevant to the case. And accordingly… I choose to exercise my right to silence on the matter.”

Frankly I find this argument pretty bullshit! Just because it was a different weapon doesn’t change the fact that the blade tip very strongly indicates that Kazuma showed aggression towards the victim during a period in which the murder could have taken place. That’s pretty relevant to the case, I think! He could easily have switched to a gun after having his sword strike blocked! Stronghart should totally have been able to shut him down and insist that actually he does have to testify about this. But noooo, because apparently Stronghart cares more about convicting van Zieks than convicting Kazuma for some reason, grumble grumble.

As it is, this part’s only actual purpose in the narrative is to give an excuse for Karuma to be added to the Court Record, and not any actual kind of fun hinting at Kazuma’s potential guilt. Bah.

The great sword ‘Karuma’ has been entered into the Court Record.

I like how even the Court Record text wants to show the proper respect to Karuma by referring to it like this. Aww.

Ryunosuke:  “The tip of the great sword… broken… It’s such a shame. It’s been so meticulously cared for over the years. I can almost hear Karuma’s sobs…”

I love Ryunosuke personifying Karuma, imagining it sobbing at having been damaged. He really does care about the sword and see it as having a soul!

Ryunosuke:  (Kazuma must have really taken a swing for that to happen…)

He sure did. I wonder how hard Ryunosuke is letting him think about exactly what Kazuma was aiming at, or how he would have been feeling at the time.

Along with being able to examine Karuma’s broken tip, you can also get some new dialogue if you re-examine the blade tip itself in the trunk, now that Ryunosuke and Susato know where it’s from. This bit was updated as soon as Kazuma admitted to having been there with Gregson.

Ryunosuke:  “The tip of Karuma… So this is how it was broken. Kazuma’s swordsmanship is second to none. I can’t believe he’d misjudge it like that.” Susato:  “Clearly he wasn’t in his right mind. He didn’t have full control of the power in his stroke. Too distracted by malicious thoughts, perhaps…” Ryunosuke:  “Well, that wouldn’t be surprising. After all… he was on an assassination mission.” Susato:  “…!”

It is heartbreaking that both of them seem to be getting rather close to the thought that maybe Kazuma acted out of anger and malice and genuine murderous intent, ouch. And all because of their belief that he would never usually be this careless with his swordsmanship!

Kazuma:  “When a foreign dignitary invited to Great Britain goes missing for twenty-four hours… it’s only natural that the question of his safety should arise.”

This statement implies that any reason for Jigoku having potentially been murdered would most likely be some kind of international political plot, what with him being an influential foreign politician. This is actually what I believed was the real reason behind the obviously-bullshit Reaper mission on my first playthrough!

Kazuma:  “The Reaper has more than one assassin at his disposal. And he has the power and influence to give orders from the inside of a prison cell.”

Kazuma, do you have any evidence whatsoever to back this up? A list of the people who’ve been visiting van Zieks in prison so that you can point to potential conspirators, perhaps? Because I imagine you’ll find that Ryunosuke and Susato are in fact the only visitors he’s had. You can’t just make a wild claim like “this guy is capable of orchestrating a murder from in prison” without backing it up in some way!

(Except, apparently, you can, if the judge is Stronghart and he wants you to win the trial.)

This is, again, such ridiculous nonsense, but of course it makes sense in Kazuma’s head, because van Zieks is The Worst, don’t you know.

Kazuma:  “Isn’t that right… Lord van Zieks?” Van Zieks:  [swirling a chalice of wine] “…If I were truly the Reaper, I’d be able to tell you.”

Again, I love van Zieks’s thoroughly dry response to this. He is so done with Kazuma’s bullshit unfounded accusations.

(Another rare instance of Kazuma calling him “Lord van Zieks”, but in this case it could certainly be read as being delivered with heavy sarcasm.)

Stronghart:  “Guests of the symposium have been told to maintain regular contact with the organisers’ office. If the man can’t be located within half an hour… we will have to assume the worst.”

Really? We will have to assume that he’s freaking dead, and not simply that he decided to go against the instruction to stay in contact for one of a myriad of possible reasons? Mikotoba is also a symposium guest and has also not been in contact with the organisers since last night; does that mean we’d better assume that he’s dead too, rather than that he had some other reason for running off? This is bonkers.

Kazuma:  “No one would want to kill a harmless Japanese man who’d only just arrived in the country. Except, that is… for the Reaper, wanting to finish off a mark that slipped through the net ten years ago.”

Yes, Kazuma, there’s no other possible reason for anyone to want to kill an important foreign politician. Certainly nothing at all that you implied yourself just a minute ago by pointing out that foreign dignitaries going missing leads to worries about their safety. Nah, the only reason anyone could want him dead is if they’re a petty monster like van Zieks totally is. Kazuma’s mental gymnastics really are incredibly impressive.

Stronghart:  “I would have to agree.”

And of course, conveniently Stronghart is here to agree that Kazuma’s terrible logic makes perfect sense.

Stronghart:  “If we’re unable to confirm Mr Jigoku’s healthy existence in the next thirty minutes, you will face grave difficulties.” Ryunosuke:  “Ah!”

So here we have the situation: if Jigoku is missing, then he’s definitely dead, and if he’s dead, then it must be because van Zieks had him murdered, which is totally something he can do even from within prison and we don’t need to show any proof of that. So if Jigoku isn’t found then it means that van Zieks absolutely must have killed Jigoku, which also somehow proves he killed Gregson I guess because Jigoku’s murder isn’t even the one this trial is about.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

At this point, I really am stretching my suspension of disbelief as to how Ryunosuke accepts this. Idolising Kazuma to the point of not expecting to see flaws in his reasoning is one thing, but come on. Ryunosuke’s determined to defend van Zieks, so you’d think he’d be able to find the words to argue that there’s still no actual proof that van Zieks killed anyone.

The court empties for the recess, but Ryunosuke and Susato stay behind.

Susato:  “Kazuma-sama, the Reaper’s assassin… I feel as though I’m in a nightmare.” Ryunosuke:  “I can hardly believe it either.”

A brief interlude of Ryunosuke and Susato freaking out over something they actually ought to be freaking out over! It cannot be easy to learn this about their friend. (And they don’t even realise yet just how deep Kazuma’s involvement in assassination plots goes.)

Ryunosuke:  “But on the other hand… Kazuma isn’t in the habit of making up stories.”

I also enjoy Ryunosuke feeling like it must be true, even though he hates it, because of this. He knows his friend. Kazuma doesn’t lie, so he certainly wouldn’t claim something as outlandish as this unless it was the truth.

Susato:  “……… I have such a terrible sense of foreboding.”

It would be nice if this line of Susato’s were referring to the Kazuma-being-an-assassin situation in some way. But…

Susato:  “If something awful has happened to Judge Jigoku… then I feel as though things will only spiral further and further out of control.”

…never mind, this isn’t about Kazuma at all, it’s about the Jigoku situation. It’s valid for her to be legitimately worried about Jigoku’s safety right now, but even if he is dead, that should not have to have any bearing on how this trial for Gregson’s murder will go. Not you too, Susato.

Ryunosuke:  (I felt it from the moment I stepped into the courthouse this morning. That strange sensation that we were careering towards a foregone conclusion…)

This, too, is a line that would work so well if it were referring to Kazuma being an assassin! Given that he’d examined the trunk and other related evidence, Ryunosuke had plenty of reason to already have a subtle inkling in his head this morning that he was going to reveal something Very Bad about Kazuma’s actions that could lead to big trouble.

But somehow, this is actually about Jigoku’s situation as well, which… how on earth was Ryunosuke supposed to have had any sense this morning that things would turn out like this? He had been vaguely told that Jigoku was missing during the pre-trial antechamber scene, sure (though that’s after he stepped into the courthouse…!), but for him to link that to the idea that he’s been assassinated, and that this somehow totally proves van Zieks’s guilt is way too much of a stretch.

Really, it’s truly boggling to me that these lines, which would be so perfect for a narrative in which Kazuma is about to get arrested because of all his suspicious actions, somehow exist here in this narrative where that’s not remotely what happens. That and the sheer flimsiness of the insistence that Jigoku’s disappearance is extremely dire for Ryunosuke’s case make me seriously wonder whether Kazuma being arrested was the original plan by the writers, but for some reason it had to be cut. Like these lines are the remnants of it being written that way to begin with, but then this different turn of events was shoehorned in somewhat hurriedly, without the writers actually removing all of the build-up and foreshadowing that originally pointed towards Kazuma’s now non-existent arrest.

So anyway, it’s bunny time, something Ryunosuke was told to use only if they were “out of options”. Because pointing out that there has been precisely zero actual proof of van Zieks’s guilt presented in this entire trial day does not occur to him as an option, somehow.

Conveniently, not only is the court recess half an hour, but the SS Grouse is also going to leave Dunkirk for good in half an hour. So, if the writers wanted this part to be a race against time, they didn’t even need to have the pressure of “we must find Jigoku before the end of the recess” going on. We could just be worried about losing access to the evidence at the real crime scene if Sholmes doesn’t investigate it quickly! Jigoku doesn’t even necessarily need to be fleeing the country for this bit to still have narrative urgency!

Ryunosuke:  “We’ve just entered a recess. The trial resumes in thirty minutes from now.” Susato:  “And if we’re unable to present any new leads then, I’m afraid to say…”

Ryunosuke and Susato don’t even tell Sholmes that their current burning problem is that Jigoku is missing and might be dead! All they’re asking him to find is new leads, aka evidence from the actual crime scene that the actual crime took place there. That would work perfectly well on its own!

And even if Jigoku was still fleeing, the tension could be over the fact that Ryunosuke needs to summon him as a key witness to his version of events, and that he’ll have nothing to back up his argument if Jigoku isn’t found. We still don’t actually need the “if he’s missing he’s definitely dead and that definitely means van Zieks did it somehow” in order to create tension here.

Back in the courtroom after the interlude…

Ryunosuke:  (Kazuma Asogi… I know you, and I know you wouldn’t lie. But still, there’s no doubt… that you’re holding something back. You know more than you’re saying!)

Oh, he knows a lot more than he’s saying, Ryunosuke, especially since he managed to get out of having to tell anyone why he attacked Gregson’s trunk.

This is adorable, though. Ryunosuke understands his friend! He knows that Kazuma doesn’t lie (which is very correct) and can tell when he’s hiding things anyway!

So of course, Stronghart and Kazuma didn’t find Jigoku.

Kazuma:  “We must accept the unfortunate conclusion that the Reaper has already done the deed.”

No? There are a million other possible reasons as to why you couldn’t find him?

Kazuma:  “There’s no sense in wasting any more of the court’s time. The prosecution calls for an immediate verdict.”

No????? Even if Jigoku had been killed by the Reaper, that still provides absolutely zero proof that van Zieks is the one responsible, let alone responsible for killing Gregson?

Kazuma’s logic is so, so incredibly flawed here. Jigoku’s disappearance could theoretically be explained by van Zieks being the Reaper – thus, in his head, it’s been twisted around into proof that van Zieks is definitely the Reaper. This is some seriously heavy tunnel-visioning going on in Kazuma’s mind.

Ryunosuke:  “No. The trial cannot end now.” Kazuma:  “You’re a Japanese man, Ryunosuke. You should know when to lay down your sword.”

Even then, that time would not remotely be now! Even if Jigoku was indeed missing! Kazuma really is so impressively convinced that his terrible argument is in fact flawless.

It’s also interesting to see this little nod to it being a Japanese cultural thing – I think particularly a thing from the samurai culture which Kazuma was raised with – that one should know when he’s beaten and accept his fate with dignity. It’s ironic to hear this from Kazuma, of all people, who is so fervently determined to never give up on his mission to avenge his father. Really, he’s the one who’s having trouble seeing when he’s… well, not quite beaten, but certainly losing the battle a lot more than he’d ever be able to admit right now.

Ryunosuke:  “And you should know never to presume when the battle is won.”

At least Ryunosuke does throw this idea right back at Kazuma and somewhat point this out to him. (Though he’s only saying this because they located Jigoku, and apparently he would be giving up if they hadn’t managed to find him???)

Kazuma:  “The court has already been presented with all the evidence and heard all relevant testimony. And there can only be one conclusion: that the accused is guilty!”

No! It really, really hasn’t, and there really, really isn’t! Kazuma is so zeroed in on “van Zieks definitely did it” that it somehow fails to occur to him that whether Gregson could have been killed while he was on the Grouse is in fact a very relevant thing to discuss. The previous court day’s “let’s discuss whether Gregson was killed somewhere else on the day before he was found” really was just a deliberate diversion, because he’s not remotely considering doing so today, now that it might actually go somewhere.

Kazuma:  “Who on earth is this crucial witness?” Ryunosuke:  “…Seishiro Jigoku. The very man allegedly murdered by the Reaper!” Kazuma:  “J-Judge Jigoku?! You’ve found him?!”

Kazuma flinches back in shock at this revelation. He really was completely convinced that van Zieks had definitely murdered him. What do you mean that’s not actually the case.

Stronghart:  “But the investigations of every policing resource in the capital suggest that Jigoku is already dead.”

Really, Stronghart. “They looked for thirty minutes and couldn’t find him, boo hoo” totally suggests he’s definitely dead, right. Usually it’d at least take finding a body for someone to be so insistently presumed dead that quickly. Dude’s been missing for barely over a day, come on.

But no, because Stronghart really wanted to just convict van Zieks (for some reason) based on Kazuma’s horrendously flawed reasoning, and to let Jigoku safely flee the country and get away with murder. How dare Ryunosuke drag him here to testify after all.

Ryunosuke:  “Inspector Gregson almost certainly met with Mr Jigoku on the night of his death.”

Finally! Finally we have Ryunosuke arguing something to the effect of how Gregson was probably killed on the Grouse, actually. Why has he not been making more of a point of this before now.

Kazuma:  “………”

Kazuma remains silent and inscrutable. It may well be occurring to him that, huh, this sure is a relevant period of time that hasn’t been examined by the court and his case isn’t yet as airtight as he’d somehow convinced himself it was. But he’s not going to let slip any sign that he’s kicking himself over this, of course.

Ryunosuke:  “Which means that Seishiro Jigoku is the sole witness… who can clarify exactly what happened aboard the SS Grouse on 31st October!”

I mean. He’s not the sole witness. There’s one other very pertinent witness standing right there opposite you, Ryunosuke. But I guess in AA verse where it’s allowed for the lawyers standing in court to also be directly involved with the case, they just get to not officially testify because you can’t have a lawyer also be a witness.

(Again, Kazuma really should have been forced to talk about why his sword tip ended up in Gregson’s trunk, because that seems quite potentially relevant to the murder, actually.)

Kazuma:  “The prosecution concurs. The court must hear Mr Jigoku’s testimony. No judgement should be passed until all testimony has been considered.”

See, look, everyone, Kazuma’s still being very pointedly non-corrupt, making a big deal about how they must consider every angle and it would be unfair to hand down a verdict without doing that. He definitely wasn’t wilfully forgetting about any other possible remaining angles until just now when Ryunosuke pointed one out. The most fair and just and above-board prosecutor here, unlike that van Zieks.

Kazuma:  “………”

Kazuma has a lot of pointedly-shown silences in this bit, inviting us to consider what he might be thinking. No doubt he’s still managing to convince himself that Jigoku’s testimony will amount to nothing, because obviously van Zieks killed Gregson at Fresno Street and so he has nothing to worry about. His case is fine and correct and just. Van Zieks is a monster, and Kazuma is fated to win this trial and bring him to justice, so it's fine.

[saphstartsabusiness]

BRANDING #1

I have a background in graphic design, so my first step for this whole thing was the branding.

And I'd love to discuss this, because it's something you may actually find helpful.

I've always found branding myself to be harder than branding other people and their businesses. When I discuss branding with a client, they usually have some general idea of what they're looking for and I present them with a few options, they pick one, and we go with it. But when it comes to branding myself, I second guess everything.

This time I had some general idea of what I was thinking of for a logo, so I tried googling and that turned up fruitless. I then went to stock websites (like www.freepik.com) to see if I could find some images similar to what I was looking for and that was also kind of a no-go.

I can design logos when I have an idea of what I'm making and have some references, but I've never been a good illustrator, so sketching out my ideas wasn't going well.

And then I had an idea.

I used www.bing.com/create, which is a free AI image generator. It took a few tries to get the wording right for the prompt, but finally I got a demented image that generally resembled the logo I was trying to create.

I took that image into Adobe Illustrator and traced out the important bits.

And then I adjusted it to my taste and to make it cleaner, smoother, and scalable, and I gave it different colors that fit the brand better. I paired it with a font that fit the style of the graphic, and that took what was a super weird looking 3D image and turned it into a brand.

I've heard a lot of people talk about how awful AI image generators are and how they could cost people their jobs, but I find it to be like any other art tool. Utilizable to an extent, and then the artist takes over and turns it into something else. (Midjourney might be different, but I have way less experience with that one.)

I didn't rely on the AI to make my logo, but having it "sketch" out ideas for me in rapid succession helped me hone what I was looking for and saved time for me to be able to just create what I needed to with a reference that doesn't exist anywhere else in the art world.

I find that fascinating and super helpful.

And so, the logo is in place. And I've already worked on some business cards and other identity package branding material, because that's what I'm good at and it was a nice distraction from thinking about how much I actually have to do before I get to a point where I'll use any of this branding material.

I do still have a few more branding things to take care of, but having a name and a logo makes it feel real. It gives this business idea some real weight and I'm not a generally hopeful person, but I have hopes this dream will become a reality.

#small business#just starting out#everyone starts somewhere#can we do it?#building a small business#starting from scratch

[illustratorintheprocess]

Week 8: Wednesday - Meeting w Ellen + Draft Feedback

The day started off with an online meeting with Ellen. After my trip to Waterstones last week, where I made a list of publishing places that stood out to me, I had researched every single publisher. How big they are, where they are located, if they have any internships for illustrators/designers etc.

I ended up with a much smaller list of interesting finds and discussed those with Ellen. Furthermore I told her about 2 more part-time jobs I applied for and discussed a 3rd position as a studio assistant in and internship at the Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium in Summer 2023. That is the opportunity I am most excited about.

The printing process is my favorite part of any project and during this 5 week internship I would get to do just that. It would be the work of other artist I'd help to print, which is even more exciting than simply printing your own. I bet there is a lot I could learn from what other artists aim for when printing their designs. And getting to print more even after leaving UAL would be amazing! The print facilities of LCC are great but from what I've seen the Frans Masereel Centrum has really great facilities too!

I did some research on accommodation in the area by looking at Air BnBs and it looks like it's pretty much located in the country side which is amazing! Living in London for the past 2 years has shown me how much of a country-egg I am so I'd welcome the quiet and seclusion of the area. Maybe I could buy a bicycle on ebay or somewhere second hand just for my 5 week stay. That'd be a nice way to get around, although I'm pretty sure my German drivers license should be valid there too.

The position doesn't pay but I think the experience and adventure you get in return for your work is worth it. +maybe I could make some nice art friends or at least keep in touch with some people, make connections, you know.

It'd be such a cool opportunity and I'm so excited for it that I really worry I won't get in. I'm definitely not the only one who read about it and most likely my work doesn't show as much talent as half the other applicants. I'm almost trying not to get my hopes up.

But I enjoy working hard and keeping things tidy and going the extra mile. I hope my CV will reflect that. Haaa... what a dream it would be.

5 weeks. Pretty darn cool. Even if it were to rain the entire time I'm positive it wouldn't even matter one bit.

In other news. My CTS3 tutor, Caitlin, gave me feedback to my Table of Contents for the Dissertation Draft Submission I'm working on. It was pretty good, just a few things need changing and swapping around in the Intro, which is confusing me a little bit but I'll get it done.

Now look at that satisfying lino printing process by this lovely creator! Who wouldn't want to do this all day everyday??

[38sr]

How did you break into the animation industry?

Oh buckle up 'cause this is a bit of a story. Before starting, I wanna let anyone reading this to know that there's no one absolute way to break into the animation industry. From my experience, I've learned that breaking in has a lot of factors that are often out of your control. If anything, it's a combination of hard work and luck. Sometimes you're at the right place and the right time. Or you happen to know the right people or you are the right fit for a job. Overall, don't be so hard on yourself if you are still trying to break in (or have and just struggling to find the next gig). Often times it's not you as a person/artist, but really if everything else that you cannot control fits in that moment. And with that, let's start this two part story of how I broke into animation. Part 1: Lemme tell you how I got to Sesame Street.

So in 2017, I was a senior in college and my school for some strange reason made it a graduation requirement for students to do an internship in their respective major. While it was an incentive to get students experience, this only worked for the fine arts and illustration students due to the school having a lot of connections with local comic artists and galleries. For the animation department, however, we really didn't have many resources since our program was only 4 years old at that point (very, very new). So I started searching online for any animation internships since my school couldn't really help. I applied to many internships but only got an interview for one: FableVision in Boston.

To be honest, I really thought I was going to get that internship with no doubt. I already knew the people who worked there, had recently went to their anniversary party where they told me their internships were opening again and they wanted me to apply. So I did, got an interview instantly, took the train down and had the greatest interview of my life. I was told I'd hear back by the end of March and excitedly waited for the email.

Except I didn't hear back until April. And they had chosen an illustration student from my school instead of me. I was devastated. It felt like the ground beneath me crumbled and I was falling into a pit of darkness. It was April, there were no more internships, the semester ended in a month and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to graduate. And to top it off, this rejection really made think I was a bad artist and an undesirable hire. I remember being so bummed about it for days, feeling so unmotivated and scared about what to do next....and really unsure how to process the rejection altogether.

So, I contacted my mentor who at the time was a character designer at Sesame Workshop. He was my mother's friend from church and known me since I was a kid. He didn't start mentoring me until high school and was always transparent about his experience working in children's TV animation as a black creative (for those who don't know I am also black). I poured out my heart and asked him, "How do you deal with rejection from a job you really wanted?" And in short, he said, "Sometimes the job you think is perfect for you isn't what you need in order to grow and that's okay. Just because one door closes doesn't mean another door won't open so you just have to be patient and keep working hard." I didn't feel better right away but it was enough for me to realize I couldn't take the rejection personal. I probably wasn't the right fit.

But little did I know that in the next few days I would receive an email from Sesame Workshop requesting me (upon a recommendation) to fill out an application for their internship program when the deadline passed a week ago. I immediately knew it was my mentor who gave the recommendation and I will be forever thankful for him helping me get my first animation job on Sesame Street. And that's kind of the end of that part haha.

But you're probably wondering, "Wait, but you got the job. You broke in. So what's the second part?"

Part 2: The Nickelodeon Artist Program After Sesame Street and graduating college, I didn't get my next studio gig until 2 years later in 2019. I did small indie animation projects and commissions, but was having a hard time breaking into a storyboarding gig. I took tests and got rejected, applied to many jobs and got rejected, just a whole lot of rejections haha. At the same time, my older sister had moved back into my parents' house and we both expressed how we wanted to move to California for job purposes. So in that summer, we took a trip together to California and I finally got to meet some friends who did work in the animation industry. I just remember on the plane back to New York thinking, "Damn....I really have to be there if I wanna break in." So my sister and I both agreed we'd save up money and move out together in the next 1-2 years.

Once I got home, I heard about the Nick Artist Program and that applications were open until August 1st. It was the last week of July and I thought, "I don't know if I can make anything good....but I rather try than not try." So in 3 days (I do not recommend doing a whole sequence in 3 days) I boarded a sequence from my personal project, Hollowville, and submitted sketchbooks pages of thumbnails, character design sketches along with my resume two days before the deadline. To be honest, I really didn't think I was gonna hear back from them. At that point, I was so used to rejection that I had already dispelled any hope the moment I clicked the send button. I know that's pessimistic but that's how I am haha. Until a month later, I get a call from California. At that same moment, I was exchanging phone numbers with an industry friend who lived in California. So assuming it was them, I picked up the phone and the following happened: Me: Hello? Person: Hello, is this Li? Me: Oh yeah. This is she.

Person: Great! This is the Nickelodeon Artist Program and we're calling to inform you that you've been selected to move onto to the quarter final interviews.

And I just. I cried on the phone. It's so embarrassing thinking back now but it was so unexpected that the tears started flowing out. After that call, I proceeded to go through the most intense interview process I'll ever experience in my life and was officially selected as a trainee right after Thanksgiving weekend (which meant I had only a month to move out to California). And that was my final breakthrough into the animation industry. There's a lot more details I glossed over since these posts have word count limits....but that pretty much sums up how I broke into animation haha.

I don't know if this story will be helpful for anyone out there who wants to break in and having a hard time. But I hope what you take away from this is that breaking in is different for everyone. There will be a lot of rejections, but you can't take them personal. Almost all the time it's about being the right fit which isn't really quantifiable. You're not a bad artist and aren't unskilled, there are just variables out of your control that are the ultimate deciding factor. So I implore anyone who aspires to work in animation to keep working hard, keep improving and never forget that just because one door closes it doesn't mean another won't open up ahead.

[shirecorn]

how about 17 and 24? what inspires you and how do you deal with art block?

Long post warning.

Art block...

I don't actually get art block, which is probably a combination of neurodivergence and drawing every day for the last 3 years

I wrote an entire tutorial about how to do that, but didn't feel like illustrating it. Would people want to read it even without visuals?

Maybe... I'll just start rambling.

There's a couple different types of art block, and it's really just a philosophy puzzle to get past them. I'm going to assume that the things I think of slow days, or art mud, is a milder form of art block and work through that.

Art block is a symptom, not a disease. You probably have something deep inside that you don't want to face, or don't know how. Sometimes you need to discover the cause, sometimes just power through.

Method 1: Rest

Let yourself just Exist. The act of consuming art is part of the process. Watching shows and playing games, taking a break and going gardening or focus on school. This is what you need for burnout-induced art block.

Method 2: Action

I always choose action, sometimes it means a tiny 2 min sketch per day. Ugly or super simplified. As long as I don't stop moving.

Toss everything. Start every piece thinking you will throw it away.

The act of drawing moves you forward; pinning it to the fridge does not. Don't work things until they are perfect. Work them until they are there.

Art block causes and solutions:

- No Inspiration

Not sure what to draw, nothing seems appealing. Art won't come out like it used to.

Do studies from life or photos. Sketch, paint, digital, traditional, doesn't matter. Rocks, fruit, figure drawing, landscapes, buildings, anything.

Study and copy professional's work. Old masters are best, like rubens, michalangelo (only his men tho) etc because they will teach you anatomy while you work. If you copy someone with a lot of flaws, you will repeat those flaws.

Trace to learn, not to earn. Trace photography and art from anyone you want. Don't post it unless you have the artist's permission or they are dead, whichever comes first. This is strictly work for yourself, on yourself. It's not about the finished drawing.

Find an artist with a fun style and try converting stuff into their style. Don't make that your new style though and especially don't start selling it. Your style is a chimera of everyone you love, not a clone of one person.

Take blurry photos. You don't need a fancy camera or good skills or beautiful subjects. Doing studies from your own photos can spark life into your workflow.

Make challenges for yourself. Randomly generate things to combine. Try fusing characters! Don't try to make it look good, just be fun.

Doodle patterns, swirls, lines, random stuff. Try looking up art warmups and doing some of those.

- Everything Sucks

You finally see how bad you are. Or somehow you got worse. Every piece is a fight and you spend hours trying to get something right only for it to be stiff and disgusting and STILL wrong.

Why are you trying to draw good? It's enough just to draw.

Accept that your art is bad. Every artist can see flaws in their work. Your problem is that those flaws outweigh anything remotely worthwhile and hurt to look at.

So what? You're in a period of growth, not a period of production. Keep that wonky second eye. Let them have hot dog fingers.

Show everyone! Show no one! No piece of art can ever be a reflection of the artist. Not their worth, not their skill. The only thing your art says about you is "Held and moved a pen for a bit."

Make bad art. It's ok. Most of the time, the pressure to perform and get things Right is what made them wrong in the first place. Relax.

- No Motivation

The #1 killer of artists everywhere. On some level you think you should draw, on every other level you think you should stay in bed.

You are not lazy. You wouldn't have read this far in a post about art block if you were lazy. You wouldn't CALL it art block if you were lazy. Laziness is wishing you didn't have to do anything. A block is wishing you were doing something. If you think you can namecall Yourself into productivity again, you're wrong and You need to unionize so that you don't treat You like that anymore.

Consider Mental Illness. Losing interest in something that brought you joy can be a symptom of depression. I know it seems obvious, but if you're waiting for a sign that it's "bad enough," it's bad enough. Seek care if you have the means. Forgive yourself if you already know this.

Selfcare. Examine yourself for neglect. Nutrition, exercise, enrichment, social need, and sleep are all part of the art process. Eat three meals and sleep 8 hours. That's your gaymer fuel. You deserve it, I promise. Depriving yourself of your needs will make your blocks worse, not kick you into making them better.

Identify potholes. Sketchbook falling apart? Tablet cord frayed? Half your pencils missing? Chair uncomfortable? Desk hard to reach? There's a lot of things that you tell yourself to work around and get over. Just because you CAN workaround something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. A difficult work environment can cause secret dread deep inside that you don't recognize and just think you're lazy. What you think of as "no motivation" might actually be "I don't want to deal with my tablet disconnecting every time I move it wrong and I have to wiggle it for a few seconds to make it work again." These little things are like potholes in the road. Sure you CAN still drive through them, but eventually you're going to look up and realize you haven't voluntarily left the house in weeks.

Repair potholes and roadblocks. You might feel bad about buying a new pencil, headphones, tablet, car, etc because technically the old one works if you hustle. But if you're running into so many potholes you've ground to a halt, it doesn't Actually work anymore, does it? Invest, save up, request, and require working equipment and suitable conditions. This stuff isn't just cushy privilege, it's an investment in yourself and your art. You are worth the effort it takes to clear the way. If you can't afford reliable (reliable! not perfect or luxurious) equipment, then say it. If cardboard is all you can afford, draw on cardboard. But know that you deserve canvas, and one day you might be able to make the jump. Acknowledge that sometimes, if you don't have it in you to smear burned twigs on wet cardboard, the problem isn't motivation, but opportunity.

- Haven't Drawn in So Long

A unique type of art block that self perpetuates. The thought of starting again is so stressful you can't do it. Or maybe you'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow for sure.

Face your fears. Are you ashamed of your lack of drawing? Are you anthropomorphizing your paper and thinking it's going to judge you, like "oh NOW you come back >:/" I internalize voices I hear and project them onto other people, concepts, locations, and inanimate objects. Your paper, computer, WIPs folder.... none of that is judging you.

Reframe your WIPs. Do you feel shame when you see "unfinished" projects? Why? Who says you MUST bring everything you start to Finish? You don't have to. A sketch is a finished art piece; it's called a sketch! If a sketch is a fully realized creation, pages that are half colored, 75% lined, or partially rendered are all fully realized creations too. Unless paid otherwise, art is done when you're done working on it.

Lower the stakes. Draw a chibi or grab some crayons. Get messy and slowly ease yourself back into the flow over the course of a couple days. It's fine.

Get a buddy! Find an art meme, do an art trade, get a study subject, or just wing it. Drawing art alongside someone can help you get past that block.

Pretend you never stopped. Don't think about the gap, how long it's been, or rustiness. As far as anyone knows, you drew the mona lisa yesterday and didn't break a sweat. Today, you drew a starfish on your hand with a gel pen. Keep up that streak, good job!

Just keep drawing. Make a goal to do one sucky drawing per day on the back of a napkin. Don't make up for missed days, just pretend they didn't happen. Who's going to judge you? The calendar? That's pieces of paper; it doesn't have an opinion. Draw a cat on it. Done. Keeping up the momentum is a great way to prevent art blocks in the future.

TLDR: Draw imperfectly and toss it. Selfcare is king. Draw often and don't judge yourself.

Art is a process, not a product.

[spencersawkward]

if you feel comfortable with it, I’d love a prof Spence where reader is a student and goes to office hours to initiate ~smutty goodness~ but Spencer is reluctant at first bc his job but they flirt more and eventually sleep together

me n my professor kink when i saw this: 😏 anyway yes i am quite comfortable writing about this lol. i took some ✨creative liberties✨ with your request so i'm sorry if it isn't exactly what you wanted! 

summary: reader is a student in Dr. Reid’s class, but she’s been something of a poor student-- office hours are the only solution.

relationship: Fem!Reader/Professor!Spencer

content warnings: unprotected penetrative sex, fingering, rough sex, super brief hair-pulling, creampie, dirty talk, spanking, age gap, degradation-- he gets pretty dominant oops.

word count: 4.5k

masterlist

popping in a piece of gum, I make my way to the back of the hall. there are a few people here already, but it's a little early. I'm never early. in fact, I'm usually late; my other class is on the other side of campus, and getting here involves a lot of embarrassing speed-walking.

but here I am, five minutes ahead of schedule and actually in a decent seat. as I flip open my textbook and pull my laptop out of my bag to prepare to take notes, my gaze slides down to the corner of the room, where Dr. Reid is standing up with a pile of papers. he walks over to the girl in the front row, handing her the stack and gesturing for her to pass it along.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. he's a total luddite. the first day, Dr. Reid spent about ten minutes rambling about the importance of reading from a physical book rather than online sources-- which, although I definitely agree with, means a lot more lugging around folders and organizing all the readings he gives out. if he wasn't so hot, I would have switched into another course.

and I know it's wrong to be daydreaming about my professor slamming me into a wall while he discusses the intricacies of quantum theory. the complete cliché of it is embarrassing. but still, I just can't stop thinking about him: how his fingers would feel around my throat, the smooth wooden surface of his desk against my cheek as he bends me over and pulls my panties to the side--

"glad to see you've decided to join us, today, Ms. Y/L/N." Dr. Reid's voice startles me out of my thoughts. he's standing towards the front of the room while students file in. his hands are resting in his pockets with his eyebrows pleasantly raised.

"glad to see you've noticed." I retort, too irritated with his comment to care about being polite.

a couple people look at me. even though I'm generally not on time, he tends to just glance my way when I walk in and leaves it at that. I know he doesn't like it, although I personally don't care. I hate this course.

he seems visibly surprised by my response but doesn't reply, gaze lingering on mine before he turns to speak to a student trying to get his attention. I bite back a smile. fucking asshole.

as usual, Dr. Reid writes in his thin, messy lettering on the board while wandering around the front of the room. he's quite fidgety, even though his voice doesn't betray any sort of nervousness. it's like he's naturally overactive.

every word out of his mouth is enunciated, sometimes spoken faster when he gets particularly impassioned by the subject. he's interesting to look at, too. messy curls and a nice suit, stubble that straddles the line between refinement and ruggedness.

I type quickly, but it isn't fast enough and the strange illustrations he does on the board only complicate things. I try to write them down in my notebook, but my handwriting is jagged; sometimes it's hard to read. when a student raises her hand for a clarification, I take the opportunity to catch up.

my head jerks up as soon as I'm finished and he's looking at me while he speaks. even from so many feet away, the intensity strikes me. he's gesticulating and crossing the room. I hold eye contact.

I wonder if he dates often; a couple of the girls in my row always stare at him throughout the lectures. he seems to be completely unaware of the effect he has on people. sometimes I'll see him in the hallway and he has his nose buried in a book, or a to-go cup of coffee, or both. either way, there seems to be no more room in that head of his for romance.

which, naturally, makes me curious about how he looks when he's on the edge of orgasm. if that composure is replaced with a contorted pleasure. I want to break him.

it's like he can read my thoughts, because Dr. Reid averts his gaze. my stomach twists with a strange anticipation. he avoids looking my way for the rest of the time.

towards the end of class, I start to pack my things to go. I have three papers to write, and my utter lack of interest in this is making me eager to leave. I shove my textbook into my bag the second my professor starts to make closing remarks.

"don't forget that we have a midterm in two weeks!" he says in a slightly louder voice as people start to move around. "if you have any questions, my office hours are posted on the bulletin board outside."

at this, my eyebrows rise. I forgot about the midterm. I have a study calendar set up for all my subjects, but I've purposefully been putting this one off. I'm not super into math. and it doesn't help that most of my time is spent not listening. when I am, it doesn't make sense.

as I stand up and gather my stuff, I hear someone clearing their throat a couple feet away. my head turns to see Dr. Reid leaning against his desk.

"Ms. Y/L/N, can I see you for a second?"

my heart stutters in my chest. is this about my attitude? he's never asked to see me outside of lessons before.

I frown, making my way to him with a deliberate pace. the tension in the room builds as I watch the last of his students shuffle out of the room. my head turns from the door to him; my breath catches a little in my throat at the set of his jaw. part of me hopes I get yelled at.

"I'm concerned about your participation in this class." he says. his voice isn't cruel, but it is brutally honest— which is worse. participation? I feel my fist clench at my side. my professors don't usually say anything if you aren't doing things up to their expectations; if you aren't, then they give you a bad grade. simple as that.

"is this about me being late?" I ask. he lets out a sigh before answering. he sounds disappointed.

"you're constantly tardy, and when you hand in your homework, you barely seem to have put in the effort. it's messy."

"messy?" I start to get annoyed. I'm only doing this so that I can get my degree. it's a fucking requirement. even though I'm not the biggest fan of mathematics, I still do my best and hand in my assignments on time. plus, the latest I arrive is five minutes-- it's not like I'm stumbling in halfway through the lesson.

"you've never come to office hours to ask for help or explained your lateness, which I, as your professor, would have appreciated." he scolds. honestly, I don't know what to say. my eyes narrow.

"I have my studio class on the other side of campus." I explain. "I should have emailed about that and I'm sorry, but I'm also not being lax about my work."

he goes around to the other side of his desk and glances up at me while he organizes some loose documents to pack away. he looks way too good when he's exasperated: his hands tighten around the papers, his eyebrows come together in this cute way. his tie is a little crooked, too.

"are you struggling with the content?"

"sometimes, yeah. but I can handle reaching out for help if I need it." I reply. he's pissing me off with these questions. I can see from the expression on his face that he's surprised by my reaction.

"really?" he slides some books into his messenger bag. that was definitely sarcastic; I know it was. "because it doesn't really seem like you have."

"I like to find help on my own." I shoulder my bag and cross my arms over my chest. there's no way he's gonna talk to me like that and expect me to not respond in kind.

"I'm reserving a slot on Wednesday evening for you," he looks up and holds my gaze. hazel irises that dare me to challenge him further. "I want you in office hours so that we can figure out how you're gonna catch up before the midterm."

"fine." I turn on my heel and leave. I know I'm not supposed to talk to my professor like that, or even to behave with such apprehension. but something about him makes me angry in the kind of way that settles in my stomach. I hate that he's right. I'm not going to do well on that damn test if I don't get some help.

but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with it.

when I rush into his office on Wednesday evening, the sun is just starting to set through his window. there's a pinkish glow that smooths over Dr. Reid's desk as he glances up at me. I had to run to get here.

"you're late." he nods to the clock on the wall. I roll my eyes.

"only one minute, though. I had another class."

he sighs and folds his hands on his desk. "how are you doing today, Ms. Y/L/N?" a strangely polite question for the look on his face. he's frustrated with me.

"I'm quite well, Dr. Reid." I smile brightly, slightly excited by the anger on his face, and sit at the chair in front of his desk.

"I didn't know you were interested in art." he says simply. I'm confused for a moment before I remember that I told him that the course before his is a studio lesson.

"I didn't know you cared."

"do you make a habit of that?" he quirks an eyebrow.

"of what?" my expression is saccharine.

"being rude to people who control your grades."

"unless you're considering being unethical in your practices and allowing your personal opinion of me to influence my grade, then no." I counter. he's silent for a moment, taking in my words like they've left a mark on him.

"well, you'd most likely fail if I asked you to leave my office hours right now. whose fault would that be?" he fidgets with his hands and leans forward just a bit, his voice dropping to a lower tone. I bite back a smile.

"you wouldn't."

"and why is that?" he baits.

"because you're not a shitty professor, Dr. Reid," I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. "as angry as you are, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you kicked me— a struggling student— out of here for giving you a little attitude."

"a little attitude?" he scoffs. "you've spent the whole semester completely ambivalent."

"not completely." I shrug.

"Y/N, you draw all over your tests and leave at least one problem half-finished every time. you obviously aren't learning." he chuckles mirthlessly. I concede this point; I like to doodle when I'm bored. and there's absolutely nothing more boring to me than numbers.

"okay," I sit up and rest my elbows on the edge of his desk, staring at him. "then teach me."

Dr. Reid holds my gaze for a long moment. we're suspended, it seems, as his lips part and he finds himself speechless. the way I said the words obviously has another layer to it-- he just has to decide whether or not to take the bait.

"what are you struggling with?" he clears his throat and sits up a bit straighter in his seat. that answers my question, I guess. I poke my tongue between my teeth gently, but then pull out my notebook and flip it to a page with some problems outlined on it.

"these." I toss the thing onto his side and he begins to run through the assignment. I watch him pick up a pen and start to explain the steps, slipping into his usual educational tone. his shoulders relax a little as he writes.

I can't see right from the angle I'm at, so I stand and come around onto his side. I hear him pause his speaking for a moment at my proximity, but he doesn't move away.

"does that make sense?" he asks me once he's finished running through the first problem. he basically did all the work. the professor's head turns to gauge my reaction to the explanation, but his eye line is right at the hem of my skirt-- which is already pretty short. for all his attempts to be subtle, he gulps and looks up at me.

"mostly." I brush a piece of hair behind my ear and pretend to scratch at a spot on my upper thigh, dragging the edge of my skirt with it until he can see the smooth skin beneath, practically begging for his touch. "can I ask you a question?"

"sure." he keeps his eyes almost too focused on mine. I try to hide the smile tugging at my lips. now or never, I guess.

"what's your policy on professor/student relationships?"

"my-- my what?" this time, he's audibly scattered when he turns to me. his eyes are wide, dark. even he can't hide his feelings.

"you know," I run my fingertips over the tweed shoulder of his jacket. I can sense the tension beneath his clothes. "like, your policy on fucking a student."

"I--" his cheeks turn pink. he's flustered, albeit not rejecting my touch. "I've never had to think about it before."

"hmm," I look off to the side as if considering this point. his chair is fully turned to face me now, and I'm standing in front of him, almost completely his for the taking. all he has to do is close the gap. "well, what are you thinking about it right now?"

"it's wrong." he stumbles over the words.

"why?"

"well, I mean, you're a student--"

"for a semester that's almost over." I cut him off. he opens and closes his mouth. I take a deep breath, toying with the hem of my skirt. "I know you've been looking at me during class."

"w-what?"

"you're pretty good at hiding it, but you call on me a lot and you get all messed up when I hold eye contact too long during lectures." I say.

he looks down and back up apologetically. he's just sitting there, lap wide open. so I do what any sane girl in my position would do: I climb into it, straddling him and resting my arms around his neck. he sucks in a breath.

"you pretend I'm such a pain," I lean down by his ear, my core drawing over his pants. he tenses as I speak. "but you like that I'm your little problem."

"Y/N..." he trails off, but his hips are bucking up into mine.

"see?" I look between our bodies at his movements, then at him. I smirk as I look into those lust-darkened eyes. after a moment of him not speaking, I straighten. "look, I'll leave you alone if it really bothers you--"

as I start to get off his lap, he grabs me and pulls me back down. the force hits my center at just the right angle and I let out a slight mewl. he hears the sound and before I can register the pleasure, he grabs my face and yanks me closer to kiss him.

god, he feels so good. I rock my hips against his while our lips pass over each other hungrily. so much tension built up over the past few months, so many thoughts I've had of him, now coming to fruition. it's amazing.

"not so 'wrong' now, is it?" I chuckle against his mouth.

"shut up." he orders. one moment of broken contact to slide my top over my head and throw it on the floor.

I sigh as he starts to kiss across my jaw and down my throat. "I like when you talk like that, Dr. Reid."

one hand grips my hips tighter and he releases a groan against my skin.

"is that why you're such a fucking brat in my class?" he bites my collarbone and I moan. "because you want me to put you in your place?"

"mhmm." I hum. his fingertips move under my skirt, sliding up my thighs and toying with the waistband of my panties. he teases me by grazing my slit over the fabric, inhaling sharply at the wet patch.

"sitting in the back of my room, fucking dripping..." he mumbles to himself as he starts to rub me.

"touch me." I breathe out, trying to gain the friction that I need.

"not if you're gonna be a brat." he removes his hand and I let out a frustrated noise as I try to find the pressure I need elsewhere by grinding down on him. he grunts at the way I pant into his mouth, trying to kiss him with every chance I get. his lips are so smooth and sweet against mine. there's something affectionate about it even in its ferocity.

"I'll be good." I practically beg.

"that's what I thought." he slides his tongue over his bottom lip as he watches me whimper on top of him.

"come on, Spencer..." I use the name for the first time and he grabs my face in his hand, squeezing my cheeks.

"not my name, sweetheart." he stares into my eyes expectantly and I smirk.

"you're fucked up, doctor."

"so are you."

after he says that, he lifts me off his lap and stands up, pushing between my shoulder blades until my face is pressed onto the desk. I let out a needy whine, wiggle my ass back in hopes of finding his crotch, but he's not willing to give me that, yet.

instead, he gently touches my skirt, flipping it up so that he can see my ass. immediately, he starts to knead it. my palms are pressed flat against the desk with anticipation, silently thankful that my panties are still on. I think I'd be dripping down my thighs if they weren't.

"are you gonna be more respectful?" his voice is low, one hand tracing over my back. I shake.

"mhmm."

"I won't spank you if you don't use your words, sweetheart."

"yes." I choke out, no longer wanting to give any sort of resistance. I had no idea there was this side of him, and I love it.

he loves it too, apparently, because his hand comes down sharply on my ass. I yelp at the contact and he runs his fingers over the point of impact, rubbing the flesh gently.

"too hard, baby?" he checks.

"harder." I beg. I can't see his face, but I can sense his smile as if it's my own. his palm hits me again, and I gasp.

"you like being punished?"

"yes." strangled and desperate.

he slips his finger beneath the fabric of my panties, collecting my essence and letting out a quiet moan when he feels me. I push my hips against his fingers, partly expecting him to remove all the pressure, but he doesn't bother waiting.

he slips his index inside and I gasp. starts to push in and out, his silence proving his arousal. I can practically feel his eyes on me. the pace increases a bit and he slides in his middle finger. I buck against the desk.

"oh fuck!" I cry out as he starts to go faster. he curls them against my walls and I arch my back.

"two fingers and you're already breaking?" Spencer chuckles as he moves inside me. he keeps one hand on my ass while he does it, starting to finger me at a ridiculous speed while I pant and moan and cry.

"I--" I gulp down air. "I need you in it."

he bends down by my ear, never breaking his rhythm. my legs are shaking from the force. "you need my cock?"

"yes," I feel myself closing in around him. "god, yes."

"you're lucky I wanna fuck you so bad." he mutters. I grin as I hear the clink of his belt coming undone, the sliding through the belt loops, the sound of him stripping down to nothing. I can feel my excitement on the inside of my thighs, spread around by his reckless fingers as he removes my panties and skirt.

he grinds himself against my pussy, coating himself in me, while he releases low, longing moans. I suck in a breath when the head pushes in, every inch pushing me open a little more. I don't have the ability to form words, so I bite my lip and grip onto the edge of the desk until my knuckles turn white.

his breath stops for a moment before he groans.

"so ready for me."

he's not even all the way in, and he has to pause to let me adjust. when he taps the inside of my thigh for me to part them more, I do it quickly and beg him to fill me up. I can barely take the pressure between my hips, but it burns in an inviting way.

"keep going." I direct him. he runs his hands over the curve of my waist and starts to thrust into me at a rate that leaves me panting. it's not too fast or slow, just impatient and needy. every sound that spills from his lips turns me on more.

"where'd the attitude go, huh?" he digs his hips into mine. his cock hits my cervix and I squeak against the wood, but he holds my back down. I don't even try to argue with him, too overcome with the pleasure that's coursing through my limbs. he starts to build up his speed. "don't have much to say when you're getting fucked?"

"Dr. Reid--" I moan.

he plows into me so hard, the desk shifts on the floor and he grabs my ass with both hands.

"take it, baby. fucking take it."

I get up on my elbows to look behind me, just to glimpse how he looks as he gets closer. his curls have fallen more in his face, and his shirt is gone. I want to touch him desperately, to feel the lovely skin of his torso and arms and everything else, but he keeps me down for the most part. all I get is the sight of his mouth open and his hips moving quickly against mine.

"look at me, there you go." he grabs my face and holds me there, our eyes locked. mine are welling at the sheer overwhelming pleasure inside, but his are dark and intense. they search mine for something I can only hope to offer.

"that feels so good, Dr. Reid." I pant. he bites his lip as he watches my mouth hanging open in lecherous shock.

"I bet it does," he explores my body. "coming in here, hoping I fuck you like you deserve. you're lucky I'm going easy on you."

"thank you." I whine.

"you might need some extra lessons, yeah?" he grunts out, moving into me with a bruising force.

"yes, please." I whisper. my voice is practically gone at this point, my mind entirely focused on the knot building in my stomach.

"what was that, baby?" he pulls my hair gently.

"yes— fuck— yes, please, Dr. Reid."

"what a beautiful girl." he smirks. I whimper when he runs his fingernails down my ribcage. I can feel it coming from the way he starts to move tumultuously, every thrust pushing harder and seeking more release. it's fervent, how he takes me and grips my hips like the force itself will push him over the edge.

"I'm so close..." I breathe out as I try for as much friction as I can.

"show me," he drops down so his stomach is flush to my back. "show me how you cum, Y/N."

the way he says my name-- husky and warm and full of lust-- causes me to snap. I cry out as he reaches around to clamp a hand around my mouth, climaxing and pulsing around his dick as I drop down against the surface again. I want him to finish inside, so I do my best to keep him here. and his thrusts are getting more staccato as he chases the sensation my walls create.

"can I fill you, angel?" he asks. he's breathing right by my ear, and the feeling is sending shivers down my spine. I love how his weight feels.

"yes." I moan and he slides his fingers into my mouth. I suck on them while he orgasms, jerking into my pussy and letting out unholy sounds of ecstasy. he says unintelligible things in the throes of his orgasm. pounds into me until I'm sure I won't be able to walk tomorrow.

"jesus christ, Y/N." he slows to a stop. when he pulls his cock out of me, the absence makes me whine. I miss his body already.

"oh my god." I clench my hands into fists as I try to catch my breath. I'm still bent over the desk as though I've been completely sapped of all my energy. I suppose I have. he doesn't touch me for a moment in the spirit of letting me recover from the small shudders still running over my skin.

"that was great." he says after we've both had time to fill our lungs. I push myself onto my elbows again.

"correct." I grin and straighten up more until I'm standing. he stares at me, at the cum now dripping down my legs, entranced.

"let me get you something to clean up." he snaps out of it a little. I can't stop looking at him, either, in love with the way he moves and the way he breathes after exerting himself on my body.

"come here." I bite my lip. for some reason, despite what we just did, this is scarier than everything else. he steps closer and I reach up, kiss him softly. part of me worries that he'll pull away and be terrified. maybe that he'll tell me that I've read too much into this.

he's much gentler than before. our first kiss was full of need and primal desire, but this is more affectionate. I remove myself from his embrace.

"okay, you can go now." I giggle. his fingertips linger on my waist and he smiles. I push his shoulder. "I literally have your cum all over me-- go."

"fine." he starts to put his clothes on.

"does this mean I get an A?" I joke. Spencer shakes his head.

"nice try. when we're done cleaning you up, we're gonna sit down and figure this out."

I let out a whine, and he kisses my cheek before looking me in the eyes. "it'll be fun. I promise."

"math is not fun."

"I can't believe I like a girl who doesn't enjoy such a beautiful subject." he rolls his eyes and I giggle. he's perfect.

[honeybeekao]

No Lonesome With You

2137 words

Johnny Joestar/Gyro Zeppeli

fluff, slow dancer's a cat, modern setting

Summary: Johnny turned to Gyro, his eyebrow raised. "You didn't think to tell me ya got a cat then."

"Technically I didn't, she just walked in here yesterday and I haven't kicked her out." Without a moment to spare, Gyro skittered past Johnny and pulled Dancer into his arms, swift as lightning. She immediately climbed her way on to his shoulder, staring at the newcomer.

Wanting to get a closer look, Johnny rolled as far forward as the space allowed.

The atmosphere was desolate as it was quiet—far too quiet to possibly believe there were even other human beings on Earth. The shine radiating off his laptop was blinding - he never did opt to turning the brightness down, perhaps that contributed to the abundance of headaches. No matter, he wouldn't do anything about it—he'd just continue to sit, staring at a mindless article that he'd far off forgotten he was gonna read.

The time in the corner of the screen was small but at the same time so utterly bold as it quickly switched to the new hour.

1:00 AM.. His therapist had recommended he try melatonin to try and get a grip on his sleep schedule, but he'd already know it wouldn't work. Maybe the meds would, but the whole "getting more sleep" never did seem to be Johnny's thing. It didn't matter how much sleep he got - albeit it did if he had to wake up early, but that was the thing. Here, with a freelance job in digital painting and illustrations; he didn't need a specific wake-up time. It was all a way for him to revert to lackadaisical routine, but that couldn't hurt him. It got him through life, yeah it was lonely most of the time—but he'd survived hadn't he? It was okay because he was stable.. At least, financially, and the privacy he'd never gotten growing up was all around.

A curious notification popping up at the top of the screen caught his attention, straining his eyes to read the text he found it was from his friend Gyro. Of course it was Gyro, Johnny didn't talk to anyone else who'd even be awake at this hour. Diego was too ambitious to let his proper schedule be fucked up, and HP just didn't talk much when it came to online.

"yoyo do you wanna come over and taste test some things??" The message read, followed by a slightly blurry photo of a kitchen counter that looked like a tornado had blown clear through it—why was every capsule of food coloring basically empty? Aren't you supposed to use like two drops of that shit?

Are you /srs or /j Johnny typed quickly, thankfully noticing his typo of "/h" before sending it which.. what even would that mean? He was grateful for the vehement need to meticulously go over any message he sent.

"100% serious, I may have gone a bit overboard," Gyro said after around 20 seconds. Probably wasn't paying too much attention to their chat if he was baking.

I'll head over :)✌ he replied, closing his laptop and finding its case somewhere on his bed. How that somehow ended up under his blankets despite him not remembering putting it there- he'd never know. The fact it was 1 AM probably didn't make that matter any better.

When he finally stopped staring off into the darkness—how poetic— no, but it was a little concerning how much he spaced out — Johnny pushed himself into his chair. Ready to make the totally strenuous journey to Gyro's apartment.

After closing the door behind him, keys in his pocket and the bulky laptop under his arm, he wheeled down the hall. No one was out at this hour thank God, and the air was quite pleasant actually. It could be classified in the ever-popular Goldie Locks zone - not too cold, not too hot, perfect for going outside in the dead of night! Er.. morning? Both, neither.

After turning one corner, Johnny got to the door with a decorative cowboy hat hung up on the frame—yeah Gyro didn't actually live that far and it was a wonder that the two didn't just resort to sharing an apartment given how often they were at eachother's respectively. Johnny knocked on the door, then continued to let his mind wander.

Was it a twist of fate that Gyro had sent such a message at what seemed like the perfect time? If it had been any longer with him dwelling in the mental mindfield he called his brain, he may have sunk into the clutches of those damnable thoughts. The ones that veered their claws at random moments and whisked themselves away in the shadows when others were near. Usually, he could ignore it - but Johnny was finding it more and more difficult to as the demons got bigger, more effective. Some nights they ate him up inside like he was nothing but a cored apple, easy to rot. Oh Gyro, you've no idea how much I don't wanna be alone tonight.

The click of the lock, and the sudden appearance of his closest friend brought him out of his haze, knocking off the blank stare he surely had settled into. The man had a funny apron on, he really did have a certain charm tied in every aspect of his life, was that a pin of Link from Zelda?

"What's up Johnny Boy! Up at the dead of night I see?" Gyro said in a surprised voice, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm always up this late‐ and you knew I'd show up." Johnny replied with a snort. "Am I welcome?"

"Always—even if I don't expect it," Gyro answered with a wink, the implications of his statement flying right over Johnny's head as he wheeled into the apartment. A strong scent of cinnamon, vanilla, a hint of chocolate maybe? permeated the air like the morning of Christmas, and Johnny couldn't help but scrunch his nose at just how vibrant the smell was. It didn't overwhelm him per se, but it was far stronger than any bakery he'd ever had the pleasure to be in. How many things did Gyro make?

"I kinda got carried away by looking at recipes and couldn't pick only one, so by midnight I had like 3 mini cakes baked!" Gyro rattled off his tale like it was just some regular evening occurrence. Which in all fairness it kinda was. This wasn't the first time Gyro had made an entire weeks- maybe two weeks worth of something because he couldn't just pick one idea to test out; he was really a man of his craft.

"Did you use every spice in that cabinet?" Johnny joked, eyeing obvious colors of unknown dusts on Gyro's face. He watched as Gyro closed the door, then gave a grimace as the man shook his head like a dog who'd freshly exited the depths of a lake—there was stuff in his hair too?? How'd he manage that?

"What, why're you judging me," Gyro's voice came off offended, he had the gall to move closer to Johnny which prompty earned him the palms of 2 nimble hands half a foot from his face.

"Do you want me to have a sneezing fit, Jesus Gyro," Johnny wiggled his hands as if to say "shoo!" He wasn't really irked—and he was probably being a tad overdramatic—but what could he say? He couldn't stand sneezing over cinnamon and sugar.

Gyro huffed, then switched his gaze to the hall. "I was thinking I'd deliver them to whoever's in my contacts, maybe spin a wheel to see who gets the one loaded in food dye, but I was sooo lonely without my best friend Johnny! Thought it was worth having ya' around." He talked with such a large grin on his face you'd think he was telling his life's story. Not once had Johnny ever bothered bringing up what went on in his own head, but it seemed Gyro wore his heart directly on his sleeve - as prominent as his golden grills. If he needed company, he'd seek it rather than let the alternative swallow him whole. Admirable; how did he do that?

"Well you're in luck I wasn't busy." Never am, not at night at least. Johnny dropped his hands back to his lap and tilted his head ever so slightly. "Sooo you wanted me to taste test or something?"

"Yepyep! Since I dunno if it's even any good," Gyro looked off sheepishly while tapping his hand on the wall behind him.

"You're a professional chef, I doubt it sucks." Johnny smiled in weak amusement, pushing himself to leave the front-door area to reach the kitchen. Which, it shouldn't have been surprising that the scents of delectable sweets was only more ambrosial the closer he got to them.

"Is... is that.." The young man gawked upon entering the brightly lit room. His eyes were wide in awe at the spectacle of a little gray creature perched upon the top section of the mahogany bookshelf. It made neon eye contact with Johnny, its tail swishing around as the two were at a standstill.

"Pspspsps—" Gyro's call to the fluffy feline wooshed through the air and hit all 4 ears "—Daaancer!"

Johnny turned to Gyro, his eyebrow raised. "You didn't think to tell me ya got a cat then."

"Technically I didn't, she just walked in here yesterday and I haven't kicked her out." Without a moment to spare, Gyro skittered past Johnny and pulled Dancer into his arms, swift as lightning. She immediately climbed her way on to his shoulder, staring at the newcomer.

Wanting to get a closer look, Johnny rolled as far forward as the space allowed. "You seem friendly.." Illegal how tall Gyro stood when he wasn't slouching.

"She's not chipped so.."

Johnny stuck his hand out, slow and far away enough for Dancer's choice to get closer. He could feel air from her nose as she conducted her character analysis, his breath paused in slight worry. What he was worried about, no fucking clue but being rejected by animals has got to be the lowest of lows that ever could low. "She's got gorgeous ey—"

The man's words were snipped short as the weight of 4 paws landed on his lap, the fluffiness of a face pressing his stomach like he was some sort of pillow. What the hell what the fuck, oh my God. Johnny's face rattled in mortification, jaw dropped and eyes unmoving, but soon endearment tinged the water in his heart and his hand went to pet the kitty's head.

Gyro's grin couldn't possibly get any wider, the man's eyes shining glee and THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. "She picked you!"

"Shh go away I have a new best friend," Johnny could barely control the warmth in his voice, which was a feat given how rare that was. Wasn't his thing, some people speak in winter and some speak in Summer— it all depends on their nature. Diego definitely spoke in autumn.

Bright as hell, with Johnny's glare to match, Gyro's eyes glanced around his camera to give him a 'it was necessary you can't be mad at me' face. The polaroid printed, and the pretty picture began to appear in front of him. A mirror to the real thing.

"So since she's your best friend now you can just show up to see her whenever ya want." A statement of calm and welcoming words reached Johnny's ears a moment later as he held the polaroid between his fingers. He hadn't seen a photo of himself smiling so genuinely in.. in like ever. Something about it made him want the tears to fall—but God he couldn't cry over a cat. And he especially couldn't cry about a cat in front of his other best friend—why was it complicated like that?

Gyro returned to his habitat of cooking utensils and baked goods, some already put into containers and others stuck on the cooling rack that'd probably been long over its use many minutes before. He let the cats bond as he made small slices of the different desserts, transporting the dense feathers of pure sugar to a plate of graphic roses. This was also the only plate that adorned this pattern, Gyro'd been searching to find a set to match - perhaps that goal would never be achieved. Nevertheless, he set the plate on the table, opting to just leave it there for the two to snack on at any point. And he'd get to actually reducing the mess to wash-cloths and Clorox later. Not TOO much later, but an hour wouldn't hurt the counter surely.

"Where'd the name Dancer come from," Johnny spoke up. The creature really had chosen him, her purring resembling that of a running engine. A cuddle machine of a cat and a boy who'd never known the pure joy of it.

"Oh I dunno, the way she jumped seemed kinda like dancin'—" Gyro led his own way, hair flowing behind him towards the CD player that set closer to the couch in his cozy living room. "A bit simple but I like it."

"Me too," Johnny mumbled a bit, "my best friend Dancer."

[ootahime]

what is utahime’s role in the future? — a prediction (manga spoilers)

part 1 (unedited)

I WAS ABOUT TO POST IT BUT I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IT AND I WAS SO HURT FR!!!!! I HAD REWRITE THIS ENTIRE THING </33

part 2 is here!

in this post, i will be analyzing the information we’ve been given about utahime so far to form a prediction about her future role in the jujutsu kaisen series. if you’re as interested in utahime’s character as i am, please feel free to keep reading :3 (i’ll also be talking about her relationship with gojo a bit too)

soukatsu_ on twt!

kaikaikitan on twt!

utahime iori is a semi-grade 1 sorcerer working as a student supervisor/teacher at kyoto jujutsu high school. she loves drinking beer and going to karaoke. she’s also close friends with shoko and she’s not particularly fond of gojo most of the time. what else do we know about her?

hates sweets (funny she’s the complete opposite of gojo)

she’s great at singing and it’s a huge part of her technique

squabbling with gojo became a reflex :3

everyone absolutely adores utahime

loves watching soccer and baseball

a terrible drunk (worse than naobito zenin)

gojo is her main source of stress

let’s dive into her personality and abilities!

chapter 65

before i get into it, i think it’d be best if i were to explain the timeline because a lot of people seem to be confused about this one particular thing. utahime is born on february 18th, 1987. contrary to popular belief, she is not 3 years older than gojo. it is november 2018 in the story because gojo was sealed on halloween. if gojo was born on december 7th, 1989, that would mean that right now, he is only 28 years old. he has yet to turn 29.

the year is 2007. gojo satoru is a second year at tokyo jujutsu high school. the japanese school year begins in april which suggests that gojo is only 17 at the time (even if it’s not april, it doesn’t look like winter yet so it’s unlikely that he’s already 18). utahime is 20 because it is past february. she is a 2nd grade sorcerer at the age of 20. that’s not bad at all!

chapter 65 introduces young utahime and mei on a mission together within a cursed site. in real time, they’ve been gone for two days which is a cause of concern for gojo, shoko, and geto because the two haven’t contacted anyone since the beginning of their mission.  the two begin to suspect something is wrong because the hallway markers they’ve set in place disappeared, and no matter how far they travel within the halls, the end is nowhere in sight.  mei theorizes that the cursed spirit is overlapping the space as they travel forward.  utahime agrees with this speculation and proposes a plan to escape the cursed spirit’s grasp by moving erratically.  notice how she says that if one of them should escape, they can try to attack from the outside or call for help.  if utahime was not capable of inflicting damage on anything then she would have told mei to escape and attack if she can while she waited to be rescued.  however, she didn’t.  she included herself in the sentence which leads me to believe that she is capable of going on the offense if needed.  

keep in mind that at this point in time, mei is a grade 1 sorcerer.  she is knowledgeable about all things involving jujutsu because she is experienced and skillful.  we can see this aspect of her character illustrated when she theorizes that the cursed spirit is messing with the space they’re in.  she chooses to go with utahime’s plan because she agrees that it’s the best action moving forward.  this verifies that utahime is an intelligent girl that’s able to get along with pretty much anyone.  

her intellect is demonstrated once again in chapter 79.  she was able to deduce the possibility of there being more than one traitor and the fact that one is probably a higher up.  she also narrowed down the mechamaru as the mole of kyoto not because he was acting suspicious but by process of elimination.  she thought thoroughly of his technique and how easy it would be for him to manipulate devices small enough to be undetectable.  

sure you can argue that she should already know all her students’ abilities and whatnot but you have to admit that it’s hard trying to sniff out the traitor when no one is acting suspicious.  in addition to that, how did she know that there was a traitor in the top brass?  i would have never guessed that tbh LOL (maybe bc im an idiot).

okay, now that we have established that she’s intelligent, let’s answer a more important question.  is utahime weak?

chapter 33

if gojo calls utahime weak, does that mean there is some truth to it?  well it is true that she is weaker than him because he’s the strongest and all.  in my opinion, he’s just teasing her.  he probably found that calling her weak is what really riles her up.  maybe i’ll talk about why he loves teasing her so much in a later post.  but anyway, gojo calls everybody and their mom weak.  he even said jogo was weak and we know how powerful that guy is.  gojo’s words alone do not indicate much about utahime’s power.  in fact, i don’t even think he has seen her use her technique yet.  he’s probably only ever heard of how it works.  this is what i think their conversation about her technique was like:

gojo: hm?  ur cursed technique is singing?  can u show me?

utahime: what!  no way!  

gojo: why not?

*one of the classmates tells him that she can only use her CT once in a while because it consumes a lot of energy*

gojo: hahaha!  u have to conserve cursed energy to use ur CT?  why are u so weak, utahime?

utahime: i!  am!  your!  senpai!  respect!  me!

what i’m trying to say is that gojo loves poking fun of people.  we should not believe him when he calls someone weak because compared to him, everyone is weak.  

this is a little off topic but let’s examine him telling her, “and you don’t have the nerves, utahime.”  i think he’s trying to say that there’s no way she’ll ever do something like that because she’s not the type to put her students in danger.  remember the soft expression and relieved smile on her lips when she said that she was glad the students were safe after the kyoto incident?  gojo was directly in front of her so not only did he hear her say that, but he could have seen the look on her face too.  even if he told her that she didn’t have the guts to betray the school to get on her nerves, he knew that utahime simply cared too much about the students so he ruled her out as a suspect right away.  this is why he ultimately decided to confide in her and ask her to help him.  

i’m a person who loves over-analyzing things.  i really enjoy the dynamic between gojo and utahime.  they’ve known each other for more than 11 years and although they always bicker, there is an unspoken feeling of trust between the two.  gojo can do anything and everything by himself because he is truly the strongest person alive, but he still knows when to rely on others.  him deciding to entrust utahime with such a job implies that he believes in utahime’s abilities.

chapter 52

she’s not using any cursed energy here--not to our knowledge at least.  this is just pure skill.  she was able to swiftly evade the swing from haruta.  he was surprised himself considering the fact that he was right behind her.  how do we know her CT isn’t speed?  after haruta swung at her, we can see that some of her hair got cut off.  if she was using her CT then speed should be her specialty.  she should have been able to completely avoid the attack altogether but she didn’t.  of course this isn’t a wow moment because jujutsu sorcerers should know how to dodge attacks, however, i’m just trying to get the point across that she’s not a defenseless person without her technique or others.  let’s not forget that semi-grade 1 isn’t a weak rank either.  you can’t simply be recommended to be a grade 1 sorcerer if you only can support others.  

chapter 48

i want to bring up this panel. it suggests that utahime and takuma are sorcerers who have not experienced black flash and therefore, do not understand the essence of cursed energy as well as those who have like gojo and nanami.  i find it strange how takuma and utahime were used to represent sorcerers who haven’t experienced it yet.  is the purpose to demonstrate that there is a clear difference in skill between adult sorcerers like utahime and takuma compared to gojo and nanami?  i could be nitpicking but the order of todo’s statement doesn’t line up with the sorcerers being shown.  let me explain in depth.  todo starts off by saying, “for those who have experienced black flash as compared to those who have not...” wouldn’t it make more sense to show gojo and nanami on the right side to represent sorcerers who have experienced black flash?  that was mentioned first, after all.  gojo and nanami should appear when todo says “for those who have experience black flash” while utahime and takuma should be shown right after to personify the second part, “as compared to those who have not.”  i’m just making it more complicated than it actually is LOLOL i’m sure it really just means they haven’t experienced black flash yet, which is completely fine.  i also find it fascinating how they used utahime to contrast gojo.  with nanami and takuma it makes sense.  nanami is someone takuma looks up to, he wants to gain nanami’s approval before he deems himself worthy of a promotion. what about utahime and gojo?  what’s the purpose of comparing those two together when it’s obvious that gojo knows more about the essence of cursed energy more than anyone else?  i might be delusional whoops

----

let me know what you guys think?  this is only a part 1 so i haven’t gotten around to answering the question.  i’m pretty much done with the second part, i just need to revise it a little.  i think after i post part 2, i’ll try to interpret all the gojo and utahime moments in the manga >.<

[jennana501]

A Case for Rexsoka

I’ve been around the block when it comes to ships. I’ve seen people obsess over them, and I too have been driven mad by obsession. I was a hardcore original avatar fan and I was OBSESSED with shipping Toph and Sokka together. Any time they so much as made an interaction I over analyzed it and picked it apart looking for clues that somehow would prove that my hunches were correct. It was because I related with both characters, and I loved their chemistry. I wanted them to have a romantic relationship because it would feel like some sort of personal validation.

I’m an adult now and nothing has changed. But it has been a while since I’ve desperately shipped two characters together that are not obviously romantically involved with one another, or who could be romantic behind the scenes or beyond the story shown.

Until Rex and Ahsoka.

And I’ve seen people be adamantly against it. 

“No no no it’s just a brother/sister relationship.” 

“No it’s gross she is a child”.

And of course being disagreed with on the internet can drive a person crazy, and instead of individually arguing with dozens of people online, I’m making this post once and for all to explain why I think Rex and Ahsoka have romantic feelings for each other. Especially Rex.

The argument I’ve seen, that their deep passion, commitment, love, admiration, and respect for one another (which are all so obvious you’d have to be...silly to not see it) are felt in a platonic fashion. Which, for the first 6 seasons and 8 episodes, I would totally agree.

But then Ahsoka comes back. And let’s face it. She is a woman. Age wise, she’s around 17, but everything from the maturity of her Lekku (which weirdly don’t get all that longer, especially compared to other Tagrutan women) to her poise and confidence, to her prowess as a warrior, a user of the force, and her ability to command soldiers as well as control her emotions points to her being an adult woman. She’s no Snips anymore; she’s no child. She’s grown up. And how her peers react to her illustrates how they now view her as an adult.

First there is Obi-wan. Obi-wan has always been a mentor to her, a sort of second Master. Obi-wan never hesitated to guide and Ahsoka or offer his council. He is proud of her when she succeeds, and will admonish her when she makes mistakes. When she returns and he sees her as a woman, he changes the way he treats her. He acknowledges her maturity by addressing her as an equal. He doesn’t admonish her. Instead he discusses with her, challenging her ideas and letting her offer an argument for them instead of putting them down and telling her how she should think or act. He also comes to her in his time of need, trusting her to help him with Anakin.

Then there is Anakin. We all know of Anisoka shippers, and they are perfectly able to ship and enjoy said ship, but we can all acknowledge that it is a crack pairing with no basis in the canon. Anakin portrays the perfect kind of brotherly love. He is excited to see Ahsoka, and is stunned by her unexpected reappearance. Things are harder for Anakin because he is used to their fun banter and sibling-like companionship. He’s constantly shut down with her business like manner and he struggles with coming to terms with the fact that she isn’t a little kid sister anymore. She is an adult with a mission and a plan. When he looks at her, he is endearing. He loves her. Admires her. And he can’t wait to pick up where they left off. There’s joy and adoration in his face. He is proud of her and what she has become, but he also feels alienated and even hurt because of how her adulthood has changed their dynamic.

Then there is Rex. When he first sees her, he wants nothing more than to reassure her that she still belongs. The clones had accepted her into their family. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. When he looks at her for the first time, he’s beaming with the same adoration as he had had for her before, but also with a solemn awe at what she has become and what she has grown into. He welcomes her back into his life without hesitation.

But then there is a moment things shift so drastically that I paused the show and re-watched it half a dozen times. We all know it and love it. This face he gives Ahsoka. The Look.

What we see here is something we have never, EVER seen in Rex for 7 whole seasons. And it is my opinion that this is the first time Rex has been able to feel and express that he is attracted to Ahsoka. In other words, Rex has a sexual awakening.

Up until this point, Rex has been a sexless character. Nothing he does is flirtatious, sexy, or at all suggestive that he has those feelings inside him at all. Every sexual being has a moment where they are first animalistically drawn to another being. Characters who have already had this moment are easy to pick out. Obi wan. Anakin. Ventress. These characters have already experienced their sexual awakening. Ahsoka has too. Lux was her first object of attraction.

But Rex has never had this moment. Until this reaction.

I know some of you might be thinking “but Ahsoka gives a very similar look to Anakin, does that mean she is sexually attracted to HIM?” It’s a very good point. Ahsoka and Anakin share some cheeky playful looks during “Old Friends Not Forgotten”. We see many characters give similar looks to other characters, but does this mean it means the same thing as when Rex does it? The short answer is no.

When animators design a character, they establish the “range of emotion” for that character. You can easily see this when you look back at how many times you see Rex break from his stoic, captain’s face. He rarely laughs, smiles, or emotes in any way. This is why when we see him emote it is exciting to us as an audience. A character like Ahsoka or Anakin commonly show a wide variety of expressions. Ahsoka is much more likely to give a cheeky look than Rex is. So “the look” for Rex, means a lot more when he is doing than it does when another character does it, say Fives or even Obi-Wan.

Which means the writers are trying to tell us something about this moment. 

This moment has changed Rex’s and Ahsoka’s relationship. 

Now does this mean that they are going to go bang each other immediately? Does this mean the second they are alone after “Victory and Death” they start an intense, sexual relationship? Of course not. That’s not what this ship is about at this time. But the reason many of us ship it is because suddenly they don’t feel like brother and sister anymore. It isn’t entirely platonic. And the show does a good job to further emphasize this as they come closer and closer both emotionally, and physically during the finale.

Blocking is a huge factor in visual storytelling. During the finale, Rex and Ahsoka are blocked in a way that makes them as close as physically possible on the screen. This communicates to the audience that they are closer now than they have ever been. As Jedi and Clone Trooper. As friends, and as companions, their bond forged in the fires of war, struggling to find meaning in life as soldiers.

In contrast, look how Ahsoka and Anakin are blocked in their scenes. There is nearly always a gap between them, illustrating that they are distanced from each other emotionally. Rex is even visually inserted into the gap between them in several instances. Anakin and Ahsoka are growing apart, but she and Rex are growing closer.

We get to experience Rex and Ahsoka engaging in actions and conversations that we had rarely seen before. From casual banter, to moments of intense intimacy, to emotional peaks, Rex and Ahsoka interact more in these four episodes than in the previous six seasons. Part of this is because their maturity gap has closed. Ahsoka is finally Rex’s equal in experience and maturity. It is also in part because it is a unique dynamic. No Obi-wan. No Anakin. Rex and Ahsoka are equal leaders of the 332nd. There’s also the fact that they are put into life threatening situations and have no one else but each other.

But there is that “look” that is given at the beginning of all this that suggests something else, that as their bond undoubtedly becomes strong as beskar, there is an element of it that takes their relationship from the platonic to the romantic.

I feel every detail, moment, and piece of dialogue in the finale tells the story of this bond. 

Many instances of their strong emotional bond have been spread throughout the internet, with most ready to acknowledge that they have a connection unlike any other, one that may even be described as a “force” connection. These last four episodes are so exciting because we see two friends reunited, but then we get to watch as their relationship transforms.

Even disregarding their implied attraction to each other physically, they dive into each other and hold on tight. Ahsoka shares deep personal worries with Rex, and Rex and her are shown opening up to each other in ways they have never opened up before.

We were all floored and dumbfounded at scenes such as these that show these characters at their most vulnerable. But they decide to be vulnerable together. Is it because they are all that is left of their 501st family? It part, this is definitely true. But by being this vulnerable they transform their relationship into something very different from what they had before. It will never be the same again, and it will be near impossible to back out of the emotional intimacy that these two have participated in. Once you have formed that kind of an attachment with someone, there is no going back, and as is seen in rebels, these two maintain that strong connection even after years of being apart.

This goes beyond their sexual desires or needs. They’ve forged a bond that cannot be broken. They have shared minds, shared pain and agony that only the other can understand. They’ve been isolated from the world, and all they have left is each other.

And at the end of the series, when we have Rex and Ahsoka broken, their world flip upside down and everything they ever valued or cared about lies in ruins before them, the idea that they still have each other is that beautiful seed of hope Star Wars is so good at preserving. Those of us who believe that their relationship could be romantic want good things for Rex and Ahsoka. We want them to have that love and share it with each other. Maybe only for a few moments, but having known it would be better than both of them living and dying without having that experience. 

When we see the two in Rebels, for me it confirms that these two love each other deeply. But their lives can never be lived in a normal fashion. They cannot even be together as partners in life. The Empire has stolen this from them. The tragedy of this ship is that it can never be the way we want it to be. Rex will age and die long before Ahsoka is even halfway through her own life. They cannot live with one another. They cannot wake each morning with each other, at least not at the point we see them in rebels. 

But they continue to love each other. Even over distance, even knowing that mortality will claim them with only a fraction of the memories that they deserve with one another. 

So please, the next time you see some art or a fic, or a post like this, think of what I had to say. Rexsoka is about two adults, their lives destroyed at the hands of Sidious, but in defiance they still forge a bond that he could never break or take from them. And that to me is beautiful and something to celebrate.

Side note: I spent a ton of time making gifs but they never would work and so I had to use screenshots instead :(

EDIT: At the request of the OG poster of a few gifs, I have replaced them have also made some grammatical changes. 

[scotianostra]

23rd August 1305 saw the trial and execution in London of Sir William Wallace, one time Guardian of Scotland.

I posted yesterday stating the trial happened then, it came u in a source I was reading about Wallace, sometimes the historians can get it wrong, but the post yesterday served as more of prelude and a taster of todays more detailed one. Wallace is said to have accepted his execution without resistance and a brave heart. He even made a final confession to a priest and read from the book of Psalms before his punishment.

Types of execution at The Elms ranged from burning at the stake (for heretics) to the tried and tested hanged-drawn-and-quartered method for those convicted of high treason. For those unfamiliar with this method, it involves being dragged by a horse to the place of execution, hanged  until almost dead, then disembowelled whilst still conscious, beheaded, and finally being chopped into four pieces (i.e. ‘quartered) and subsequently having these pieces put on display across the city, or in Sir William Wallace’s case, the country.

I think it only right to give a background post about Sir William Wallace so hang on to your hats, there’ll be no mention of French Princess’s, Blue painted Australians or the like. 

Much of what we know about Wallace comes from  Blind Harry, also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, is renowned as the author of The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, more commonly known as The Wallace. The trouble is how reliable can Blind Harry’s account be, it was written over 150 years after Wallace's grisly demise, the stories about oor erstwhile hero would have been handed down through  word of mouth, possibly even in song. 

Harty claims that Wallace's father was named Malcolm, and on this basis Wallace has traditionally been identified as Sir Malcolm Wallace, a minor landowner from Renfrewshire. Sir Malcolm was a descendant of Richard Wallace, a native of the lordship of Oswestry on the Welsh border, (Wallace itself meaning Welshman),  who first came to Scotland in the twelfth-century in the service of Walter Fitz Alan, first High Steward of Scotland. This Stewart connection has also been used by historians to explain Wallace's place in the 'patriotic' struggle of the 1290s.

But  Harry’s story has some flaws, now I’m not decrying the story, just some details like his age.

No reliable evidence exists to gives us an estimate of his age. Harry claims that Wallace was 'forty and five [years] of age' when he was executed,  but also states that he was 'bot eighteen yer auld' shortly before the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which would place the year of his birth around 1278/9.

It shows how difficult it is to build a picture of Sir William.

The contemporary English chronicler William Rishanger implies that Wallace was a young man when he emerged as the leader of armed resistance to the English in southern Scotland in 1297, but this does little to narrow things down. According to Hary, Wallace was raised by his two uncles - both clerics - who saw to his education after his father was killed by an English knight named Fenwick

 One of his uncles was from Dunipace, a wee town not far from my home in Falkirk, it is through this uncle we get an oft quoted phrase  “This is the truth I tell you: of all things freedom’s most fine. Never submit to live, my son, in the bonds of slavery entwined.” The second pic shows part of the quote, it is on a paving stone on Falkirk High Street  that I often walk past.

He does seem to have had two brothers, Malcolm - who would provide Wallace with much-needed support in the later part of his career - and John - who would later be executed for supporting Robert Bruce after 1306. His activities before 1297 are also uncertain, but they may have been less than wholesome. Contemporary English accounts describe him as a 'brigand' and a 'thief', suggesting he may have lived outside the law even before the English invaded. Of course, these may simply be attempts by hostile writers to blacken his reputation. However, a legal document of August 1296 mentions 'a thief, one William le Waleys' as an accomplice of a cleric named Matthew of York who had in June of that year been convicted of robbery at Perth. This could well be our William.

Again I am not trying to blacken his character, I am merely pointing out the difficult job that historians have when piecing together his life. 

Whatever the details of his early life, following the English invasion of 1296 that Wallace first emerged into the mainstream of Scottish affairs in a big way. The death of King Alexander III in 1286, followed by the death of his granddaughter Margaret of Norway in 1290, had provoked a major succession crisis in Scotland. Efforts to settle the ongoing dispute between the competing Balliol and Bruce factions had led to increasing English interference in the governance of Scotland, culminating in a full-scale invasion of the kingdom in 1296. I’ve covered all this in posts regarding King John Balliol, the sacking of Berwick and  the first Battle of Dunbar all in 1296.

One of Wallace’s first encounters with the English is told in typically dramatic form by Blind Harry, the story goes that William was fishing  when he is accosted by five soldiers in the service of 'lorde Persye'  Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy who was the warden of Galloway and Ayrshire .  The honest, unsuspecting Wallace offers them some of his fish so long as they leave the rest for his uncle - 'ane agyt knycht' - Wallace hopes to feed, but the soldiers demand all of his fish and attack him when he refuses them. Remarkably, Wallace disarms the first attacker using only a 'poutstaff' ('fishing pole'), seizes the discarded sword, kills two of the soldiers, severs the hand of another, and chases the survivors off! 

The earliest confirmed encounter between Wallace and the English administration occurred in May 1297, when Wallace and a small band of supporters killed William Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark, shortly before an assize was due to be held in the town. According to the indictment against him in 1305, Wallace and his men also dismembered Helelrig's corpse. Famously, Hary claims that Wallace's attack on Heselrig was in retribution for the killing of Wallace's wife - Marion Braidfute, as Harry identifies her. 

It is apparent from contemporary English accounts of the incident at Lanark that it proved to be a powerful recruiting tool for Wallace's rebellion. As Walter Guisborough put it, 'the common folk of the land followed him as their leader and ruler; the retainers of the great lords adhered to him; and even though the lords themselves were present with the English king in body, at heart they were on the opposite side'.

What I find remarkable is that the killing of the soldiers and then Heselrig kickstarted, the uprising against Edwards army and around 4 months Wallace and Andrew de Moray had assembled a combined army of over 6 thousand troops that ambushed the English as they crossed the Forth at Stirling.

Before Stirling we also had the capitulation of the Nobility at Irvine, I have also covered this in a previous post.

In the wake of the Scottish victory at Stirling Bridge, the English administration in Scotland all but collapsed. The Scots were once again able to form a government of their own, and at its head - now as Guardians of Scotland - were Wallace and Murray, although Murray's tenure was cut short when he died - probably of wounds sustained at Stirling Bridge - in November.

This was the zenith of Wallace's career. He had emerged from obscurity to the very summit of Scottish society, all in the space of a year. It also meant he had a price on his head and was the most wanted man in Scotland.

Edward I returned from the Continent in March 1298 and set his sights on Scotland, he marched with an army North in late June and quickly discovered that Wallace's response to the threat had been to devastate southern Scotland and withdraw with his army out of reach of the English. A bitter and frustrating campaign followed, with Edward almost abandoning the chase altogether. However, in late July Edward got wind that the Scots had been sighted near Falkirk, and hurriedly moved his army to meet them. 

Precisely why the confrontation at Falkirk happened is, as with so much of Wallace's career, uncertain. Until this point in the campaign Wallace had carefully avoided the English army, a prudent strategy that would later pay off for the Scots under Bruce. Guisborough claims that Wallace had learned that Edward planned to withdraw and hoped to attack the English in the rear. This would at least explain why Wallace so suddenly abandoned his previously cautious strategy. However, given the potential challenges he was facing from the nobility of Scotland it may equally have been the case that Wallace felt compelled to face the English in open battle sooner or later and prove that his success at Stirling Bridge - which was after all arguably at least as much Murray's as it was Wallace's - was not just a lucky accident. 

Whatever the case, the battle that followed was an utter catastrophe for the guardian. Abandoned by the cavalry, who may have lost their nerve as they had at Irvine or - as claimed by subsequent Scottish chroniclers - betrayed Wallace, Wallace's schiltrons - tightly-packed bodies of infantry armed with long spearmen - repelled the English cavalry but fell prey to English archery, which broke up their formations and left them vulnerable to a renewed assault by the cavalry. Wallace escaped the battle with his life, but his position as guardian had been irrevocably damaged. It is not entirely clear precisely when or where he resigned the guardianship, but by the end of 1298 Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (the future king), and John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, were jointly exercising the office of guardian.

Wallace's time as guardian may have been decisively ended, but he remained an active opponent of the English in Scotland. The resistance he offered to the English in this period was not always in keeping with the wishes of the guardians. For instance, in August 1299 an altercation took place at a council at Peebles at which Wallace's plan to travel to France was condemned by Sir David Graham as being 'without the leave or approval of the Guardians'. Wallace's plans were defended by his brother Malcolm, who argued that they were at least 'for the good of the kingdom'

Wallace did indeed leave for France in 1299, apparently on a diplomatic mission to seek the support of King Philip IV against Edward I. Wallace's reception in France was initially hostile, since at the time Philip was himself seeking peaceful relations with Edward I, and Wallace was briefly incarcerated by the French king. However, in November 1300 Philip was writing to his envoys to the pope asking them to promote Wallace's case at the papal court. It is possible that Wallace himself visited to Rome assist in making the Scottish case to the pope in person, and the fact that when he was eventually he reportedly had on his person a safe-conduct from King Hakon V of Norway may suggest he also travelled to Norway on diplomatic business (although he may simply have planned to do so at some point). By 1303 - possibly earlier - he was back in Scotland and again involved in armed resistance to the English

By this point the tide in the war was slowly turning against the Scots. The French were once again pursuing a peaceful policy towards the English following their own military reversal at Courtrai in 1302. Scottish nobles were gradually making their peace with the English, and the surrender of Stirling Castle marked the effective end to organised Scottish resistance on a large scale. In light of his increasing success, Edward I was generally willing to be fairly accommodating towards those Scots who were willing to submit to him, but this was not so with Wallace. Indeed, in the general amnesty offered to the Scots by the English, Wallace might at best 'render himself up to the will and mercy of our sovereign lord the king, if it shall seem good to him' - hardly an encouraging prospect. When Wallace's long-standing cohort Simon Fraser submitted to Edward in July 1304, he was welcomed into the king's peace only on the understanding that he would assist in the ever-intensifying hunt for the fugitive Wallace. Nevertheless, Wallace remained at large until 3rd August 1305, when he was seized near Glasgow by men in the service of Sir John Menteith, keeper of Dumbarton Castle on behalf of King Edward. Menteith - identified as Wallace's 'gossop' ('godfather') by Harry.

Having finally captured Wallace, Edward I refused even to see him. Instead, Wallace was taken to London for what for want of a better word might be called a trial.

Sir Peter Malory, one of the king's justices, presided over the proceedings, which were little more than a formality. The charges were considerable. Wallace had, according his accusers, been a traitor to King Edward, perpetrated armed resistance against him and slain the king's officers (William Heselrig was mentioned by name), assumed the authority of 'a superior' of Scotland, submitted 'to the fealty and lordship of the lord king of France and [gave] him help to the destruction of the kingdom of England', made war on the northern counties of England, 'feloniously and seditiously assaulted, burned and devastated religious men and nuns...[and] inflicted [upon] all, old and young, wives and widows, children and babes the worst death which he could devise', and 'harmoniously and eagerly...refused to submit himself to the lord king's peace' even after being defeated at Falkirk. According to the Annals of London, he 'answered that he had never been a traitor to the king of England, but granted the other crimes charged against him'.

In the eyes of the English as an outlaw, Wallace had no recourse to a defence. Instead, he was summarily sentenced to be executed in the manner reserved for traitors. Wallace was thus 'dispolyeid of his weid' as Hary puts it and dragged naked on a hurdle through the streets of London. At Smithfield he was hanged by the neck 'for the robberies, homicides and felonies which he carried out in the kingdom of England and the land of Scotland'

Before he could suffocate he was taken down and emasculated and disembowelled 'for the dreadful wickedness which he did to the church'. His 'heart, liver and lungs and all the bowels...from which such perverse thoughts proceeded' were then burned. Presumably now dead, Wallace was beheaded - the punishment for outlawry - and his body was divided into four parts. His head was to be displayed on London Bridge (where it remained until at least September the following year, when it was joined by that of his former comrade Simon Fraser). The remaining quarters were to be displayed on gibbets at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Stirling and Perth, 'to put dread in and to warn all by-passers and observers'.

The savagery with which Wallace was dispatched contrasts sharply with Edward I's attitude toward the Scots in general, but let’s not forget it was the usual punishment for any person deemed to be a traitor.

However it appeared that Longshanks earlier experiences with the Scots had convinced the ageing English king that a more conciliatory approach to establishing a lasting English administration in the kingdom. Edward's new plan for the settlement of Scotland envisaged a ruling council composed primarily of Scots - including the likes of Bruce and Comyn - which would advise an English lieutenant who would retain overall authority. Scots law and custom was to be respected, at least in the short term, and it may have seemed to many at the time that the objections that had fuelled Wallace's original rebellion in 1297 had been addressed. 

As we know, the matter would be rendered moot less than six months after Wallace's death when Robert Bruce killed Comyn, forcing him to make public his ambition to become King of Scots. In many senses Bruce's struggle was quite unlike Wallace's, being primarily motivated by his own ambitions and perception of his rights. That being said, if Wallace had not maintained the momentum behind Scottish resistance to the English, particularly in the crucial year of 1297, then Bruce may never have had his opportunity to make his successful bid for power.

Pics are statues of Sir William Wallace around Scotland in order, Bemersyde near Dryburgh, Aberdeen, opposite His Majesty's Theatre,  Edinburgh Castle, Newmarket Street Ayr, St Nicholas Church, Lanark, Stirling Town Centre, The National Wallace Monument Abbey Craig, Stirling, showing it before and after it’s recent restoration,  Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and his memorial at Smithfield, London. There are others around the world that remember the Scots Patriot who so bravely stood up to fight for his country.