#Lucretia Garfield

[deadpresidents]

I'm not joking -- I actually check IMDB every few days to make sure this is still real:

I mean, that's about as tailor-made for my entertainment as it can get. Not only are we getting a movie about this story, which I've been waiting for years for, but we're getting Offerman as President Arthur, Michael Shannon and the amazing Betty Gilpin as the Garfields, and Tom Wambsgans as Charles Guiteau! Matthew Macfadyen is certainly not the first person who I'd think of to play crazy-ass Guiteau, but I'm sure he'll be incredible because he's always great. Plus, Matt Ross is really good too -- as a director and as an actor -- so I'm glad to hear he's involved.

Please get made, "Death by Lightning".

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Angus was a good detective. The best detective, if he could say so himself. Good enough for the Goldcliff Militia, good enough for the Bureau of Balance. But there were still mysteries that completely eluded him. Sure, joining the Bureau had cleared some things up. But it also opened up so many more questions. Angus could— and has!— filled several notebooks up with things he wanted to figure out. But right, his most pressing concern was this.

"What do you— what do you mean he was just here?" Angus said, looking away from his notes at last.

The Director was sitting behind her desk, sunk deeply into her chair. She wore a look deep… something. Angus couldn't quite place his finger on it. But it didn't matter right now.

"He was just here," the Director said again, shrugging.

"Is he—he's not inoculated?"

"As far as I'm aware," the Director said, "and I am very aware of who is and isn't inoculated— he has not been."

"How can he live up here—?"

"Who's to say he's alive?" the Director asked.

"…fuck," Angus said. Okay, new page. He started scribbling stuff down. He'd have to look into undead beings more— ooh, maybe Mr. Taako could put him in contact with Mr. Kravitz, he had been wanting to ask a few things about his whole job and purpose and such. Back on topic, Angus, back on topic. Okay. The Bureau's library was probably his next best bet and if not, maybe the Militia's library, since he still had that passcode.

"If I may speak honestly," the Director said, leaning forward. She moved a few sheets of paper aside. "I don't give a fuck how he got up here because, quite frankly, I hate speaking to him. The less we interact, the better. Have you heard his voice? The man sounds like a violin that got beat into a pile of chopsticks. It's not—"

"So you just let him stay?" Angus interrupted, appalled.

"Garfield the Deals Warlock is not a force to be reckoned with, Angus," the Director said gravely. "Sometimes, the easiest way to solve a mystery is to stop thinking about it."

"Well, yeah," Angus said. "But he's— isn't it a security risk, ma'am? If he can get up here, then who's to say someone else couldn't? Someone like— like a Red Robe, or—"

"Angus," The Director said, looking him in the eye. "There are no Red Robes on the moon."

"That you know of," Angus said.

"That I know of," the Director allowed. "But I can one hundred percent assure you that Garfield is not a Red Robe."

"He has the magical ability—"

"He's as much of a Red Robe as you are, Angus," the Director said. "So unless you have something to share—"

"I was— it was a goof, Madam Director," Angus said. "I'm— I'm not a Red Robe." A pause. But could he be? If the Voidfish could erase the memories from his head about the relics, then maybe. But, no— no, Angus had been a baby. He couldn't make a weapon of mass destruction as a baby.

"Mine was also a goof," the Director said, cutting into his thoughts. Oh. Right. Okay. "Angus, I do very much enjoy chatting with you, but I do need you to get out of my office. I'm afraid to say that I have a spa appointment with Merle this afternoon and I need to mentally prepare myself. I think it would be wise for you to stop investigating Garfield and resume looking for another Relic."

"Of course," Angus said. "But if I happen to find anything about Garfield being a— maybe like a lich, or—"

"Can't be a lich," the Director said. "He'd just get blasted off the ding-dang moon."

"I'm— I'm sorry?" Angus asked.

"It really is time for you to go," the Director said, standing. A few of her bones popped and she grimaced. "I believe you left off with the, uhm, the Temporal Chalice, correct? That is— that's a pretty big one." She rounded the desk, doing a sweeping motion with her hands as if to say "shoo!". "I'm sure you can manage, though."

"Of course, I can," Angus said. "I'm the—"

"World's greatest detective," the Director said. "So you've said— and proven, too. Expect a hefty bonus around, uh— midsummer. Or thereabouts."

The Director showed Angus to the door.

"How big of a bonus?" Angus said, shutting his notebook.

"Well, it'll ruin the surprise if I tell you now," the Director said. "Have a good day, Detective McDonald."

"Have a good day, ma'am," Angus said. She shut the door behind him.

Angus love being a detective. That's part of why he was so good at it. But it seemed like every time he and Madam Director spoke, he ended up with more questions than answers. Maybe she was right. They had bigger problems than whatever Garfield the Deals warlock was. Or used to be, if that was anything. He should get back to finding the Chalice.

He paused, opening his notebook again.

It wouldn't hurt to look up more about liches, though. Just in case.

[incorrect-zone-quotes]

Best TAZ Balance NPC Poll Round 3!

The matchups are once again randomized so please don't yell at me.

Angus McDonald vs Garfield the Deals Warlock

Lucretia vs Killian Fangbattle

NO-3113 vs Sloane

Roswell vs Davenport

Steven the Goldfish vs Lup

Clint McElroy (the Plane Walker) vs Barry Bluejeans

Jenkins vs Avi

Carey Fangbattle vs Kravitz

[fictionadventurer]

Was this written by future President of the United States Chester Arthur or Anne of Green Gables?

[cataztrophi]

Someone please make this with Lucretia and Garfield the Deals Warlock

[Image ID: a three-panel Garfield comic strip. In the first panel, John is holding a telephone and says "He WHAT?!" while Garfield lays down nearby. In the second panel John says "Could you hold for a moment? I have another call coming in... thanks." In the third panel, John has a shocked look on his face and says "He WHAT?!" in larger font to indicate shouting. Garfield looks at the viewer with a smug expression. A thought bubble above his head says, "I've been a busy boy." End image ID.]

[pharaoh-ferrous]

it's one thirty in the a.m. and all I can think about is my taz balance au

[herbgerblin]

Garfield the deals warlock: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “voidfish ichor” 😳💊 you’ll be knowing what they don’t want you to know 💯👨‍💻

Tres horny boys: yeah whatever. i don’t feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude we gotta stop the hunger from eating the universe

The red robe hovering ominously in the corner: Lucretia is lying to you

[umbraastaff]

More TAZ Balance speedrun exploits:

With the new glitch to get the Light at the start of any cycle, you can now technically enact Lucretia's Shield on the Hunger anywhere before Faerûn for any%. However, this hinges on the given world being able to defeat the Hunger in the final battle. The earliest success so far is at Legato, if you get the arts students to tap into their rage.

You can use RNG manipulation to get the Slicer of Tapir-Weir Isles to appear on your first Costco run, though this is only useful if you're doing the Garfield Ending (why) or on NG+.

Barry can use a multiclassing slot to learn Lup's double jump ability in Cycle 23. Then on Faerûn, you can use the Infinite Jump glitch to get Barry to the Moon (bypassing the lich barrier by being alive), which causes the game to skip to Reunion Tour. However, the number of perfect inputs this requires in a row means this is considered impossible outside of TAS.

You can do a Reunion Tour skip as early as Phandalin, however. A few years before Gerblins, you can glitch lich!Barry into the Dryad Tree area of Goldcliff. You're not meant to get there until the end of Petals to the Metal, so everything's there, including the Love buff you can get standing near the tree. Barry can then get a second stack of Love (normally impossible) by going to Magnus' wedding. Then you immediately have him resurrect in his body, which freezes all buffs he has in lich form. If you then keep him alive until Phandalin, when the fire kills him, he'll have both stacks of Love plus his own innate bonus. The game won't let Barry possess party members, but since the Gauntlet isn't technically equipped by anyone, he can possess that. The OP Love buff slows the Relic Corruption debuff to a crawl, which keeps him there long enough to pass through the Moon barrier and, again, trigger Reunion Tour.

Taakitz% players figured out that Barry can do a mass zombie-raising at the Glamour Springs graveyard the night before the show, which gets Kravitz on the scene and causes him to meet Taako. Like all crime scenes, this also has a 5% chance to spawn Angus and jumpstart the Magic Mentor quest.

[mooselybased]

And there we have it, all thirty fighters from our hypothetical Adventure Zone platform fighter. I've loved making these, and may return to add some "DLC" at some point (gotta get the Steeplechase player characters, right?), but for now we're gonna leave it here.

12 Balance reps, 6 Amnesty reps, 5 Graduation reps, 4 Ethersea reps, and one each from Dust, Commitment, and Dadlands. Let me know who you'd main, what you'd like to see as hypothetical DLC for this hypothetical game, or any other thoughts!

Links to individual movesets under the cut, and I'll see y'all next time!

Magnus Burnsides | Taako | Merle Highchurch | Killian & Carey | Kravitz | Lup

Lucas Miller | Barry Bluejeans | Klarg | Roswell | Lucretia | Garfield the Deals Warlock

Duck Newton | Aubrey Little | Ned Chicane | Minerva | Mama | Arlo Thacker

Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt | Argo Keene | The Firbolg | Demon Prince Gray | Rainer Michelle | | Augustus Parsons

Amber Gris | Zoox | Devo la Main | Urchin | Kardala | Dad Squad

[juha-art]

this will never stop being fun for me

one of merle's shirts was suggested by @taakosleftshoe & @entguarde ! thanks <3

(psst check out my shirt jokes tag)

Image description by @anistarrose : digital sketches of characters from The Adventure Zone, photoshopped to be wearing various photorealistic graphic t-shirts. In the first image, Lup and Barry are standing together and smiling.

Barry’s wearing a shirt that says, in many different fonts: “Sorry, I’m married to a freaking sexy wife. She’s a bit crazy and scares me sometimes but she’s a perfect mixture of sunshine and hurricane. She is my whole world. Flirt with me, they’ll never find your body. (Yes, she bought me this shirt.)”

Lup has an arm around Barry and wears a shirt with a pink grim reaper on it, saying: “Give me your mum’s credit card.”

Next, Davenport holds a mug with a tired expression. His shirt has a cartoon picture of mice on a bicycle and reads: “The homies and I aren’t feelin’ this endless cycle of death and rebirth.”

Lucretia’s sitting behind him and journaling, with a shirt that reads: “My pen is huge” next to a picture of a pen.

Merle is shown twice. His first shirt originally read: “I’m no cactus expert, but I know a prick when I see one,” but several words have been scratched out so it it now reads: “I’m cactus expert. I know a prick when I see one.”

His latter shirt simply reads: “Hoes love stagnant water.” Magnus is next, and wears a shirt that says “Kiss your homies goodnight” on the back.

Finally, Taako wears a shirt featuring Garfield in a cowboy hat, reading: “Women fear me, fish fear me, men turn their eyes away from me as I walk. No beast dare makes a sound in my presence. I am alone on this barren earth.” End description

[deadpresidents]

The Death By Lightning casting was updated. Any thoughts on Shea Whigham as Conkling and Bradley Whitford as Blaine?

I'm a huge fan of both Shea Whigham and Bradley Whitford, so I'm all for them being involved even if I don't see either of them as Conkling and Blaine. I'm just glad that the series is being stretched out enough to include Roscoe Conkling and James G. Blaine. Also, Kate Chase Sprague and Blanche Bruce! If we're getting Kate Chase Sprague as a major character, that means it's probably going to get into her relationship with Conkling...and any story featuring more Roscoe Conkling is bound to be entertaining.

Also, is there a law that was passed that requires Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham to always be cast together? I'm not complaining. I like both actors. I'm just curious.

[assassinsandpresidentssexypoll]

A first lady versus a president. Choose.

[pranklinfierce]

you're having a party, which presidents are you inviting?

Good question, very fun. I'll invite all of the ones I like, and whichever ones I'd like to see in a party setting.

James Madison is chronologically the first that I would invite. I think it'd be funny to see him at a party. I think of "nearly gets trampled on the dance floor..." I, myself, will trample him unless he brings Dolley.

Jackson is invited and I hope he leaves cheese around the house in secret spots like he did at the end of his presidency.

Van Buren is invited unless @presidenttyler continues to insist that I have to marry him or he'll summon a deadly fog (please die, Mr. Tyler.)

I would invite William Henry Harrison, but tragically, as I'm sure we've all heard, he is no longer with us </3.

John Tyler is invited unless he tries to insist I marry Martin Van Buren lest a deadly fog be summoned. Also I swear to God he's not allowed to use my bathroom. I hope he and Jackson start fighting (no weapons allowed in my house) and I get to see their skinny bones fall out.

James K Polk is invited. I want him to bring his Lady Presidentress as well. Double invited if he is the presidentress.

Zachary Taylor is invited. His daughter can come too. His daughter's husband cannot come. His daughter's husband's dog, Bonin, can come. The murderer who shares a name with Zachary Taylor's daughter's husband's dog cannot come.

Millard Fillmore is invited. He can bring the whole boiler room with him. It wouldn't be a party without him.

Franklin Pierce is invited, of course. As an old @/deadpresidents posts that I can longer find clarifies, he would indeed be a welcome party guest, even if people on Reddit don't seem to think so (I have beef with 90% of reddit tier lists, save for any of them made by @starlight-tequila.) As I've come to understand, there're no less than 4 fictional interpretations of Pierce where he's being haunted. I request he keeps the haunting at home; I don't want the watchmojo demmons to mess up the vibe.

James Buchanan is invited. I want to see him in his worst outfit, behaving as he did at Dickinson before his expulsion. He needs to bring Harriet too. WRK too, unless I decide that he's also dead.

Andrew Johnson can come because I once saw an image of him smiling.

Ulysses Grant can come. He may play with the non dog animals (unfortunately, they're all just different Martin Van Buren government assigned rodentsonas in a pen.)

As can Hayes. Hayes can bring his wife, Lucy. She actually allowed drinking in the White House on special occasions, so she would not be a party pooper.

Garfield may come, but only as Lucretia's plus one. It's what he deserves. Since Guiteau did so much for Garfield's election (and was basically the president, let's be real, guys) he can come as an honorary president. So can David Rice Atchison, even though that story is complete bs. Dr. Doctor Bliss will be shot on sight by Boston Corbett.

Arthur is invited, but Julia Sand needs to pre-approve everything that he does. Conkling may come as a plus one, but he will go in the pen with the Martin Van Buren government assigned rodentsonas (it's okay, that's where Grant is anyway.)

On no other day would I ever allow Benjamin Harrison and his shortness within my sight, but I just found a song about him and it's stuck in my head, so I think it's only right that he attends 1 single time before my kind feelings toward him dry out.

McKinley is invited. He must sing to me.

Wilson is invited. But I will lock him in a room like a creature. You-know-who gets the key. The second female president, Edith Wilson, may attend.

Warren Harding gets to come. Gaston Means may, as well. Also Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. That's about it. If Nixon were to show up I wouldn't turn him away.

I'd like the party to end by sending an anonymous tip to Carrie A. Nation, telling her there is alcohol. She can come in, destroy everything, and all's well because if everything is destroyed, there's nothing to clean. She and Guiteau can ride into the sunset, combining to be a person of a normal height. I hope they invite me to the wedding.

[autisticangus]

IT IS TIME...

for the The Adventure Zone: Balance sexyperson poll

I've done the bracket a lil different than other polls

Rather than randomizing all the characters available against eachother, I have hand selected the 8 characters I felt have the best chances and placed them so that the first round will be going against them to make everything a little more fair so that smaller NPCs without as much love won't go down round one against a player character or something!

I have also separated the brackets by gender, not for weird reasons, also just for fairness so if, say, Taako is up against Lucretia, the poll isn't thrown off by the majority of votes coming from people who are only attracted to women or vice versa.

ROUND ONE:

Johann VS Edward (Winner VS Taako)

Barry Bluejeans VS Avi (Winner VS Magnus)

Davenport VS Leon the Artificer (Winner VS Merle)

Magic Brian VS John (Winner VS Kravitz)

Lydia VS Istus (Winner VS Killian)

Julia Burnsides VS Sloane (Winner VS Lucretia)

Carey Fangbattle VS Hurley (Winner VS Lup)

Klarg VS No-3113 (Noelle) (Winner VS Garfield)

[noodyl-blasstal]

Cool, Calm, and Collegiate - Chapter 3

Day 3 of @blupjeansweek and the prompt is Strings!

Read below or on Ao3. Missed yesterday? Catch up here!

-

Lup shuffles the cup carrier to the same hand as the muffin bag and knocks on Barry’s door.

“Yes?” Barry asks.

“Good morning, Dr Barold.” Lup pokes her head round the door.

“Lup!” No matter how many times he’s seen her in the last two weeks he’s always seemed pleased about it. Which is the right answer, of course, Lup’s incredible, she knows this, but not everyone else does. “I mean, er, Dr Tacco, come on in!”

“I come bearing gifts.” Lup brandishes the carrier and bag and sets them down on the desk.

“Gifts or bribery?” Barry levels her with his best attempt at a serious face, which she’s learning fast is flimsy at best. It’s wonderful discovering all the little him-nesses which don’t come across in emails. Sure, she knows Sildar’s coffee order, but now she also knows how Barry scrunches his mouth when he’s thinking hard.

“Gifts!” Lup says as she flops into the visitor chair and attempts to kick her feet up on the edge of the desk, only for Barry to catch them and deposit them back over the side.

Barry raises an eyebrow.

“Gifts to bribe you.” She smiles as big as she can possibly smile.

“Uh huh.” Barry looks wary. Which is probably reasonable after the shaving cream incident, but she maintains that they both learned stuff and had fun, plus she was the one who did cleanup. Lucretia didn’t even really seem that angry honestly.

“We’re learning about force next.” Lup says mildly.

“Uh huh.” There’s a smile nagging at the corner of his mouth. She knew this topic would get him.

“...and I thought it would be good to do a practical example, you know, to help the visual and active learners, because as a teacher it’s important to focus on a variety of different learning styles and engage the whole class.” She nods solemnly, the weight of young minds on her shoulders alone.

“... and so you would like…?” Barry asks, still struggling with the smile.

“String.”

“String?” Barry’s brow knits, perplexed by the concept of woven threads, and definitely not the trap at hand, this was flawless, seamless. Then he gets it. Shit. She knew he was smart, she should have had an extra plan for this. “How much string, Lup?”

“Uh.”

“You’re going to need to know before you ask Lucretia.”

“Much.”

“Many of string, would you say?” Barry asks. “Shall I put that on the forms?”

“How many balls do you think it takes to support the average teenager?” Lup asks.

There’s a long pause. Long enough that she worries she might finally have found Barry’s limit.

He pulls a sheet of note paper from the stack of scrap on his desk and grabs a pen. “How long is the string and what are the anchor points?”

–

Lucretia can’t argue with the numbers. They’re flawless.

She did argue with the health and safety element, but thankfully Barry agreed to be on hand to cast Fly as needed and she relented. Afterall, Lup’s weekly student reviews were flawless (because she was made to do this), and string was cheap. Lucretia couldn’t argue with the fact her resources cost nothing close to what the twins had already requested from the budget - not that she should officially know that, but the students couldn’t stop talking about the flashy (definitely unnecessary) components in necromancy 101.

–

“Barry.”

“Yeah?” Says Barry, somewhere to her left.

“This is so much string.”

“I believe that was what you wanted, much string.”

“Do you think we overestimated?”

“Maybe a touch.” Barry says, emerging from the boxes. “But you got a ridiculous bargain.”

“Garfield’s fine at haggling, but cha’girl’s better.”

“We do, uh, need room for the students in here. Hard to learn if you’re, er, smashed against a box.”

“Pocket dimension?” Lup asks.

“Genius.” Barry’s casting before she finishes talking. “There.” He dusts his hands off.

She loves how enthusiastic he is. Not that she’d really thought there would be too many limits in a school which aims for fun, but there’s always an element of caution needed when it comes to tenured staff. In Lup’s experience they’re more inclined to quash anything which sits outside their prescriptive idea of what should be happening. That or they’ll steal your research. She’s still mad about it, she’ll die mad about it. He didn’t even put her down as an author on the fucking paper. But it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not like that here. Lucretia’s letting her do spider class. Barry’s helping her make her stupid ideas happen. They’re not here to steal anything from her. She needs to leave the past in the past.

The students filter their way in and look around the suspiciously empty room. It’s heartening to see how quickly they’ve gotten used to her.

“Heeeeeeeelllllllo and welcome everyone to….” Lup spreads her arms to reveal her spider legs. “...spider class!”

There’s at least two whoops.

“Dr Lup!” A hand shoots up.

“Yes Angus?” Lup says, fighting hard not to smile. It was great to have him in her class - especially because he’d originally been in Lydia and Edwards and asked to be moved.

“I thought we were supposed to be doing force today.” Lup learned quickly that these questions weren’t impertinence, he just wanted to know.

“Ding ding ding! Right answer, Ango! And who knows force better than spiders?”

“You?” Angus asks hopefully.

“Well, it’s a half me, half spider hybrid teaching you today. So class, today we’re going to be metaphorically punching gravity in its metaphorical face, but first we’ve gotta learn the theory so we can do it real good. Grab your notebooks, you’re gonna need ‘em!” She’s heartened by the immediate scramble that begins for notebooks and pens.

–

“I can’t believe how many kids you stuck to the ceiling. I mean, I can, I know the maths of it, but seeing it.” Barry’s genuine delight is wonderful to see.

Lup shrugs nonchalantly, as if she spends every day making child catching webs. “Oh, you know.”

“No, Lup. You… they loved it.”

“I mean…”

“They couldn’t stop laughing. They did maths,# and they had fun! You’re a genius”

Lup preens a little, she’s allowed. “Did you have fun too?”

Barry doesn’t even think about it. “Yeah, I really did.”

He gives her a look so soft, so full of admiration, that she can’t bear it. There’s only a certain amount of praise she can accept before she feels itchy about it, she’s never quite mastered Taako’s full bluster mode.

“Right, I think today is macaroni day, would you care to accompany me to the canteen? Maybe afterwards we can go have another look at the equations and see if we can figure out the too many solutions solution?” There’s no way Barry can resist the allure of mac and cheese and research.

He looks right into her soul. “Fine, but I’m going to tell you how good at teaching you are at least four more times.”

Lup rolls her eyes and flounces in the direction of the canteen (so that Barry can’t see the smile on her face).

–

They solve it.

They drink coffee.

They talk.

They talk.

They talk.

They even sit in companionable silence, which, honest, Lup still finds tricky - there’s always the impulse to fill the gaps with a lot of people. She trusts Barry with silence though, he’ll be careful with it.

“Are you going to the social tonight?” Barry asks her.

“Are you?” Lup replies.

Barry looks at her as if he’s trying to figure out a puzzle. “Uh… yes.” He says without any confidence.

“Really?”

He clears his throat.

“Yeah… yes. Yeah.” He says.

“Wow, real keen there, Barold.” Lup smiles.

“Are you, er, will you be there?”

“Yeah, cha’girl’s going. I guess we’d better get ready soon…”

“10 more minutes?” Barry asks, like Lup hoped he would.

–

“Oh, how artfully rumpled, darling! You really managed to make it look like you’ve been wearing that all day.” Lydia says almost as soon as Lup makes it through the door.

“Have you and your boyfriend been hiding in the labs again?” Edward wrinkles his nose as he says boyfriend.

How dare he? Lup and Barry aren’t dating, obviously, but if they were she’d be proud of it! There’s nothing distasteful about Barry.

“Barry’s great.” Lup says quickly.

“Of course, no one said he wasn’t…” Lydia pauses “…great.” She purses her mouth and makes it abundantly clear that she’s an idiot who doesn’t know a good thing when it’s walking down the hall towards them.

Lup resists the impulse to hiss at them, settles for raising her eyebrows and breaks away to meet Barry at the door.

“I like your shirt.” Lup says in greeting.

Barry definitely seems to get slightly pinker than he was before, maybe he walked over too fast. “Thank you. You look nice too… I mean, you look nice… I mean… drinks? Shall we get a drink?”

“Sweet music to my ears, Barry. Lead on!”

He peers round the room, then zeroes in on a table at the back. “Come on then.”

“Oh, hang on. Sorry.” Barry deviates off course slightly. “Hello!” Barry greets Lucretia and a man Lup doesn’t recognise on the way over. “Lup, have you met Captain Davenport? Davenport, this is Dr Tacco.”

“Hello Dr Tacco, I heard about the shaving foam.” Davenport looks worryingly serious, his moustache is so neat she swears he must have used a ruler, and his shirt and jacket are perfectly tailored.

“Hello Captain Davenport. Reports of the explosion have been greatly exaggerated.” Lup hopes her tone is demure enough to hide the pride.

“How about the photographs?”

“Er…” Lup looks to Barry for help.

He shrugs. “Lucretia put them in the group chat.”

“Yeah… it was pretty bad. They learned a lesson though.”

“Honestly, Lup.” Davenport leans in conspiratorially. “I wish I had been there.”

She warms up to him after that.

The drinks selection is fairly paltry, but Lup figures there’s no rules against mixing them into something more interesting.

Ren, from the chemistry teaching team, joins her. “I think the elderflower fizzy thing would go well with the orange and pineapple juices.”

“Excellent choice, would you like that as it comes or on the rocks?” Lup asks, grabbing a spare cup.

Ren thinks about it very seriously. “I think iced will suit the profile best.”

Lup salutes and begins concocting. “Your wish is my command.”

By the time Barry drifts back towards her, they’ve experimented extensively and settled on two menu additions.

“Can I interest you in Lup’s Strawberry Dream or Ren’s Elderflower Orange Pine(bl)a(st)pple?” Lup asks.

“Ren’s what, sorry?”

“Like, pineapple, but also it’s a blast. Also there’s elderflower and orange.” Says Ren, like it’s there’s no possible way for someone to misunderstand. “It’s going down well.”

“It is.” Lup affirms. “I’ve had two.”

Barry looks wary.

“Here, you can try both.” Lup pushes two cups towards him. “Never say I’m not generous when it comes to free drinks.”

“I won’t.” He says solemnly.

–

She’s chatting with Sloane and Hurley and some more of the summer staff when Cyrus nudges her arm. “So how long have you and Sildar been dating?”

“He prefers Barry.” Says Lup quickly, then adds. “And we’re not.”

“Lydia and Edward said that…”

“I’m sure they’ve said a lot of things.” Lup cuts him off before he can even think of finishing that sentence.

“Woah, okay. Touchy! Nevermind.” He steps away from her and joins another group.

–

“We should go sing.” Carey says suddenly. Mid conversation, in fact, but Lup’s not going to get in the way of conversation. “There’s a karaoke bar like, two streets that way.” She points with worrying deftness.

There’s muttered assent in the scutch of people she’s stood in.

Lup looks round for Barry, sees him, looking like a rabbit in the headlights as the plan forms round him. She tries to smile reassuringly. Maybe he won’t come? She hopes he will though. It’d be nice to hear him sing properly, she’d heard him humming a few times and she liked the rumble of it.

“I’m in.” She says.

–

Hey Ko,

You telling me how stupid these are is only giving me more encouragement to write them. They should be getting there daily now, a barrage of out-of-date-news, just for you! (Obviously I expect you’ll be putting them in a scrapbook or something because you love them really, I’m on to you.)

I stuck some students to the ceiling in class today. Barry helped. Well. He didn’t help stick the children, that was all me, baby (via the medium of teaching them how to do it), but he helped me pass the health and safety check. No one got splattered. Everyone learned the most important physics rule “what goes up must come down unless you use a fucktonne of string to stop that from happening.”

All the academic staff are doing a social later, team bonding stuff, but it’s free. The others are pretty nice too, there’s someone called Ren I think you’d like a lot. She’s really into using science in baking (sound familiar?). Hopefully Edward and Lydia decide they aren’t coming, although, honestly, it’d be interesting to see them interacting outside of here. Maybe they’d be more normal? Signs point to highly fucking unlikely though.

Anyway, love you always,

Lup xxxxxxx

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