#also yeah i posted a Bunch of art today please feel free to take a look

[sn0wbat]

summary of 2024... onwards to next year!

[yuthoe]

Day 10: Paint Me (PENTAGON: Kino)

OH MY LORD THIS TURNED OUT LONGER THAN I PLANNED AND IT'S 12:30AM HERE, BUT IM JUST GONNA POST IT AND ADD THE REST OF THE TAGS LATER

anyway, today's prompt from this list is

Day 10: Meet Cute

and the scenario of reaching out for the same thing at the same time just would not leave my head lmao. so have this haha, it took me a surprisingly short time to finish, but the only reason im posting this on the 11th is that i was procrastinating

PAIRING: Kino/Kang Hyunggu x reader. GENRE: fic, fluff. WARNINGS: none. WORD COUNT: 1,389.

---

Art Bar is four hours away from your apartment, and therefore a luxury you only indulge in every few months, when you have a free day or two. It’s also an excuse for you to splurge and get new art supplies—your favorite brush broke last week and you’ve run out of green paint for the landscape piece you’ve been working on.

But also there’s this really high quality sketchbook they started selling recently and you desperately want one. You’d been eyeing it for the past month, sighing wistfully every time an ad for it crossed your feed on social media.

The faint smell of coffee slips past your nose as you push past the glass doors, and you take a look at the overhead menu of the cafe corner by the entrance, making a mental note to get a latte after you do your shopping. You hook a metal shopping basket on your elbow and head in.

The first stop is the brushes, and you quickly look through the choices for the exact ones that broke, and another finer brush as replacement for the one that’s currently losing a lot of hair. You eye one of the more expensive options, biting your lip and considering getting one, but you’re probably not going to end up using it for fear of wearing out the bristles.

You quickly look away and head for the oil paints, running through the really good selection, and pluck out a green, white, and black tube, along with a pink for the flowers. The pile of canvases off to the side catch your eye and lure you over, immediately taking a 24cm round canvas, just about the size of a small platter and perfect for an experimental circular piece.

The voice inside your head is screaming at you to mind your spending, but your sense of reason and all self-control get left at the door whenever you step into the store. The copic markers are teasing you, sitting docilely in their neatly organized shelves, and the section of the store dedicated solely for Faber Castell tools further entices you to grab a whole colored pencils set and just run away with it.

But you sigh deeply, stroke the row of pencils longingly and whisper, “Soon, my lovelies…”

You look around for that sketchbook that’s been haunting your waking moments, finally spotting it by the cash registers and beelining for it.

There’s one sample left open and you run your fingertips over the page, testing the smoothness of the paper, the thickness of every page, and inspect the ones filled out with watercolor, charcoal, and regular graphite. The more you look at it, the more you desperately want it.

Alas, it’s expensive, and you can’t afford a really big one right now, especially with the other tools in your basket that need to be purchased, so you go for the next smaller size instead.

A hand meets yours as you reach for the pad, and you jerk back. The owner of the hand recoils as well and says, “Oh, I’m sorry—were you about to get that?”

Oh, he’s cute, you think, dumbly nodding at his question. “Ah, yeah… But it’s okay, you can take it.”

He tilts his head, brows furrowing slightly and chestnut hair falling over his pretty eyes. He’s carrying his own shopping basket, loaded with a few small rectangular canvases, a bunch of copic markers, brushes, and a watercolor tin. “Are you sure? I think you were reaching for it first, though. And it’s the last one on display.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m pretty sure they have more at the back anyway, ‘cuz this brand has gotten pretty good reviews lately.”

“Ah yeah, that’s true,” he replies, wagging a finger at you. “I’ve seen a lot of reviews of it on YouTube, and I’ve been wanting one so bad.” He giggles, looking at the sketchbook fondly.

“I totally get it, I’ve been saving up for one for a while, too.” You smile at him. “That’s why I’m saying you should just take it, they probably have more in stock.”

He hums, thinking it over, but the allure of the sketchbook is too strong and he says, “Well, if you insist, I’ll gladly take it.” He picks up the last packaged sketchbook and slides it next to the canvases in his basket. “Thanks for this,” he says as you both move to the register.

It takes a while for him to pay for his items and you look around the frames displayed behind the counter as you wait. After around five minutes, the man steps aside with a hug bag, cradling it like a child. You see him move to admire the Faber Castell section nearby as you step forward with your basket.

“Excuse me,” you ask the cashier as you set the basket on the countertop. “Is there any more of the A4 size of that new sketchbook?”

“I’ll check our inventory for you,” she cheerily says, typing in a code in the computer and looking at it briefly before turning back to you. “Oh, I’m sorry, it seems like the last A4 one was just purchased. The next restock won’t be for another week or two. If you want, we can get your number and notify you when our stock is replenished.”

You can’t help but feel a bit down at the cashier’s answer—you have been waiting for weeks to get one, and who knows now when you’ll be able to stop by here again?

“No, it’s okay,” you say and gesture to the basket. “Just these then, please.”

The transaction is smooth and soon enough you’re clutching a paper bag of your own and heading for the cafe corner to get that latte—and a cupcake because you want to feel slightly better about the situation.

Sketchbook Guy is there too, his lavender patterned cardigan contrasting with the green diamonds wallpaper in the most complementary way. He turns to go to the claiming area and sees you, waves with a tight smile on his face.

You reply with a smile and order at the counter quickly, and step aside to wait for your coffee and pastry beside Sketchbook Guy.

There’s an awkward silence between you, until he finally blurts out, “Okay, I couldn’t help but overhear the cashier lady earlier.” He rummages in his paper bag and takes out the coveted sketchbook, holding it out to you. “Please have this. You said you were saving up for it for a while.”

“No, I can’t,” you say, waving your hand to decline him. “You already paid for it, and I told you to take it, anyway.”

Sketchbook Guy smiles, nudging the book closer to you. “Please. I insist. And if it’s the payment you’re concerned about, you can pay me back. With coffee, or something.”

You scoff. “This costs way more than one cup of coffee.”

He’s nodding before you’re even finished speaking. “Yeah, I know.” There’s a mischievous purse to his lips and your brows knit for a moment before you register his words and feel a heat rise to your cheeks.

“Ah… uh… I mean, sure? Okay?” you stammer, taking the sketchbook with both hands and looking at it before meeting his eyes again. “I live quite far from here, though, so—I don’t know—maybe we can, like, schedule something?”

He smiles even wider. “Yeah, of course. Here, I’ll give you my number.” He holds a hand out and you pass your phone to him. Long fingers tap on the screen and you hear a soft piano a moment later.

“Here you go,” he says, handing your phone back. You peek at the screen, at the new contact simply named Hyunggu, and the string of numbers underneath it. “Now you know my name and number, and we can talk about when you can buy me that coffee.”

This dude has got to be the smoothest and most charming guy you’ve ever met, and it’s leaving you flustered and amused at the same time. You’re basically left with no choice but to go along with him, but you don’t even mind it.

“Okay,” you say, nodding and pocketing your phone as your drink and to-go bag arrive. “My name’s Y/N. I’ll message you later about that coffee.”

[vlogsquadssquad]

model for me - pt. 2

summary: a continuation of model for me. David and y/n go out to town for another shoot, will they be able to resist each other for the photos?

a/n: I feel like this one is so short but A LOT of people have asked for a part 2. I think its cute and im thinking of doing a pt 3, ill try to make that one extra long.

warnings: drinking, language, alluding to sex.

mood board:

your instagram post:

- YOUR POV

“so i saw that picture you posted on instagram,” david says as i walk into his house. “you know that’s against our contract for you to post sexy photos on your own instagram.” i laugh now realizing he’s kidding.

“oh, you thought it was sexy?” i say as i head over to the couch where he sat. he clears his throat.

“nope. definitely not sexy.” and then side smiles to me. i roll my eyes.

“what are you working on?” I ask plopping down next to him.

“well i’m trying to find inspiration for our next shoot. i feel like we’ve already done all the big stuff so where does it go from there?”

i take a minute to think and David tries to read my expressions. “you could tape me to your wall naked!” he throws his head back in a big laugh. “or you could put a giant snake on me... naked.” i giggle at the thought. he raises an eyebrow,

“hey those are good ideas.” his tongue poking out slightly.

“no no please don’t take me up on those offers” i laugh nervously.

he looks to me and for a split second i feel almost sexual tension. he glances to his hallway.

“NATALIIEEEEE, ORDER A GIANT PYTHON!”

“NO NATALIE DO NOT DO THAT!!!”

“NATALIE YOU WORK FOR ME DO IT!!”

“holy fuck you guys why are you screaming?” she says as she walks down the hall.

my face goes slightly red and i giggle.

- texts w/ davey😈

< i came up with an idea

oh god what is it? >

< late night, fun, blurry, slightly sexy photos! i’ll send some inspiration.

wow they actually look good! let’s do it! tonight? >

< yes and bring a couple outfits. we’re going downtown and i have a hotel booked to change in.

thank you daddy d!! >

< shut the fuck up 😂

- DAVIDS POV

“hey you ready yet?” i ask as i walk into her house. she texted me to come in. i look around the dark house. “hello? y/n?”

“BOO!” she yells out around the corner

“fuck, i knew it.”

“no you didn’t! don’t lie to me! i totally got you!”

“ok ok you totally got me.” I chuckle.

i take a minute to take in her outfit. she looks beautiful in red.

“i’m gonna go get my suitcase of dresses. i’ll be right back.” she says to break the silence.

- in the car

“im so excited, the pictures you sent me looked sick!” she says to me. I glance her way and flash her a smile. 

“yeah and I have the best model in LA so it'll be breezy.”

she smiles at me and my heart melts. I look back at the road and try to focus.

- at the hotel

“wow David, its beautiful!” she says as she opens the door to the hotel room.

“yeah I liked this hotel as a background. its gorgeous.” 

“hmm, one bed huh?” she raises an eyebrow to me and giggles.

I sigh, “well we’re not staying the night, but if its too weird I can go down-”

“David! calm down I was just teasing you.” she smiles. she puts her hand on my shoulder and I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans. 

“okay, well im going to go set this down and then we’ll head out?” she nods to me

I nod back. I find myself watching her as she walks away. I felt guilty so I looked down at my hands. already sweating again. these shoots were a bad idea. considering ive had feelings for her for a while. how could I not? she's everything ive wanted. I get pulled from my thoughts when I see her coming around the corner.

“you ready?”

“as ill ever be.” she kinda looks confused but I usher her out the door with camera in hand. 

- YOUR POV

“stand there real quick. look fierce.” 

“okay now maybe lay across the stairs? pull your dress, show some leg, girl!”

I giggle. he's such a goofy photographer. 

“did you shave your legs?”

I throw my head back in a laugh and I see the light flash.

“that one was perfect.”

“can I see it?” I ask.

“damn yeah it looks great.”

he smiles to me. “okay, lets take a few more and then we’ll go change.”

- the hotel room

“listen I know its 9pm but were you planning on feeding me? I don't work for free.” I look at him waiting for an answer.

he chuckles as he sets his camera down.

“yes, im starving. lets get at least one more dress done and then we can go eat.”

“ok cause I was about to have to call my union.” he laughs at my joke.

I head to the bathroom to change. I have a couple more dresses but I decided to go with this pink club-y type dress. as I slide it on I take one more look in the mirror. I sigh and fix my dress. ill never be pretty enough for him. all night i’ve been having thoughts, ‘maybe he likes me too.’ I know i’m not his type so why am I even entertaining the idea? I turn off the light and head out.

I do a playful spin.

“whatcha think?”

“you look like a dork.”

I stop and pout. “what do you mean?”

“well, ive given you enough compliments on how beautiful you are today. i don't want your head getting too big and leaving me for a real photographer.” 

I laugh, “no, no. real photographers would pay me in money,” I grab my phone off the table and he grabs his water. “you pay me in burgers, so im all yours.” he laughs as he opens the door for me and I walk out of the hotel room once again. we take a few photos of down the hall and in the elevator. finally we get outside and David sees a perfect seat for me. 

“aha! sit there!” I laugh at how excited he got. 

“okay, okay, calm down. you'll pop a woody.” I laugh

he throws his head back in an infectious laugh.

“you wish.”

I cover my face as it gets redder and he snaps a photo.

“don't take a picture!” 

“sorry, I love the candid ones.”

I laugh and another flash goes off. at this point its just flash after flash he's laughing and im yelling at him to stop. im sure there's some not so pleasant ones in the bunch.

“hey, lets go back up, get changed, and then eat.” David offers after we settle down.

“we barely took any though!” 

“I know, but im hungry, and we took a bunch in the hall, and its getting late.”

“first reason was good enough for me. lets go!”

- DAVIDS POV

we sat down at this nice place to eat. she wanted steak so I asked Natalie where the best steak in downtown was. she said this was it. she's wearing a simpler dress now. probably still thinking we’ll end up taking more pictures. I just want to be with her, honestly. she's so funny and smart. 

“anything to drink?”

“cosmo please.” she says.

“just a water for now.” 

“a water?” y/n says as the waitress walks away. 

“yeah, I didn't know we were drinking! I have to drive back!”

“we can always take an uber, and ill have you know today has been very stressful. I had to change my dress three times!” she says as she flips her hair. I just laugh at her. she's so great. 

“here's your drinks, can I get you any appetizers?” 

“actually ill have a margarita please.”

y/n gasps, “David dobrik!” I laugh and the waitress smiles.

“coming right up.”

“wow I can't believe I pressured you into a drink.”

“hey, ive had a hard day too. I had to click this little button like 150 times.”

“our lives are so hard” she smiles as she takes a sip of her drink.

we finally start eating but im already feeling the buzz. we’re definitely taking an uber. everything y/n says is so funny.

after many many laughs and drunken slurring we call an uber and head back to the hotel.

“so we’re crashing here?” y/n asks slightly slurred but a lot better than before.

the hallway looks like its spinning in slow motion.

“I guess, I can sleep on the couch though.”

“no, its fine. I don't care.” she says as I open the door.

she's laughing so hard as she stumbles in. she's gorgeous. suddenly im thinking a little clearer. she just said I could share a bed with her.

she jumps on the desk and asks if I want room service.

I chuckle to myself and grab my camera.

“we just ate!”

“oh fuck we did didn't we?” she laughs. I take a quick photo and her eyes dart to me. 

“hey, I wasn't ready!” she throws a note pad at me.

“im sorry, im sorry,” I pause to smile. “you're just so incredible.”

“what...?” she whispers now.

“I know im drunk and tell me im being a creep, but I just have to get this off my chest.” she searches my face for any clue I could give for what im about to say. I step closer. “I have the biggest, fattest, crush on you.”

she bursts out laughing. im a little taken back. is she laughing at me?

“umm... okay..” I say, suddenly embarrassed by my confession.

“no no!” she yells as she's hunched over laughing. “I just- I can't-” she pauses to breathe. “I was in the bathroom today feeling shitty because I thought I wasn't your type.”

“what are you saying?” I ask, slightly smiling.

“ive been crushing on you sooooo fucking hard!” she yells. I go closer to her and put my finger over her mouth shushing her.

“people are sleeping and while I want to shout from the rooftops, I also don't want to leave this hotel room.” I say. she nods her head and looks me in the eyes. my finger still in front of her mouth.

“you make me the happiest guy in the world.” I whisper.

“you make me the happiest girl in the world.” she whispers back.

she moves in closer until our lips are finally connected. she's soft and sweet. my hands find their way to her back. her hands are in my hair. suddenly we’re moving faster and our kiss is getting stronger. I never want to leave this hotel room.

--

my eyes slowly open to the sunlight shining through the room. I rub my eyes and look around the room. I see a naked y/n next to me. her hair falling perfectly around her shoulders as she lays on her side. her naked back looks like art. while I love the view im also confused. then I realize im naked and my heart starts beating out my chest. it starts coming back to me in flashes. our magical night. her breaths are long and deep so I know she's still asleep. I flip over and grab my phone from the nightstand.

JASON: David answer your phone, what's going on?

NAT: call me asap

ILYA: are you guys serious rn?

MEGAN (publicist): Dave we need to talk

TODD: check twitter dude!

why is my phone blown up? I open up twitter and there I see it.

“David dobrik and y/f/n caught in bed!” read the article title.

“fuck” I groan.

“Dave?” I hear a little voice from behind me.

part threeeeeeeee?!?!?!?!?

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 33]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright, here we go again!

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

 “You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

 Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

 “Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

 Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

 Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

 When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

 He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

 “What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

 “Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

 “Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

 Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

 Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

 He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

 He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

 He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

 “What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

 He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

 Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

 “Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

 Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

 Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Pat’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

 “Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

 Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

 Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

 For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

 Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Pat to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Pat protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

 It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

 Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

 “Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

 Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

 Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

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“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Pat giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

 Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

 Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

 He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

 He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

 “Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

 “I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

 Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

 “He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

 “Your associate?” Janus fished.

The man made an amused hum. “I believe you were calling him ‘Pat’ on your last adventure.” Janus could hear something being placed down on the other end of the phone. Before Janus could respond, he heard what sounded like an old keyboard being typed on. “Now,” Lo said. “I have to admit, I am surprised you were willing to oblige me so thoroughly by plugging the phone into your system. Let’s see…”

The screen on Virgil’s lit up bright blue all of a sudden. “…shit,” said Virgil.

“Well,” Lo said, “it seems you were clever enough not to plug it into the TPI system, which is disappointing, but…”

 There was more clicking on the other end. “Hmm, interesting music tastes for the 4000s,” he said.

“I’m an anthropologist,” Virgil spoke up.

“Ah, yes, I can see that,” Lo replied. “Virgil Eran, senior professor at Silver Mountain University, a vetted member of the Cultural Outreach program, and searched the phrase ‘How to eat sushi without making a cultural blunder and making everyone hate you and losing your job because what kind of shit anthropologist doesn’t know how to eat raw fish right’ which you then shortened to ‘How to eat sushi’ and proceeded to search 52 times in the last 48 hours.”

 Virgil went a bit scarlet around the ears. “Dude, did you really have to out me like that?” he hissed at the phone.

“My apologies,” Lo responded. “From my personal experience, don’t dip the rice parts in soy sauce, and don’t add too much wasabi. Overall, most people will be understanding of mistakes, and you will certainly not be fired or ostracized for handling food incorrectly. As long as you are not acting intentionally disrespectful, and I image you will not be considering your clear anxiety over whatever outing you are planning to attend, you will be fine.”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Good point, but counterpoint, what if you’re wrong and everyone hates me forever?”

 “Is it the lunch meeting today at 11:30am?” Lo asked, “because I can see that a Professor Boris Laden has attended the event multiple years in a row. Considering he is a philosophy instructor, has no Japanese heritage that I can see, and I have found a photo of last year’s event wherein he has placed his chopsticks vertically in his rice, and he has yet to be fired or ostracized, I would postulate that your fears are unfounded.”

“Yeah but… okay, I really don’t have an argument for that one, except maybe I’m a piece of shit and everyone is looking for a reason to hate me.”

“Considering your many impressive accolades in your field, I would argue that ‘a piece of shit’ is not a good descriptor of you. Not to mention the fact that you are often a highly requested member for different committees in your department and outside of it.”

“Oh, but is that because people like me or because I’m an anxious mess and make sure events go off without a hitch?”

“From experience, disorder with people you enjoy the company of is far more tolerable than order with people you do not. Which explains my current living situation and the lack of finished dishes in my sink. Therefore, I would assume the former.”

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“A lot of assumptions,” Virgil commented, but he was smiling slightly.

“Assumptions based on data,” Lo argued back lightly.

“You really came in here, hacked into my computer and smacked my anxiety in the face, huh?”

“Glad to have helped.”

“Y-”

“Are the two of you finished?” Janus interrupted, finally getting sick of the two of them.

“Not nearly,” Lo said. “I have gained access to an entire network of a very large university and will be sorting through the data for a long time.”

“Ugh, right,” Virgil groaned, “and you got access through my integrator.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to trace it back to you if you don’t tell them.”

“Nice try,” Virgil said dryly, “but not likely. I’m telling them about you immediately so they can work to kick you out.”

Lo laughed. “Fair enough, but I’ve already gotten plenty of information at this point. Including the fact that you work with the TPI and scheduled an appointment with an Agent Janus Picani this morning set to start a few minutes before this phone call. So, hello Janus.”

“Bastard,” Janus shot back.

“And goodbye Professor Eran. It was a pleasure.” He hung up.

Virgil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “This is going to be fun to explain to both of our bosses.”

  Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

 Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

 They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

 “Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um���apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

 “…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

 They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

 “We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

 Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

 He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

 Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

 “He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

 Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

 “So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

 “Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

 Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

 Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

 Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

 “There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

 Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

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“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

  Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

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Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

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“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

[hazelenergy]

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use. 

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research. 

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards. 

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn. 

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing.  Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later. 

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources! 

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world. 

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece. 

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines. 

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get. 

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things: 

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline. 

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away 

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart. 

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.  

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.  

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through. 

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully. 

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens. 

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already,  SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome. 

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough. 

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast. 

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day. 

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing! 

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post! 

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 14 - WangXian are a (v soft) Battle Couple & Foxglove is hella mad

Hi! Welcome to episode 14. I should be studying. It’s day two of morning runs, so my soul has left my body already, send help. Yesterday I went to buy plants with my mum and got so excited I just whacked on a bunch of eyeshadow because I haven’t seen the outside in weeks, I’m also wearing makeup today, because I have nowhere to go, but I really need to finish this bb cream before it goes bad, so my parents are getting my full fresh faced “woke up like this and put on mascara” routine (which is a fucking lie because I’m wearing at least three blushes and two highlighters). I’m determined to get this bitch down in under five minutes so I can have another five to do eyeshadow, I have way too much eyeshadow to not wear it (I have way too much everything except maybe mascara and eyebrow stuff).

Yes, if y’all were wondering I am in fact a makeup magpie. ANYWAY BACK TO THE ACTUAL THING WE ALL CAME HERE FOR.

(Btw further down I discuss once again how shitty I think the Yunmeng sibs’ parents are if that causes an issue for you)

Ok ok ok, so I was talking with damnpoe-2187 here about how we found that sometimes WWX crossed from gremlin into asshole when he tried to get LWJ riled up. Like in the Cold Springs, putting our shippers hearts aside, that was a dick move and he should have stopped undressing the second LWJ went from annoyed to incredibly uncomfortable. I find this scene the complete opposite, a show of character development if you will. It is kind of similar in that they’re both hurt, and alone (although this time is much more serious) and there was some undressing going on; however WWX here behaves like a fool in love considerate person and knowing how uncomfortable LWJ already is tries to make it easier for him. They’re also super soft and I’m weak.

A brief interlude from my one track mind: That pond is full of corpses isn’t it? Or at least the remnants of the Murder Turtle’s meals I suppose. Damn right WWX should not have gone into the water with an open wound, but think no one should go swimming in there without a full hazmat suit tbh (I want to pump them full of antibiotics at this point ngl)

So I love this tiny montage (is it even a montage) of the, getting themselves ready to kill the Murder Turtle.

Teamwooooooork.

Listen, I have read a few fics in which their mind-meld stays in place due to reasons and I need me more of those.

Ok, turtles don’t work that way, but then again, giant murder snake-Trex-turtle so that’s low on my list of priorities. What’s not low is the fact that this guy is knee deep into pretty much a mass grave and I want to take a few showers just watching him.

Yeah, I know exactly what he’s smelling and suddenly I hope I don’t have meat for lunch today tbh.

The screaming sword has always been fucking creepy and does LWJ’s fist clench mean that he’s also hearing them?

BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE!

So I know killing the thing took them something like six hours. And while it feels quite a long time in the show, I think that, if they cut the scene with idk, JC running towards Lotus Pier, then back to them, then back to JC, but now the sun is in a different position, back to them, but now the blood from LWJ’s hand has dripped down his arm; and so on a so forth it’d convey more clearly how long it took for the Murder Turtle to die. I know fuck all about cinematography tho so feel free to ignore all this if it is in fact an abomination.

Tiiiiiiny interlude here to say that Yiling Patriarch!WWX is probably one of my favourite character archetypes. He’s slightly creepy, slightly amoral (smiling while torturing and murdering bad guys is still amoral ok), more than a bit on the Dark Side, cocky, smirky, a bit of an asshole a BAMF, a rebel with cause and yet he will still do the right thing, not despite his nature, but because of it. He’s kind of like a Chipped Spike? But you know, he doesn’t need electroshock to behave.

I just want a fic where he’s this Dark Lord of Evil in everyone’s eyes however the ‘good guys’ take a break from trying to off him because a bigger threat just popped up and they have no choice but to ask for his help. He agrees, keeps being his charming self while also saving everyone’s asses, LWJ is smitten.

TL;DR: The Necromancer is hot. Oh and nobody dare deny LWJ has a Yiling Patriarch kink.

Oh my, this is the part when I always get teary eyed.

WUJI ON A CELLO? DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?

“Why hasn’t Jiang Cheng shown up and rescued me yet?” THIS IS ALL THE PROOF I NEED THAT WWX IS THE BABY SIBLING.

“Lan Zhan sing me a song”

IT IS HAPPENING, STAY FUCKING CALM EVERYBODY (I’m crying)

That slideshow of their best moments set to WuJi is a masterpiece, and also, it kind of drives home the point of “how tf did we go from flirting during summer camp to this mess”?

(Btw if that’s YiBo humming he’s got one hell of a deep voice)

Ok ok ok, so this moment had me spitting up my tea the first time I watched it. Believe it or not my dumbass thought these people were actually serious with the censorship and we’d get scraps of their actual relationship. Lots of charged moments like in some other western tv shows I’ve seen when two dudes have chemistry but “they’re not gay”, no longing glances, no tender touches, no being unbelievably soft with each other; just you know, amped up, because if I’m not mistaken you can be arrested in China for “promoting the gay”. I mean, they changed the beginning when people insult MXY’s sexuality to insulting his mental health; no one would think “ah yes, the gays are good” when they hear it used as a slur, but they still erased it completely. One of the things I thought they’d fully take away was WangXian, I mean, the into/outro is named Wuji, which, you know, still a mishmash of their names, but not their ship name. It is such a significant part of the story with all the “what’s the song name? Figure it out yourself” that if something were going to give away that they’re married with a kid it would be that. I thought we’d get an artful fade to black BEFORE LWJ would say the name not after. And also, YiBo is enunciating it so clearly that, even with the sound muffled and the blurriness I, who don’t speak Chinese, can make out the two syllables. That’s deliberate, I can say “WangXian” loud and clear without moving my lips too much. At this point in time I must assume someone in charge of looking for censorship violations in the show is a fan and just ignored it.

Censorship person 1: dude, isn’t that a bit too gay, maybe you shouldn’t greenlight it.

Censorship person 2: shut the fuck up, sit here and watch.

*a full rundown of the whole of CQL later*

Censorship person 1: oh my god they’re so in love and they deserve to be happy.

Back to the commentary: I’m sorry but I have a mighty need of a WWX & Peacock friendship ok? This might be me just wanting WWX and LWJ to make other friends besides each other but I think that the Peacock is just bitchy enough to not take any of WWX’s bullshit.

And the Yunmeng bros timing for banter strikes yet again.

That’s terrible quality fake blood btw.

@ Yunmeng disciples: STOP SHOOTING FUCKING KITES PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Oooof even with a change of clothes our boy is still looking rough as hell.

MY LOVELY YUNMENG SIBS BEING SOFT AND HAPPY WITH EACH OTHER.

It hurts my soul that the second JFM starts praising WWX for surviving the Murder Turtle our boy’s knee-jerk reaction is to start praising JC in return. It is instinctive, how many times must this have happened for him to know his brother won’t even get scraps of praise? (Seriously fuck their parents)

It was going so well, I mean, JFM had a point warning him to not say things in anger. But I thought he was going to tell him that it is because sometimes he’ll hurt someone without wanting to, yet, this asshole decided to, once again, remind his kid he thinks he’s a failure.

And here comes Mme Yu who I can only assume had a servant posted at the door to warn her when WWX woke so she could throw some verbal abuse at him. I mean, she must have been missing it.

And JFM’s misogynistic bullshit strikes once again, because why defend ALL your kids when you can insult your wife.

(Every time someone berates WWX for “intervening” I want to scream. I mean, seeing this I can believe why the society as a whole thought genocide was a good idea.)

I love how they use their kids as props in their fight, I mean it’s not like they have feelings or anything. This woman is gaslight-y as hell too “you don’t love your kid because I gave birth to him”, you can’t tell me saying that in front of the son she’s supposed to love isn’t going to hurt him. And she knows it, I mean, besides the Wen attack I’ve never seen her hit the kids (although I very much doubt she hasn’t), so a good part of the abuse must be verbal. There’s no fucking way a person who regularly uses words that way won’t realise where she’s aiming those arrows. Which means to her (to both) the kids are collateral.

But FR, the barely-out-of-adolescence disaster bi necromancer PTSDing all over the place and living in a mass grave was a better parent than any of the current adults in this thing.

Which brings me to another point, Shijie is textbook “the oldest sibling is just another parent” and I’m making myself very angry.

[this is when I start frothing at the mouth and itching to write a modern-girl(and friends)-dropped-in-CQL because someone has to be a positive adult influence in these kids’ lives and it sure as shit ain’t the ones in the actual show.]

CAN WE STOP BRINGING PEOPLE’S DEAD PARENTS INTO THE FIGHT?

*deep breath*

I am going to feed JFM & Mme Yu each other’s spleens. Look, listen, look and listen, let’s first talk about how calmly they lay out the facts of their lives, one is only loved because he’s been brought up in the shadow of his dead parents, the other knows with certainty his father dislikes him and his mother uses him as leverage in marital disputes. When have these two not exploded their emotions all over the place? Fucking never. Yet here they are, talking about this bullshit like some bout of inconvenient weather. They’re used to it!

And now let’s talk about yet again siblings-are-just-extra-parents, with an added pile of WWX’s terrible self awareness that, to the man who brought him up, his worth is due to his dead parents. Again I’m extrapolating, but with the amount of times Mme Yu brings up his parents in such a negative light I refuse to believe JFM hasn’t made all the “you’re so much like your parents” comments to him every time WWX does something right. I mean, telling an orphan about their parents if they ask is a good thing, but WWX seems starved for stories about his them, which leads me to believe JFM refuses to talk about the topic except to make those little comments. What a fucking stellar way to give someone all the trauma if you ask me. May also explain a lot of WWX’s self worth issues if the biggest praise he’s ever heard is that he resembles dead people, yes, people who were loved, but they’re dead, and it doesn’t look like any adult has bothered to go and differentiate WWX from ZSSR&WCZ.

I’m just really mad, despite all the silly anecdotes I put in here my parents are fucking great at parenting, so I know what good parents should look like, and this ain’t it.

Ok, so I made myself angry and I don’t know if I should move onto the next episode now or wait till tomorrow but thanks for reading!

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 242: SANTA IS REAL

Previously on BnHA: We said farewell to the League of Pliff and were finally reunited with the kids of U.A., an institution which I would just like to point out is so diametrical to the League that they literally took the polar opposite route when choosing their name, and focused only on the acronym. I’m 100% sure U.A. doesn’t even stand for anything. Anyway, so Bakugou and Todoroki went on whirlwind press tour following their ch 219 antics, and the resulting interviews were so disastrous that Aizawa decided to bring in Mt. Lady to give the whole class a crash course in PR 101. Meanwhile All Might scoured Ancestry.com for info on the past users of OFA, and Rat Principal announced that U.A. was going to resume its internship program. This is great news for Deku, who’s been taking his sweet time mastering Blackwhip. Like, we’re not even talking baby steps here so much as little tiny flea steps. Kid’s going to need all the help he can get.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi targets all of my weak points at once. The My OT3 Academia arc gets off to an incredible, award-winning start with a Christmas party and the announcement of Internships 2: This Time, it’s Compulsory. Highlights include: (1) Kaminari and Mina forcing Bakugou to accept the spirit of Christmas into his heart and soul, (2) Iida rocking a Santa beard, (3) Eri holding a giant sword, (4) Bakugou reminiscing about his internship with Best MIA Jeanist, specifically the part where Jeanist was all “A HERO’S NAME IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND SYMBOLIC AND MEANINGFUL, SO YOU NEED TO THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT IT” and oh my fucking god, and lastly (5) Todoroki inviting Bakugou and Deku to come intern with him at the Endeavor Hero Agency (known for its famous business slogan: “Got Plot?”). It’s like I wished on seventeen different falling stars and they all came true at once. I still can’t even fucking process this. kfkdslgk.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

I just got like three excited-seeming asks (I haven’t actually read them yet) in rapidfire succession less than an hour ago, and my dashboard is now filling up with filtered “bnha spoilers” posts, so I took this as a sign that I should read the new chapter ASAP. oh gosh

(ETA:

(1) SAMEEEEEE, and (2) YEEEEEEEEP. listen I’m not religious you guys, but I said “oh my god” so much while reading this chapter that I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she finally answers and is like, “YES!? WHAT IS IT???”)

what new state-of-the-art tomfoolery will our intrepid heroes engage in this week. what novel hijinks will they commence. what frivolous escapades will they embark on this lovely Friday morn?

HOMGAAAHHHHHH

THE TITLE IS LITERALLY MY FEELINGS RN. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS TO ME. YES GOD I LOVE IT. I’LL TAKE A DOZEN

okay. so today, September 6th, is officially Christmas. you heard the man and who am I to argue

so we’re opening with a teacher’s meeting! probably about the internships. or the fact that they’re all screwed. I don’t really know what their priorities are nowadays

okay yeah it’s about the internships. also Rat Principal is nested in Aizawa’s scarf for absolutely no reason, and Aizawa is disgruntled about it. heh. tomfoolery already and it’s only the first panel

oh shit, Nezu’s saying it’s now a government requirement. I got so surprised I actually forgot to call him RP

because ain’t nothing safer than hero internships. if the Basement arc taught us nothing else. it’s that

that was sarcasm in case that’s not coming across. this is clearly a baffling decision. but what are government committees for if not for making baffling decisions I guess

and now Midnight is coming to the same conclusion I was starting to wonder at

can someone please tell me what the PSC’s goals actually are, then? is this not the same group that recently changed the rules of the provisional license exam so that an even smaller percentage of people would pass? so do you want more heroes or fewer? which is it?

how do they cope with it? does anyone even have any idea?? it seems to me like they’re just throwing them to the wolves. we have this problem that we have absolutely no idea what to do about, oh I know, let’s toss a bunch of inexperienced kids at it. and hope that none of them gets murdered I guess

anyway so The Sheriff is speculating that the League must have been involved in the Deika situation, and he’s wondering why the PSC is trying so hard to keep it on the dl

oh yeah. friendly reminder that the PSC, thanks to Hawks, probably knows exactly how powerful Tomura and the League have recently become. so they know full well how shark-infested the waters are, and they’re making it mandatory for the kids to all take swimming lessons. nice

lol back when I was brainstorming ideas for future arcs, I seriously thought Horikoshi would have to go out of his way to come up with excuses for the kids to have future encounters with the League, because the school was so concerned with their safety that they wouldn’t allow them to leave the grounds except on rare occasions. well I sure got that one wrong. though to be fair, for once it isn’t U.A. that’s doing the child endangering here

(ETA: and actually, regardless of how insane it is, I do appreciate that when shit inevitably hits the fan again, at least it won’t be U.A.’s fault this time. I’d like to be able to continue rooting for them, and that can be difficult when they keep doing reckless things that needlessly put children in danger. at least this time they’re not the ones driving the Stupid Bus to Bad Decision School.)

a message to who? the League?? “we’re not scared of you”?? did they seriously not think of all the numerous ways this could backfire?

oh shit Aizawa even went and said the d-word

well there you have it. the government is drafting teenagers to risk their lives dealing with a crisis they won’t out-and-out admit they’re actually having. on today’s episode of “Oh Hero Society, You’ve Got Problems”

anyway so RP is making the admittedly good point that “we’re fucked and everyone is in terrible danger” is hardly a new state of affairs for them these days, and so they’re all moving on. okay then. good talk. lol. gonna need my damn Christmas fluff after all of that

and also RP is mentioning some other mysterious new program to Aizawa too. I wonder what that could be

(ETA: oh yeah I almost forgot about this. thoughts??)

and now we’re cutting to “several days later” oh my god. it’s really happening. I need a moment here, I’m not even ready. gotta get all my Christmas headcanons lined up here. Satou baking cookies. Kaminari and Sero running around arm in arm singing “JINGLE BELLS, ALL MIGHT SMELLS” over and over at the top of their lungs until Bakugou screams at them to shut up. Mineta debating anyone who will listen over the merits of the song Baby It’s Cold Outside. the naturally Christmas-themed Todoroki savoring this, his time to shine

oh shit, we’re still with the fucking Rat Principal. for fuck’s sake

-- ooh but are they talking about the traitor??

will this put an end to the “Horikoshi forgot about it” rumors? several people have mentioned this to me here and there (sorry to everyone whose asks I still haven’t answered), but as far as I know, this was part of a fake interview with Horikoshi that was unfortunately circulated around as though it was the real deal. sometimes people are not cool and think it’s fun to take advantage of communities that are enthusiastic and trusting! always fact-check what you read on the internet just to be safe guys

anyway

so there definitely is one, then. got it

so the traitor is definitely a student in the hero class, then. got it

sob. I got an ask about the whole Kaminari traitor theory earlier this week, so I’m in the process of doing up a whole long post about that. but the cliff’s notes version is, it’s not him. it’s Hagakure. but I will actually go into detail in the post. it’s been a while since I’ve discussed the traitor thing in depth anyway

so RP is asking All Might if he’s coming back today, and All Might is immediately all “WHY, DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO MY CHILD, OH GOD IS HE OKAY” which, omg. so much love for this man

and RP is like “geez relax” and OH MY GOD

[slaps on a paperboy cap and screeches at All Might in a bad cockney accent] TODAY, SIR?? WHY, IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY

OH MY GOD

I SPOT A GRINCH UP THERE AT THE TOP. SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE VISITED BY THREE GHOSTS FROM VARIOUS DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS

LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE CHILD (GREMLINS ASIDE) IS WEARING A SANTA CLAUS OUTFIT. DID U.A. JUST GIVE THESE OUT FOR FREE

AND IN THE TOP RIGHT NEXT TO SHOUJI, SATOU’S COOKIES! JUST AS THE PROPHECY FORETOLD

I SEE THEY HAVE THE REQUISITE KFC PLATTERS LIKE GOOD JAPANESE CITIZENS. WE SHOULD ADOPT THIS TRADITION HERE IN THE WEST TOO TBH

and last but not least, there are only nineteen children in this panel. it took me forever to figure out who was missing, but pretty sure it’s Iida. Iida where are you. clearly the traitor. certainly not off visiting his brother and the rest of his family, what kind of gullible fool do you take me for

looool

I love when the characters start to become self-aware that they’re the main characters in a story and that plot things keep happening to them at an unreasonable rate

oh my god they really are wearing the suits. it wasn’t just a title page gimmick like I half-wondered

ANSWER THE QUESTION, JIROU. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. do we even know where she did her first internship?? I suddenly desperately want to learn more about this

(ETA: she interned with Death Arms, the traffic cone-looking guy who notably chewed Deku out for trying to save Kacchan’s life in chapter one. Jirou my hope for you is that you find someone better this time around!)

also Tsuyu is observing that Momo doesn’t have a chair, and I honest-to-god was trying to count how much seating there was in the previous page. it seems to me like the common room got a lot bigger. it keeps adjusting to their needs like the room of requirement in Harry Potter

also does anyone else wish that Jirou would move her cup off of the armrest. IT’S GOING TO SPILL ffff :/ this is who I am at parties

oh shit wait, that was Iida with the beard?? I honestly thought that was Satou. well then Satou is the traitor. -- NOBODY TOUCH THOSE COOKIES!!

anyway so he’s all “well Deku not to bring up the elephant in the room but YOUR PREVIOUS MENTOR DIED A HORRIBLE DEATH so what’s your plan huh”

oh sweet god

listen, no offense to Centipeder, he seems like a really nice guy, but if I never see his repulsive face again I will count myself lucky

OH FOR FUCK’S

PLEASE GET RID OF IT IT IS CHRISTMAS!!! here I am trying to have a nice time and!!

god. and like, I feel bad, it’s not his fault he is A GIANT BUG and he has like, fucking mandibles and shit! but I can’t help the fact that my skin is trying to crawl off my body right now, and god but I can barely look at this panel long enough to read the dialogue sob why

(ETA: and now that I’ve forced myself to read it again, this doesn’t even make any sense lol. “we have too much work and not enough help, so we have to pass on you coming back to help us out. ...wait.”)

I want Iida to like. pat his lap and tell Deku in a big booming voice to cheer up and come sit and tell him what he wants for Christmas. not in a weird way you guys, come on. but just, he looks so forlorn. do you want Santa to bring you some cozy All Might socks

or wait, didn’t he want a PS Vita according to that one omake thing. what the fuck Deku. someone get this kid a Switch

anyway so Deku says that participation is mandatory this time, so the school will handle assignments if the kids aren’t able to find someone

meanwhile Kacchan is in the background accusing Mina of stalking him. I think she is trying to get him to wear his Santa outfit. doin’ god’s work

OH SHIT YOU GUYS I CLICKED TO THE NEXT PAGE, AND THIS. THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS OMFG

HORIKOSHI YOU DID GET MY LIST! BAKUGOU BEING TROLLED BY HIS SNEAKY DETERMINED FRIENDS AND MANHANDLED INTO A RIDICULOUS GETUP WHILST ANGSTING ABOUT BEST JEANIST BEING MISSING, YESSSSSS. IT’S SO SPECIFIC, I THOUGHT, “SURELY HE WON’T ACTUALLY DO IT,” BUT SANTA IS REAL, EVERYONE

HFMLSDKMGLKLKL!!!!!LKL:DSF

RED ALERT RED FUCKING ALERT PEOPLE!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHH HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS

“MERRY CHRISTMAS MAKESTE HERE’S A WHOLE FUCKING CHAPTER ABOUT KACCHAN’S FUCKING HERO NAME COMPLETE WITH A BEST JEANIST META ON THE TOPIC” mother fucker I need to start reading these chapters with a goddamn life alert and a defibrillator on standby

“your name represents your wish.” ladies and gentlemen, introducing the new number one hero... Number One Hero!

heh. just kidding. “what do you want to become?” this, though. this right fucking here is why I’ve been dying to know what name he’ll actually choose. because it does reflect exactly what Jeanist is saying. whichever name he chooses will be an insight into who he is, and who he is trying to be

and this meta is making me rethink all my chapter 223 feels, and tbh now I’m back to thinking that it’s not going to be Ground Zero, unless he comes up with a cool reason for why that name ties in to the image of the person he wants to be (because right now, that particular name is tied more to the past than to the future). but oh my god, if he does choose the name Kacchan I am going to spontaneously combust. I will fucking do it. I will fucking die from being a dramatic excited bitch

(ETA: because. listen. there is one person who has always looked up to him in spite of everything and has always seen his potential. “in the end, in my mind, you’re the image of victory.” this, to me, is the meaning that the name “Kacchan” would have if he did choose it. it would symbolize him choosing to be his best self.)

don’t mind me I’m just stanning this child so fucking hard it hurts

(ETA: oh hey, and more feels on the reread because it looks like the reason he’s having this flashback is because he was planning to go back to Jeanist’s agency to do his real internship, and to show him how much he’s grown. but then The Thing happened. Hawks I just want to talk why won’t you answer my calls.)

Mina and Kaminari are the MVPs of this fucking chapter and I owe them my life omggggg. THEY’RE HERE TO SAVE CHRISTMAS

what are you thinking about there, Best Friend?

are you thinking about your daddy angst. penny for your thoughts

(ETA: “how can I cheer up my new best friend? I know, I’ll make him a lucrative job offer.” actually that’s a good way to cheer up just about anyone in this day and age, Shouto.)

okay, is there some sort of perverted context to Christmas that I’m totally missing here?? or is Mineta just really into the holiday spirit?

I feel like I missed something. eh

anyway Mr. Traitor himself is walking out now and HE’S BROUGHT THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE! or turkey! but goose sounded funnier

of all the things to be shocked about?? “SATOU CAN COOK!?!” like um yes hello you’ve been living with this guy for four months already? like the only thing more ridiculous than this would be, “TOKOYAMI IS A BIRD!?!”

(ETA: like I know baking and cooking are two different things, but in a manga they’re the same thing. fact.)

now someone is making a dramatic entrance! IS IT ERI I WILL DIE!!!! BRING IT

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I HEREBY SWEAR FEALTY TO THIS PANEL OF AN ADORABLY AND FESTIVELY DRESSED ERI MIXING UP HOLIDAYS WHILE DADZAWA PATIENTLY CORRECTS HER. I WILL PROTECT IT WITH MY LIFE. SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS CHAPTER SO THAT I CAN GO DO IT SOME MORE AGAIN, OVER AND OVER AND OVER

Ochako is me

(ETA: DEMONS OUT! DEMONS IN!! THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!! YOU DO THE HOOOOOOOOKEY POKEY.)

and Kiri is out here asking the real questions, but sadly Aizawa says Mirio is spending Christmas with his own class. WELL FINE. I HOPE HE’S EXPERIENCING THE FOMO OF A LIFETIME. HOW DARE HE HAVE OTHER FRIENDS whatever I’m over it

sobbbbb

WELL HOW MANY FUCKING HOLIDAYS ARE THERE!? CAN SOMEONE HELP A GIRL OUT OR WHAT

oh my god I’m just going to reblog every single Dadzawa panel and none of you can stop me go on and try!!

impatiently waiting for fanart of Aizawa tucking Eri in and reading her A Visit from St. Nicholas. get on it, fandom

ohhhhhhhhh my goddddddd

I know it’s not a Christmas song, but I am this close to cranking up “I Gotta Feeling” by the fucking Black Eyed Peas. ya feel

do you guys see him sitting there next to Dadzawa. he finally gave in. Satou is feeding him chicken. his friends will not abandon him to be on the naughty list. motherfucker that’s it. I’m fucking doing it. fill up my cup. mazel tov

lol I don’t even want to click to any more pages because they’re all so happy and it won’t fucking last. :( noooo

good little boys and girls. noshing on that chicken. Kacchan continuing to be stalked by the Ghost of Christmas Friendship. Tokoyami what even is that. lol and is this their weird way of distributing random gifts. did Sero buy Jirou a scarf. did Deku buy Ochako a freaking All Might plush keychain!? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT IS THAT THING AND WHY DOES ERI HAVE IT NOW AND WHY IS SHE MAKING THIS FACE

-- holy fuck, IT’S A SWORD. oh my god. THEY GAVE THE SEVEN YEAR OLD A FREAKING BUSTER SWORD AND SHE IS FEELING IT YESSSS THIS CHAPTER TRULY IS ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE

“dad can I keep it.” Aizawa: [not even opening his eyes, all bundled up in his oogie boogie suit] “sure”

so now we’re cutting to afterwards and everyone’s cleaning up and Deku’s using his freakish super strength to lift heavy things impressively while Bakugou continues to stomp around with his hands shoved into his pockets waiting for someone to finally tell him he can go back upstairs

OH???

motherfucker. are you going to invite them to come intern with you and your dad!!?!?? I know I was all set on Bakugou interning with Miruko just last week, but I TELL YOU WHAT BITCHES, I’M FUCKING FLEXIBLE LIKE THAT

OH SHIT YOU GUYS!!!!

TODOROKI ARE YOU PLAYING THE OT3 SONG BECAUSE HONEY YOU KNOW THAT’S MY JAM, BRO

OH FUCKING SHIT YESSSSS

BAKUGOU DO YOU WANT TO INTERN WITH YOUR TWO BEST FRIENDS, EXCUSE ME, HATED ENEMIES. DEKU DO YOU WANT TO INTERN WITH YOUR TWO BEST FRIENDS. AND THE NUMBER ONE. WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE BEST FRIENDS WITH THE NUMBER TWO. WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE BEST FRIENDS WITH TODOROKI “I DIDN’T HAVE A FLASHBACK IN THE LAST ARC BECAUSE WE WERE SAVING IT FOR THIS ONE!” TOUYA? THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S BEST FRIENDS ALL THE WAY DOWN. OH MY GOD

it’s like Horikoshi made a long and detailed list of all of his regrets about the previous internship arc, and then said, “fuck it. do-over”

you guys. I’m all out of cans. we only have can’ts and cannots. I cannot

Christmas fluff. Dadzawa. Bakugou hero name meta. hints that the traitor plot will soon be relevant again. and the motherfucking OT3 of OT3s, MY SONS, MY THREE RESPLENDENT OFFSPRINGS, interning together at the motherfucking Endeavor Hero Agency because Todoroki is the sweetest most considerate angel, and because KNOCK KNOCK, IT’S ME THE PLOT, I’VE COME FOR YOU AGAIN AT LONG LAST AND I VOW TO NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE AGAIN FROM THIS MOMENT ON

shit, y’all. I don’t know if it’s possible for an arc to become my favorite motherfucking arc only two chapters in, but damned if this sunnuvabitch ain’t trying

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today’s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

[eeveecraft]

I Just Realized that our Follower Count Dropped by Ten

It was once 246, but now it’s 236... did the sysmeds drive them away? It has to be since it’s around the time when they invaded our blog more than once. Honestly, I can’t blame the people who left if it’s because they couldn’t handle the anon hate and didn’t want to see it on their dashboard. That is totally your decision, and I hold no ill will to the people who left for that reason.

However, if some of you left because you agreed or fell for the race-baiting bullsh!t, I’m not particularly upset at all if that’s your reason, like, wow. I don’t even think I have to elaborate on why I’m not bothered at all if that’s why ten fucking people left, like, bye, if that’s seriously how easily you’re fooled and manipulated by a bunch of random anons, then so be it. 

So yeah! Let’s kick out any more people who agree with those assholes, am I right? Follower counts don’t matter to me, so yeah, if you seriously think those sysmeds were in the right for harassing my systemmate and I, then the door is over there. See you.

For the rest of the people who stayed, thank you. I know it’s probably not pleasant to see sysmed hate and harassment on your dashboards, and I’m sorry about that. If some of you don’t know, any post mentioning or being on the topic of sysmeds are tagged with #sysmed, #sysmed mention, and #sysmed tw if you don’t like seeing that stuff. Hate anons are also tagged with #anon hate. So please, if you’re bothered by these asks or topics, feel free to block these tags. 

I don’t want people getting seriously upset over this, and like I said, I’m blocking any more sysmeds who decided to rear their heads. Hell, I just got done blocking over 100 of them thanks to this one trash take post by a sysmed. Be safe, block people you make you uncomfortable, and your happiness and well-being should be priority, not following some Tulpamancy blog if it makes you uncomfortable.

To make it up to you guys, I think I’m gonna try and stay away from The Sims 4 for a bit and make some positivity art (this is also for people who followed for our art, sorry that we don’t make much at the moment). The #endogenic and #tulpamancy tags need some positivity after this wave of sysmeds, so I’m gonna do that. My fellow artists, I encourage you to do the same. Tulpa art posts tend to get a lot of attention, and it would be nice to attract some kind art-lovers back to #tulpa and the likes. 

Anyway, apologies for the sheer amount of posts today, I am literally trying very hard not to get dragged back into hyperfocusing on The Sims 4. I’ve gone two days so far without it, so there’s that!

See you in the next post!

2-21-2020

[southomens]

Day 8 of Ineffable Holiday: Holiday Shopping

Hello! I’m writing my little comment at the beginning this time as this turned out to be a longer fic (~1500 words), maybe ignited by a ridiculous amount of alcohol and some sober editing. 

This is Day 8 of an #IneffableHoliday prompt list. Check the hashtag or follow @soft-angel-aziraphale because there is some lovely art posted :)

As always, you can also find it on Ao3 here. Feel free to leave me a comment, I’m addicted to those :)

“Oh, no. No, no. Bad luck for us would actually mean dreadful luck. It’s not something we should be risking. Big risk fan, me, though. But not today, I think n-” his rant was halted by two warm hands cupping his cheeks. Crowley could feel the blood rushing up his neck as he opened and closed his mouth looking for something to say. He gave up and then relaxed, soothed by the comfort of being held by Aziraphale. Time seemed to slow down as the angel closed the space between them and paused just an inch away from him, hesitating. Crowley could not stand it any longer and grabbed him by the lapels, making Aziraphale gasp, to finally, finally kiss him.

It seemed that the freezing wind could not dissuade people from shopping. Perhaps it was due to how close they were to Christmas Eve, perhaps it was that it was the thing to do that evening. Aziraphale dodged yet another grandma carrying more bags than she should be able to.

“Oh, dear, this is a nightmare!” the angel complained.

“Uh, well, you did say you wanted to go shopping for the holidays so you are having the complete experience,” Crowley answered, shrugging it off.

“I did, but it seems I wasn’t completely aware of what I was saying… This reminds me of Hell, with all the people and the queues and everyone running. Look at them, not even one of them is enjoying themselves!” he was shocked, trying to understand what was going on around him.

“It’s the 23rd, of course nobody is enjoying shopping. They’re desperate! The last ones, those who have slothly postponed over and over again their duties and now they are paying for it. It’s brilliant!” Crowley grinned.

“Brilliant? Wait, Crowley. Was holiday shopping your idea?” Aziraphale stopped walking and a man bumped into him before continuing his way without apologising. 

“Uh, not exactly. I wish it had been, I mean, turning a religious holiday into Hell? It’s genius! They beat me to it, but I got credit. So, if anyone asks, yeah I did come up with the last minute holiday shopping.” 

“Dear fellow, how many more things did you give yourself credit that I don’t know of?” Aziraphale asked, partially amused by it if it weren’t for the constant bumping with people and the general unpleasant ambient.

“That you don’t know of? Plenty. Yeah, many of them. About two per year? It was my job, innit?” 

“My goodness, and did they believe you? That seems like a rather big amount of lies, Crowley.”

“That’s right. You’re talking to the serpent of Eden. The original sin. The first tempter. I’m quite a good liar, you know? Telling people what they want to hear” they had started walking again but now people seemed to diverge their path just to let them pass, in a way that reminded Crowley of Moses.

“How would I know? I mean, if you are such a good liar, as you said, I wouldn’t be able to notice when you lied to me. So I guess not, I don’t really know,” Aziraphale explained. He had always assumed that Crowley, being a demon, wouldn’t always tell him the truth. It was expected of him, it was in his job description.

“Well, I don’t lie to you,” the demon pointed out. “What would be the point? You would probably get so mad at me that we wouldn’t speak for a century or so, which has happened in the past even though when I was telling you the truth, and that’s something I’m not willing to go through again. Not good. Well, the nap was good. But everything else sucked pretty badly. Did you know I woke up in the middle of World War II? Let me tell you, it was not a pleasant surprise.”

“And yet you came to rescue me,” Aziraphale slyly smiled at Crowley.

“Yeah, well. That’s what friends do. Or so I’ve heard,” Crowley shrugged it off and entered the first shop he saw, a decoration store filled with Christmas trees of all shapes, colours and materials, a wide variety of presents, shiny rolls of wrapping paper and intricate ornaments, as well as funny accessories with a consistent holidays pattern. They were surrounded by Santa Clauses, reindeers, snowflakes, trees, presents, bells, mistletoe, stars, red and green imprinted everywhere. A Christmas carol could be heard above the noise all the potential shoppers were making in their frenzied purchases.

“Oh, look at this, Crowley!” Aziraphale said, putting on a headband with reindeer horns. A bunch of tiny bells sewn to it jingled. “It’s adorable!” the demon looked at him, his beaming smile and his blonde curls, and blushed.

“You look ridiculous, angel.” he said, immediately turning around and faking interest on whatever stupid thing was standing on that particular shelf. He fiddled around, willing the blush to disappear.

“You should try those ones over there.” Aziraphale said, peeking over Crowley’s shoulder.

“What? No! These? No, not in a million years, nuh-huh. I’ve got standards. Unlike some people around here.” 

“Whyever not? They’re fun. And you like sunglasses,” Aziraphale insisted, having way too much fun in Crowley’s opinion. The demon sighed, took off the pair he was currently wearing and put on the heart-shaped ones Aziraphale was pointing at. He turned around, defeated.

“Oh! Oh, you look utterly adorable!” the angel jumped on his feet and clapped. “We must buy these.”

“Why? They’re made of plastic, angel. No sense of aesthetics. These - they’re hideous! It’s humiliating,” he whined as Aziraphale took him by the hand and led him to the counter, where there was no queue to wait. “You do realise this can be considered torture, right?”

“Oh, hush. I will wear this headband so you don’t feel ridiculous - not that you look ridiculous. I insist, you look adorable.” Crowley felt like he was about to combust any minute now. Not knowing anything better to do, he tried to bit back.

“How is that supposed to help? I’m not adorable, I shouldn’t look like it. I’m a demon” Crowley moaned as Aziraphale ignored him and paid for both articles. They exited the shop and went on to the next one.

“I love this shop, I love how it smells even from the outside. Marvelous,” Aziraphale briefly sniffed around before opening the door to let Crowley in. Three counters, forming an inverted U, received them. They were filled with a wide variety of sweets, treats and chocolates, each of them more intricate than the other. Aziraphale wiggled in excitement before approaching one of the clerks.

“Hello,” the angel greeted with his usual kindness. “I would like to have the usual, if you please.”

“Right away, Mr. Fell,” the lady answered before going to the backroom.

“They know you here.” Crowley said, not impressed in the least. Aziraphale was probably known in every chocolate shop in the entire United Kingdom. Probably also in Belgium, Switzerland and France. And any other country that may have chocolate shops.

“Oh, yes. It has been one of my top twenty-five chocolate shops in London for quite a while now. I’m surprised I haven’t bring you here before,” Aziraphale answered. 

“I guess we still have things to show the other…” Crowley muttered. 

“Quite right, dear.” the angel smiled shyly. “It keeps things interesting, wouldn’t you say so?”

Once Aziraphale had his box of chocolates, they both agreed they had had enough of the Christmas shopping experience. Crowley led the way to a small winery closeby. It was crowded, but once again, they were lucky enough to not have to wait before having a seat in a small corner. 

The demon was still wearing the hideous glasses while Aziraphale moved his head from time to time just to make the tiny bells on his headband jingle.

“Two red wines for the loveñy couple…” the waitress placed two cups on the small table as Crowley struggled to say something.

“Thank you, dear,” said Aziraphale instead as he tried to hide a smirk behind his glass. “Hm, this is quite nice.” The demon agreed to it even though he hadn’t had a sip yet. He had always enjoyed those moments when Aziraphale would show his most bastard side and it had been nice to openly do it with the freedom they now enjoyed. But there was this smugginess about him today that was disconcerting.

They kept drinking for a couple of hours, idly chatting and discussing about that first time they celebrated the winter solstice and that other time where they got drunk on eggnog and then regretted it. They fell into a comfortable silence. Aziraphale looked around, taking in the surroundings and the people around them when he noticed something hanging from the ceiling. He opened his eyes widely, the epitome of shock.

“Is that… is that mistletoe?” Aziraphale asked, gesturing with his index finger towards it.

“Whuh?” Crowley had been sprawled over the table for a while now, the glasses no longer sitting properly on his nose. He looked to where Aziraphale was pointing. “Huh… I guess it is?” there was no point in denying it.

“Well. We ought to do something about it. Otherwise it’ll be bad luck. I think.” Crowley stood up straight, startled. 

“D- do you mean… Like, uh, that we should…” he trailed off.

“Kiss, yes.” Aziraphale said. “Unless you want to risk the bad luck.”

[silyabeeodess]

FusionFall Retro 2019 Holiday Event Fic: Icy Imagery, pt. 1

A long, tired sigh escaped the woman’s lips as she collapsed onto her assigned cot.  It was a nightmare: Fuse’s army had pushed deep within the Ice Kingdom, chasing away many of its denizens—with one of which, the Ice King himself, making a new home in the south side of Pokey Oaks until Finn, Jake, and the Fusion Fighters sent with them could regain his territory.   Now, not only had he erected a giant spire of ice in place of his castle right in the middle of the neighborhood, but a swarm of penguin-like fusion monsters and ice titans had followed him there.  The mounting problems required a full evacuation.

On top of everything, it was little wonder to some why so many fusion monsters tracked the Ice King down. Normally, when Fuse conquered an area, that was that: He was too confident in his own power to worry about whether or not regular civilians escaped, too self-assured that all of Earth would inevitably fall under his domain.  If Fuse was after the Ice King, it was because he considered him a genuine threat.  

There was some debate over how much Imaginary Energy the wizard could wield, and rumors that he used to be some kind of genius.  Silya didn’t know about all of that, but he certainly wasn’t… normal.  Perfectly mad, a trait she could actually admire—so long as he didn’t hurt anyone.  Really though, he was also kind of a nuisance.  As many Fusion Fighters had come to his aid, fortifying the spire and working together to protect him until he could go back to the Ice Kingdom, he was treating all of them like hired help.  Even two fusions had shown up—one of himself and one version of a penguin he called ‘Gunter’—and he wasn’t taking that seriously!  Without a doubt, this mission went high on the long list of aggravating jobs she’d taken since joining the war.

“Wenk!”

Oh yeah, and apparently, I’m a penguin mom now…  Silya wiped at her face before glancing toward the wide, dark eyes that meet her own peridot ones.  The tiny bird flopped on its side by her on the cot, blinking with myopic innocence. He was her “reward” from the Ice King: One of many passed out to the soldiers for guarding his penguins.  Honestly though, she practically already had thirty-six kids the way her nanos behaved.  She didn’t need one more.

“Wenk!” the penguin curled up closer to her side.  Had it imprinted on her?  A part of her hoped not.  Although, a part of her hated herself more for already growing attached to the small fry.

Her wristcom buzzed to life. Pulling back her sleeve, she only barely recognized the number and answered it all too late by the time she realized who the call was from.  Before she could cut it off, the Ice King’s face appeared as a small hologram.  “Hey, there!  Finally, somebody picks up! Do you have any idea how many calls I’ve made today just trying to get anyone?  A lot, that’s how many.”

Silya hid back her frayed nerves with a small, awkward grin, but her voice still came out somewhat bitter, “What do you need, Ice King?”

If he noticed, he didn’t show it.  Really, he just seemed glad that she didn’t immediately hang up—no doubt like many others had first. “So yeah!  A few guys told me about this ‘Imaginary Energy’ stuff and how you use it to beat those goop monsters—like, it comes from you, but you still need weapons?  They tried explaining, but it just sounds like none of you actually know what you’re doing to me. If it’s anything like magic though, I figured—I don’t know—maybe I could give some pointers tomorrow.  I’ve been calling to see who’s interested and your boss mentioned you and some other people. Anyway, you in?”

It took her a moment to make sense of his mess of words.  The second after though, she was shaking her head and cursing the operation’s commander. “What? No—! No thank you, Ice King,” she grunted, sitting up.  Her penguin flopped into her lap immediately after.  Was this really happening?  What was happening right now?  “I don’t think you know how complicated Imaginary Energy is.  It’s not as simple as magic: There’s a science to it.  We use our tech as a means of drawing it out and manipulating it around us in a stable form, as a protective measure and to enhance our weapons.”

Was she really having to explain this?  To him, of all people?  There were scientists that could go into more detail than Silya could with more patience than she had to spare.  Sure, he had ice powers, but that was only thanks to his crown.  What made him think that he knew anything about Imaginary Energy—which, apparently, he’d only just heard about in the first place?

“Look, I can pass you over to someone at Dexlabs or Mandark Industries.  They can explain it better,” she offered.  She didn’t want to just brush him off, but this was one headache she wanted to avoid.  “Besides, you shouldn’t be wandering around. Fusion You is still—”

Ice King cut her off before she could say anything else, his hands on his hips, “I don’t need to listen to a bunch of nerds!  And who ever said magic was simple?  I’ll have you know I worked hard to master a lot of my moves.”

“They’re just not the same, alright?”

“Alright then, smarty-pants, well, if you know so much, then I guess you can tell me what an imagination zone is, right?  Huh?  Huh?”  His eyebrows seem to rise with every emphasized word and he pressed his face closer to the screen, the hologram distorting in reaction.

She stared at him, bewildered.  She didn’t answer him: No, that was news to her. There were people that could create miniature worlds thanks to Imaginary Energy: It was a rare phenomenon though, caused by people with insanely high amounts of IE who inevitably never could describe just how they did it.  The way the wizard talked about it, however, it almost sounded common.  Maybe it was an Ooo thing.  

Her silence only encouraged him and the smile returned to his face, “See?  I know my stuff!  You could learn something!  I’m not promising anything, but it could be fun.  We’ll be like the guys that hang out in those kung-fu movies.  I’ll bring snacks!” Her eyes widened as he leaned back to look at a long list that came into the transmitter’s view.  How many people was he calling over this?!  “I’ll go ahead and put you down as a ‘yes.’  We’re meeting a little ways up the spire around noon, and don’t be late, ok?  Bye!”

Silya couldn’t get another word in before he hung up on her. As the hologram evaporated, she stared at the screen a second longer and then held her head in her hands in exasperation.  The penguin rolled off her lap and sat up next to her, watching and then mimicking her.  

Technically, she didn’t have to go.  Her next shift to guard the Ice King wasn’t for a few more days and she was just one face in a crowd of thousands: He’d forget her in a heartbeat and pester somebody else.  He could act like such a doofus that she wasn’t even afraid of what he was capable of if she upset him.  Still, she didn’t not like him and, if she was honest, he actually made a few good points.  She worked for Dexter and the boy genius was absolutely against the magical arts, meaning that she was rarely exposed to more than Imaginary Energy’s scientific elements.  Little was known about IE as it was.  And she wanted to understand it more than anything…  If the Ice King knew something—by some insane piece of luck—then maybe she should give him a chance.

“Wenk…” The woman glanced down as her penguin wrapped one of its wings over her arm and cuddled up against her.  It seemed sleepy, but content to be by her side.  She patted it lightly on the head with her free hand, still deep within her own thoughts.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out, she mused, It’s just for one afternoon.  Any bit of new information she could learn would be worth dealing with his madness for that long.    

Part 2: https://silyabeeodess.tumblr.com/post/189934873389/fusionfall-retro-2019-holiday-event-fic-icy

((This fic’s kind of an after-thought, since I wasn’t sure where I’d go with it or even write one for this event at first, but I feel like there’s a lot of unexplored territory here.  It’s gonna be a multi-part one, but likely a lot shorter than the one I did for one of October’s prompts.  Please enjoy!))

[bedbellyandbeyond]

Work Leave

Story Post; Art at End

“I see... So I expect you'll be needing leave then when the time comes?” Nathan was in the principal's office after class discussing his new circumstances. With the twins on the way, he was very worried about how his work would be affected by the pregnancy. So far though, Ms. Liu was nothing short of understanding. “Yes... The doc said I'd be on bedrest near the end of the pregnancy,” Nathan said. “I'd rather it didn’t interfere with my class...” Ms. Liu shook her head and raised a hand. “Mr. Cassidy, everything will be fine. You’ll have whatever needed leave. We'll manage to find a substitute for your class. In the meantime... Rest well. Stay healthy.” “Thank you, Ms. Liu,” Nathan accepted. “I won't let you down.” “And congratulations.”

“Huh? Oh... The pregnancy,” Nathan blushed sheepishly. “Thank you.” “Twins are a big responsibility. I hope you and your partner are ready for it.” “Oh. Um, it's just me actually,” Nathan admitted. “Oh. I'm sorry.” Ms. Liu's usual stone face broke to show sincere humility. “I'm really sorry... I shouldn't have assumed.” “It's okay. I get it.” Nathan waved it off. “It's a big leap for one person alone, but I'm excited too. I'm gonna do my best.” Ms. Liu regained her composure. “Well, do let me know when the time comes that you'd like the leave.” “Thanks... Also, I'd like to keep it between us for now,” Nathan requested. “Of course. I won't inform any of the other staff without your permission,” the principal said. “You have my word.” Nathan nodded. “Thank you. I really appreciate it... I can see how a teacher taking leave so soon after the school opens could be a problem.” “We're dealing with all kinds of circumstances and exceptions for our staff...” Ms. Liu said. “Allowing a teacher their rightful leave is hardly the worst thing to deal with. Relax, Mr. Cassidy. Take it easy, take your leave as prescribed to you, spend time with your children, and when you feel fit to return, you'll have your job here waiting for you.” “Thank you so much.” “Now, I have some work to do before I head out for the night,” Ms. Liu said, motioning to some papers. “I'm sure you'd like to get home too.” “Uh, yes. I'll leave you to it,” Nathan said, getting up from his chair. “Thank you for meeting with me.” “Any time you need something regarding your work, you can come to me,” Ms. Liu said. “Yes, of course. See you tomorrow.” “Have a good night, Mr. Cassidy.” Nathan waved and left. He'd gotten quite used to living at APID that on non-wolf nights he contemplated staying there anyway for the convenience of the location. He didn’t have to worry about commute or forgetting things at work. Also, while it was no Montana's, the fresh cafeteria food was very affordable. His plan was always to go eat first before the sun dropped so as to help satiate the wolf overnight. He'd also been informed that the wolf was quite tame now having a regular source of food and shelter, although often restless being cooped up in a small room. Reid had talked about proposing an outdoor pen to the board for the wolf to use that could also double as a recreational area for residents and staff during the daytime. If they got that up and running though, Nathan would hope they made it extra fortified. After quickly dropping off his work bag in his room, he hurried off to the cafeteria. He liked to arrive as soon as dinner service started to get the freshest food. He'd be cutting it close now after having talked to the principal. Thankfully when he arrived, there wasn't much more than a few people in line so he took his place in it and waited for the food to open up. When time arrived for it to open, a man came around from the back to unlock the front gate. To his surprise, this young man happened to be very familiar. “Mr. Hamlin?” Nathan asked as the vice principal came back around. “Nathan?” Pierce beamed when he spotted his co-worker in line. “What a surprise. And please call me Pierce.” “Right, sorry,” Nathan said. “What are you doing here? Is vice principal pay that bad?” Pierce let out a good chuckle. “No, I volunteer here.” “Why haven't I seen you before?” Nathan asked, before realising that he'd given away the fact that he frequented the budget food. “First chance I got since school starter. You know how busy we've been,” Pierce explained. “I'm happy I've had a chance to finally get back into it.” “That's cool, I guess,” Nathan said. “But why'd you choose to volunteer?” “Well, when I was a kid, I had to live here a bit,” Pierce said. “My mom called it camp but really, the EID—or, uh APID wanted to make sure I could blend in with the other kids, and they did a bunch of tests and things... The kitchen staff were always really cool and nice to me. So I figured I'd give back.” “That's really nice of you,” Nathan said. “Naw, it's really nothing. I like the free food and conversation,” Pierce said. “Plus I get to meet a whole bunch of cool extraterrestrials and the like.” He then looked Nathan top to bottom. “Are you an alien too?” “Me? No, no...” Nathan answered quickly. “I, um... I have a condition APID's helping out with so I sometimes have to sleep over.” He crossed his fingers that Pierce didn’t ask more about it. “Oh, okay,” Pierce said smiling. “Well, that's good then. So you must be semi-regular here. I'll have a new face to look forward too seeing around here. And it's good to see they've been feeding you well without me around. When you first showed your face at the staff meeting, you look near sickly, no offence.” “Ah, none taken...” Nathan was still a little offended though since he figured it was a comment on his weight. “Do you know what's for dinner tonight?” “Do you have any food restrictions?” Pierce asked. Nathan shook his head. “But I need a lot of protein these days.” “Ah, then you're in for a treat. The chefs smoked a brisket today. It is absolutely...” Pierce kissed the tips off his fingers. “I should head back in though. I'm on service.” “Alright, see you on the other side,” Nathan said. Pierce patted Nathan's shoulder grinning. “I like you, Nathan.” He headed back inside. Once Nathan had his food he went to go sit down. It had taken multiple meals to get his lunch friend Wano to trust him again after he missed breakfast one time. He promised to show him how to use chopsticks to eat as an apology and so far, he was learning fast but just needed more strength control. Pierce had gifted Nathan an extra helping of brisket so when Wano’s chopsticks scissored violently, sending his piece of brisket flying half way across the cafeteria, they had a spare. From that point on, he went back to a fork and knife and informed Nathan that they would be practicing the next morning with eggs, before heading back to his own room. Nathan stayed back a bit to catch up on reading some parent emails. He’d never thought about it before but was not surprised to find out that other planets had holidays so a few of his students would be missing class. It was good to know, but he ultimately didn’t see it impacting their kindergarten education too much so he replied to the parents to assure them it would be fine. A cafeteria tray slid up beside him which nearly made him jump but he turned to see Pierce slide in beside him. “Oh hey,” Nathan said, making room for him. “Done volunteer work?” “Naw, but I figured I’d take a break to eat,” Pierce said, waggling his fork. “You don’t turn off, do you?” “Turn off what?” Nathan looked at his laptop but didn’t really think he spent a lot of time on it. “Being a teacher.” “Oh. I was just replying to some emails before heading back to my room,” Nathan said. “No, not that. I saw you with Wano,” Pierce said. “You can’t pass up a chance to teach.” “I didn’t really volunteer exactly…” Nathan said. “It is…like, really hard to get an Eclulan’s trust.” “Yeah, and yet you’ve managed to get one that’ll save a seat for you.” Nathan was a bit alarmed by how much Pierce had seen. “So you’re watching me?” Pierce just shrugged. “Part of volunteering is keeping an eye on the tables. So, yeah. Not to mention, four eyes.” He blinked open his lower set of eyes a few times. “Anyway, how was the brisket?” “It was really good,” Nathan said. “Almost as good as my grandmother’s recipe.” “Oh yeah? You want to bring her in and give us tips?” “Uh, she’s not with us anymore.” “Oh.” Pierce placed a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” “It’s been a couple years. Don’t worry about it,” Nathan shrugged off. “I know you shared your brisket,” Pierce said, pushing his tray against Nathan’s arm. “You can have mine.” Nathan shook his head. “No, I had my fair share… Thank you though.” “You sure? You said you’re on a high protein diet,” Pierce said. “I nibbled on some brisket in the back. I’m good.” Nathan bit his lips. The smell of the brisket was making his mouth water. “…Are you sure?” “Positive.” Pierce pushed his brisket onto Nathan’s empty plate. “Enjoy.” Nathan started cutting up the brisket for himself. “Thank you… This brisket really is good. Well cooked through. I didn’t know they had a smoker here.” “Multiple,” Pierce said. “They’re set up outside. They’re top notch.” He started nibbling on some broccoli. “So, what’s this condition you’re supposed to have anyway if you don’t mind me asking?” Nathan paused and acted like he didn’t hear. “Hm?” “You’re not an alien and yet you live in the deportee department according to your access pass,” Pierce said pointing to the lanyard hanging from Nathan’s back pocket. “So you must have some kind of terrestrial thing going on. And you call it a condition, so it sounds like an illness, not something natural for you. So that rules out things like…merman, demon, driad. It’s more like…vampire. Or—” “I’m pregnant,” Nathan blurted out. Pierce blinked. “Really?” “…” Nathan thought about retracting it but it felt too late. “Yes.” “I knew it!” Pierce said. “That’s why you…you know, look so healthy.” “I’m fat. Just say it,” Nathan huffed. “You’re not fat,” Pierce said. “You’re still like this skinny guy. It’s just the midsection. But honestly, I was sceptical because I would never have pegged you as trans.” “I'm not trans,” Nathan said. Pierce raised an eyebrow. “You're not? But you're pregnant. Is that why you're at APID? Because you're a pregnant cis man?” “Yeah, mostly,” Nathan lied. “And, um... I'm having twins.” He didn’t know why he was telling Pierce so much about himself but it just felt nice to have someone to talk to about it who wasn't directly one of his ‘handlers', like Reid and Ms. Liu. “No way. No way!” Pierce said, wrapping an arm around Nathan and patting his back. “Congratulations. Twins, that's crazy. That's exciting.” “Yeah, it's wild,” Nathan confirmed. “I talked to Ms. Liu about it after class today. I didn’t really plan to tell anyone else at work yet... Nothing about this was planned. But I don't know, you're easy to talk to. Must be why you're vice principal.” Pierce chuckled. “Maybe... I never thought about it.” He scratched the back of his own head. “Um, okay. I have a request but...um, no I probably shouldn't ask.” “What? No, ask me,” Nathan said. “No, it's stupid,” Pierce said. “It's private.” Nathan tried to figured out what the vice principal was on about. “What? Is it...do you want to see it?” He lifted his shirt, revealing his stomach. Pierce lit up in excitement. “Wow, look at that...” He lifted his hand but stopped himself. “Oh, I shouldn't...” “Just go ahead, dude,” Nathan said, taking Pierce's hand and putting it on his stomach. “It feels weird, right?” Pierce rubbed it a little bit. “Yeah, so firm... I bet you can't believe it.” “It gets a bit more real every day but yeah, it's overwhelming,” Nathan said. Pierce took his hand away and blushed. “Um, so... I suppose you'll have to take leave?” “Yeah. It’s what I talked to Ms. Liu about today,” Nathan said. “I don’t know when yet I’ll be off.” “That’s fair… When are you due?” “Uh… I haven’t even thought about that yet.” Nathan did a little counting on his hands. “…So, I'm supposed to be...like, seventeen weeks pregnant now... So March maybe?” “Wow, that feels so soon,” Pierce commented. “Yeah, I guess it really is...” Nathan said. He hadn't yet put into perspective how soon he'd suddenly go from single bachelor to parent. It was increasingly overwhelming. Pierce put a hand on his shoulder. “That's a lot to look forward to for the new year. But I've seen you with your students. You're going to be a stellar parent.” Nathan did feel a little relieved. “Thanks. I'll do my best.” “Hell yeah, you will.” Pierce checked his watch. “Well, my break is over. I'll see you tomorrow at work?” “Yeah, absolutely.” Pierce left back to the kitchen and Nathan hurriedly gathered his things to go to his room before night properly fell.

[margridarnauds]

angel-starbeam replied to your post: Gotta love how Tumblr buys into Victorian...

Elaborate please.

I’m not sure if I’m ultimately elaborating or just tossing word vomit into the void here, but here goes nothing!

Obviously, this is dealing more with the specific phenomenon that I’ve noticed re: posts about Europe being essentially unwashed savages while everywhere else was going through some sort of golden age. Which! Around the world, people were doing cool things. Obviously, discussing the events of, say, the Golden Age of Islam or the achievements of the Aztecs and Mayans are important, especially when it comes to combatting Eurocentrism in the study of history.

But, at the same time, there’s absolutely no need to do that while throwing the Middle Ages under the bus, and it’s right next to the idea that somehow all knowledge of the ancient world died after some singular burning of the Library of Alexandria and oh, how painful, we all had to go through the DARK AGES. (Which. No one dealing with the field calls it “The Dark Ages.” Because it wasn’t.) 

Sanitation wasn’t AS GOOD as practiced in, say, the times of the Romans, depending on where you are in Europe and in what time during the nearly thousand years that we call the Middle Ages you’re situated in. (I repeat: A THOUSAND YEARS. THE ENTIRE CONTINENT. Like, that would be the same as lumping people in the present with people who lived in the 11th century and not taking into account regional diversity. It’d almost be like, you know, completely generalizing a 3000 year old civilization. I mean, who would even do that?)Because the Romans had aqueducts all over the place and were meticulous about their cleaning. (Though they also used a little sponge on a stick to wipe themselves with after going to the bathroom.) But, if you’re in one of the Nordic countries during this time, you’re going to have a wash day, and we know they washed their faces every morning. (The idea that they cleansed themselves without washing the bowl is something that has been heavily debated, but the general consensus I’ve personally seen is “they washed it in-between cleanings”.) We have Anglo-Saxon writers talking about the Vikings and essentially going, “Stupid Norsemen with their fancy hair and their wash days and their jewelry, looting our country, running off with our women. What do they have that we don’t?” 

Around the rest of Europe, we know that the common people had communal baths and, for the nobles, they would have their own individual baths, occasionally using it as a source of bonding (much like the Romans did, when they would conduct business together). We get a lovely account of Charlemagne that says that, “he would invite not only his sons to bathe with him, but his nobles and friends as well, and occasionally even a crowd of attendants and bodyguards, so that sometimes a hundred men or more would be in the water together.” And I’ll take this one moment to also mention that one of the most famous legends of the Middle Ages, Melusine, literally revolves around a woman being left in the privacy of her bath as one of the terms of her marriage (which is then broken. Which then causes problems. Because you don’t break prohibitions like that when it comes to marriages in medieval literature. It never ends well.)

And, of course, since we’re not just talking hygiene, but a general outlook on culture, which is such a BROAD category as far as talking “sophistication” and “advancement”, I will remind whoever might be willing to read this that medieval manuscripts and stained glass windows are two of the things we IMMEDIATELY spring to when we think “The Middle Ages” and both of them are time consuming, meticulous activities. To give a hint: As an amateur stained glass artist, I can spend probably about 10 hours non-stop on a project of about 40-60 pieces, supposing I already had the glass on hand and a pattern in place. That involves cutting the design out, tracing it in the glass, labelling it, cutting the glass out, getting it sawed to size, foiling it, and then sautering it. The pieces you see in a cathedral, like at Chartres? 

Those are THOUSANDS of pieces, most of which was made in an approximately 35 year period from about 1200-1235. Like, Chartres originally had 176 glass WINDOWS. I can’t even begin to imagine it. And, also. You’re working with GLASS. AKA “One wrong move and you will feel the pain of a thousand cuts.” Ask a stained glass artist. They’ll have stories. And when I’m working, I’m working with the advantage of modern equipment to cut the glass out. And the one thing they did at Chartres that I still can’t do? Painting. So, not only did those pieces of glass have to be perfectly cut and put into place, but THEN they had to be painted. The folds in the robes, the faces on the angels and the saints, the detailing along the edges...all that stuff is painted on. And with a lot of that glass? We can’t replicate those colors anymore. And, I mean, Chartres wasn’t the ONLY cathedral with stained glass in Europe at the time, just probably the best surviving one of the group. 

And, of course, in terms of manuscripts... 

So, yeah, Europe was a “cultural backwater” that was creating breathtaking works of art that took DECADES to create. And, of course, all of this relies on the idea of “Europe” and “The rest of the world’ being isolated which SURPRISE they weren’t. Like, you’ve got Greek and Roman books going to the Middle East, then being translated, then having Arabic natural philosophers working with the ideas and improving on them, then them being brought back to Europe  and translated, usually into Latin because it was the language of the academics and the learned AKA the only ones who were rich enough to buy this type of thing. You’ve got Arabic writers traveling around the place, writing about what they’ve seen, like Ahmad ibn Fadlan. And of course up until Isabella and Ferdinand commit genocide during the Reconquista, you’ve got the Moors in Spain. So, while the majority population of Europe was what we’d call white today, to just lump it all together into a homogenized group to prop up another location really only serves to, for want of a more academic term, shit on EVERYONE ELSE who was in Europe at the time. Like, it’s not just inaccurate, it’s buying into the idea propagated by white supremacists that the face of the Middle Ages was a bunch of white men. 

Alright, now that I’ve probably spent way too long on this part of the rant, onto the “Victorian propaganda”. And, really, I’m being overly harsh on the Victorians here, because the Renaissance (lit. “Rebirth) and the Enlightenment’s also to blame and really set the stage, posturing themselves as the successors to Greek and Roman thought after centuries of darkness. “Enlightenment” - “Dark Ages”, the idea is kind of in the words used to describe them. Which completely ignores the long, long history of natural and other forms of philosophy in the Middle Ages that made it possible for Voltaire, Descartes and co. to so much as wipe their noses. The Middle Ages becomes a time of religion and superstition, not like our time, oh no, we’re above that. We’re Free Thinkers™. This is also where we get the idea of “Gothic” architecture being used to describe medieval architecture, because OH MY GOD HOW BARBARIC. IT’S NOT GREEK. (Yes, they were the equivalent of those fifteen year olds who post melancholy comments on YouTube videos of 60s songs about how “Teens today don’t understand REAL music.) And what’s the classic setting for the 18th century gothic novel? A medieval castle or an abbey, filled with leftovers from the barbaric past, focusing on heightened emotions and the supernatural, as opposed to the focus on reason that characterized the era, especially as exemplified by the French Revolution which attempted to turn rational ideals into political reality. (Whether they succeeded or not, and if they didn’t then WOULD they have if not for *insert factor here* is another discussion altogether and would probably cost me my life.)

That being said, the term would become popularized during the 19th century, so I’m rolling with that. 

But, the Victorians brought one MAJOR development that would kind of determine how ideas of race and civilization would be dealt with for many, many years, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. And, as soon as the book hits, people start talking about it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And here, we’re definitely dealing with the UGLY. 

“This aggressive colonial competition at the end of the century drew support from supposedly scientific and biological ideas about racial superiority and inferiority. Darwin’s Descent of Man suggested a graduated evolutionary chain of development. It seemed to sanction ideas of ‘primitive’ peoples supposedly lower on the evolutionary scale than the white Europeans who were invariably presented as the model of evolved civilisation.”

Now, obviously, this idea was used first and foremost to deal with race. BUT if white Europeans are more “evolved” then they have to have evolved from something, and the Middle Ages were convenient to this image, especially when the Enlightenment had already done a decent job of beginning to distort the record. If humans were animals, descended from primates, then, by this manner of thinking, the history of humanity is evolution in action, with the weak being weeded out by the strong and the humanity of centuries past being obviously less involved than the humanity of the present. As Lewis Henry Morgan wrote, “It can now be asserted upon convincing evidence that savagery preceded barbarism in all the tribes of mankind, as barbarism is known to have preceded civilization.” It’s a very convenient, nice little ladder that they’ve created there, and it’s one that conveniently throws anyone who’s not a white Victorian male under the bus.

I wouldn’t say that Darwinism necessarily created anything NEW in terms of dealing with Middle Ages, but it did provide confirmation to Victorian males that they were The Pinnacle of Evolution and that the human race is moving in a grand new direction that will eventually eliminate Lesser Societies (gee, I wonder how THAT theory could be used and abused.) And, of course, with Darwinism, you have the debate between science and religion, the Middle Ages being heavily associated with religion...it’s a mess. 

However, in all fairness to the 19th century, these ideas weren’t NECESSARILY the only belief in vogue, as some people also viewed the Middle Ages through a highly nostalgic lens, looking back at a simpler time, before the Enlightenment. “Many of the qualities the Romantics saw in the period – elevation of faith over rationalism; devotion to hierarchy, tradition, and authority; emphasis on communal rather than individual artistic and intellectual achievement – were the same as those recognized by Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, only viewed in positive rather than negative terms, prompted by rejection of modernity, religious revival, or some combination of the two.” This was a period of time that was still dealing with the CATACLYSMIC affects of the French Revolution a century before. Which is also why so many white supremacists like to wank over it. Because it reminds them of a happier, nicer time with strict gender roles and little cultural diversity. (NEWSFLASH ASSHOLES: THAT ISN’T WHAT HAPPENED. AT ALL. FUCK OUT OF MY FIELD. but i digress) 

(Okay, technically this comes from 1900, so not a 19th century painting, but STILL Victorian.)

 Which also gives you a harsh BACKLASH, as people start to rebut that by painting the Middle Ages as a period where science was sacrificed to religion, most notably in the White-Draper Conflict thesis, which, suffice it to say, is INSANELY simplistic. And you’ve got people like Auguste Comte who expressed a high regard for both the Middle Ages AND Darwin in his creation of Positivism, which earned him some amount of scorn, such as when Auguste Blanqui wrote, “These blind systematisers’ mania for progress regardless of what happens even leads them to indict, as a reactionary movement and negative impulse, the renaissance of Greco-Latin letters, and according to them this victory over the loathsome works of the Middle Ages was a backwards step.” You’d almost get the idea he didn’t like it. This is also, incidentally, where we get the idea that everyone in the Middle Ages was rolling around, believing that the Earth was flat. Because of course everyone in the Middle Ages was a religious nut. (Note: I’m saying this as an atheist.) 

So, really, there’s a heavy amount of religion VS science, romanticism VS rationalism, etc. 

Really, and this is my own personal opinion/open-ended question that I’m not really sure can ever be answered, any take on “civilized” and “uncivilized” or any real barometer for advancement of cultures is going to be flawed, because ultimately what are you using as your yardstick? Are we really that far up the imperialism ass still that we’re judging historical cultures by how closely they resemble us, with everyone else being “primitives”, or, to use the language of the God-awful Tumblr post, a “cultural backwater”? Does it have to be in ALL areas, or just in a few? If a civilization practices human sacrifice on a massive scale but builds some awesome monuments, do they get the “more civilized than the others” stamp? Hey, at least they had running water! What about if they give rape the death penalty, but only if it’s a free woman? What standards of living do they have to have to make the cut? Is there a minimal limit for monuments, and if so, how are we judging what a monument is?

We all want to show that our pet favorites are “advanced,” that they did marvelous things so much better than everywhere else, but I’m not sure anyone’s willing to have the conversation on what “better” or “advanced” mean in this instance. 

Tl;dr: The Middle Ages were not as filthy as they’ve been made out to be, they DID produce cultural artifacts of great beauty, and do we really want to use descriptions of “cultural backwaters” and “progress” and “advancement” that rely heavily on notions popularized during the 18th and 19th centuries as a means of justifying imperialism? Especially when said notion promotes the idea, POPULARIZED BY WHITE SUPREMACISTS, that the Middle Ages in Europe were populated by a homogenous white population? Like, is that the hill you really want to die on, Tumblr? Is it really? 

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 32]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

This was on hiatus for a while because I needed to focus a lot harder on my exam than usual studying and then it was break after that, but I have to get some stuff read for next week, so I’m going to be doing this for a bit today! Last time we just entered a church... with Remus. Let’s see how this goes...

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

 “You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

 Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

 “Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

 Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

 Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

 When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

 He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

 “What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

 “Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

 “Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

 Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

 Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

 He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

 He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

 He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

 “What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

 He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

 Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

 “Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

 Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

 Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Pat’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

 “Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

 Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

 Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

 For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

 Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Pat to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Pat protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

 It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

 Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

 “Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

 Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

 Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

21088

“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Pat giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

 Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

 Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

 He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

 He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

 “Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

 “I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

 Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

 “He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

 “Your associate?” Janus fished.

The man made an amused hum. “I believe you were calling him ‘Pat’ on your last adventure.” Janus could hear something being placed down on the other end of the phone. Before Janus could respond, he heard what sounded like an old keyboard being typed on. “Now,” Lo said. “I have to admit, I am surprised you were willing to oblige me so thoroughly by plugging the phone into your system. Let’s see…”

The screen on Virgil’s lit up bright blue all of a sudden. “…shit,” said Virgil.

“Well,” Lo said, “it seems you were clever enough not to plug it into the TPI system, which is disappointing, but…”

 There was more clicking on the other end. “Hmm, interesting music tastes for the 4000s,” he said.

“I’m an anthropologist,” Virgil spoke up.

“Ah, yes, I can see that,” Lo replied. “Virgil Eran, senior professor at Silver Mountain University, a vetted member of the Cultural Outreach program, and searched the phrase ‘How to eat sushi without making a cultural blunder and making everyone hate you and losing your job because what kind of shit anthropologist doesn’t know how to eat raw fish right’ which you then shortened to ‘How to eat sushi’ and proceeded to search 52 times in the last 48 hours.”

 Virgil went a bit scarlet around the ears. “Dude, did you really have to out me like that?” he hissed at the phone.

“My apologies,” Lo responded. “From my personal experience, don’t dip the rice parts in soy sauce, and don’t add too much wasabi. Overall, most people will be understanding of mistakes, and you will certainly not be fired or ostracized for handling food incorrectly. As long as you are not acting intentionally disrespectful, and I image you will not be considering your clear anxiety over whatever outing you are planning to attend, you will be fine.”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Good point, but counterpoint, what if you’re wrong and everyone hates me forever?”

 “Is it the lunch meeting today at 11:30am?” Lo asked, “because I can see that a Professor Boris Laden has attended the event multiple years in a row. Considering he is a philosophy instructor, has no Japanese heritage that I can see, and I have found a photo of last year’s event wherein he has placed his chopsticks vertically in his rice, and he has yet to be fired or ostracized, I would postulate that your fears are unfounded.”

“Yeah but… okay, I really don’t have an argument for that one, except maybe I’m a piece of shit and everyone is looking for a reason to hate me.”

“Considering your many impressive accolades in your field, I would argue that ‘a piece of shit’ is not a good descriptor of you. Not to mention the fact that you are often a highly requested member for different committees in your department and outside of it.”

“Oh, but is that because people like me or because I’m an anxious mess and make sure events go off without a hitch?”

“From experience, disorder with people you enjoy the company of is far more tolerable than order with people you do not. Which explains my current living situation and the lack of finished dishes in my sink. Therefore, I would assume the former.”

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“A lot of assumptions,” Virgil commented, but he was smiling slightly.

“Assumptions based on data,” Lo argued back lightly.

“You really came in here, hacked into my computer and smacked my anxiety in the face, huh?”

“Glad to have helped.”

“Y-”

“Are the two of you finished?” Janus interrupted, finally getting sick of the two of them.

“Not nearly,” Lo said. “I have gained access to an entire network of a very large university and will be sorting through the data for a long time.”

“Ugh, right,” Virgil groaned, “and you got access through my integrator.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to trace it back to you if you don’t tell them.”

“Nice try,” Virgil said dryly, “but not likely. I’m telling them about you immediately so they can work to kick you out.”

Lo laughed. “Fair enough, but I’ve already gotten plenty of information at this point. Including the fact that you work with the TPI and scheduled an appointment with an Agent Janus Picani this morning set to start a few minutes before this phone call. So, hello Janus.”

“Bastard,” Janus shot back.

“And goodbye Professor Eran. It was a pleasure.” He hung up.

Virgil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “This is going to be fun to explain to both of our bosses.”

  Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

 Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

 They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

 “Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

 “…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

 They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

 “We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

 Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

 He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

 Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

 “He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

 Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

 “So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

 “Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

 Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

 Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

 Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

 “There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

 Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

[hardblazesong]

On Acting Continued...

Going to start this post with a bit of mea culpa, so, hang in there for the actual points of the post. I am learning not to say, “I’m going to post today on this thing”. While it is always my intention to post the day I say this, other things get in the way or the writing muse decides she’s had enough and goes elsewhere for a bit. So, I am going back to “soonish”.

This topic has been discussed a lot, and the DMs have been many, and the Anons a few and I do want to try to rebuild the lengthy post I lost, so it will be a long ramble. I won’t be putting it under a cut, so apologies for that as well. STOP READING NOW IF YOU THINK BRANDO WAS A BETTER ACTOR THAN OLIVIER, you’ll save us both a bunch of agita.

Now the obligatory notices:

1) I do not know Sam Heughan personally, this is an opinion piece, not a biographical piece, know the difference. I am a fan, although I would not be considered in the hardiest of camps for this.

2)I have not spent my working life as an Actor. I have been paid to do it. I have been a performer since I was four years old, and am currently 53. I have studied, at the college level, the art of Acting and Directing, as it was my minor, off and on for many years. I have studied Actors all my life, see prior posts. I started as an English/Theater major, swapped to Education/Theater and then the last few years swapped to History/Political Science/Theater. I am still working on these degrees. I took my first college course at 20 and my last one at 51. I don’t plan on ever stopping.

3)I have done more directing and technical work than Acting, although as previously stated, I come from a multi-generational family of actors and performers.  90 percent of this work from my family has been on the stage in productions or performance pieces. The other 10 percent has involved film, radio productions and teaching.

4)I am not a Psychiatrist or Psychologist and don’t play one on TV. I have made a rather extensive study of this topic as well. For this piece, it is only necessary to know that I consider myself an Ambivert and a Pragmatic Jungian. I would IN NO WAY be considered a Behavioralist, and mostly consider Behavioralism the bane of modern society’s existence. Actions do speak louder than words though, so be aware for future reference, that when I speak of the dichotomy of Sam’s words to his actions, this is what I mean.

Definitions from Google, highlighted and truncated by me:

           Ambivert: noun ~ a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features.

               Acting: noun ~ the art or occupation of performing in plays, movies, or television productions

                                               synonyms: dramatics, stagecraft, the performing arts

                                                               informal: treading the boards, “the theory and practice of acting”

                               adjective ~ temporarily doing the duties of another person

                                                               synonyms: temporary, interim, caretaker

I had originally put a long wiki paragraph on acting styles here, but here’s the link instead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acting_techniques

The original post I commented on with highlighting and edits by the author:

smithsassenach Deactivated

Sam Heughan’s thoughts on acting and becoming your character:

“I don’t know if anyone knows if they’re ever any good… You just say the words and the words kind of affect you, the actor, if you’re open to it and I think I just really relished that role and threw myself into it and sort of realized that that’s what you need to do and I guess, that’s, yeah — that’s what I do now.”

“I think every job I do, I sort of look for the challenge in. I mean, that’s why we do this job. It’s not, you know, obviously not for the money or for the fame, it’s for, I guess finding out more about yourself. You find out what your limitations are and what you can get away with on stage, or not, as the case may be.” [X]

“I have no interest in the celebrity side or people knowing who I am, to be perfectly honest,” he says, seated in a darkened pub in a hotel here.

“I think it’s more about the characters you tell. And you can hide behind them.

… it feels very odd to have to be yourself.

I’d much rather be someone different and ‘Outlander’ is wonderful… But it happens with each character. You take on board their life to live like they do. I think that’s the joy of it, being other people.”  [X]

 Finally, some Anon Comments:

               "All fans of SH need to read this and really think about what he says here. REALLY think about it. It’s very telling." Hi, would love to know your take on this. One thing about his words though - He said he was not into fame, but for the past year, he's been playing the HW fame game. Maybe he did change over time? If he really was what he said about himself, I'd assume that he would stay with the theater instead of trying so hard to get into HW. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've reached the point where I really don't believe anything that Sam or Cait say in interviews. Not interested in fame? Please pull my other leg, it plays Jingle Bells! Odd choice then for Sam to have a supposed GF who seems primarily interested in fame and is not concerned that her behaviour is negatively impacting Sam's image with an intelligent audiences! And what about the pre-arranged pap walk with matching tshirts (a la Hiddleswift!)?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why did I think they were telling? Along with any other number of quotes and interviews with Sam the insecurity here is glaring, revealing and touching. Sam’s said a lot over the years about acting and his process, of more interest to me is when he talks about watching people. The BEST Actors are OBSERVERS first and foremost. I am not a fan of “Method” acting, in the main I believe in “Classical” and “Meisner” and somewhat in “Practical Aesthetics” color me “Adler” I guess.

Acting is an insecure business all the way around when you are getting started. Will they like my performance? Am I good enough? Am I serving the Author, the Production, the Cast, the Craft with all I can? What if they don’t? What if I’m not? What if I forget everything I was ever taught or my lines? What if I never get another job? The greatest actors feel these things at a core level, but they tend to grow out of the worst of it. There comes a point when they can master their own insecurities and know that their work has value. I don’t think he’s there yet.

Unfortunately, plaudits can have a negative effect as well. Egos can become omnipresent, uncontrollable, and layered on top of all that simmering insecurity. If you are surrounded by people who are telling you that you are the greatest thing since white bread, and have a massive fanbase saying very similar things, well, I feel for you. I really do. I sincerely hope you have people to keep you grounded, and that they aren’t just on speed dial. He’s 37, he’s been doing this a long time, and I think had very good training at the Conservatoire.

He’s not a child, and, thus far, he hasn’t gone off the rails in any truly damaging way. I do think he is a bit immature for his age and while he admits to being a “Yes Man” I don’t really think he is. I think, as an ambivert, not an introvert, he is conflicted in his own nature, and it takes time to come to grips with that. It also takes suffering through what life really hands you or you make occur. Has he gone HW? Partly, but you would too.

You really don’t get many chances in this lifetime to make your dreams come true. He’s living his. He’s balanced his work with his charity endeavors and while I think he has had some very bad advisors over the years, and needs to replace several of them, I don’t know that I think he is mature enough to see that. Intelligent enough yes, but I am talking emotional maturity here. That does appear to be lacking at times.

Acting is TEMPORARY. You don’t find yourself when you are pretending to be someone else. You may find things in common, you may use those things to build your character, but they are NOT you. You must learn to shed the characterization and be in your own skin daily. Who are YOU? When you aren’t pretending? When you aren’t hiding behind the façade? When you are in the public eye, how much do you reveal, and why?

It’s no easy road he’s traveling, and if you think it is, you don’t really understand what I am trying to say here. Actors are by no means the only people who fill their lives with extraneous crap to try to come to terms with the truth of themselves and life. They do live for the show though, the show is all, and it must go on. Fame and Fortune, while not the core needs, are most certainly present in their minds AT ALL TIMES, if only as a niggling little voice. Most actors aren’t going to say, “I want to be Famous”, but they do. Trust me, they do. Then the lucky few who do become known, well they have to deal with that.

Only time is going to tell how long he can sustain his career in film, but I think it’s safe to say, he will never totally abandon the boards. It’s in his blood now, almost as deep as that workout addiction. By the way, Olivier stressed the need for an Actor to be physically fit long before it came into fashion.

Enough, or I won’t have anything to say in the recaps I plan on doing when S3 has finished its’ first run. Feel free to keep commenting to me, asking and DMing about these topics.

[barduil]

So… I have to get this out of my chest, and I’m going to be honest about it. Sorry, it got pretty long. 

I’ve worked on Forgotten Roads for over two years. It’s a fic that means a lot to me, that has been building in my mind for a long time. A bit more than a year ago, I finally started publishing it.

For a while, I got at least 10 comments per chapter. Which, let’s say it, is a pretty darn amazing average number, and I couldn’t be happier and thankful that my dear story got so much attention!

But then came the 5th chapter. It didn’t go very well at all compared to before, so I panicked a bit. Okay, a lot. Because it got 2 comments. Two when I was used to get at least ten. Ten days later, still nothing. I made a post on Tumblr saying that wow, what went wrong, I’m heartbroken, and no comments meant I wasn’t willing to continue because obviously pretty much no one cared anymore. Surprise, I got a bunch of comments in the next few hours (some from the same person I believe but anyway.) Of course I kept going, because I loved the story too much, and hey, maybe it was just the low chapter fics usually go through.

The next one, I got 9 comments, which is below what I was used to, but so I didn’t worry about it at all, because 9 comments is amazing and after the previous one it was really a lot, so I thought things were going up again!

But then, again, came the next chapter. The next chapter was a bit special. It was the chapter I’d been most looking forward to write, playing the scenes in my head over and over again over the past year, so I was extremely excited to share it. Naively, I thought that leaving my usual “please leave a comment if you liked this chapter, it means a lot to me” or the like wasn’t necessary because people would react to what happened in the chapter, right? They remembered how upset I was when no one commented, right? Well no they didn’t. The hits kept rising and rising, I even got a few new Kudos, but I was stuck at ONE comment for two days. You have to know that usually, you get most comments in the first three or four days because for some reason after that many readers think commenting is not worth it anymore (which isn’t true, it’s never too late to comment) or I don’t know. So before three days went by I edited my end notes and begged the next readers to comment. Surprise surprise, I got comments over the next days.

Next chapter, I was two months late because of my Big Bang. So, expecting everyone to be gone, I anticipated and once again I begged for people to comment, because it had been a while and I needed to know they were still there to carry on. And, thankfully, people commented! So I was relieved, they were still there, I could keep on giving this fic my time and my love and my sweat.

Which brings us to the latest chapter. And I’m sorry for the spoiler for those who maybe meant to read it, but this needs context. In fics, there’s usually a little (or big) peak of comments when the characters kiss for the first time, particularly if it’s a slow burn. Because hey, that’s what readers have been waiting for, right? So, thinking my begging in the previous chapter fresh in people’s mind, and knowing people usually comment on such chapters, I went back to my usual end notes. 

What. A. Mistake. 

Because despite all of the troubles with the previous chapters, despite some readers who commented on every chapter not reading anymore, I still got at least ten comments on those in the end, I guess mostly thanks to my begging.

But for the latest one, I got 5. It’s been almost three weeks now, so yeah. Five. I’m going to tell it straight away: I’m heartbroken. I’m upset and bitter and heartbroken. This chapter meant a lot to me. On top of their first kiss, which I worked hard to make worth the wait (over a year and almost 50k words! hell, I made a post about how I was writing it once, and got a bunch of notes on it which like, never happens on posts about my writing progress!) there was also a scene that I cared deeply about. So, seeing only half the number of comments that I usually get, on a chapter that was so important to me and that was supposed to get a bit more than usual because of its content, well, it did break my heart and it still hurts today.

It’s been three weeks, so I don’t expect any new comments until the next chapter. But will there be a next chapter? You know, I was so convinced this chapter would do well, I was so excited to share it, that it gave me the push to write the next one in just a few days. I thought “yay, I can update in two weeks! They won’t have to wait a month or more like usual!” But people weren’t there. I fell from very high. So now that chapter is just there taking the dust in a folder, because I don’t have the heart to reread it, correct it, and send it to editing. I’m two chapters from the end and I just don’t have the will to write them. I’m tired of the general mentality surrounding fanfiction. I’m tired to see writers kudosing my work but not leaving a comment when, as writers themselves, they should know better. I’m tired of people reading my end notes and/or my many reblogs about comments but not commenting anyway (this does not concern people with social anxiety or the like, I know it can be hard.) Same goes for artists, really. I’m tired because thanks to all this, I learned that it seems it takes BEGGING to get comments. Doesn’t that sound wrong to you? That writers have to beg to get some feedback on AO3?

Now, let’s be clear, in my case this isn’t about the number of comments. I know very well I get more than average. That I should be ‘thankful for what I get compared to others.’ The thing is, if I was used to get six comments on this fic and only got, let’s say, two or three, I would have made the same post. It’s like, I would never complain that my Emmett/John fic from The Raven got four comments, I never complained that my longest Russingon fic got 5 comments, because that’s to be expected. I know how to relativise depending on the fandom, the characters, etc, of the fic. But when it comes to Forgotten Roads, what was to be expected was ten comments because that’s what the chapters always got, even if twice, it was after I begged. So of course I’m going to be upset when a chapter gets much less than that, and such a chapter in particular.

Please, don’t give me the ‘you should write for yourself’ speech. If I wrote for myself I wouldn’t put it on the internet for everyone to see. I write for myself when I write my novel. When it comes to fanfiction, I write because I love the characters I write about, and because I want to share that love. You have to remember I’m not a native speaker. Writing is hard. It takes me days, often spread over weeks, if not months. Editing takes hours and I’m so thankful for the hard work my betas put into my stories. Writing is an awful lot of work. I need to feel like that awful lot of work that you guys get for free is worth it, and right now it doesn’t feel like it is. 

So, I’m going to put Forgotten Roads on the side. That chapter was the last straw. I can’t carry on like this because it hurts me too much and I care too much. You might say I shouldn’t put so much importance into fanfiction, but you need to know writing is all I have. Along with my friends, it’s one of the only things that make me happy. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not a failure. It’s the only thing I can get validation from. But now fanfiction is not helping me anymore, it’s hurting me. So I’m going to focus on my novel, like I did a bit more this past month. I know it’s not fair on the people who do comment and who do care, but I need a break. Just a break. I’m not giving up on fanfiction completely, but yeah. I just need a break. Maybe it’ll be two weeks, maybe two months. I don’t know. It’s not like I have many ideas right now anyway (nothing except Forgotten Roads for Barduil, just one for Gafou but given how my latest fic is doing I’m not sure I’ll ever give it a go, and birthday short fics (those I will do of course but I still have more than three months until then.)) 

I’m putting this in the tag, because this is important: the Barduil fandom is a dying fandom (and the Gafou fandom seems to be sadly already on its way there.) There’s no more art, and barely a few fics/updates per week. Most fics don’t require an AO3 account to comment. So, I beg of you. Comment on the fics you enjoyed. Simply say you liked that one shot very much, no matter how old it is. Simply tell the author you liked their update and can’t wait for the next one. Simply say you binge read that old long fic and loved it. We don’t need much. We don’t ask for much. Just a few words. Just ten seconds of your time. Just a voice. Please. What do we have to do to make you understand?