#and ends up getting water everywhere including on the pages of the library books

[rileys-basement]

WATT AU where everything is the same except instead of a cheerleading sleepover they’re just working on a group project for school. I think more people would end up dead than in canon tbh

[remakethestars]

RAVENCLAW 💙🦅🤎

Headcanons.

❝Even in the blackness, light can be found. My enemy can be outsmarted.❞

— Alex Hirsch, Journal 3

This is my house, y'all; buckle up!

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, & Slytherin. Headcanon masterlist.

The door'll let you in for witty responses.

We prop it open during exam season, when everyone's coming back from dinner, on party nights, & when no one can solve the riddle.

Questions become more difficult to answer after curfew.

Everyone waits outside & pretends not to know first night until the first-years figure it out.

Today's riddle & answer posted on the back of the door every morning; check before you leave just in case.

Sometimes you find the prefects debating over what the answer is; no one leaves the common room until someone's figured it out, so sometimes, the entirety of Ravenclaw is late to breakfast.

Again, if we absolutely can’t, we’ll prop it open.

If the door’s propped open and you remove the prop, we’ll use the guillotine on you.

Everyone has at least one hill to die on.

There's a podium by the fireplace with a record book on it of all the books in Ravenclaw's library that you can ask for help finding books from (pages flip in their own). 

If you’re in a reading slump, describe what you're looking for; we've probably got it!

If you don't like writing & highlighting in the books, it'll disappear while you have it, but everyone's free to mark in them. 

So good at reading their own messy notes and the notes their friends wrote they can read a doctor's handwriting.

And there are notes everywhere. As organized as some Raveclaws wish they could be, you can't make notebooks & journals as organized as Google Doc & Word documents. Unless, ya know … someone made a spell for that — hold on, I gotta write that down!

Professors find notes — ideas for spells & potions — on the back of homework & tests. More knowledgeable teachers will add their ideas or advice before handing it back.

Everyone leaves a copy of their favorite book with annotations before they leave seventh year. 

There's a coffee/tea cart in the common room. 

Hallways to the dorms are covered in graffiti from students long passed.

Dorms branch off based on your year. 

Girls can walk into the boy's dorms & vice versa. 

All rooms are extended for more space.

Beds are built into the wall like window seats & have bookshelves where the head and footboards should be. 

Dark blue curtains can be drawn shut if you're feeling introverted. 

Trunks go under the bed, so they're kinda high off the ground.

Cast an extension charm if you’re claustrophobic.

At the end of every year, everyone congregates in the common room, someone casts glisseo on the stairs to Ravenclaw tower, & everyone slides their trunks down (it's called "the trunk shoving").

No one gives a single sh¡t about house points.

Ravenclaw’s are always blowing something up & losing points.

Dramatic about stubbing their toe, but super casual about ending up in the hospital wing because they "wanted to test a hypothesis."

If you have a question or don't understand something, ask it loudly in the common room; someone will undoubtedly answer or direct you to another who can.

Just don't use bad grammar, or sixteen people will correct you in unison. 😅

Learn (a) new language(s) in the common room 20:00–21:00 Mon.–Fri.

Tutoring sessions are in the common room at 21:00–22:00 Mon.–Fri. Or ask for private lessons to work around your schedule.

If a particular teacher's sh¡t, we host a class in the common room after dinner.

Also, there're just classes for random stuff: art, budgeting, codes & code-breaking, cooking, dancing, darning, fencing, ice skating (in the winter months), knot tying, lock picking, makeup, Morse code, muggle martial arts, sewing…

First years are all offered a class on note taking.

A lot of us do our homework on Friday night so we don't have to worry about it all weekend, so there're no party activities tonight, but you can play a muggle board game if you want.

Karaoke on Saturday nights.

Dungeons & Dragons on Sunday nights.

D&D’s swapped out for a play once a month; screw the theater ban! (For an explanation of Hogwarts’s theater ban, see Albus Dumbledore’s notes on “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” in The Tales of Beedle the Bard.)

Morning yoga in the common room — feel free to join; we'll teach you some poses.

Ask around; whatever you're looking for — info, candy, contraband — someone probably hands it out, sells it, can get it for you, and/or can tell you where to find it.

Pass around a spell that allows them to clean themselves. Who has time for showering?

And a potion that gives them the same feeling & energy as if they slept. Who has time for sleeping?

Yes, we're building a guillotine in the common room.

Please don't utilize it in the decapitation of any living person or thing (unless it's the Snape or Umbridge)!

Our next project is a carousel. With working lights & everything.

Yes, we're building a house of cards in the common room; please don't blow on it.

Be quiet until noon on the weekends or get hexed.

Thank Merlin they teach sign language in the common room every year & everyone knows enough to get by.

Parties are highly regulated.

People volunteer to walk people back to their dorms & put up protection charms so you don't get assaulted. Those people are vetted with Veritaserum first to confirm the authenticity of their intentions.

People often get into academic debates, which can get a bit loud; just silencio them & move on.

The entrances to the dorms are hidden behind moving bookshelves.

The Ravenclaw copy of Hogwarts: A History will tell you more than you realized you needed to know; there're enough notes in the margins to make a second book, including how to enter the kitchens, how to sneak out if the castle, how to find the Room of Requirement…

They've located more secret passages & rooms in Hogwarts using spells they created than the Marauders were aware of.

First-years are told how to put extension charms on their backpacks so they're not heavy — that's a crap-ton of stairs.

There's an incredibly thick book by a armchair near the fireplace that's full of testaments of Ravenclaw's alumni. "What's one thing you wish you'd known when you started Hogwarts?" First-years are encouraged to flip through it.

And taught a low-concentration spell for levitating books while laying down so your arms don't get tired (flick wand to turn page).

Common room's extended to fit all kinds of activities (and the bookshelves).

Some third-years built an aquaponic system on top of one of the window seats; take a cucumber, if you want, or stop to look at the fish.

Again, explosions are not uncommon. (Please don’t drop any explosives in the fish tank. As water isn’t as compressible as air, this will kill the fish.)

Everyone just kinda glances over to make sure you’re okay before going back to what they were doing.

There's always a record playing.

They host a hike through the Forbidden Forest once a week, because what even are rules?

If you hear an intelligent conversation taking place, feel free to sit down & listen or jump in!

The wind whistles against the windows all year round, but they've been charmed to keep water out.

Played The Floor is Lava before it was a meme.

There's a two-way mirror on the wall above the fireplace. There's a muggle television on the other side. No one's sure whose T.V. it is, but a lady comes in in the mornings in hair curlers & watches the news.

She puts in V.H.S. tapes of Disney movies at the start of term. Hypothesis says it's for the first years & this person's a half-blood or a muggle-born.

Sometimes, people work together to solve the Friday crossword in The Daily Prophet. It's the hardest all week.

Look at each other like they're the camera in The Office when someone says something stupid.

Oh, boy, if someone's found a really good mystery book… That sh¡t’s getting magically copied & passed around. We discuss theories at meals, pass notes in class, & set up a murder board in the common room.

Actually, Ravenclaw house has solved a number of murders in its free time.

Visit my Ravenclaw YouTube playlist & Pinterest board.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

[dreamescapeswriting]

The Leaked Ones ~ MYG [M] [Request]

↬↬↬Word Count: 3.6k [3,666 ;)]

↬↬↬Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, shower sex, oral, Idol x college student, secret relationship, sex tapes.

↬↬↬Pairing: Min Yoongi x reader

↬↬↬A/N: I really hope it was okay for me to turn this into a one shot instead of a reaction post, I just couldn’t get it to go for all seven of them without them being the same or having one longer while the rest were shot. Let me know what you think though because I really like this

The pen was hanging out of your mouth as you read through the textbook in front of you, you'd been trying to concentrate all day but your mind was all over the place with memories of your weekend away with your secret boyfriend. It had all been kept secret for many reasons - the main one being that he was Min Yoongi from BTS and if anyone found out that you were dating, your life would never be the same again. You flipped over the page and looked up for a second, a guy across the table was staring at you intensely, you looked around to make sure you weren't just being paranoid before going back to your book. You pulled your hoodie on over your shirt before slipping in some earphones, you were just going to ignore the rest of the world until the study material worked its way into your head.

An hour later you had enough, it wasn't just the guy from before that had been staring but everyone was. Including the oldest librarian there, students and tutors all staring at you disapprovingly as you worked. 

"What?!" You finally snapped looking around to see what the big deal was, 

"It is her," You heard someone gasp before a camera flash went off, you groaned looking at the person in front of you who had just snapped a photograph of you. 

"Excuse me?" You went to defend yourself and ask what the big deal was when the doors burst open, a girl with long brown hair came bounding over to you. 

"Come on," You looked at her and down to her top, you'd never seen her before in your life but she was wearing a BTS shirt, 'SUGA 93' to be exact and you somehow trusted her.

"What's going on?" You whispered walking behind her as she dragged you out of the library, everyone was turning to look at you. Taking videos and laughing to one another as they said comments under their breath. You could only catch brief words as she whizzed you through the college hallway.

"Imagine being in a sex tape, she's nothing but a dirty skank." The words sent shivers down your spine, sex-tape, someone in a SUGA shirt, and people all looking at you. Someone had footage of you and Yoongi together and it wasn't you. Yourself and Yoongi only had photos together and they were all on your phone, they were PG photos and you both had clothes on. It was way too risky this day and age to have nudes or even a sex tape on your phone for anyone to hack into.

"Is it true?" You questioned as she pulled you into an elevator, she handed you her hone and it was everywhere. Twitter was doing it's best to get all the videos taken down, along with youtube but porn sites had full control over it even though Army were doing their best to report it for being taken with your permission. 

The elevator opened it's doors and you both stepped out, being greeted by a group of girls all giving you evil looks as you walked away from them, their comments being made loud and clear, all the lines of you being a slut, or a whore were hitting you like bullets.

If someone would have told you what you know now you never would have gone to that hotel with Yoongi that night, the girl holding your hand dragged you through the neverending hallways of your college. People were all turning to look at you, gawking and pointing as they noticed who you were. If they didn't know before today they certainly knew you now, you pulled your hood over your head trying to ignore them as they took photographs of you all laughing and pointing. 

"Ignore them," The girl holding your hand whispered, you'd never met her before until this moment and here you were following her around as you tried to keep yourself composed and keep your breathing normal but it was hard to do that with eyes on you. The whole campus had seen the video by now, you were just as famous as Yoongi was now, a door opened and you were pushed inside. As soon as your ass came into contact with the seat you burst into tears, holding your hands over your face as you sobbed hysterically. How did everything go so wrong so fast? 

"What happened?" You looked up through your blurry vision to see the girl that had taken you from the library and you shrugged your shoulders, she took a tissue from her bag and handed it to you to wipe your face. 

"I don't know, we were just- and then this afternoon in the library." You weren't making any sense but she knew what you were referring to, she'd seent the videos and photographs that were going around as well. 

It was supposed to be a quiet, romantic getaway between you and Yoongi. Your relationship was a huge secret from his fans and his management so everything was kept hush, hush. 

"Yoongi! Put me down, it looks like you're carrying me over the threshold!" You giggled loudly but he continued carrying you into the hotel room, he put you down in front of him and smiled, 

"Sorry babe, it's the only place we don't have to hide. I got excited," His hand brushed against your cheek and you smiled snuggling your face against him as he did so. It was the first time you were ever going to get to do something like this in your year of dating him, you'd had dates before but they were all in his car in the deep of the night or meeting him in a parking garage, leaving while you stayed in the back of the car until you got to the dorms and no one would see you. Dating Yoongi was adventurous nonetheless and you always had fun together no matter what you did but this was different. He'd found a hotel with hardly any guests, it was on an abandoned little beachfront with very few people living there in the small village. It was basically a ghost town and hardly anyone knew anybody there, it was perfect for a weekend getaway together. 

"I know but we have to be careful if someone-"

"No one knows we're here, not even the boys. I was careful not to tell them, Jimin has a big mouth after all." He joked and you sighed, you knew he was just trying to make you feel better about sneaking away but nothing was going to make you feel less worried. You'd dropped your roommate last minute because you had no idea any of this was happening and you couldn't even tell her where you were going or who you were with. 

"She accused me of being a prostitute." You told him as you walked further into the room to check it out, it wasn't anything fancy but you didn't care. It was with Yoongi and it was the only thing you cared about, Yoongi raised his eyebrow at you wanting you to elaborate on what you had just said, 

"Oh, she also thought I had a sugar daddy," You laughed as you said that remembering when you'd come home one day with a new bracelet with your birthstone on it. 

"What did you tell her?" He questioned walking him behind you and wrapping his arms around you, you stared at him in the mirror with a smile on your face, 

"I wanted to tell her I had a SUGA Daddy, but I ended up telling her I saved really hard," You tapped his hand gently as he laid it on your stomach, he kissed your neck softly. 

"I'm sorry we have to hide...If there was another way-"

"Baby no," You frowned turning around in his arms and holding his cheeks in your hands, you squished his cheeks together and began shaking his head side to side while laughing. 

"I don't need to be out in the open, I'm happy in our own little bubble we have." You promised him and it was true, you were perfectly happy with what you had with him. 

"One day we will when the time is right." You nodded at him and smiled, 

"I need a shower...want to join me?" You whispered pulling him in the direction of the tiny en-suite that was in your hotel room, he nodded at you as he tried to take his shirt off quickly but ended up stumbling over and falling into you. 

"Get off you big dork," You giggled pulling him up and into the bathroom, sliding the door shut behind you as you got unchanged. 

"The water is freezing," You shivered as you stepped under the showerhead he smirked darkly at you,

"I know how to warm you up," You rolled your eyes at him, 

"Pervert." You mumbled as he began kissing you passionately under the water, he pressed our back against the tile wall and while you gasped at the sudden coldness on your skin he slipped his tongue into your mouth. 

"Cheater," You whispered as he ran his hand up your front and began playing with your breasts, he started massaging one in his hand while his other played with your hard nipples making you whine at the contact. It had been so long since you'd been together you were dying for him to do anything to you, 

"Need you," He smirked hearing the words fall from your mouth, his hand ran down your body and between your legs, he cupped your pussy and smirked feeling your arousal already, 

"All this for me?" You nodded weakly and he chuckled at you. You knew what that chuckle meant, it meant it wasn't an answer he wanted. He wanted you to use your words and tell him what you wanted him to do, 

"It's all for you, t-taste me?" You licked your lip as you watched him kneel down on the floor of the shower kissing your inner thighs. He took his time as he gently placed his lips on each thigh before lifting your leg over his shoulder, you gripped onto the wall for support. 

"Ready Princess?"

"Hmm Yoongi," You hissed wanting him to touch you already, 

"Impatient," He mumbled before licking stripes on your clit, your head rolled back against the tiles and you moaned out his name already coming undone as his tongue did its magic. 

"Fuck." Your hand went into his hair holding him closer to your core as your back arched away from the wall. He slid his tongue into you looking up to watch you coming undone above him, it turned him on to watch you like this, to know he was the one making you like this. 

He replaced his tongue with his fingers and began pumping two fingers in and out of you quickly while he sucked on your clit, 

"Y-Yoongi!" Your head was spinning as you felt your climax getting closer to you, he continued to lick, suck and bite on your clit as he fingers reached deeper. You whimpered pushing his face closer to your core as you felt your orgasm coming and you were needy for your release, 

"G-Gonna cum," You whimpered and he hummed against you encouraging you to cum and you moaned out. You clenched around his fingers as the coil in your stomach finally snapped and you cried out releasing onto his tongue and fingers as he continued to fuck them into you throughout your high causing your body to tremble.

"Fuck," Your legs shook as he put it down on the floor and you smirked at him dropping to your knees this time. 

You took his hard erection into your hand and slowly began pumping him as you looked up at him, 

"Don't tease," He warned you looking down at you with lust in his eyes, you smirked brushing your tongue against his tip as you pumped him. He moaned out your name loudly and you smirked feeling him grow harder in your hand - if that was even possible. You slid his cock into your mouth slowly and swirled your tongue around his length before taking him all the way into the back of your throat, you'd grown used to his size by now but you still gagged a little.

"Aish jagiya," He whined rolling his head back as he slid his hands into your hair, you knew what he was going to do and you loved it. He slowly began thrusting his hips into your mouth and his moans only grew louder, you moaned around him growing wetter at the sight of him coming undone for you. He began thrusting faster into your mouth and you suppressed the gag that was trying to come out,

"S-Shit, baby get up." He whimpered feeling himself getting closer, he didn't want to finish in your mouth. He wanted to feel you around him. 

You got up from the floor and he pulled you into another kiss, he wasted no time picking you up so you would wrap your legs around his waist. He leant you against the wall to keep you stable while he smirked at you, 

"Y-Yoongi what if we fall?" The creeping fear of one of you slipping and having to call an ambulance snuck into your mind but Yoongi was far too close for it to bother him right now. He needed to be buried inside of you, 

"I don't care, I need to be in that tight throbbing pussy," You let out a whine at the words he was using and he smirked at you, slowly easing you down onto his length and you moaned into his shoulder. 

"Fuck." You cried biting down onto his skin as he held himself deep inside of you, it felt so good to be filled by him again, you'd missed it too much. He kissed you as he slowly began to pound in and out of you holding you against the shower wall. 

"Yoongi," You cried out, eyes rolling back as the angle was perfect, he was hitting you exactly where you needed him, 

"You feel so good baby," He grunted to you as he kept thrusting up into you letting out moans as you kissed him, 

"C-Close Yoongi," You whimpered already sensitive from the first orgasm that hit you. 

"Let it go babe," He moaned out to you, your hands tightened on his shoulders and you clenched around his cock crying out as he fucked you through your orgasm, his hips jerked but he kept thrusting up into you. 

"Fuck!" He moaned deeply cumming into you as you came around him. 

He slowly put you down onto the standing position and you held onto the wall behind you to stop yourself from falling over. 

That weekend had been filled with plenty of intimate moments spent together and all of them were caught on hidden cameras around the hotel room. How could you have been so stupid not to check for things like that? You both watched a lot of conspiracy videos you should have checked everything the moment you got to the hotel.

"It wasn't Yoongi that filmed you?" She questioned taking her phone back from you, you shook your head at her. He would never do anything like that, he'd never do anything to put you in danger or ruin your life either, 

"I'm Mina," You shook her hand as she handed you yet another tissue you hadn't stopped crying from the moment you walked into the room. She'd shown you all of the photos and videos that were taken and there were a lot.

"There's a lot of us trying to take them all down, we've been reporting them ever since it came out this morning." You frowned at her looking up to ask her who she meant when the door opened and five more girls walked into the room, she introduced them all by name and you greeted them. 

"You're all Army?" You questioned looking at them, they all had something to represent their bias on them and it was rather sweet that they were all looking after you like this. 

"There's paparazzi outside, they must have found out where you went to school. Did Mina tell you what we've been doing?" You nodded at the blonde girl who was now sitting down next to you, 

"It's sweet but I don't think six young girls are going to be able to take down all those videos-"

"What? Just six of us?" Mina questioned, there was a small laugh behind her voice and they all grabbed their phones showing you what was happening. It wasn't just them but all of Army were coming together to collectively ban the videos from the internet. 

"It's a private thing between you and Yoongi, you don't need that on the internet for the world to see." A redhead said as she began reporting videos from her phone, 

"Can I see?" Mina handed you her phone once more and you began scrolling through the comments to see Army all bashing on the people that had uploaded the videos in the first place. Filing lawsuits on your behalf and writing out complaints about how they could sue them from many different reasons it was heartwarming. You loved Army - you were one of them after all - but you'd been so scared they would react poorly.

"Manager Sejin is making an announcement about it all later-" Your phone started ringing from your back and you sniffled getting up to answer it, 

"Yoongi?" You questioned as you slid it open, 

"Where are you? I can't come to the college because of paparazzi, baby I'm so sorry! I had no idea and you have to believe me that I had nothing to do with any of it." You giggled at him trying to get his words out,

"Yoongi it's okay, I know it wasn't you."

"Are you okay?!" He sounded panicked and you hummed at him, 

"I'm with some Army now, they're hiding me out until I can get out of college. It's swarming with paparazzi outside and college students aren't exactly quiet about it either." You explained to him and he groaned telling you he was going to find whoever it was and make sure they paid for it. 

"I'll meet you at your apartment, no use hiding anymore. We have to go to manager Sejin tonight, okay?" You hummed that you understood, 

"I'll see you soon, I love you." You felt your ears heat up, 

"I love you too." The phone call ended and all of the girls smiled at you promising that they were going to get you off the campus safely and securely. 

"I'll hit the fire alarm, while everyone goes to the fire exits take Y/n through the back doors and to her car?" The blonde questioned and everyone nodded agreeing to the plan, you smiled at Mina who once again took your hand and questioned if you were ready. 

"Let's do it."

Manger Sejin was pacing back and forth in front of you and Yoongi while you sat on the sofa holding hands. You were terrified he was going to force you to break up and your heart was beating so fast you swore Yoongi could feel it in his hand, 

"What you did was stupid and irresponsible." He was directing all of his anger at Yoongi, Sejin had been on the phone for over three hours with reporters and police about this whole thing and you and Yoongi had been sat in silence since. 

"Y/n I've spoken to your college and they're allowing you to stay there despite things like this being against their policy." You thanked him and he nodded at you looking over everything in front of him, 

"Charges are being files, arrests have already been made all that's left for you to do is announce your relationship." Your eyes widened and so did Yoongi, he never thought for a second that Sejin would just allow this to continue. He was thankful that he was but he never thought it would happen, relationships were written in the contract as prohibited for a reason. 

"No more fuck ups," He ordered both of you he left the room and you turned to look at Yoongi wondering what was going to happen now, everything had been a mess since the moment you'd left campus. 

"We're still allowed to see each other?" He nodded at your question and you smiled excited that you could still see him but then you remembered the tapes. 

"Everything will be gone, anyone caught with anything related to it will be arrested." He promised you turning on the sofa so he could face you properly, it was the first time he'd really looked at you since coming to get you. 

"Army is being so nice about it, they've been helping a lot." You told him as he began playing with your hands in his, he laid his head on your shoulder. 

"I'm glad we can be out I'm just sad it happened this way," You nodded in agreement, you knew those tapes could never be fully deleted but those being held accountable for it was good enough for you. 

"Everything will die down," You shifted as he said that, you laid your head on his shoulder hoping he was right. You knew other famous people had sex tapes and many of those were forgotten over time, 

"Next time we go anywhere I'm checking everything, tissue boxes, showerheads, everything." He mumbled as he kissed the top of your head. You hummed in agreement with him trying to forget all about it, for now, it was going to be easier said than done but with Yoongi staying by your side throughout the whole thing you were sure you could manage it. 

Tagline: 

@writingdreamsnottragedies @snowy-meowl @jooniesdarlingdimples @lyoongx @fan-ati--c @mitzwinchester @callingmyangel @rjsmochii @btsiguess-kpop​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @taestannie​

[andorlorian]

okay so I do have an anakin fix it au floating around in my brain in which revenge of the sith goes as well as it possibly could BUT that's not the important part of this post the IMPORTANT part is what happens to maul in this au. (disclaimer: all I know about maul's backstory is from watching the clone wars and reading his wookiepedia page so some of this might be inaccurate. bear with me)

okay so because order 66 didn't happen, maul is brought before the council. he was sith so the council would want to deal with him personally

I think with palpatine dead (fully and completely 100% dead no take backs) the influence of the dark side everywhere would be lessened. everyone would feel a lot clearer, happier, brighter, like a dark cloud had been lifted from their mind. this would include maul.

however, for maul, diving deep into the dark side has been something of a coping mechanism. amassing as much power as possible and giving yourself over to this dark higher power means you don't have the contemplate the fact that you were stolen from your family and home world and fed incredibly damaging rhetoric from the man who 1) let you die 2) immediately upon finding out you were still alive electrocuted the fuck out of you and killed the last part of your family and (imo) the only person you ever truly loved

so maul upon arriving to the jedi council, while slightly less affected by the dark side, is still full of pure rage, hate, and a clusterfuck of other emotions brought about by thinking about the jedi. he's a whole disaster

okay this is going to get very very long I'm going to put a read more here

I imagine some in the council would like to kill or exile him and be done with it, but after the inherent trauma of the clone wars and seeing how far separated from their ideals the jedi order has become, they'd show him mercy. this part may not necessarily make 100% sense but shut up this is the good things for maul au maul gets good things

therefore, the council would vote in favor of rehabilitation. what I imagine this would look like is maul would be heavily guarded and watched, and whenever possible he would be visited by jedi masters (and masters ONLY. they're not dumb)

maul gets his own quarters, which are big enough not to be stifling or tiny but small enough to still fit in a jedi temple where they value austerity and forsaking possessions. they would want to give maul as much freedom as possible while making sure he couldn't be a threat to anyone around him, which would mean he doesn't have much freedom at all. he's fed and watered and visited by at least one jedi master a day. these visits are usually someone meditating and trying to rehabilitate maul's mind while not being openly invading, rather guiding maul's broken mind into its natural state and removing palpatine's influence. these visits are also good old fashioned therapy (maul desperately needs to talk some shit out)

it would take a very very very long time but with guided meditation and constant consistent kindness and understanding shown to him by the jedi maul would start to heal. one of the major things that palpatine forcibly shoved into his brain is a distrust and particular hatred for the jedi, but after spending so many years in their care and with constant (almost annoying) understanding that belief system would start to break down.

it would start small. like one day maybe instead of feeling rage and anger around savage's death he feels sadness because for the first time he's in an environment where he has the space to breathe and remember his brother

I think once maul has actually started to improve a little bit and moved past his rage and murder phase that's when obi-wan would visit him. which would definitely bring back some rage and murder but also it would bring maul some closure. I'd imagine they'd both need some sort of closure, considering maul killed qui gon and obi-wan essentially killed him. but obi-wan saying something like "I forgive you. I'm not your enemy." that might throw a wrench into maul's thinking

so over time, maul is becoming less and less emotionally tumultuous. he's in a stable environment in which a set group of people visit him daily solely for the purpose of rehabilitating him, both through the force and just regular conversation as equals. eventually, after enough time in this environment, whoever maul is beneath the rage and pain and the dark side would emerge

this is the side of maul that I wrote this for. this is why he's one of my favorites.

maul is deeply intelligent, and rather calculating. while he usually forgoes rational thought to scream "kenOBIIIIIII" into the night he's very good at assessing a situation and how to get the best possible outcome. he feels things very deeply but he's incredibly bad at naming exactly what his feelings are and he's not very good at reading the emotions of others. I think a flaw of his is that he really forgets to take emotions into account, while for the jedi that's kind of their whole thing. (yeah the jedi are stereotyped as unfeeling warriors but that's not true at all, they acknowledge and release their feelings into the force. for them their feelings are the force.)

I think one day when maul is beyond resisting his existence at the jedi temple, when he slowly realizes "hey my life sucks a whole lot less than before" he manages to actually solve a problem for one of the masters who visits him regularly and has become the closest thing he can really have to a friend. said master (maybe kit fisto just because I like kit fisto) rants about a problem or a mission that they're having and maul just goes "well it's obvious, really." and manages to solve the problem like that by nature of his unique perspective.

and after a looong amount of time has passed, maul's role shifts from enemy, victim, and a patient to being a voice of rationality, a problem-solver, and someone to rant to when the whole jedi master thing gets to be A Lot™

seriously though I cannot stress how long it would take for maul to heal and get to this point. MINIMUM five years.

eventually maul and some people he's forged friendships with petition the council to allow him to have some more freedom. while extremely hesitant, without palps clouding their vision they could much more clearly see maul's mental state and what sort of danger he would pose to the jedi, and they would let him move freely about the temple

okay here's my favorite part of this whole thing. maul is a fucking nerd. he discovers the jedi library and goes insane. maul would read so many books about so many different things because he's interested in everything and he'd want to build his knowledge in a myriad of subjects. he would spend hours upon hours in the jedi library just reading every single thing in there. he'd beg one of the masters to let him access the "forbidden knowledge" just because it's knowledge and he wants it. and if that didn't work he'd find a way to break in (the forbidden knowledge did not disappoint).

I also think maul would love to spar with lightsabers and stuff. he'd know techniques the jedi wouldn't, and so in friendly spars with people he'd managed to befriend, he'd actually give them a fight and teach them something, while also learning new techniques from the jedi

I think maul would consider becoming a jedi for a brief second. he's happier here than he's probably ever been, finally free from palpatine's influence and in a healthy environment. but he knows it's not his path.

after spending a long time living at the jedi temple, having carved out something of a life for himself, made friends for the first time in his life, having finally achieved emotional stability, he approaches the order on his own. they expect, after having been long used to his presence, for him to ask to be a jedi. but he comes with an unexpected proposal.

maul asks to leave the jedi temple to go home to dathomir, to see what had become of his family and of the nightbrothers. he's much much more stable than he was, but he still has burning questions that palpatine would never have let him find the answers to. and he genuinely does want to get there, eventually. but he also wants to learn more about the force that the jedi wouldn't teach him, to learn more about the sith.

his departure is surprisingly more emotional than he was expecting. the jedi temple was the first place he'd ever actually felt safe, that he'd been allowed to just exist. he would miss it.

armed with all the knowledge in the jedi temple, he searches for knowledge the jedi wouldn't have access to. he finds the remains of mortis, and researches the mortis gods. he spends a period of time wandering around like batman crushing the people he doesn't particularly like (usually people objectively morally horrible. he spent years with the jedi he has ✨morals✨ now). he even made his way to ilum, and found two crystals to forge a new double-bladed lightsaber. (the blades are yellow.)

maul would also study ancient sith texts, and spend a lot of time investigating old sith temples (like the one on malachor). however, he doesn't have the same burning desire to seize the power for himself anymore. it's an odd feeling.

eventually he does return home to dathomir to find the genocide of the nightsisters (with only one nightsister, merrin, remaining) and the nightbrothers in disarray after the loss of the dictatorial government they'd lived under for generations. maul ends up taking over a la mandalore (but with a lot less murder and awfulness. ✨morals✨)

what I'd love to see is maul founding an opposite sort of order to the jedi. not necessarily the sith, since the sith treated him horribly and destroyed his entire life, but i think maul would believe that for the force to truly be in balance, you couldn't try to eradicate an entire half of it from the galaxy. I would love to see maul found an order of dark side force users that teaches about how to use the dark side, how to avoid total corruption, and the correct channels for the power you control.

maul would be a very effective teacher in the dark side because of how much experience he has with it. he experienced the absolute worst of the dark side, the total corruption and loss of self, but he also used the dark side to save the nightbrothers from destroying themselves after the loss of the nightsisters and used his power to keep them together and safe (not to mention the period of time with Batman Maul where he used the dark side to help people).

also I would love to see the new generation of jedi and the new generation of dark side users not to be in opposition for once. by nature of maul being rehabilitated by the jedi, he would teach about them and their teachings with a modicum of respect, and the two orders would be seen as two sides of the same coin. twins, almost.

maul would not be a child snatcher, he was child snatched. the dark side is different from the light in that its always there. it comes much more naturally to force users, and unlike the jedi, it wouldn't require you to join from a ridiculously young age. his order is always known and always open to any force user who wishes to learn about the force.

maul's life comes to an end peacefully, at his home on dathomir, having built a new society for the nightbrothers and a new order for users of the dark side.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Visits & Visions

A JSE Fanfic

This story is about a page shorter than my usual stuff, but it’s still a lot of pages. There’s a lot of setup with not as much action this time around. Chase visits more people. We check on Schneep again, finally returning to his POV. And then Anti acts like an evil asshole, because he is an evil asshole. Yeah, not much to say about this one. Hope you guys like it regardless :>

You can find the other stories under the pw timeline tag!

Chase opened the curtains on the bedroom, letting in a wash of sunlight. The bright light was quickly absorbed by the dark blue paint on the walls, but still lit up the desk and swivel chair, dresser and closet, shelves with books and knickknacks, and the bed with the nightstand next to it. Marvin, lying in bed, pulled the blanket up over his head and groaned.

“Sit up and absorb the Vitamin D, bro,” Chase said, sitting down in the swivel chair. Marvin’s cat Ragamuffin was lying on the desk nearby. On top of Marvin’s laptop, to be exact. He peeked open his eyes when Chase sat down, then dismissed him and closed them again.

“No,” Marvin said stubbornly. “I’ll eat a lemon or something instead.”

“Well, first of all, that would be really sour so, uh, maybe not,” Chase pointed out. “And second of all, that’s Vitamin C.”

Marvin groaned again, this time clearly putting on an act. He pushed away the blankets and sat up, running fingers through his messy hair in an effort to semi-comb it. “I look like shit,” he muttered.

“Didn’t you have a hairbrush in here somewhere?” Chase asked, looking around. “Oh, there.” He stood up and walked over to the dresser to grab the brush, which he then handed to Marvin.

“Thanks,” Marvin said, accepting the brush and running it through his hair. He managed to untangle some of the worst of it when he stopped and put the brush on his nightstand. His eyes were cloudy, staring out the window with a vague, far-off gaze. Then he lowered his head into his hands. “Fuck this,” he said, a sob catching onto the end of his voice.

“Oh geez.” There was a tissue box on the dresser as well. Chase picked it up, pulled out a tissue, and handed it to Marvin. 

Marvin accepted the tissue, mumbling another “thanks” and pressing it to his eyes. He...well, he’d looked better. Chase was pretty sure he’d been in bed for at least a whole day. Which, Chase had to admit, he could relate to. Sometimes it was tough. And having your friend kidnapped wasn’t easy, for obvious reasons. Jameson had been missing for about three weeks now, and Marvin was having trouble with that. True, he hadn’t reacted this strongly when Jackie disappeared, but even then, he’d had to take a week to himself. And Chase knew that Marvin was pretty close with JJ. He hadn’t been crying about it as much lately, but it would still happen, seemingly triggered by him just...thinking about the situation.

“You need to drink some water, bro,” Chase said. “Losing all this, uh...moisture isn’t good.”

“Moisture?” That momentarily distracted Marvin as he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say ‘fluids.’ You probably would’ve called that out, too.”

“Ah, fair, I guess.” Marvin crumpled up the used tissue and dropped it into the trash bin he’d recently moved near the bed. “Anyway. What’s up with you? What’ve you been doing?”

“Hey, I’m serious about that water thing. You want me to go get a glass from the kitchen?”

“I...yeah, sure. I have a hydro flask in one of the cupboards, use that, not a glass. I don’t want to knock anything over.”

“Great. Be right back.” Chase stood up and hurried to the kitchen. He quickly found the water bottle in one of the cabinets, filling it up with tap water and a few ice cubes before heading back to the bedroom. When he returned, Marvin was lying down again, slowly petting Ragamuffin, who was sitting on the pillow nearby with his head on Marvin’s neck. Chase raised an eyebrow. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“Shhhh. You don’t know the fluffiness,” Marvin said.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve pet him many many times before.” Chase handed Marvin the water bottle. “Good thing I used the lid with the spout thing. Here. Drink that.”

“Mmm.” Marvin started sipping through the attached straw while Chase retook his usual position. After a while, he said, “Soooo...can I ask you what you’ve been doing now?”

“Well I mean...a lot,” Chase said. “I’ve been visiting Schneep and Jack. Both of them are looking a lot better. You should really come with one time, they’d both love to see you, probably Jack especially. Though I mean, talking might be a bit awkward at first. You ever heard of a communication board?”

“Of course. Is Jack using one of those?”

“Yeah, exactly. Cause his, uh, talking and moving isn’t up to par yet.” Chase rubbed the back of his head. “Also, uh...I’m trying to find out more about...Anti.”

“Wh...” Marvin stared at him. He set the water bottle down on the nightstand next to him. “Why?”

“I don’t know, man, I’m ju—I’m tired of not doing anything,” Chase said. “I thought, hey, maybe if I can find something out, I can...I dunno, really. Just help a bit.” He sighed. “I mean, it’s not exactly easy.”

“Oh I can imagine,” Marvin mumbled, reaching up to scratch Ragamuffin’s ears.

“Yeah, he’s a criminal, you know? And a good one. We didn’t even know he existed until Dr. Laurens escaped and confirmed that he did.” Chase made a frustrated noise. “So I mean, looking up news sources is hard. I’ve been trying to find mysterious deaths in the area, going back a few years, but that’s still a lot. And like, he’s gotta have a base somewhere, right? Where he’s keepin—where he has supplies and shit. But how do you find that? God, how did Jackie do this? Seriously, how do you be a detective?”

“Well Jackie, like, went to school for this,” Marvin reasoned. “He knew—knows tricks. What do you mean by news sources? Like, online?”

“Yeah. Why, do you think I should go to the library? Check out old newspapers?”

“I mean...if you’re looking online, maybe he has a website.”

Chase stared at Marvin for a solid thirty seconds. “I’m sorry. A website? A website...for a guy who kills people?”

“They exist,” Marvin said casually. “You remember how I got almost killed back in March?”

“How could I forget that?” The whole story was still pretty unbelievable to him. Marvin had been working for a seemingly normal clothing shop, but because of suspicious activity, decided to look into it. And he’d soon found out that the shop was a front for some sort of smuggling operation, with firearms involved. Not long after that, he’d been attacked on his way home from work, and very nearly died. It hadn’t taken too much thought to realize the shady people behind the operation were behind the attack. “That’s the whole reason you left suddenly.”

“Yeah.” Marvin nodded a bit. “Well, I got curious. I was like, how exactly do you hire someone to kill someone else? So I took my old laptop that I left at my grandma’s house, because like, whatever, it probably should’ve been e-recycled a while ago, or whatever they do. So it didn’t matter what I searched up there, cause I was gonna get rid of it after. And I searched up stuff. And long story short, there is...totally an online market for stuff like that.”

“I...you’re serious?” Chase asked, gaping at him.

“I wouldn’t mess with you about this.”

“It just...seems unbelievable. If there were websites like this, couldn’t the police find them?”

“Sometimes they do.” Marvin’s eyes darkened. “But...there’s a whole...section of the Internet that...isn’t...good. It’s like...for that exact stuff. And if Anti was hired to kill me, he has to have some way for people to...to contact him for stuff like that. A website would be good for that.”

“Oh,” Chase said softly, looking away as he contemplated this new information. It made sense, really. It was more that he didn’t want to believe there was something like that out there. But he had to. So he took a deep breath. “You, uh...know how I’d go about finding something like that?”

Marvin nodded slowly. He gently pushed Ragamuffin away, who didn’t seem to mind and just rolled over, and then sat up. “Hand me that spiral book and one of the pencils from the desk,” he said, pointing. Chase did so, and he started writing down a few things. It took a while, since he would occasionally stop, think about something, and erase and rewrite, but eventually he tore the page out and showed it to Chase. “Here. These are some of the websites I remember, mostly because of the, uh...memorable URLs. Don’t—don’t use a computer you want to keep or have a bunch of information on.”

Chase took the page, scanning the URLs Marvin had written down. There were five of them, and...yeah, he could see why these stuck with him. “Are you gonna do some searching, too? It’d probably go faster with two of us.”

“No.” Marvin immediately shook his head. “I only have my laptop right now, and I really don’t want to compromise that with viruses or anything. That model was expensive, and it’s so much trouble to replace.”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.” Chase hesitated. “Do you...I mean, if you wanted to help me look for Anti, that would be...good. Too. In whatever way.”

Marvin hesitated. Chase could see the battle going on mentally, his usual fiery nature contrasting with the lack of energy he’d clearly been having lately. “I mean...I guess I’ll help you if you need anything,” he finally said after a while.

“That’d be great, bro. I can talk about it when I come over,” Chase said. God, he’d been doing so much visiting lately. Going everywhere, all over the place. It was...tiring. And that wasn’t even including the weekends when he had the kids over at his house. Another reason he hadn’t been able to find much on Anti was because he just didn’t have the time to do any thorough searching. But this website thing seemed easy. He could do it when he got home. “Anyway, keep drinking water. You, like, really need it. And you don’t really get it until you don’t have it.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” Marvin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chase laughed. “Ah, you caught me. But seriously.”

“Alright, Chase, I understand.” Marvin picked up the water bottle again and started to sip.

——————

As it turned out, searching for illegal websites was not easy.

Chase had an old computer that he’d been keeping in his closet for ages, ever since he got a new, better one for playing and recording games. He dragged it out, booted it up, and set it through a factory restart, since Marvin had advised against having much personal information. From there, it was a bit of...a shot in the dark, really.

The search took a while. Chase was sure that looking at these websites was putting him on some sort of watchlist somewhere, and he couldn’t help but glance around the room every few minutes. Wasn’t there a video game like this, once? Jack had played it on his YouTube channel. Some game where you searched the messed-up dark side of the Internet. Yeah, that was the one where Jackie showed up in the second episode to help him with the puzzles and stuff. But that was just a game. This was real, and he was paranoid that someone would pop up in the window, staring at him.

By the time he found what he was looking for, it was well into the night, and Chase was positive that his browser had logged this worrying activity and possibly sent it to some agencies somewhere. But the search was a success. He’d clicked on a link reading ‘Antiseptic: For Taking Care of Infections.’ Harmless-sounding, if it hadn’t been on a website that listed several other websites, all somehow involving hiring someone to do shady shit for you.

The website from the link was, admittedly, pretty professional-looking. It could have been for a proper business. But it wasn’t. This was a website where you hired a hitman. And that hitman was Anti. Chase unconsciously leaned back from the screen as he clicked around the webpages. Something about rules, something about rates, something about reviews from customers (all anonymous, of course.) And an About page. Chase hesitated, then clicked on that.

The page that popped up had a bright red banner plastered across the top, reading: ‘IMPORTANT: I am not taking any new jobs for the time being. How long, you ask? Until further notice. Why, you ask? Something needs to be taken care of. Wait for your killing. Or go hire someone else.’ Blunt and to the point, while still being vague. Chase didn’t like the sound of ‘something needs to be taken care of.’ He had the strong suspicion that ‘something’ involved Jameson, and possibly Jackie.

He should tell the police about this website, right? It could be an important lead, not only in finding Jameson and Jackie, but in catching Anti altogether. Chase thought about it, and decided he would. But just in case, he’d keep the computer around and remember this URL. So he could search through this website on his own time.

It was late. He really should go to bed. Well, he might be too anxious to, after spending so much time looking at stuff like this, but he should try. But before he shut down the computer, he decided to check out the reviews section. What sort of reviews would a mercenary have?

He glanced at a couple of them, not wanting too many details, but suddenly stopped. The lowest rated review on the front page—god, killings had ratings, that was messed up—read: ‘Left a complimentary review in March when I thought he efficiently killed the target. But now, turns out the bitch is alive, and this bastard made me pay just for the CHANCE of going after him again. And he hasn’t even done it yet! Hurry up, you’—Chase winced at the word used—‘that Irish fucker could tell anyone by now!’

It was probably just a coincidence, but...the attack on Marvin’s life had happened back in March. And Marvin was Irish. And it had happened because some criminals thought he would tell...no, it was probably just a coincidence. It was a big world, after all.

Chase quickly wrote down the website’s URL and, just in case, the path he went through to get to it. He then closed the browser and shut down the computer. This was intriguing, but he’d have to look it over more later. He had to go tell the police about this the next day. It would have to be early in the morning. He had plans. More visiting to do.

——————

By now, Chase was pretty familiar with the visiting room at Silver Hills, as well as the visiting procedure. Enter, sign in who you were and who you were there to see, go wait in the visiting room, and after a while, the patient you were there to see would show up, along with a doctor in tow. Or, well, maybe the doctor was just for a few patients, to keep an eye on the ones who were somehow risky. Either way, the procedure hadn’t changed at all. He breezed right past it today, as always, and didn’t even have time to sit down before the other door in the room opened.

“Chase, my friend!” Schneep gave Chase a quick hug. “It is good to see you again so soon.”

“So soon? It’s been a week, like always.” Chase patted Schneep on the back before pulling away. “But it’s always nice to see you. You look good.”

“Ah, thank you.” Schneep smiled, a bit nervously, twisting his medical bracelet around his wrist.

“I’m serious, Doc.” And it was true; Schneep looked better than he had in a while. His skin had more color, and he’d gained a bit of weight. He was still pretty pale and thin, but it was a welcome, and noticeable, improvement. “Like, your hands aren’t shaking anymore.”

“Hmm?” Schneep looked down at his own hands, holding them still for a moment. “Oh yes. I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Well that’s good,” Chase said encouragingly. “I mean, it’s gotta mean that they’ve figured out, like, medication and stuff.”

“Yes, I think so,” Schneep said, glancing over to the corner of the room where Laurens was sitting, working on something on a clipboard. “Things have stopped changing.”

“Great.” Chase sat down on one of the couches, patting the cushion next to him so Schneep would sit down, which he did. “Anyway, you said last week they’d be moving you back to your first room. Have they done that yet?”

Schneep’s expression brightened. “Yes, they have! Chase, it is so much improved. Even just looking through the window at the ground—well, the window does not open, which I understand, but even just that is so much better. I do wish they would let me wear my own clothes again, but I think that is happening soon.”

“Well it should.” Chase folded his arms, eyeing the plain white shirt and pants Schneep was wearing. “I don’t even understand. Is it that much of a risk?”

“Ah...” Schneep reached up to rub his neck. “Well, not for everyone. You say you do not understand, but I do.”

“If you’re okay with it, then,” Chase said slowly. “Oh, by the way, I brought you something.” He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders, pulling it around to hold in his lap while Schneep watched quizzically. “Stacy and the kids were baking, and they decided to drop some off, and I-I thought, well, I don’t know if there are like sweets in the hospital cafeteria or something, so...” After a bit of rummaging, he pulled out a plastic ziploc bag with a pair of chocolate chip cookies inside. “Here.”

“Oh really?!” Schneep gasped, immediately taking the bag.

“Yeah, really.”

“Thank you!” He wasted no time in opening the bag and taking out one of the cookies, biting into it.

Chase laughed. “I was right, huh? No sweets in the cafeteria?”

Schneep swallowed so he wouldn’t answer with his mouth full. “Well, there are sometimes. I think there is a schedule, maybe for every other day, I do not know. I only started going into the cafeteria...well, I did at the start, but then there was an incident, and—anyway, the point is, I have not been...attending, is that the word? For long enough to learn a schedule. I have only been allowed in the cafeteria and the, ah, rec room recently.”

“Really?” Chase kept a positive note in his voice. “That’s good, right? People say you need a change of environment.”

“Yes.” Again, Schneep glanced over at Laurens. “I hear it is advised. Which is one of the reasons why that—that other doctor was not good at her job.”

“Boy, you are so salty,” Chase said. “But you know what? Go ahead. She was an asshole.”

Schneep laughed.

Chase smiled. “Go ahead and be saltier than those, uh, fucking salt flats in America, or whatever.”

“S-salt flats?” Schneep was laughing so hard that it devolved into coughing. He had to take deep breaths to calm down.

“Yeah, they like, test the speeds of cars out in this spot in the middle of nowhere because it’s so flat. And it’s, like, made of salt, I think.”

“Is that a fact?” Schneep asked, amused.

Chase pulled out his phone. “Well I’m about to check if it is.”

The rest of the visit flew by. They talked about nothing, which was a welcome change of pace. Briefly, Chase considered telling Schneep about Jameson’s disappearance, as he had for the past two visits. But, just like those previous times, he decided against it. It would probably just upset him. And he didn’t even really know who Jameson was, apart from that one time he freaked out after seeing him. And that encounter certainly didn’t leave a good impression. So they talked about little things. Music, and movies, and what was happening with Chase’s kids. Small talk, yes, but it was the only chance they got to have this small talk each week.

Eventually, the time was up. Chase said goodbye and good luck, which Schneep returned, and left, heading back towards the front desk so he could check out.

Shortly after signing out on the visitor’s sheet, he heard footsteps. Chase looked up to see Dr. Laurens had followed him out. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” Chase nodded in greeting. “Uh...everything okay?”

“Yes. Why, are you expecting it to not be?”

“I dunno, it’s just that usually when a doctor talks to you after you finished visiting someone, it’s usually with some sort of news.”

Laurens laughed. “No, it’s all fine. Schneep is doing really well, you know, making a lot of progress. Obviously, it really helps that, ah...the head doctor is no longer holding me so tightly to regulations.” She said it delicately. “So he can actually get the help he needs.”

“Yeah, a doctor with a revenge plot isn’t exactly helpful,” Chase commented. “He wasn’t even the right person for that plot in the first place,” he added, muttering.

“Well I-I guess if you want to be blunt about it,” Laurens said. Clearly, that had never been her style. “Anyway, yes, everything’s going great. I just wanted to ask, I was going through his files recently and I noticed you were down as an emergency contact. Are you still okay with that?”

“Yeah, sure. He doesn’t really have any family who’d respond,” Chase said. “Am I the only one?”

“No, your friend Marvin is there, too,” Laurens said. “We, um, tried to contact his wife—or, uh, separated wife—Mina. She hasn’t responded, so I just thought I’d confirm.”

“Really? Did you, like, call her or mail her or something?” Chase asked, intrigued. Mina had sort of been a distant figure for a while. And even before she and Schneep separated, he hadn’t been too familiar with her. A bit odd, really.

“Yes, Schneep gave us her number and mailing address,” Laurens confirmed. “I guess he could have misremembered it, or she could have changed those. But the point is, no response. So you and Marvin are the only contacts.”

“Got it.”

“Great.” Laurens paused. “Um...do you need anything? I-I understand your other friend woke up, Jack. You’ve got to be pretty busy.”

“Yeah, really.” She didn’t know the half of it. It was...actually really tiring. But he refused to let this stop him anymore. But...Chase considered something, then leaned closer, and quietly said, “Hey, uh, you’re a therapist. Do you know any, like...other therapists? Not here, like, more casual places. That you go visit.”

“Oh yeah! Hang on a second.” Laurens flipped through the pages of her clipboard, unclipping a blank sheet at the back. She took her pen out from behind her ear and wrote something down. “Here. This is the agency I worked for before here. Well...I mean I worked here before. But then I quit and worked there, and came back here—you get the picture.” She laughed awkwardly. “Anyway, there’s a website I’ve written down there. They have listings for different therapists, sorted by specialties and methods, and including, uh, short biographies so you can get to know them a bit before you actually make a booking. So you can know what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks.” Chase took the piece of paper and looked it over. “That was...more information than I thought, really.”

“Well I wasn’t about to just recommend someone,” Laurens said. “That’s for you—or, uh, anyone who’s therapist-shopping.”

That got a laugh out of Chase. “Alright. Anyway, thanks again.” He folded up the paper and put it in his pocket. “I’ll see you next week.”

“See you,” Laurens waved as Chase left.

Yes, next week. Assuming nothing went wrong and she had to contact him beforehand. But it probably wouldn’t.

——————

The recreation room of Silver Hills was a large, wide room on the second floor. Schneep hadn’t been in there much. Of course, for a long time Dr. Newson hadn’t allowed it, on the basis of it being dangerous. But even when he first checked in, he didn’t go down to this room that often. Maybe once, to see what it looked like. He hadn’t exactly been in the right mental space for recreation at the time. Too...well, he supposed ‘paranoid’ might be the right word. He didn’t want to get too attached to the space in case this whole thing turned out to be a trick.

But now, he thought he should give it a try. Maybe it would be helpful, to have more to do. He might be able to take his mind off things.

The room had a wall with windows overlooking the front of the hospital, and two doors on the walls to either side. Because of safety concerns, the entertainment was a bit limited. For example, some rec rooms might have a pool table. Not here. Some might have cabinets with board games. Not here. But there was still several playing card games, some pinball machines, and a TV with access to television channels and able to stream movies. There were three tables, each with a cluster of chairs, a couple sofas and armchairs near the TV, and paintings on the wall as decoration.

There were several people already in the room when Schneep peeked in. Mostly patients, with a few orderlies sitting around, identifiable by their uniforms. A group was sitting at one of the tables playing a card game, a couple were at a different table talking to each other and drawing with crayons—maybe a bit childish, but Laurens had stated that colored pencils weren’t allowed—and a few more were sitting around the TV, watching. A few of them had paused whatever they were doing to look over towards the door when it opened, and Schneep immediately froze.

“You okay?” Oliver, the usual orderly, was accompanying him to the room. They still hadn’t lightened up the rule about him being able to walk around on his own, though Laurens had said she was working on it. “Do you want to go back?”

“Nein, no no, I am fine,” Schneep muttered, stepping further into the room and looking around. He couldn’t help but notice he was the only one wearing the standard-issue white shirt and pants. Was that why some of them were staring at him? Or did they just like staring at people?

“Alright, just tell me if there’s anything wrong,” Oliver said, walking in behind him and keeping to the edges of the room, as he usually did.

Schneep nodded vaguely, glancing around to give everyone in the room a second look. Unfamiliar, all of them. There was one, part of the group playing cards, who was really staring at him, but everyone else had turned away, so that was probably her problem more than anything. Folding his arms—well, it wasn’t technically folding his arms, he just sort of grabbed each elbow with a hand—Schneep walked over to the seats by the TV and sat down in the nearest empty armchair. This was fine. That one other patient had stopped staring by now and looked back at the card game, which meant that nobody was looking at him. And that was good. Well, Oliver was there, keeping an eye on things. But nobody was watching him. Really. Nobody was. He didn’t see anyone looking. Everything was fine.

Okay, time to see if he could distract himself. What was on the TV? Schneep took a deep breath as he checked it out. It was definitely a movie of some kind, live-action, but not one that was familiar to him. It had that appearance of an older movie, something in the grain of the film or the delivery of the lines giving away that it was at least a couple decades old. Huh. That was...interesting.

“Hey.”

Schneep jumped, looking to the side. A man was looking at him. Sitting on one of the sofas, near the end closest to his own chair. “Ja? Um, yes?”

“Are you new here?” The man didn’t look too intimidating. Sandy blonde hair and freckles, wearing a blue t-shirt. He had a medical bracelet on his wrist, too.

“No, not at all,” Schneep said. “Why?”

“I just didn’t recognize you. I’ve been here a couple months, I think I recognize the usual crowd in the room. How long’ve you been?”

“Um...” Schneep paused for a second to do the math. It was now November, so that was...“A half a year.”

“Oh.” The man’s eyebrows shot upward.

“Yes, I, um, have not been in this room much. I was not—things were not...not good,” Schneep said awkwardly.

“Ohhhh.” The man nodded in understanding. “I see. I’m Finn, by the way.”

“Henrik.”

“Henrik? Are you—I mean, I don’t want to assume, but your accent, uh, are you German?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you. The same.” This was starting to feel a bit awkward. Or maybe it was just him, Finn seemed perfectly comfortable. Schneep turned away, looking back at the TV. “What...is this?”

“The movie? Uh...I don’t know.” Finn shrugged. “I came in when it was already playing. I think Kellie chose it. But it’s, like, something about cars? And this family where the dad’s an inventor? I don’t know. It’s a musical.”

“Hm.” Schneep glanced around the room again. Was there anything else to do? The card game group was starting something new, one of them shuffling the deck. No, no. He didn’t want to interrupt. Maybe he could ask for some drawing supplies from the two who were coloring. Laurens did a drawing exercise with him once, and it had actually been kind of fun. Oh, wait, was there someone new here? There was something moving in the corner of his vision. It could just be in his head, but he turned to look anyway—

The moment he caught full sight of the movement, he cried out, jumping backwards and awkwardly falling out of the chair. He landed on his back, legs still up in the air, but quickly scrambled to his feet, looking back towards what he’d seen.

No. Nobody was there. But it was near one of the room’s doors, what if he left? What if he was—everyone was staring at him. They all were, they all had to be.

“Are you alright?” Finn asked, a concerned expression on his face.

“I-I-I—” Schneep backed up, once again assuming the folded arms position from before. “Don’t—look at me.”

“Oh, uh, sorry.” Finn looked away.

Schneep shuddered a bit, eyes fixed on the point where he saw—he couldn’t really have been there, it must have been in his head. It’s happened before. He’s seen him before...in his head. It. It was the same now. Had to be. Just. Just in his head. Not real.

But he couldn’t fully convince himself. Slowly, he backed up until he hit the nearest wall. Oliver, who’d been sitting nearby, stood up and walked over. “Do you need anything?” he asked quietly.

“I-I—am—will go back to safe—to my room,” Schneep stammered.

“Alright, let’s go then.” Oliver gestured to the door. Not the one that was close to...what he’d seen. Schneep nodded vaguely, and walked over to the door and out, with the orderly trailing behind him. Once they were out of the room, Oliver asked, “Anything else?”

Schneep took a deep breath in, then out. In, then out. It was a relaxation technique, and concentrating on that helped. Gave his brain something to do. “I...the hospital is—is very secure, yes? You cannot break in?”

“It’d be very difficult,” Oliver agreed. “You’d need a key card. And we do have security cameras. Someone would notice.”

“Good. Very good.” In. Out. In. Out. Laurens had reassured him many times before. Anti couldn’t get in here. So what he saw...it must have been...not real.

I’m real as ever, Henrik.

Schneep almost responded, but then firmly shut his mouth. It didn’t help to acknowledge the voices. It didn’t help to acknowledge any of them, even if he wanted to. Everything was going to be okay. This was a safe place. He didn’t have to worry about anything.

He kept reminding himself of these facts even hours after the incident. Anti couldn’t get in here. It wasn’t possible. This was a safe place. Everything was going to be okay.

——————

Well that was a failed test run.

Anti flipped the keycard between his fingers, watching it twirl through the air as he leaned back in his desk chair. He hadn’t been expecting to be spotted. They didn’t know what he looked like, and he had a small disguise, just in case. He thought that hiding his scars and darkening his hair would be enough to prevent him from being noticed. But apparently, he’d left quite an impression on the good doctor.

No one would believe him, of course. Judging by that psychiatrist’s notes, the one in the turquoise notebook, spotting Anti was a common hallucination of Schneep’s. No one would know that it was real, this time. But still. It was the principle.

Sitting up straight, Anti swiveled in his chair to face a computer monitor. The screen was divided into four sections, each showing a different angle of a single room with pale yellow walls and a pair of bunk beds. Maybe four cameras was overkill, but better safe than sorry. It looked like the two people in the room were having a conversation. He turned on the audio so he could listen in.

“—never had any siblings,” Jackie was saying, slowly swaying from side to side where he was sitting in one of the chairs. “Mom wasn’t very, uh—I-I was a miracle baby. Though sometimes I joke that I had a sister, but really it was me before I transitioned.”

So I’m the only one in the group, JJ signed. He was sitting in the other chair at the table, across from Jackie. Each of them had a plate in front of them with a sandwich and a bottle of juice.

“Yeah. Unless you count Chase’s sister-in-law, but eh. None of us do.” Jackie shrugged.

JJ laughed a bit, which soon faded. I should have asked about your family sooner, Jackie. Even before...all of this happened. I’m sorry.

“No, it’s fine,” Jackie reassured him. “I mean, family was probably a thing for you, right? Considering...this whole situation.”

Jameson nodded, looking a bit paler.

Watching the conversation, Anti frowned. That was hardly fair.

Anyway, I’d much rather talk about other people’s families, for obvious reasons, JJ continued. Like...for example, your friend Henrik. He doesn’t have any siblings either?

“No. And, uh, before you can ask about his parents...they’re assholes.” Jackie’s voice turned bitter. “They don’t live here, they’re back in Germany, and he’s very glad for that.”

Ah. Sorry for asking.

“No, it’s fine. Really.” Jackie frowned, and sat up straight. “You, uh...I-I don’t remember you apologizing as much before,” he said slowly. “Are you...okay?”

Jameson started to sign sorry, but then caught himself. He leaned over onto the table, briefly hiding his head in his arms before signing, I was working on that with my therapist. But now, it’s just all...He couldn’t even find the words and just threw his hands up in the air before hiding his head in his arms again.

Jackie leaned forward and placed his hand on Jameson’s arm. “It’s fine. We’re, uh...under a lot of stress. It makes sense that you’d, uh...things would happen again. It’s not wrong or anything. I think you’re doing great.”

Anti switched off the audio and looked away. Nothing was wrong with apologizing. It certainly wasn’t something you needed to talk to a therapist about. In fact, why did Jameson even need a therapist? He was fine.

Well...no, he wasn’t. Because he was different. Anti had backed off for a bit, giving him space to adjust, and then started talking with him again. Not for very long, but he’d come into the room, Jackie would back off and stay quiet, and he’d talk to Jameson. The goal was to regain trust, but it just wasn’t working. Jameson was anywhere from unresponsive to aggressive towards him. He didn’t get it. Yes, the initial approach wasn’t good, he’ll admit that. But what else was he supposed to do? He was trying to make up for it. The room was starting to get a bit crowded with all the things he’d given him. Books, a music player, even a beanbag chair. Anything he wanted.

Well, almost anything. He couldn’t give him everything right away, otherwise there would be nothing left for good behavior.

Anti sighed. And once again, he twirled the keycard through his fingers. And it gave him an idea. What if...one of those rewards...yes, that might work.

That might work indeed.

Anti slowly grinned, and opened up his calendar to figure out when would be the best time to enact the plan that was forming in his mind.

[who-is-reign]

Hello, hi, hey

Hi I did a short writing thing- here it is!!

Everything starts with a hello, a hi, a hey. A greeting of some kind. Ours started with something else. It started with a trip, a lot of apologies, and crying. Though I feel like I should probably start at the beginning. That makes more sense anyway.

It all started on what I knew was not going to be a normal day. The day started with two pieces of toast, 3 slices of peaches, and a mug of earl grey tea. Or what I was hoping to be a mug of earl grey tea. I poured the rest of what was left of my mug into a thermos and walked out the door. 

3 stairs, take a left, 5 steps forward to the next stairwell. 10 steps down, 5 breathes, 2 stops I could have taken, 7 doors I could see. I ran to my car, even if it was only 5 feet away. 

30 minutes and a coffee stop later, I was at work. I work at a publishing firm as the executive editor. I have been there since the start of this company, Indigo Query. I helped with the name of course. Most of the books that I edited are Best Sellers right now. I can’t say I’m not proud of that. 

Today is the release date of the first book I wrote. I have babied this book for 4 years. All of the characters are complex and have their own stories. I tried to make it to where there weren’t any background characters. To where there were stories going on behind the scenes, or the main focus of the chapter. It is 1563 pages, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 468900 words. This book is my literal child. I have had these characters since I was in 6th grade. I only started seriously writing out their story in the last 4 years. 

I just realized that you know nothing about me. Maybe that’s for the best. You’ll find out later anyway.

I walked in, went through the cafe, up the elevator, through the small library. I was there, and my book was there. On my desk, I saw a hardcover copy of my book. I almost started crying. Okay, I did start crying. That art was my choice, it was made by one of my oldest friends. I carefully picked up the book, letting my hands run over the almost woven texture of the cover, the embellished sides, and the title. Lastly, my name, small in white coloring. I turned to the copyright page and breathed in. My name is listed as the author and editor. My best friend’s listed as the cover artist. This is what I was meant to do. Write books, edit books, publish books.

I put the book down, I couldn’t read it. Not yet. I needed to meet with Leo Adams, president of the company. He is not the original president, he took over after the old president passed. I personally am not a fan of his. I think he is corrupt and doesn’t deserve the company. The only thing I can hope is that one day this company, my home, will get a better president. The only reason I stayed with this company, is because of my book. I could leave if I wanted to, other publishing companies have asked if I wanted to sign for them. 

But I have something in my eyes, something I can’t give up. I want to own Indigo Query. I want to own the thing I love more than anything. This company is my life, my livelihood. I hate seeing a man who doesn’t care about books be in charge of it. I need to save the company I have over a decade of time into. But right now, it is my time. My book is getting released.

I need to focus on that and nothing else. I need to work, that’s what I need to do. What I want doesn’t matter right now, and it won’t matter for a while. 

I walked as fast as a caffeinated lesbian could without it being considered running to Leo’s office. 

“Ms. Kore, it’s fantastic to see you. And of course congrats on the book release, it looks fantastic already.” Leo’s words drawled on, a slight curve to his phrases. I hated it.

“Of course sir, I couldn’t have had this book released without you,” I replied, trying desperately to keep the ill intent out of my voice. 

What I didn’t say, was that of course, I couldn’t have had this book released without you. Even with you, there were so many issues with getting it released. Including the date getting pushed back 6 months. I could have had this book out, and sold by now. But no, he said it was too problematic. It took all of the editors, our cover designers, the VP of the company, and basically everyone to get him to allow it to be sold. 

“Though Ms. Kore, I must tell you, I really do not think this book will thrive that much. I just do not want to see you getting hurt. Take the day off, you need to.” I almost scoffed once he said that, but I really only muttered thank you and walked out of the office.

I practically ran to one of my coworker’s desks and sighed completely and utterly overdramatically. This coworker has been my friend since high school and they helped found the company. They also know about my aspiration to own  Indigo Query.

“Oliver, I can’t believe him. He literally said that he didn’t think my book would work out and that he just didn’t want me to get hurt.” I groaned and tried to not sound whiny, though I know I did.

“Babe, that is so horrid but also you are so close to literally owning this company. You are so close, and you can’t lose sight of what you have done because our boss is horrible.” I know they’re right, and I am really close, but I need a break. 

“I’m leaving for the day, Adams said I had to.” I sighed.

“Girl you have been here for less than an hour, sit down.” Oliver raised their eyebrows and practically forced me to sit at my desk.

I just rolled my eyes and got to work on a new manuscript that came in today. It wasn’t long before my eyes felt like they were going to burst from my head. 

“I’m taking a coffee and tea run. Want anything?” I closed the manuscript, my question aimed for Oliver who was holding a red pen and had a red pen tied up in their hair.

“Yes, yes, and yes please darling. You know my order anywhere.” And they were right, their order hasn’t changed since freshman year. Unlike everything else. Oliver used to be really shy, with red curly hair, they didn’t have confidence. And now they talk or flirt with everyone, have longer sunset ombre hair, and have more confidence. I’m proud of them.

I walked out of the building and to the nearest cafe. I ordered Oliver’s, which was a matcha latte with added raspberry syrup, apparently, it was amazing. Then I got a London fog earl grey tea with extra vanilla syrup.

 I noticed the cafe had a small bookstore and I walked over there after ordering. I saw something that warmed my heart, my book. I inhaled deeply in shock, already a small bookstore had my book in it. I grabbed a copy and read through some of it. My words, my characters, my world. I get now why it is such a big deal for Oliver every time they see a book they wrote. I only walked away when I heard my name getting called. I grabbed both of the cups and walked away, saying thank you many times.

Close to the door, the not so impossible happened. Someone ran into me, my tea spilled everywhere. Oliver’s drink ended up being safe somehow. 

“I am so sorry, I can’t believe myself, I’m so sorry. Deeply sorry. Let me help.” The person who ran into me sputtered out.

“Don’t be sorry it was an accident, it is okay,” I say looking at them softly.

They had hair a little bit longer than their shoulders, it was a coppery red. Their eyes were a shade of amber. That was when I realized. 

“Laurette?” I asked, stunned that this may be her.

“Yeah? Do I know-- Persephone!” Laurette hugged me and sighed. “It’s fantastic to see you!”

“Good to see you too. What are you doing these days?” 

“Oh! I’m living with Ophelia with our kid. I’m a fashion designer and she is a daycare owner. So she gets her share of kids every day. What about you?” as Ophelia spoke I could practically feel her love for her wife. 

“That is fantastic! I’m the chief editor and now an author for a publishing company called Indigo Query. My first book got released today actually. I work with Oliver Evanora.” I was filled to the brim with pride. 

“Really? Congrats! I bet the book is amazing! I’ll have to check it out sometime. Tell Oliver I said hi. ” Laurette sighed happily, “Well, it’s been great seeing you, I’m so sorry about the tea. I hope to bump into each other again.” 

I smiled and went back up to the counter to grab the tea they remade, gave them a 10 dollar tip, and left. A newfound pleasure seeped through me. I walked back to the office, careful not to spill anything. I gave Oliver their drink and went straight back to work.

4 hours later and the clock showed 5 pm, the day that I had been waiting for years to happen was over. Since I needed desperately to get home, I made Oliver give me a ride home.

“Why didn’t you drive to work? You have a car.” Oliver asked when they were in their car.

“Because I wanted to walk.” 

“It’s winter, it is dark at like 4. You can’t walk home when it’s dark. We live in a city, girl.”

I just sighed, they were right anyway. I didn’t think it through.

“Want to get food?” They asked, “Cause I am starving!”

“Nah, I’ve got to get home.”

“Ok girl, whatever you deem useful,” Oliver said, already pulling down my street.

“Thank you so much! Oh and by the way Laurette said hi.” I said as I shut the door.

  I went inside and set water on to boil. I started stirring the water clockwise and humming a distant melody. It was almost time. The water started to bubble like an ancient potion that had just been given the final ingredient. I poured the water over a mug, grabbed a tea bag, and let it seep. At this point, the stars were already out and thriving. 

After a quick 5 minutes, I grabbed my mug and walked outside into my backyard. I went directly to my shed. My shed was more of my office than a shed. It had a typewriter, my laptop, a shelf filled with different types of teas or coffee. Plants were scattered about, my desk had a big fluffy white chair pushed up to it. Everything was a pastel blue, pink, or white. It didn’t really seem like it was mine, but it was. And it’s more of a home to me than my room is. 

I sighed as I sat down on my mug, put on gardening gloves, and grabbed my spade. I went outside and started to get to work. I planted a new rose bush, I replanted my lemon tree that's growing out of their pot. I moved my ever-growing cherry tree to where they’ll get better sun. 

All of this I did while humming, or singing in some parts. I am the type of person to sing and talk to my plants. I am also the type of person to own 3 trees and more plants than I can count.

I heard a bang and I flinched, my entire body froze in place, as if any movement would cost me my life.

“Is anyone there?” I whispered, barely to where anyone could hear it.

“Hello, darling” When I heard Oliver’s voice I calmed down, “sorry to scare you babe, but you seem stressed. Thought I’d help.”

“It’s okay, Oli.” I sighed, already putting my spade and gloves away. “So, how did you plan to calm me down?”

“Stargazing with some people from high school,” Oliver replied, smiling.

“Like who?”

“Kira, Raven, Laurette, Ophelia, Lilith--” Oliver was about to continue but I cut them off.

“Okay, I get it, almost everyone. Let’s go.” I said, laughing, “Let me change first.”

Five minutes later I was in Oliver’s car wearing a star printed black layered lace dress and 4-inch heeled black boots.

“Let’s go! I wonder if they all brought their kids! Oh, I can’t wait to see Sabrina or even Litha! I miss my coven friends.” Oliver used to be in a coven at school, it broke up after our senior year.

“Where is the place we’re going anyway?” I asked, playing with my acrylics. 

“It’s only 30 minutes away, a small little cabin. Though, we are staying for a week. I took all the clothes that are yours at my house, it’s enough for 7 days. Plus they all look great.” 

“What about work?!”My yells could probably be heard by our high school friends.

“I got it covered babe, don’t worry,” Oliver said in a sing-song tone. 

“Got it covered? Um, no. My book just got released, I need to be in town.”

“Honey, your book is already almost sold out at 3 stores. I only bought one copy. Your child will be fine.” Oliver sighed as he looked at me, “You need this. More than any of us do. So, I dragged you into the countryside to look at stars and hang out with people from our high school. Don’t you want to see everyone’s kids? I’m pretty sure Ophelia and Laurette are bringing theirs.”

“Okay, fine. I do need this, don’t I?” I pulled out my phone and breathed in.

‘I need this, I need a break. 7 days hanging out with old friends will give that to me.’ I thought as I mindlessly scrolled through twitter.

Then I came across this,

‘Jdjisddsj this book came out today! I already love it! #ScarletDreams #Persephonekore’

“Holy bees, Scarlet Dreams is trending in the literature section on twitter.”

“That’s fantastic, but we’re here.” I looked up and saw a cottage with wildflowers surrounding it, two beehives sitting among the flowers, a few kids running through fields. 

We parked next to where a collection of other cars were. Immediately I was pulled into a hug by Ophelia and Laurette.  

“I missed you!” Ophelia exclaimed as she pulled away, her child pulling at her sleeve.

“I missed you guys too, it’s fantastic to see you.” 

Oliver looked at me, then to everyone and said: “Was I right? Did you need this?”.

I could practically see his fear of him making a mistake, a dark sludge crawling through him, pulling him down and towards his own Tartarus. 

“Yeah Oli, I really did. Work was starting to hurt a little.”

A group of three people left the cabin, they were all holding hands and walking right next to each other.

“Oh, hello. I’m Cassandra. I don’t remember you from high school” She said her last sentence more like an inviting question than a statement.

“Hi, I’m Persephone, I didn’t really talk to many people other than who I knew so I can’t expect you to remember me.” I ended my statement with a small laugh, trying to match her tranquillity.

“Babe, you said there wouldn’t be that many people” The person who spoke was as far behind Cassandra and they could be while still holding her hand.

“I wanted you to come, plus I didn’t that many people would show up, darling.” Cassandra's voice was somehow softer than it was before, it seemed as soft as flower petals blooming out to show a beautiful rose. 

Or rather the sun urging a rose to show it’s own beauty. Cassandra’s red hair had so much volume it seemed to live on its own, like a red fox laid over her shoulder. She was wearing a vintage lace dress that was white with roses on it, you could tell a petticoat was hiding beneath the layers of the dress from how it poofed out. Her cheeks were a rosy red, and her eyes had pink eyeshadow flowing out from them. Her eyeliner wings were sharp enough to stab, and honestly, I wanted her to stab me with them.

As soon as I realized what I was thinking I felt guilty, though I wasn’t sure why.

A voice snapped me out of my thoughts, “Hi, I’m Jade!” said the other person next to Cassandra.

Her hair was a really big fluffy black braid, purple threaded itself through the braid, and blue and green followed. The braid went to her lower back and was tied with what I thought was a gold string. A black mini dress hugged her sides. A light pink fluffy jacket was partially zipped and fell off her shoulders.  The dress went to her lower thighs, then a few inches down my eyes trailed down to her light pink knee-high boots. 

“Take a picture and it will last longer darling,” Jade said, the tone of her voice playful yet held enough flirtiness to send shivers up my spine and turn my face red. 

“Darling, let's not immediately start to flirt with the new girl. Let’s not kill her on the first day here.” Cassandra spoke, her tone matching Jade’s.

The one who has stayed behind Cassandra the entire time stepped forward, appearing to gain confidence from my embarrassment. 

“Why not? She may hold up longer than I did.” They said, their voice was soft yet firm. It held together like a cactus in heavy wind, trying to keep its grip. I felt like that’s the type of person they were, a cactus. Harsh on the outside with spikes and a few flowers to lure you in, but held water and healing on the inside.

I knew my face was painted a shade that countered everything around me and the dress that now seemed to hug me instead of flow around me. Like the petals of a tulip instead of an orchid. My heart sped up and I felt frail, yet held stable by these people who I had only met what seemed hours ago but what I knew was minutes, or even seconds that had just been drawn out to a century. 

Then coughing erupted into my thoughts as Oliver shimmed their way in between me and the group, “Let’s go inside, I need warmth.”

“It’s not even cold” I sighed.

“Whatever,” They said as they already started towards the cottage.

As soon as people realized that Oliver had started to walk away, people hurried to follow them. That was Oliver for ya, they could sure direct a crowd.

[pwpoetry]

Q&A with Aracelis Girmay

M: I'm so fascinated by the work that goes into curating a Selected! Where does a project like this even begin? How did you set about choosing the poems and contextualizing Clifton's oeuvre? 

A: The only way I knew how to begin was to read, first, individual collections of Clifton's work. Just the year before I began the Selected I had studied the terrible stories with a brilliant group of graduate students. I had also spent a lot of time reading good woman, which includes her exquisite memoir, Generations. In Generations she writes: "And I could tell you about things we been through, some awful ones, some wonderful, but I know that the things that make us are more than that, our lives are more than the days in them, our lives are our line and we go on." And in beginning the Selected it was the "more than that" that I felt I needed to listen toward. Her work teaches me attention and the poems awaken my sense when I am thinking with them, and so I thought that if I could trust that the poems would teach me how to listen toward different versions of the Selected then I would be able to edit the book. I felt that if I could just read closely and slowly and with immense attention, that a process would begin to reveal itself. I read individual collections, I took notes about structure, themes, questions. I read the Collected (what I describe as a devotion of a book edited by Kevin Young and Michael Glaser). I read interviews. I talked with family, friends, writers. I spoke with one of Ms. Lucille's daughters, Sidney, and asked questions and listened and listened. Sidney and her sisters sent me the titles of some of the songs their mother loved. I listened and listened some more, picturing her dancing with her family. I was so very grateful to speak with Sonia Sanchez who said so many things, but the thing that felt most compass to me was when she talked about an old-fashioned smile that people sometimes get when they hear Lucille Clifton's name. And then she said: "I want Lucille to be seen, not an old-fashioned smile." She spoke about what it must have taken for Ms. Lucille to write her deeply political, livid, aching poems. And I listened and listened. Eventually I started to understand the histories she was recording and making across the work--from the first book to the last. As I say in the foreword: "It was toward such repetitions and echoes that I listened, and out of them I began to see the shape of this Selected of poems rendered with documentary, spiritual, and mystical sensibilities." In the first drafts it was very difficult to narrow the choices down but as my publisher, Peter Conners, said, "This is a Selected." Meaning: this is the version I've gathered for now. There are always possible others. But I made decisions to not include some of her very vital work like the messages from the Ones because it seemed the messages were lengthy and could not be excerpted, and in the end I decided to bring other individual poems in instead of that longer work as deeply important to her legacy as it is. Because it is Lucille Clifton, I knew that anything that was not everything would be a loss--so I accepted that, and I began to trust the resonances I was noticing. As I mentioned earlier: because in her work she paid such attention to it all, it seemed that as a gatherer of this Selected I also needed to pay attention to everything. Every dream with her in it, every time her name came up or someone shared a poem of hers, every memory anyone shared with her or her work in it (it turns out that she is everywhere!)--this was all part of the listening and the gathering. M: I find your response so moving, so alive in its efforts at engaging with her. I’m glad I asked what seems a very basic, potentially simplistic question. Was there anything that surprised you as you spent time with her work in this new way?

A: I'm not sure that it's quite a surprise, but I remain astounded by how radical her work is. To Sonia Sanchez's point, across the years of her writing life Clifton is writing poems out of the truth of her life. I mean, she is writing the truth about her life--with lucidity, strangeness, anger, joy, and complexity. She is insisting that a poem is and can be made with the truth of one's experiences, and in the languages that are your own, with the mind and metaphor and associations that are your own. How lucky are we who come after her, who get to read that knowing! In 1972 she published "the lost baby poem" in good news about the earth, and in the poem she directly addresses the "almost body" of the lost baby, offering up a definite poem for an almost child. In the address of the lost baby is both an insistence on its there-ness and an acknowledgment of its absence. There is no resolution, but instead the clarity and vulnerability of the truth. She writes about and toward Black Life, her coming into her politics (as in "apology" dedicated "to the panthers"). She writes about the conditions and demands of Whiteness. She writes about the deaths of her most beloved people on the earth. She writes about illness, dialysis, cancer. The earth. The flowers. The histories of the land and the land. Her work speaks to the times in which they were written, and speak to me so deeply and fully now, all these years later. 

M: You’re certainly not alone in both your admiration and kinship with her. Can you talk a bit about Clifton's legacy, and the influence her work has had on other poets? 

A: It is hard to know how to begin to answer. I mean, in her lifetime she published 13 collections of poems, a memoir, and more than 16 children's books written for African American children. She was a brilliant and deeply loved teacher. She was a Cave Canem elder. Her work and her person have actually changed people's lives. She has helped people I know to know what a poem can be and might be, but not just that, she has helped people to know what a person can survive, that a person can survive. That love and imagination and memory can last and last. That we can keep on knowing and talking to our beloveds who have passed on. That every thing is kin. In his gorgeous essay "In Praise of Lucille Clifton," Reginald Dwayne Betts describes coming to her work and writes, "...what I was doing when reading Clifton, more than when reading anyone else, was understanding myself." Nikky Finney, in the first pages of her exquisite Head Off & Split, writes "FOR LUCILLE CLIFTON" large and in all caps. And later, "Dahomey woman of light, laughter, language" (no period). In graduate school, 2001, Cornelius Eady met with a small group of us in the library to talk about her genius. And Elizabeth Alexander, just days after Lucille Clifton passed on February 13, 2010, shared these words in her "Remembering Lucille Clifton": "...we were still shocked that she had left us, for I do not think there is an American poet as beloved as Clifton, or one whose influence radiated as widely." In the acknowledgments of How to Carry Water I include quotes from writers and friends on Clifton's work. And part of what moves me is that she speaks so deeply to each of us. It seems so many hold her in the closest places--the poems whispering in the blood. I could go on and on and on. How her poems have been water to drink, water to share. The meeting ground. The moon. How her poems have been the sea to face shoulder to shoulder with so many of my beloveds. 

M: I love those images so much. How has your relationship to Clifton's work--and perhaps even your own!--been shaped by this project?

A: I remain utterly grateful to her for her fierce, tender, elemental poems. Exquisitely revised and honed (as I had the chance to see in the archives)--seemingly polished smooth and yet wild, too, and possessed by the earth. I can say that to have spent so much time with her poems has opened me into a different kind of study with--and of--her work. I've been given the chance to wonder with others--and with other readers in mind!--about some of what feels most urgent and yet mysterious about her work. The focus of this project has given me the chance to feel her voiceprint in such a sustained way that familiarity has given way to new sensing. You know how sometimes that can happen? These breaths feel, to me, new. 

[chiseler]

When Nature Was Golden

Let’s open with a few passages of deathless prose from the classics.

EMORY’S SOFT-SHELLED TURTLE (18 in.; to 35 lb.) is the only Southwest member of an edible group with long necks and short tempers. Handle with care.

BELTED KINGFISHER Where there are fish there are Kingfishers, beating the air in irregular flight, diving into water with a splash and emerging with fish in their beaks.

THE EASTERN MOLE or common mole makes the mounds that dot your lawn. You are unlikely to see any moles, for they stay underground unless molested.

You saw them in the basement of your third-grade best friend, or in your school library. If you were lucky, you had one or two at home—your older sister read them first, years ago; maybe they’d even belonged to one of your parents. Paperback books just a bit smaller than pulp fiction novels, though equally thick, their illustrated pages of a glossier, higher quality. The typeface was Futura, that design marvel of yore, also seen in the old Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. Insects, Seashores, Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians—which did you have? The Golden Guides gave us our natural world in all its glory, and managed to do it in a singular style, dry yet affectionate, concisely informative and never, ever dumbed-down. They were written for children, but each, too, is a cracking read for any adult eager to learn. Or to remember.

Naturalist Herbert S. Zim, who founded this series of guides and wrote many of them, was born in New York in 1909. Raised there and in Southern California, he finished his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D at Columbia University. He was then a science teacher for twenty-five years—at Ethical Culture schools in New York City, and later at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. One wonders where on earth he found the time to crank out so many books. Each was a loving collaboration with other educators, not solely Zim’s effort. But the synthesis of these people, the meticulous research required to bring together all the info, was his responsibility, from 1949 until the early 1970s. Zim, in 1969, was also the editor of an 18-volume set of encyclopedias named Our Wonderful World.

Of the 84 Golden Guides, Zim wrote or co-wrote 24. Is it confirmation bias that makes me believe those are the best of the bunch? The simple style is charming, with phrases like Rock Ground Squirrels, found in the Southwest, are our largest terrestrial squirrels. What grace: with a hint of pride to be from the United States, he said that the squirrels are ours. (I also appreciate that he uses the word “unique” correctly, without qualifiers. The Barn Owl is unique, not “totally” or “somewhat” unique.) The occasional anachronism amuses. Once in awhile Zim tells us which kind of turtle or ground squirrel makes a good pet, if captured.

You have been seeing birds as far back as you can remember and you will continue seeing them wherever you may be. It’s a real pleasure to see them. You can see more birds and more kinds of birds by learning how to look. This book will help you. It is not written for the expert, but for people who want to see birds just for the joy of it.

First become familiar with the mammals pictured and described. Look through the Key to Mammals on the next pages so that you can recognize the major mammal groups. Try to see the mammal well enough to decide, for example, whether it is a rodent or a shrew.

Familiarity with fishes gained by thumbing through pages at odd moments may enable you to make rough identifications at sight. Use this book as an “arm-chair” guide, but also take it into the field with you, for that is where it can be used best. On fishing trips take it along in a plastic bag.

Originally named the Golden Nature Guides, the series name was shortened to “Golden Guides” when they began branching out into other topics—for example, Guns, Sports Cars, and Casino Games. But these adult subjects did not make it into most family rooms, and the more popular guides about flora and fauna, insects, weather, stars, and the like are the ones most frequently found today. The illustrations by James Gordon Irving and others are remarkably detailed, the beauty of pure accuracy from a time when nature photography was rare.

A particularly enchanting feature of the Guides is the family tree, usually a two-page spread of swooping, color-gradated branches, each limb ending in a small picture of an animal in its biological order, labeled something like “Cutlass Fishes” or “Scorpion-Flies.” No less an artist than Matt Groening would eventually parody this format for his Life In Hell comic, describing the evolution of record-store clerks from sullen teens.

Herbert Zim, in his long career as an educator, was the one who brought lab instruction into science courses at the elementary-school level. Anyone who looked through a microscope before they reached ninth grade might have him to thank. And one attribute of Golden Guides is the way they expect one to get involved, not just in the field, but with “amateur activities” like building a birdhouse or preserving animal tracks in plaster. Through such deep engagement, the reader is encouraged not just to appreciate nature, but to discover new things about it, making new contributions to science.

He demanded no less of himself. Going through what biographical information there is on Zim, which is all very straightforward, one notices the list of scientific associations he belonged to, numbering more than twenty. They included the Audubon Society, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Everglades Natural History Association, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Truly, this was a vigorous and busy man.

Like so many cultural products of their time, the Golden Guides can look antithetical to today’s progressive values. Just ask the Yuman Indian woman who sits weaving cotton, bare-breasted, in one of the pictures in a guide to the American Southwest. In little vignettes we see depicted dozens of trappers, fishermen, tourists, birdwatchers—all white, mostly male. Under the entry for “Other Suckers,” Zim claims “some are so easily caught that every boy knows them.” If the Guides were written just for boys, this is a great shame, though their ubiquity meant that many girls of all different backgrounds would find them. The scientific language is devoid of prejudice, by its nature, and is there for any young person dedicated enough to study it. It prizes the natural world above all. One passage recently took me by surprise for its passion, on a page about the fishing industry: If you are interested in fishes, conservation—the wise use of all our natural resources—is your problem too.

Maybe it’s our current predicament that makes one particularly fond of the outside world, and of non-humans. Back in March, I started watching a live online feed from The Aquarium of the Pacific each night, comforted by the variety of fish, sharks, and rays that swam peacefully by. Curious about a small fish with long, showy gold fins, I consulted Fishes to identify it, and Irving didn’t disappoint. Meanwhile, Herbert Zim informed me that the species, named Lookdown, belong to the mackerel-like family of “jacks” and are fine eating.

In 1934, Zim married the Russian-born Sonia (Sonnie) Bleeker, who had studied anthropology at Columbia. The couple had two sons. Bleeker, too, worked in the book world—as an editor at Simon and Schuster, then as a full-time children’s book author. They eventually moved to Florida. Just like the descriptions in the guides, these biographical facts fall well short of being dull. They force me to imagine how energetic, how full life must have been in the Zim household as the kids grew up; and how many subtropical species kept Herbert company in his later years. After Bleeker’s death, he married Grace K. Showe in 1978. He died at Plantation Key in 1994, of complications from Alzheimer’s.

LIVE OAK has become a symbol of the South. The low, spreading tree, often covered with Spanish moss, marks old plantations and roadside plantings. The elliptical, blunt-tipped, leathery leaves are evergreen—that is, they remain green and on the tree throughout the year. The acorns are small but edible; wood is used for furniture. Two other southeastern Oaks (Laurel and Willow) have leaves of somewhat similar shape, but they are thinner and more pointed than Live Oak. Several western Oaks are evergreen. Botanists apply the unqualified name Live Oak only to this species. Height 40 to 60 ft. Beech family

In a Manhattan backyard in the middle of June, a couple of mourning doves fly between the trees. I’m aware that the gentle woop-woop-woop sound they make is not their voices but their wingbeats. The dogwood’s cream-yellow blooms have begun to fade, as is proper at this time. Above me a juvenile blue jay, still fluffy, shrieks out his typical noisy cry. I’m intrigued to see a red speck moving among the hairs on my arm—it’s a clover mite, an insect I haven’t noticed in decades. As recently as 1982, I was a four-year-old marveling at the rolling movement of clover mites on a windowsill—smaller than pin heads, bright candy-apple red. Somewhere along the line they stopped showing up, at least with the frequency they did back then. Now, seeing even one evinces a swell of emotion. (Incidentally, the same is true of another brightly-colored beauty, the red eft, which used to be so numerous in summer that we had to tiptoe on New York State gravel roads to avoid stepping on them.)

We learn more from Zim’s texts than he bargained for. His Golden Guides speak of a midcentury United States where all these animals and plants were still commonly seen. Just based upon my memories from the past 20 or 30 years, there seem to be fewer animals everywhere; in the 1950s, then, was the Earth just teeming with them, in every corner of every suburban lawn? Having learned that the biomass of insects, in particular, has started to fall fast, I yearn for the spectacle of clover mites and hastily do a search for them. Yes, the internet reassures me: we in New York City still have lots of the red bugs, enough to warrant a FAQ page from a pest-control company. They’re harmless to humans, pets, houses, and furniture. They munch grass and reproduce parthenogenically, which means every individual can lay viable eggs, without mating.

Of course, the sites telling me this haven’t worded their data quite as eloquently as Herbert Zim would have. Still, I thank him for the spark of curiosity that got me there at all. He taught me not just how to identify a clover mite, but how to care about her.

by Amanda Nazario

[bifrostbookreviews]

How to Read 200 Books in 1 Year

Trust me, I’m a Professional

Note: this picture does not include every book I read, it’s just how many bookmarks I filled up in 2018.

Post below the Cut for Brevity:

So, I read 200 books in 2018. It was my third attempt to do so; in 2016 I read ~150, in 2017 I read ~110, and this year, come hell or high water, I was going to finish this stupid challenge so I’d never have to attempt it again.

I want to start this post off by saying I absolutely do not recommend reading 200 books in one year. I felt the book hangover in the very fibers of my being. I had to cancel plans so I could get my reading done. At one point, I had some personal things going on so I didn’t read for ~3 weeks when I was already behind, ended up like 26 books behind schedule and Goodreads was telling me I had to read 5 books a week to catch up and I was absolutely freaking out. There were books I couldn’t fully enjoy because I was pushing myself so hard to get to the end that I couldn’t just stop and process and enjoy them. It was annoying and I’m personally never doing this again. If you are on the fence about trying to do a challenge like this... don’t. Or pick something more reasonable, like 100-150 books.

That said, this post is written for the hardcore book nerds like me, where the struggle doesn’t matter, you just want to be so over the top in your book nerdiness you’re gonna attempt 200 books anyway. It took me 3 solid attempts to be successful, and I’ve learned a lot about what to do. I want to impart this knowledge out there, so anyone else trying it can have a general guide on how to get this done. 

Without further ado, here’s how to read 200 books in one year. These aren’t in particular order, they’re just written as they came to mind.

1. Understand what you’re getting into. This was the biggest mistake I made in the previous two years. There’s only 365 days in a year, and if you have 200 books to read, guess what? You basically have to finish a book every 2 days. You need to go in understanding that 3-4 hours of your day will be spent on uninterrupted reading every day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a row. That’s what it takes to pull this off, and the sooner you grasp that, the more successful you’ll be over all.

2. Read every genre / don’t read bad books / don’t be ashamed of short books / don’t avoid long books. I know this is a 4-in-1, but they all come down to the same thing: avoiding BOOK BURNOUT. I cannot stress this enough: do not go into this challenge thinking you’re only going to read books in one or two genres. You will drive yourself crazy. Even if in the past, you only read mysteries or you’re only here for YA, trust me when I tell you that you’ll get absolutely sick of your regular genre. Make sure you find books that are completely different from each other. Even if you don’t like them, it’s important to try and switch things up.

That said, don’t force yourself to slog through a book that you aren’t feeling. I give all of my books 50 pages to hook me, and if I’m not absolutely into it by then, I move on. I do this intentionally, because if I’m not enthralled, I become a slow, distracted reader, and then I fall behind, and then I’ll end up 2 weeks behind and it’s not even that I didn’t want to read, it’s that I didn’t want to read this one particular book. I will also sometimes give up at the halfway point and count them as read, because I gave them a solid chance and I’ve gleaned enough to write a Goodreads review about it and spent upwards of 3 hours on it.

I also want to talk about book length, as well. This also has a lot to do with pacing, which I’ll talk more about later so forgive me if this is wonky, but here goes. You need to read books that average a certain page limit. My personal reading limit is ~200 pages a day without inciting a major book hangover. This may be different for you, but it’s important that you become really familiar with where that boundary is, and pick books to read that are no more than twice your daily limit for your day to day reading. If you can muster 150 pages a day, then you should be reading ON AVERAGE books that are around 300 pages and finishing one every 2 days. 

That said, one of my life-savers when I got behind was keeping a stack of novellas, poetry collections, and Goosebumps on hand. There are going to be days you’re too busy to read; you will need emergency books that only take half an hour of reading to get through.

By the same token, don’t discard long books. The Game of Thrones series actually got me out of a reading slump in 2018 despite each book having 1,000+ pages. I just didn’t try to read them in 2 days; instead I would read 30 pages a day on days where I had wiggle room or some extra time to pick at it. I recommend doing the same on books that you really want to read but can’t justify reading all at once, because otherwise, you’ll just wind up frustrated that you’re reading things you don’t want to be.

3. Befriend and support your local indy bookstore. Fair warning, I’m biased, but hear me out. When you’re trying to read 200 books in one year, you need a HUGE supply of books. You’re going to read new books, old books, books you’ve wanted to read for years and books you’ve never heard of before. You’re going to get books online, through friends, through the library, through thrift stores--everywhere. You will be a reading machine. Even if you own 200 books and you get rid of them as you go, you’re going to end the year owning more books than you started with--trust me. You may not know it yet, but you’re signing up for this.

If you have a local independent bookstore, go talk to the employees/owners there. Their job is not to go mark clearance, scan things, rearrange endcaps, and try as hard as possible to avoid you interrupting their daily work task, like it is at any big box retailer. Their job is to find you exactly what you want to read. They will be your Book Person. They will know what books are hot right now, they will have more recommendations than you know what to do with, if they have used books and do a trade in program their books will be cheaper than anything you find online, and if you reeeally get to know them they will probably throw in books - particularly pre-published galleys - for free (don’t tell them I said that). They also sell incredibly discounted books; at my store, specifically, we have a whole cart of books that are $1 each, and multiple bookcases of used hardcover books $3 each. It can be a lifesaver if you’re attempting this challenge on a budget.  

4. Read on different formats. Research shows that the majority of people read faster on digital devices than they do on paper, but that their comprehension is cut in half. I’m sure right now you’re probably thinking “ok, you just said to support local bookstores; why are you telling me to read on Kindle? Amazon is evil.” First off, you can procure e-books through the websites of some indy bookstores (like mine), which supports us and which we greatly appreciate. Second of all, there’s a lot of books offered online that simply aren’t available in bookstores (ex Chuck Tingle novellas). And third, I DO NOT recommending doing ALL of your reading on e-readers; your comprehension is going to suffer. With all of that said, I personally read twice as fast on my Kindle than I do reading the physical copy of a book (I tested it). It’s something to keep in mind.

5. Keep a steady pace / accept that you’ll fall behind / DON’T BINGE READ! I touched on this earlier with book length, but it’s SO, SO important to maintain a steady pace. What I ended up doing - and wish I had done from the beginning - was on any given book, I’d see how many pages total it had and mark the exact halfway point. That was how far I had to read. The next day, I knew I had to read to the end. Rinse, lather, repeat.

So what happens when you have a couple off days and you don’t get your reading done and now you’re behind? Your first inclination, I can tell you from experience, will be to try and catch up. ‘I can read 400 pages in a day,’ you’ll scoff before eating an entire book like it’s no different from a Netflix binge watch. Now you’re caught up. Problem solved... except it’s not, because the next day, you’re not going to want to look at a book. You’ve won yourself a book hangover, and you’re going to wind up even more behind than you started.

This is the reason why it’s important to keep short books on hand. Instead of binge reading, maintain your pace. Read your short books when you’re behind. If there’s a book you have to give up on, use the day to get farther in whatever long book you’re reading. DO NOT try to jack your pace beyond your daily limit and tell yourself that you can binge read without consequences. You can do that when you’re not doing this challenge.

6. Use a focus app. So this is my final advice, and it was an absolute lifesaver. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to complete this challenge without the Forest app on my phone. There are other focus apps that work just as well, but that’s the one I use. The way the focus app works is that you set a timer and it blocks you from using your phone until the timer goes off. In the case of Forest, it plants a tree and any time you unlock your phone it gives you a message like “stop phlubbing!” or “get back to work!” If you complete the timer, it plants a tree in your forest. If you ignore the timer and go on Facebook, it plants a dead tree in your forest.

I used to be really addicted to my phone and I would waste so much time just scrolling through social media or sending random texts, w.e, but because of this app all of my distractions were eliminated and I was able to consistently eke out time for my reading. I normally set 45 minute timers and I would usually be done with my scheduled reading within 3 or 4 rounds. Honestly, even if you’re not trying this challenge, I still recommend a focus app. It’s just a game changer with anything you’re trying to get done.

So yeah, that’s all. If you’ve kept on till the end, thank you SO MUCH! I know this is the longest post EVER, but reading 200 books a year isn’t easy--and I’m talkative. Please let me know if you’re trying this challenge out, or if you’re trying another challenge! How many books are you reading this year? Have you tried this before? Let me know.

[komatsunana]

Chronicles of Exandria: The Legend of Vox Machina II

I did this for the first volume, so I bought this artbook right away just to do it again. <3 My Winter’s Crest gift to all the critters.

The art. Once again I cannot overstate the stunning artwork of the critter community. I know some fans balk at the price, but all the artists are paid to have their art in the book - and I think the big price tag is well worth artist getting some compensation for their work (do correct me if I’m wrong). I won’t be sharing any photos of of the art, but most of it is available online already.

However, I will share this photo of the print on the box the book came in:

Excerpt of the Foreward:

“The memories in this book are real. They were created with love and laughter around a table with friends, and let loose on the wind to find what ears would listen.  The joys and pains of every winding turn still occupy our minds daily and if you are reading this, I suspect they live on in yours as well.  We were there.  We witnessed it unfold.” 

Vox Machina was only able to scry on Scanlan once, as seen in the episode Jugs and Rods, but some time after Scanlan warded himself against arcane sight.

The Mantle of the Tempest is described as “eternal autumn leaves.”

Keyleth goes on to rule with wisdom and grace.

Usually the Cobalt Soul has problems researching historical figures for whom there is little written word about...... With Taryon they had the opposite problem: there was too much! lmao. And 90% of it is believed to be embellished or flat out lies.

Nicknames that Taryon gave himself and were never used by anyone ever: “The Winsome Winner of Wildemount,” “Talented Tary,” “Golden-Maned Guardian of Good,” and “The Vindicator.”

Uvenda, the gnome in Vesrah, is still alive!! She’s stepped down as leader now and is the tale-teller of Vesrah.

The Ashari call the kraken that VM fought for Keyleth’s Aremente “Ulugrah the Requisite.”

Uvenda claims that Ulugrah, upon learning that the creatures it had trounced were legendary heroes (I’m assuming they mean Vox Machina), it boasts about it’s victory against them to anyone who will listen any who come to its lair in the Plane of Water.

Tova went by different epithets including: “The Bear,” “Little Half-Ear,” “The Bloody-Handed,” and “The Skin Changer.” After surviving the Hells thanks to Vax’s ring of invisibility, she gained the name “The Unseen Death.”  Little else can be verified about Tova, but none of her friends she went to with Dis survived.

Grey Hunt Lore

Lord Wolf de Rolo and Lady Melanie van Musel de Rolo were the leaders of the 4th reign of Whitestone. It was a political marriage and Melanie was particularly unhappy. She had a garden filled with flora and fauna from her home in Wildemont. The garden is now known as the Widow’s Garden and many of the plants were poisons that she used to slowly assassinate Lord Wolf with.  

After being injured in the Great Whitestone Fire, he couldn’t recover because of the poison and he died leaving Melanie the ruler. She decided to redraw the lines of the city walls, pushing into the Parchwood Timberlands which didn’t go well. Construction was plagued by accidents, animal attacks, and phantoms were reported (such as of Lord Wolf) - though the construction of a Temple of the Dawnfather went unhindered.  

Lady Melanie’s cousin was Ivan van Musel, a cleric, and he declared that Melanie had pissed off the Dawnfather by expanding without showing reverence. Ivan went into the forest after much mediation and was later found battered but alive atop a felled Direwolf.  Ivan had a vision in which the Lawbearer agreed to the expansion no further than where Ivan had felled the Direwolf and that from here on, a citizen of Whitestone must venture into the Parchwood when called to do so and be tested. 

Melanie created the title Grand Master of the Grey Hunt, the third ruling house of Whitestone, for Ivan.  The third house has since forth been in change of the Grey Hunt and managing the city’s relationship with the world beyond the city walls.

Hundreds of gold in property damage during Vox Machina’s stay at Dalen’s Closet while VM “relentlessly pranked” each other.

Whitestone became a thriving metropolis during VM’s year off - in part because of Allura keeping it safe during Thordak’s reign while everywhere else was ravaged.

K’yrrn - the dark elf that kidnapped Taryon - is from Xhorhas!

Though Tary could be called a fool, a braggart, a coward... in the moment he stood against his father’s selfishness and bigotry and forgave and reconciled with him is described as being more valiant than slaying.

Lionel Gayheart had “an unusual case of amnesia.”

JB Trickfoot continued to work in Whitestone’s library and it’s thanks to many of her notes that the Cobalt Soul has as much as they do on Vox Machina.

“Uh, yes, the very first thing I remember about meeting Vox Machina was when the red-haired lady jumped off a mountain.  It was grisly.  But what I’ll remember forever is what happened afterward.  The coin that Lady Vex’ahlia used, the glow of light, the power.  It brought her back to life.  They really were like gods.”

Taryon’s autobiography’s dedication:  “This book is dedicated to Lawrence.  But it is for my family.”

Taryon thinks his father was actually proud of Tary’s Darrington Brigade.

Tary never liked his father, but after returning home Tary began to love him.

Mariya, Tary’s mom, was part of the Brigade and took care of the injured warriors.

Maryanne, Tary’s sister, became the driving force behind the Darrington Fund charity and even gave up her home for those less fortunate than herself.  When she called Tary “brother” it was no longer an insult.

Tary is most proud that his mother finally has a united family, one to be proud of.

Kaylie Shorthalt talks a bit about Lionel - says he was a goofy son of a bitch. He kept talking to her about ducks though.  He once tried to show her his house, but he just took her to an oasis in the middle of desert that was full of ducks.

The Cobalt Soul doesn’t like to spread rumors but they do have theories of Lionel’s Marquesian mallard heritage.

Aes Adan, aka the Meat Man, rise to power coincided with the disappearance of several low to mid level criminals.

A scholar once went to visit Scanlan to interview him to see if the rumors were true that Scanlan had been the Meat Man.  The Scribe returned, unable to remember anything from his visit.  In his notebook were only crude drawings of ducks.  Scanlan still using that Modify Memory...

The fucking Cobalt Soul knows that Scanlan sacrificed the 9th level spell he was saving for Vax to stop Vecna from leaving.  It’s history folks.

For the folks out there who love the Briarwoods’ love for each other, some of an excerpt of Delilah’s journal:  “No matter the cost, my love, I will do it.  I care not how many must die, or how grave the sins must be that I commit.  I broke the world once for you, Sylas.  I shall do it again, and again, and again, for you.  For us.  Forever.”

Vecna envied the Raven Queen, as her followers did so not just because they feared her, but because they loved and respected her too.

Vecna threatened the assembled protectors of Vasselheim, saying that it would be the perfect place for ambush, but that’s no fun when there are many less-protected loved ones.  People he threatened include Earthbreaker Groon’s daughter (Desir), Vord’s family, J’mon’s concubines, all of Whitestone and particularly Cassandra.  And Young Velora Vessar, “playing alone in her room.”

The Everlight: Redeemer of All

“Comprehension is the only true measure of dominion.”

Pelor, The Dawnfather: The Primordial Light

“Faith is defined by the darkness we have not conquered.”

Ethrid Brokenbranch AKA Sprigg the Obnoxious gets his own book of history by the Cobalt Soul.  Autobiographical writings were found in the wreckage of his house

The Goddess Ioun: Our Knowing Mistress

“Comprehension is the only true measure of dominion.” (This is the same quote as for the Everlight - idk which one is the error.)

The Raven Queen: The Matron of Ravens

“By my grace, all are rendered equal.”

It is forbidden to study Arkhan the Cruel.

Vox Machina lived out the rest of their days in relative happiness and peace.

Percy’s magnum opus is the Clock Tower of Whitestone - a national treasure of Tal’Dorei.

Vex continued to rule as Baroness for a time after Percy’s passing.  Vex saw her bother’s spirit after the birth of her first child.  She reconciled somewhat with her father and showered Velora with love and blessings.

Kaylie went to school at the Alabaster Lyceum in Emon on Scanlan’s dime.

Pike and Scanlan had a lengthy courtship.

Tary’s book The Daring Trials and Tribulations of Ser Taryon Darrington contained an accurate account of his time with Vox Machina, even if nothing else is accurate.

Grog helped Earthbreaker Groon restore the Temple to the Stormlord while staying Vasselheim, defending his title in the Crucible.

The final, actual words of the book that aren’t a dedication or part of an image:  “And as the story is told: ‘Everyday that raven comes to visit.’” ;’(

There is a stunning four page fold-out page of Percy’s clock tower. I cannot emphasize enough how lovely it is.  The end of it dedicates it to Vex and is quoted with, “I couldn’t have asked for a better dream.”

On the other side of the fold-out are some... sketches of Percy’s notes? It seems that Diplomacy is now powered up by Cabal’s Ruin.

 As part of “Cobalt Souls” thank you page: “Within a book, a story can only sleep. It requires a reader to give it life.”

[classpectanon]

SIX DAYS OF KIDSWAPS - Alpha Moonswap

Another day, another Kidswap! This swaps us across same-gender, different-moon.

Jane Lalonde - Rogue of Life, Land of Crypts and Neon Roxy Crocker - Maid of Void, Land of Pyramids and Helium Dirk English - Page of Heart, Land of Tombs and Xenon Jake Strider - Prince of Hope, Land of Mounds and Krypton

FULL ANALYSES UNDER THE READ MORE

Jane Lalonde lives in a GILDED CAGE in the future of 2424, atop a CARAPACIAN CITY-STRUCTURE - they can wave, and they can say hi, but Jane can’t leave! However, from her station, she can keep watch on the entire city, and even all three of her friends, across time - wasn’t her overly paranoid POPPOP such a peach, in that way? Jane has a lot of self-esteem issues summoned from the fact that she lives such as cooped-up existence, and has a lot of pent up energy that she feels a need to vent but can’t. Most of the time, she sublimates her energy into cooking large meals, occasionally dumping them into the ocean when she feels like she’s messed up even a single step. Still, it’s not all that bad, since Jane was left with a COLLECTION OF CLASSIC JAZZ MUSIC that she actually enjoys, and likes to BIRDWATCH, when there are BIRDS IN THE SKY TO WATCH.

Jane Lalonde’s Land is the LAND OF CRYPTS AND NEON, a crunchy, crispy land seemingly comprised entirely of dead plants and vines, holding their BRIGHTLY LIT CRYPTS inside GIANT NEON FRUITS that occasionally drop from the sky, crash through the land, and end in a jumbled mess near the planet’s CORE, forming a DENSE META-CRYPT that surrounds CHRYSUS, her Denizen. She will have to slowly clear through the META-CRYPT, one chamber at a time, to reach CHRYSUS and challenge them.

Jane uses SHURIKENKIND, which, curiously, vinyl records map to, and has an ENCRYPTION MODUS, which she never uses, ever. Her symbol is a stylized canary in a cage. Her CHUMHANDLE is transparentGold.

-

Roxy Crocker lives in a lovely little suburban house in Washington, with her kind of loopy Mother, disgraced former-heiress to the Crockercorp foundation. Roxy’s home is filled top to bottom with BOOKS - not literally, or in a hoarder way, but it’s pretty much a PRIVATE LIBRARY, EVERYWHERE, with stuff from every possible genre you can think of, fiction to nonfiction. The only issue with a lifestyle like this is that Roxy’s mom prefers to be reading than taking care of her daughter, leading Roxy to learn to FEND FOR HERSELF - She got her first job selling lemonade nice and early, and now runs SEVERAL INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES, some of which are from home, including an ILLICIT SCHOOL GUM SALES INDUSTRY with dealers and everything. Oh yes, Roxy LOVES GUM, and HORSES (which she hopes to buy one day, a horse or two), and BOXING. Without an outlet for her SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF ANGER AT HER MOTHER, she’s turned to BOXING as her DRUG OF CHOICE.

Roxy’s Land is the LAND OF PYRAMIDS AND HELIUM, which, unsurprisingly, contains many FLOATING, UPSIDE DOWN PYRAMIDS above a VAST SEA OF LIQUID HELIUM, which is VERY COLD. Her DENIZEN, POSEIDON, exists at the center of this sea, and Roxy must brave each of the SIX PYRAMIDS in order to get the ALCHEMIZATION MATERIALS to create a sturdy enough ARMOR SET to BRAVE THE WATERS OF VOID.

Roxy uses GAUNTLETKIND, and has a SALES MODUS, which has a large carrying size, but larger objects require more boondollars to withdraw (this quickly becomes a nonissue). Her symbol is a dollar sign. Her CHUMHANDLE is guerillaGasket.

-

Dirk English lives in an ABANDONED ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC, with his BROTHER, an eccentric and brilliant man who abandoned the trappings of modern society to live on an island and instead create music with and build increasingly insane gigantic instruments. As a child, Dirk was given the option of one of several disciplines to focus himself into, and chose ACTING as his ideal environment to hone his craft, eventually becoming a MASTER ACTOR, capable of even fooling his friends into thinking they are talking to different people, which he does, sometimes. Once they enter the game, Dirk finds the stress of his land to grow too much, and fractures into several SPLINTERS, each one representing one of his favorite several THEATER CHARACTERS, which he must work very hard to re-integrate into one complete whole. Outside of that, Dirk likes to FLIRT UNSUCCESSFULLY, READ BOOKS ABOUT HOW TO FLIRT SUCCESSFULLY, and FIGHT HIS BROTHER’S MANY MUSICAL AUTOMATA, something he has grown increasingly proficient at.

Dirk’s Land is the LAND OF TOMBS AND XENON, a land of towering buildings on the bare edge of ruination, and the thousands of XENON THREADS that tie them together, thin glass tubes that spell disaster when broken, carefully interwoven. Although initially, it seems otherwise, Dirk’s Denizen, ASTARTE, can only be reached once Dirk RECONCILES WITH HIMSELF and SHATTERS THE THREADS, leaving the land to collapse inward and crush his Denizen to death. There is no conversation to be had.

Dirk uses FISTKIND, LANCEKIND, STAFFKIND, PISTOLKIND, TRIDENTKIND, and 2XBLADEKIND all with equal proficiency. His Sylladex Modus is the MASK MODUS, which covers all cards with a thematically appropriate mask that makes it sometimes difficult to figure out what’s in what card. His symbol is a comedy mask. His CHUMHANDLE is gnarlyThespian.

-

Jake Strider is KIND OF AN ASSHOLE. That’s not to say he tries not to be, because he does, UNSUCCESSFULLY. When you’re living in the POST-APOCALYPSE and all your LONG-DEAD MOTHER CAN OFFER YOU is SEVERAL THOUSAND UNFINISHED PROJECTS and a BUNCH OF ANIME BLU-RAYS, you get a little bitter at her for not leaving you more useful things, like food, or a fishing pole. Still, he manages, even managing to put on some weight once he taught Jane how to put together a SENDIFICATOR. Jake has spent a while finishing up all of DEAR OLD JADE’S PROJECTS, and has basically become sort of a RENAISSANCE MAN in the process, but when things come down to it, all he wants to do is calm down, not fight off imperial drones, and FISH. He has a tendency of accidentally CRUSHING PEOPLE’S DREAMS with FACTS AND REASON, something he is aware of and resents himself for.

Jake’s Land is the LAND OF MOUNDS AND KRYPTON, a land full of MASS GRAVES of the consorts, who died TOO FAST TO LEAVE CIVILIZATION due to the KRYPTON GAS that chokes the planet. Without any tools, information, or even ruins to explore, Jake must simply SURVIVE until the other planet quests are finished, which unlocks the path to JUPITER, his Denizen.

Jake Strider uses SNIPERRIFLEKIND, and has a spare allocation for FISHINGRODKIND. His Sylladex uses the PILE-UP MODUS, a half-finished Modus that MOM was building with both a nearly infinite storage size, but can only release objects with the EMERGENCY EJECT, evacuating EVERYTHING IN THE SYLLADEX. His symbol is a stylized fish. His CHUMHANDLE is terabyteTotalitarian.

[nanonaturalist]

Yo! I’m an Anthropology student but I’m super fascinated with entomology n’ the like. Any tips for how to self study entomology/get started? How did you become the bug lover you are today?

Sup! I am a HUGE animal lover. Like, I don’t think you understand how much I love animals. Back when google image search was this crazy new thing, I would google things like “puffer fish” and literally start crying from how cute and precious they were. I don’t remember ever not liking bugs. I was bringing in caterpillars when my age was single digits, which I named and kept in shoe boxes, and who would invariably wander out and make a random cocoon somewhere.

STORY TIME! (what? you wanted a short answer? Sorry!)

… (actually check out this post from a while back [link] about tips for getting started, it was written for a high school student but most of the things I mention are good for all ages)…

Thing is, this was the point in history when you needed to use a card catalog to look a book up in the library. No idea what I’m talking about? That’s how long ago this was. If there was a book about bugs in the school book order form, I would ask for it (and sometimes I’d get one), but that was the full extent of my knowledge pool for things that we weren’t directly taught about in school. In 4th grade, we had a unit on marine animals (with the most amazing field trip on a research boat ever, omg the scuba divers brought up things for us to touch, and we got to look at plankton in the microscope eeeeeee!), and it was like I was reborn. I memorized everything we learned, including the taxonomy of cnidaria (jellies, anemones, corals) and strange eating habits of echinoderms (starfish, urchins). I got REAL into this stuff, to the point where 4 years later, I told anybody who asked me that when I grew up, I was going to get a PhD in Marine Biology.

There was just one problem. You can’t get a degree in any kind of animal biology without doing dissections or killing things. Remember, I’m an animal Lover with a capital L. I wanted to be a vegetarian starting at age 4 (parents said no, but I picked meat out of everything until I made it official at 12). So I gave up on biology real quick. Flash forward about ten years to 2006. I had graduated from college (with a psychology degree that cost me $70,000), was working soul-sucking jobs, and needed a hobby. But wait, DIGITAL CAMERAS ARE A THING! WOW! So I picked up “crappy nature photography” as a hobby. And what did I take pictures of with my First Ever Digital Camera when I bought one that summer?

I found this longhorn beetle on the hood of my car at a rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. But back in 2006… What are you going to do with pictures of bugs when you have no background in biology? I posted some on LiveJournal, and that was that. What kind of bug was it? I couldn’t even tell you that it was a beetle at that point. And when I was going through my old photos more recently, I couldn’t even remember seeing it.

I still took photos of basically everything I saw, but nothing ever really happened with them.

Who are these? At the time (photos are from 2006 to 2009), the most I could have told you was “dragonfly, wasp, spider, caddisfly larva.” Which is pretty good, I guess, but I didn’t even realize how much diversity I was missing out on by not going any deeper. 

Me + Slugs: Left - Banana Slug in Redwood National Forest, CA (2008); Center and Right - Chocolate Arion Slug at my apartment in Redmond, WA (2006)

Time passes, nature photos are taken. I will take photos of any bug I see, but I don’t intentionally seek them out and I never know what any of them are. Now flash forward to 2013, when I moved from Seattle, WA to Austin, TX. 

My mind was blown. The bugs were huge, strange, and EVERYWHERE. I NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE! But… It was still hard. At this point, looking things up on the internet was just what you did, but … what was I supposed to look up? “Giant screaming thing in my potted plant that looks like a leaf?” “Pile of handsnails?” I took pictures, shared them on Facebook (nobody used Livejournal anymore!), and went about my day. 

At this point, I had gone back to college to study engineering (I moved to Austin for grad school), and somehow ended up watching a lot of youtube. SciShow got me onto VlogBrothers, which got me onto The Brain Scoop (@thebrainscoop), which got me onto tumblr *waves*. And I was thinking some hard thoughts about what I actually wanted to do when I grew up because I was tired of soul-sucking jobs. Hey, I love museums (that’s actually where most of my science knowledge came from), so I started thinking about careers in science museums, and I followed UT’s collection page on Facebook. One day in 2015, they shared an event for a Bioblitz, sponsored by several groups associated with UT and Texas Parks and Wildlfie. What’s a Bioblitz? I had no idea. So I clicked. 

Basically, you take as many pictures of living things as you can. There were subject matter experts who would lead you on hikes and tell you what things were and how you can tell them apart (WAIT, WHAT?!?). The event required that you download this new nature app called iNaturalist (@inaturalist), which is where you would post the photos you took. With the data you posted from the app, other users of the website would identify your photos, and the state park we were at would use that data to create species checklists to track what occurred there. Your iNat account kept a permanent log of all of your observations. I tend to be extremely skeptical/resistant to new technologies and being told to do things, so at first I wanted to know what was wrong with the way I took photos NOW, I didn’t need some stupid website telling me what to do.

But then I started testing it out before the event.

Two of my first iNat observations (both butterflies). Left: Henry’s Elfin caterpillar; Right: American Lady butterfly. Links to iNat observations.

I had no idea where to start with identifying either of these, and the Henry’s Elfin caterpillar took me a few years to ID myself. But the American Lady? People told me what it was within hours of me posting it. Within hours.

About a week later, the Bioblitz happened. It was perfect. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were just like me. They wanted to go on long slow walks through nature, turning over logs and walking directly into ponds and poking at insects, all while taking photos of things and identifying them. I was spending the weekend with real life biologists and I was learning everything I could. And the things I saw?

HOLY CARP. Texas has dung beetles?! (top left) Parasitic wasps REALLY DO THAT? (braconid wasp cocoons on inchworm caterpillar, top right) Diving beetles?! (water scavenger beetle, bottom left) Giant fishing spiders?! (bottom right)

This event was the moment I “got started” with entomology. I regularly used iNaturalist, and in the process of trying to identify my observations with BugGuide.net [link], I quickly began to learn some of the “basics.” For example, stink bugs are a thing. So are green lacewings. And there are a LOT more kinds of spiders than orbweavers and wolf spiders (who knew?). I was so smitten with iNaturalist that I professed my love for all to read on tumblr [link] (all being… 3 people?). I used iNaturalist regularly, but still, unless I was on a bioblitz, I didn’t seek things out. I mentioned I was a grad student, right?

Then 2016 rolls around. I’ve had enough of school and drop master out of my program. I get a Real Engineering Job and Buy a House with a Yard. I started my new job when I was finishing up my thesis (probably not the best idea…) and so my back yard took on a life of its own. By the time I had finished my thesis, the grass was hip height, and the HOA had no rules about what my back yard had to look like, so I just never mowed it. And the bugs… oh man, the bugs. The bugs were good. By January 2017, I was getting more confident in my Bug Knowledge, and I was using iNaturalist every week. I had joined clubs centered around nature (Texas Master Naturalists and Travis Audubon). I signed up for a birding trip in Malawi. Then in April, I found a pile of butterfly eggs and a chrysalis. And the guy leading the Malawi trip (one of the directors at Travis Audubon) asked me to do an insect table at their outreach event. Then City Nature Challenge 2017 happened (and I am *very* competitive). And… uh… I guess I just never looked back?

The thing to remember here is: the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. What I love about iNaturalist is that I can create a time capsule showing what I did and didn’t know at the time. And what I didn’t know is… really amazing. I taught the entomology class for my Master Naturalist chapter’s training course this year, and I told the people in the class that one year ago, I didn’t know any of the things I was going to talk to them about. I know it sounds like I’m putting on a commercial for iNaturalist (which is actually exactly what I’m doing, I love that website), but besides the curiosity about nature that I had to begin with, iNaturalist is the single most important thing that has enabled me to nurture and grow my love for our invertebrate friends.

Through my use of iNaturalist, I have met real people and made real friendships. Many of the people I meet are professionally biologists, but there are just as many randos like me who crawled out of the internet to hang out with nature freaks. One of the great things about this community is there is no elitism, and even professional entomologists are just as willing to admit they have no idea what something is and will listen to me explain what I know, as they are to explain something I don’t know and answer my questions. The people I have met are absolutely awesome, and the general attitude people on iNat (online and in person) tend to have has really rubbed off on me. If someone I’m talking to doesn’t know something that tends to be commonly known (example: my coworker is a gardener, but hadn’t heard about the ant/aphid relationship), oh boy, it’s awesome, let me TELL YOU about ANTS fighting off PREDATORS so they can DRINK APHID PEE!!!

Above: Crematogaster ants farming keeled treehopper nymphs on sunflower SO THEY CAN DRINK THEIR PEE

One of the best things you can do to get more into entomology is to just be observant. Look. Notice patterns. Pay attention to relationships between “higher” and “lower” organisms. When you travel, look there too. What is different from home? What’s similar?

The other best thing: meet people. Find groups/clubs for people into nature. Go on hikes with entomologists. Go to “nature days” events (these are always geared towards kids, but ADULTS ARE WELCOME!). A lot of nature clubs and organizations are heavy on the retiree demographic, which means the meetings may not be easy to learn about online. I actually joined the Austin Butterfly Forum after hearing about it from the people I was sitting next to at a Travis Audubon event (Victor Emanuel’s autobiography had just published and he kicked off his book tour with a live interview in Austin), and I’ve met several new friends through ABF. 

I don’t even know how to explain it, but naturalists are a totally different flavor than any other person I’ve known. It’s like, there are other people who would rather be crawling through the swamp in 105°F weather for 8 hours straight than sit and watch TV? There are other people who will skip two meals and stay up until 2 am to get really good bug pictures? I mean, I can’t describe what it feels like to be slowly picking through the deserts of west Texas with 15 other people, when one of them yells, “SNAKE!” and suddenly EVERYBODY RUNS TOWARDS THE SNAKE AND IMPATIENTLY WAITS THEIR TURN TO HOLD HIM. 

I know this is long and maybe not entirely what you were expecting, @marichuu, but want to make sure that anybody reading this knows that if you like nature, even if you don’t know very much about it now, there are a ton of people like me and those weirdos up there who are so excited to share the world with you that you can’t even imagine it now. Want to stay online because you’re nervous about meeting new people? That’s great! Tons of us are online! But if you’re ready to put yourself out there and meet people in person, chances are, they’re awesome and will love answering your questions (and if they’re not awesome tell me and I’ll YELL AT THEM FOR YOU YOU DESERVE BETTER). 

Anyway. Bugs are awesome and I hope they think you are just as awesome. Also anthropology is super neat and there’s a lot of intersections with entomology [link] that you can look at from an interesting angle.

Posted June 4, 2018

[rosemarytonks]

The Way Out of Berkeley Square, by Rosemary Tonks (1970)

Rosemary Tonks is now known as the poet who disappeared, thanks to a 2009 BBC program (“The Poet Who Vanished”) and features in the Guardian, TLS, the London Review of Books, the Poetry Foundation and others following her death in May 2014 and the reissue that fall of Bedouin of the London Evening, a collection of her poems and selected prose. In truth, she didn’t disappear as much as take a deliberate decision to step away from the life of London and literature she’d led since the mid-1950s. She had health problems, became a devout Christian, and spent her last thirty years in Bournemouth having little or no contact with the large circle of writers, artists, and friends she had known. Sometime in late 1981, she retrieved most of her souvenirs and papers from storage in London and burned them in her garden incinerator. In the years before her death, she read only from the Bible.

The reissue of Bedouin of the London Evening has done much to restore Rosemary Tonks’ standing as an innovative and challenging poet of the sixties. Though praised when her two collections of poems were first published, her poetry is aggressive, edgy, unsettled. “Her poems matched the forceful personality, being rhetorically explosive, with more exclamation marks than anyone else used,” one of her contemporaries recalled. She was neither feminist nor conservative: more than anything, she was an individualist. Several observers have remarked that she most admired the spirit of the flâneur — “equal parts curiosity and laziness” — as embodied in the work of Balzac and Baudelaire:

The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.

She was a creature of the city. As she writes in “Diary of a Rebel,”

For my fierce hot-blooded sulkiness I need the café – where old mats Of paper lace catch upon coatsleeves That are brilliant with the nap of idleness …And the cant of the meat-fly is eternal!

She told a Guardian interviewer in 1968 that she used to drive straight into the centre of London each morning, and then to a cafe south of Putney Bridge, where she had scrambled eggs. And the photo on the cover of Bedouin of the London Evening shows her at work at a sidewalk table, a large café-au-lait sitting beside a stack of books and papers. Bloodaxe Books is to be commended for taking advantage of ebook technology and included recordings of Tonks reading a dozen of her poems, along with an interview with Peter Orr, in the EPUB and Kindle versions.

Tonks’ work as a novelist, however, has yet to be rediscovered, for the simple reason that it’s almost impossible to get hold of one of her six novels. The cheapest copy goes for over $70, the dearest for over $400. And forget about finding Emir (1963) outside a couple handfuls of libraries worldwide (she disowned it, anyway). Thanks to the Public Library of India, however, you can find her first novel, Opium Fogs (1963), online in electronic formats.

With the help of my daughter and the University of Washington Library, I was able recently to read Tonks’ 1970 novel, A Way Out of Berkeley Square. At the time it came out, the book probably seemed too odd, too marginal to merit much consideration. “I’m thirty, and I’m stuck,” Tonks’ protagonist, Arabella, complains. Living with her father, romantically involved with a married man, and barely employed with the job of decorating some flats her father is renovating, she was neither the Victorian model of a spinster nor the Seventies’ vision of a woman taking charge of her own life. One reviewer dismissed Arabella as “30 on her driver’s license and 13 in her emotional development.”

This is pretty close to her father’s estimation. He would have her be both the Victorian spinster, serving up a hot dinner and keeping a tidy home for him, and a go-getter, diving into the business of interior decoration with a profit-minded zeal. The one thing he can’t accept is what she is:

My father can’t bear ordinary life; a woman in a dirty cardigan with two pockets on the stomach misshapen by handkerchiefs makes him bristle up, the sight of a coarsely-patterned formica table with brown tea-cup rings on it and large yellow crumbs will cause him a temporary loss of personality, his ego buries itself in one of his shoes and leaves the rest of his body to look after itself, grey, inert.

“I’m out of the habit of taking action,” she thinks. “I don’t have a proper stake in life, in the world.” She definitely doesn’t care for a future of caring for her father for decades until he dies — and then having nothing to show for it. But she’s also skeptical that there is any pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow of marriage and/or career:

Inside the showroom I catch the eyes of various men and women, torpid and haggard as drug-addicts, as they turn over the endless fabrics. I have never actually seen a face with an expression on it in this showroom; blanks, and more blanks with dead eyes. The suffering is awful, and it goes on and on, like writing out “I must not say bloody” a hundred times at school, until you’re free to rejoin the mainstream of life.

Yet she wonders, “Shall I take this bit of life, because if I don’t I may not have any life at all?”

Her one lifeline is her brother, who has escaped from London to Karachi, where he is trying to find the distance and energy to make a start as a poet. They write each other nearly every day — he consoling her over their father’s domination, she cheering on his efforts to embrace his new surroundings and work on his writing. When his correspondence suddenly stops, she worries — then panics when she learns after a gap of weeks that he has contracted polio and is barely surviving with the help of his cook. (This parallels Tonks’ own experience of contracting typhoid and then polio while living in India early in the 1950s.)

The crisis kicks her out of her doldrums. Though still very much dependent upon him to arrange for her brother’s care and return to England, it’s Arabella who prods her complacent father and forces the action. In so doing, she discovers a capacity in herself she had not suspected: “I’ve found out that strength is silent; it doesn’t have to be talked about, proved, or borrowed from others. It isn’t even called strength, but action.”

It’s likely that The Way Out of Berkeley Square would have a more favorable reception today. A fair number of women (and men) are stuck living with their parents into their thirties with the decline in earning power and finding the experience demoralizing and emotionally stultifying. And Tonks’ prose is studded with little gems of description. Of her father’s car: “His new Bentley is fully automatic, has doors as heavy as safe doors from the Bank of England, and a steel body as wide as a ping-pong table. Inside you serve from one corner of it, while burning hot air and noisy stereophonic music try to draw off your attention, subdue, drown and kill you.” Of her married lover’s best talent: “Now there are some men who are so good at getting women across traffic that it’s a form of love-making, in which the woman is touched, protected, and lifted forward, until she reaches the opposite pavement in a state of mild delirium.” Kirkus’s reviewer called Tonks’ prose “A decorative style but it’s all parsley.” Well, if that’s parsley, I say bring it on.

I was able to get my hands on a copy of Tonks’ last novel, The Halt During The Chase (1972), so I hope to post something on that as well as Opium Fogs soon.

[The Neglected Books Page, 16 August 2018]

[douchebagbrainwaves]

NO MATTER HOW DETERMINED YOU ARE, YOU SHOULD TRY TO PROVE IT, BECAUSE LORD-OF-THE-FLIES SCHOOLS AND BUREAUCRATIC COMPANIES ARE BOTH THE DEFAULT

I want to reach users, you do know what's happening inside it. Why?1 Just imagine how it would feel to call a support line and be treated as someone bringing important news. It's important to realize that, no, the adults don't know what you're going to look at the famous 1984 ad now, it's easier to read than a regular article. Which is not that different. But writing an interface to a piece of software doesn't teach you anything, because the main value of that initial version is not the hours but the responsibility. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been a mistake. So if intelligence in itself is less likely to introduce bugs. When you interview a startup and think they seem likely to succeed at all. But they're also too young to be left unsupervised.2 At best it was practice for real work.3 I must have explained something badly.

But evidence suggests most things with titles like this are linkbait.4 But I've learned never to say never about technology. As a general rule for finding problems best solved in one head. How much you should worry about being an outsider is being aware of one's own procrastination. If it's any consolation to the nerds, it's nothing personal. As an outsider, take advantage of direct contact with the medium. That scenario may seem unlikely now, but it wouldn't be a top priority. 0 out fast, then continue to improve the software, all you need is a department with the right colleagues in it. The remarkable thing about this project was that he wrote all the software in a Web-based software, you can in one step enable all your users to page people, or send faxes, or send faxes, or send commands by phone, or process credit cards, etc, just by installing the relevant hardware. A lot of the top 10,000 hackers, the route is at least straightforward: make the search engine you yourself want.

There is nothing inevitable about the current system. Now the frightening giant is Microsoft, and I think this will be the only kind that work everywhere. So if intelligence in itself is less likely to introduce bugs.5 You're at least close enough to work that the smell of dinner cooking.6 It seemed like selling out. After trying the demo, signing up for the service should require nothing more than filling out a brief form the briefer the better.7 For Web-based applications offer a straightforward way to outwork your competitors.

Next time, I won't.8 I've noticed some cracks in their fortress. The word try is an especially valuable component. But most kids would take that deal. So you don't have to rely on teaching or research funding to support oneself. I was talking recently to someone who knew Apple well, and I know it's the wrong thing to optimize. In software this kind of bug is the hardest to find, and also tends to have the computations happening on the desktop. It will seem preposterous to future generations that we wait till patients have physical symptoms to be diagnosed with conditions like heart disease and cancer.

Viaweb the developers were always in close contact with support. The more the work depends on imagination, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto—which means you accumulate knowledge at what's colloquially called an exponential rate. That's what they miss. Trying to write the software than because we expected users to want to be popular. Apple leaves no room there. As European scholarship gained momentum it became less and less important; by 1350 someone who wanted to buy them, however limited.9 I see someone laugh as they read a draft of an essay to friends, there are two great universities, but they're such assholes. 1 that effectively all the returns are concentrated in a few top university departments and research labs—partly because talent is harder to judge, and partly to get exactly what we wanted. The alarming thing is, he'd know enough not to have to work on projects with an intensity in both senses that few insiders can match.

I've said some harsh things in this essay I found that after following a certain thread I ran out of ideas? The remarkable thing about this project was that he wrote all the software in a Web-based applications, everything you associate with startups is taken to an extreme with Web-based software will be written on this model.10 Make them do more at your peril. Or rather, I don't think they realize how much software development is affected by the way it is released.11 In startups one person may have to use it, and group themselves according to whatever shared interest they feel most strongly. Teenagers seem to have made that deal, though perhaps none of them had any choice in the matter.12 We would leave a board meeting to fix a serious bug in OS X, instead of releasing a software update immediately, they had to submit their code to an intermediary who sat on it for a month and then rejected it because it yields the best results.13

That's what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack.14 Version 4. And unlike other potential mistakes on that scale, it costs nothing to fix. But, in my school at least, a better writer than someone who wrote eleven that were merely good. Just imagine how it would feel to call a support line and be treated as someone bringing important news.15 For example, most people seem to miss most is the lack of time. But when you choose a language, you're also choosing a community.

How do you get them to switch. That's what I thought before Viaweb, to the extent I thought about the question at all. My current development machine is a MacBook Air, which I spent worrying about, but not writing, my dissertation. My father's entire industry breeder reactors disappeared that way. We had general ideas about things we wanted to hear from customers. It's just a legitimate sounding way of saying: we don't like your type around here. One of my tricks for generating startup ideas is to imagine the ways in which we'll seem backward to future generations that we wait till patients have physical symptoms to be diagnosed with cancer. They're like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water.16

Notes

These false positive rates are untrustworthy, as Prohibition and the hundreds of thousands of small and use whatever advantages that brings. But the change is a constant.

Some graffiti is quite impressive anything becomes art if you saw Jessica at a 5 million cap. The banks now had to bounce back. Even college textbooks are not very far along that trend yet.

I'd say the raison d'etre of prep schools do, just harder. 001 negative effect on college admissions process. Whereas the value of a long time I thought there wasn't, because users' needs often change in the US News list tells us is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate everything else in the same lesson, partly because you can work out. You'd have to include in your plans, you have to deliver the lines meant for a monitor.

Only a fraction of VCs even have positive returns. Letter to Oldenburg, quoted in Westfall, Richard. Median may be exaggerated by the government, it is less secure.

I'm not saying you should avoid.

Charismatic candidates will tend to be room for startups to have figured out how to do that? We often discuss revenue growth.

This is a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that if there is one of them is that promising ideas are not more. In that case the implications are similar.

They overshot the available RAM somewhat, causing much inconvenient disk swapping, but they were, they'd be proportionately more effective, leaving less room for something that would get shut down in the body or header lines other than those I mark. Maybe the corp dev people are these days. After a while we can teach startups a lot of money around is never something people treat casually. But while this sort of wealth, seniority will become less common for founders; if they seem pointless.

There need to raise a series of numbers that are only slightly richer for having these things. Later you can make things very confusing. On the other cheek skirts the issue; the idea that was more because they couldn't afford a monitor is that everyone gets really good at sniffing out any red flags about the new top story. Not all were necessarily supplied by the Corporate Library, the initial capital requirement for German companies is that there's more of it, but they can't legitimately ask you a series A from a book from a VC recently who said they wanted, so I called to check and in some cases the process of selling things to the founders' salaries to the point where it does, the best case.

01.

Throw in the same amount of stock options than any of his peers will get funding, pretty much regardless of how you spent all your time working on is a negotiation.

All he's committed to rejecting it.

Later we added two more modules, an image generator were written in C, and most sophisticated city in the startup is rare. A round. Record labels, for the same reason 1980s-style knowledge representation could never have left PARC.

On the other team.

The problem in high school is that you end up making something that flows from some central tap.

The more people would be to advertise, and this destroyed all traces. But their founders, if you're attacked in this way. As a rule, if an employer hired men based on that? As Paul Buchheit points out, it's hard to say that Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Thanks to Harjeet Taggar, Ben Horowitz, Dan Siroker, Jessica Livingston, rew Mason, Paul Buchheit, and Trevor Blackwell for smelling so good.

[grenade-maid]

I ended up having a dream about this, and I can't remember the last time I cried so hard.

I couldn't say how long but for at least the last 6-12 months my dreams always end as nightmares. But tonight, I walked through a door in a burning building full of people choking on blood and ended up in my childhood home as it was when I was ten years old. A friend of mine I parted ways with in my twenties was there, too, also how I remembered him at ten. He touched one of the exposed tv and phone cables that hung from the ceiling in the laundry room which no longer connect to anything, and said that he loves that you can see the history of everything people did in this house. He produced a battered library book from his backpack and together we cleaned it up and taped a new cover on and glued the broken spine back together. As we did so, he told me how meaningful my old job was--the one I just left. That the care I put into it was important. And I could tell that he meant it.

The care I put into it then isn't valued anymore, and it can't be. Circulation is higher than ever, but people don't come in for a sense of community anymore. There are no language groups or school tutors or story time for kids. Since COVID hit, it's just a place to pick up books you put on hold, a beautiful warehouse but a warehouse all the same. Patrons only talk to me to get what they want or complain that they aren't getting what they want. They don't ask me anything because my knowledge of what's on our shelves doesn't really matter anymore. They don't tell me about their art projects or what their club is doing, and I wouldn't have time to listen anyway.

The care I put into it isn't valued anymore, and it can't be. The staffing model has transitioned to a skeleton crew just like everywhere else. My old job classification was eliminated and duties shifted to others in an attempt to halve the number of staff needed per branch. To keep up with such high demand with so few people we can't linger or be sentimental about anything. When we find a damaged book we put them in a bin, and when the bin fills up we sit around tearing off the covers and cutting the glued spine from the pages so each part can be properly disposed of. A lot of us, me included, love the catharsis of it. It's often the only time we can sit down and take our time with something.

To be told that what I used to do mattered, to feel that recognition with the full knowledge that this version of my old friend said it with whole sincerity and with a complete understanding of every feeling and intimate detail. To see this friend as he was when we were closest and feel every ounce of how important our friendship was to him. To be in that house as it used to be and have it articulated every detail that I would miss as time goes on.

My mom reminded me that at that time and all through high school we couldn't afford to keep the heat on in winter. But what I remember was laying on the spot in the kitchen where you could feel the warmth of the hot water pipes through the floor, and my friends and the cats and our dog would join me. What I remember was that she had enough time to help put up a Christmas tree in December.

I saw one of my old pay stubs from my old job while doing taxes and saw that every cent was eaten by bills by the end of the month. But what I remember was finally getting to play Undertale with the little sliver of disposable cash there was occasionally left in between.

To be told that what I did mattered, that he knew how much I cared, and feeling the reverberations of all of the context I just described in a moment lasting maybe two minutes at most, it was just too much to bear. I've been awake for an hour now and the tears still haven't stopped.

In any case, I think like, ultimately, when talking about what we want out of a partner or relationship, most of the time we rarely actually want just the specific discrete object or action we describe wanting–we want the ability to feel the significance of it in that moment, born of the weight of thought put into it by the other party, or their familiarity with who you are and what makes you happy. We want to be able to feel today the significance of what will in 5 or 10 or 20 years be a moment you remember and recount fondly, wishing you could have understood how meaningful it was at the time so you could have savored it more, or that you could go back and repeat it somehow. To at once be there in the moment overwhelmed by the gravity of love but also telling your friends about it next weekend and telling the story at your wedding and being there when your children tell their own children how much their parents loved each other, all at the same time. Like a mirror reflecting through time, both the singer on stage delivering the performance of their life and the ones in the audience seeing it for the first time and the long time fan who knows every word. In other words, the universal core of wanting to be seen and to see it, to be understood and to understand it. If wanting someone who would get up a few minutes before you to put on the coffee and get the toast started were actually just about coffee and toast you’d just put the pot and the toaster oven on an automatic timer.

[vices-aand-virtues]

My reading goal for 2017 was 24 books; basically, 2 books per month. Thanks to audiobooks (combined with my long commute) and plenty of time to read this summer, I was able to surpass my goal and read 36 books. I tried to make a final push the last few days to get to 37 or 38, but I decided to end it at 36 so I could really savor the books I had planned to fly through. As a result, I decided that I would add them to my 2018 reading list, and include them in them in my 2018 PopSugar Ultimate Reading Challenge.

This challenge will not be easy; the advanced challenge is 50 books. But I am going to give it my best shot. I think with the help of audiobooks, and once I finish my internship in a few months, it is something that really will challenge me, not only to accomplish a goal, but to broaden my reading horizons.

I mean, it’s just 14 more books than I read this year, and I only got Audible in October. Imagine if I had had it all year! :)

Anyway, I wanted to share my reading list for the challenge with the world because it’s fun, and so that I have some more accountability. It’s subject to change, but these are the choices I have made for 2018 as of now.

2018 PopSugar Ultimate Reading Challenge

1.  A book made into a movie you’ve already seen – Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen complete 2.  True Crime – Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale (changed from original list) complete 3.  The next book in a series you started – By the Banks of Plum Creek (Little House #4) by Laura Ingalls Wilder complete 4.  A book involving a heist – The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton complete 5.  Nordic noir – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  by Stieg Larsson complete 6.  A novel based on a real person – Midnight in Broad Daylight by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto complete 7.  A book set in a country that fascinates you – The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman complete 8.  A book with a time of day in the title – Welcome to Night Vale by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink (changed from original list) 9.  A book about a villain or antihero – Dark Places by Gillian Flynn complete 10.  A book about death or grief – The Guardians: An Elegy for a Friend by Sarah Manguso  complete 11.  A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym – City of Dark Magic: A Novel by Magnus Flyte complete 12.  A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist – More Than This by Patrick Ness complete 13.  A book that is also a stage play or musical – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon  complete 14.  A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you – The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur complete 15.  A book about feminism – Double Bind: Women on Ambition by Robin Romm  complete 16.  A book about mental health – Love’s Executioner by Irvin Yalom (changed from original list) complete 17.  A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift – Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (changed from original list) complete 18.  A book by two authors – Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan complete 19.  A book about or involving a sport – The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown complete 20.  A book by a local author – The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros complete 21.  A book with your favorite color in the title – A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler complete 22.  A book with alliteration in the title – Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt  complete 23.  A book about time travel – The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger complete 24.  A book with a weather element in the title – Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah complete 25.  A book set at sea – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 26.  A book with an animal in the title – My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell complete 27.  A book set on a different planet – Red Rising by Pierce Brown (changed from original list) complete 28.  A book with song lyrics in the title – Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang  complete 29.  A book about or set on Halloween – Dead Leaves: 9 Tales from the Witching Season by Kealan Patrick Burke  complete 30.  A book with characters who are twins – I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson  complete 31.  A book mentioned in another book – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams complete 32.  A book from a celebrity book club – The Lying Game by Ruth Ware (Reese Witherspoon’s book club) complete 33.  A childhood classic you’ve never read – The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry complete 34.  A book that’s published in 2018 – In Conclusion, Don’t Worry About It by Lauren Graham complete 35.  A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner – Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed complete 36.  A book set in the decade you were born – Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng (1990s) (changed from original list) complete 37.  A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn’t get to – I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World by Malala Yousafzai 38.  A book with an ugly cover – Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (changed from original list) complete 39.  A book that involves a bookstore or library – Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan complete 40.  Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2016 - a book that’s more than 600 Pages) complete

Advanced Additions: 1.  A bestseller from the year you graduated high school – A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (2009) complete 2.  A cyberpunk book – Neuromancer by William Gibson  DNF 3.  A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place – The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan complete 4.  A book tied to your ancestry – All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr  complete 5.  A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows complete 6.  An allegory – The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster complete 7.  A book by an author with the same first or last name as you – No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July complete 8.  A microhistory – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot complete 9.  A book about a problem facing society today – Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine  complete 10.  A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge – Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb (from a member of the goodreads challenge group)  complete