#and the only time im available to draw is sunday

[pink-anonymous-person]

Is this blog is still alive? ;w;

yes it’s still alive.. just not very active like it used to. i don’t have the inspiration to draw for this blog and i get nervous to post again :[

[heyitslapis]

On the downside i dont have a laptop/computer yet but ON THE BRIGHT SIDE i get my first paycheck from my new job & my paycheck from my current job next week so once i pay my rent & utilities i should hopefully have a good amount left over & can finally purchase a computer to start drawing again!!!

[astral-veil]

Alright people, im gonna open my commission on kofi only 3 slots will be available atm, depending my schedule, more could open along the way . What i can draw: OC Fanart Anthro/Creature Armor

What i will not draw: Nsfw Blood and Gore My commissions will be open Sunday the 3rd november at 11 am eastern time. Kofi link

[red-eft]

i might quit staples. this place sucks

[freebooter4ever]

.

[cap-ironman]

Cap/Iron Man Remix 2020 works unveiled on 24th February

It is time for Cap-IM Remix works to be unveiled! Come and see what creators came up with and leave them some love. Remember, remixes will remain anonymous until all works have been revealed, so please refrain from posting or sharing what you created until creator reveals on Sunday, March 1st.

Mind the warnings and content notes on all works!

If you're feeling adventurous, try your hand at guessing who the creators are - this is always a fun challenge.

Head over to our Guessing and Discussions Post to discuss the remixes and make your guesses!

Or, join our Cap-IM Challenge Chat Discord Server, where a #creator-guessing channel is open for conversation!

REMIX EXCHANGE

★ A Moment of Peace (Steve is a Mystery Remix) (AA, T, 1713 words)

Steve is in denial about having a migraine and the frenetic energy of the Tower isn't helping.

Remix of The Mysterious Case of the Migraine Helper by Sadisticsparkle (sadisticsparkle)

REMIX RELAY

★ Worth

(MCU, E, 4838 words)

Steve returns from the benefit to a Tony just as naked as he'd left him hours ago, still sprawled out on their bed in that effortlessly beautiful way he has. The only difference is that now it's the pale blue light of the arc reactor that illuminates his form, not the afternoon light that had kissed his skin earlier that day.

Feelsy smut. That's it. That's the fic.

★ Drawings from School (Hearts and Ice Remix) (616, T, 1222 words)

Tony and Steve's daughter Sarah comes home with her drawings, which hits Steve a little hard.

★ A sweet Moment (Remix)

(MCU, G, art)

REMIX MADNESS

★ Seven Minutes (MCU, T, 1795 words)

When Bonnie refuses her turn in the closet with a shrimpy Steve Rogers during a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, popular lothario-in-training/class whore Tony Stark gladly takes her turn.

Remix of Seven Minutes in Heaven by Politzania

★ Hold Hard, Then, Heart (the poetic declaration remix) (Marvel Noir, T, 2042 words)

Steve has learned to keep his feelings in check over the course of his friendship with Tony, and he thinks he's doing fine. Until he and Tony open up an antiques store together, and suddenly things become a little too much.

This is much harder than that time they'd had to share a sleeping bag while adventuring out in the desert.

Remix of gripping the ledge of unreason by firebrands

★ Bar is Open (The Last Barman Poet Remix) (MCU, G, 641 words)

Steve finds himself attending the same wedding as his one night stand from the night before. He takes a chance, hopping to get to know Tony better.

Remix of The Last Barman Poet by nativemossy

★ Public (In)Decency (MCU, T, 1391 words)

Steve is a big, big boy, and Tony is dickmatized.

Remix of Pool Day by Neverever

You can view all the works on AO3 as they are revealed in the following collections:

Remix Exchange

Relay Remix

Remix Madness

Please don't forget to thank your remixer and leave comments and kudos on the works you've enjoyed, so all creators know their work is appreciated and we can all have a fun event experience!

Creators, please note:

As AO3 does not do this for you, you may want to change the publication date of your work to today's date to help it show up in the AO3 listings for recent works. (Sadly this will not trigger inclusion in automatically generated AO3 feeds.) AO3's guide is available here, or you can refer to our guide here.

We hope you enjoy the works and check back in for the next day of reveals!

[hrsloren]

HELLO EVERYONE ! i’m rlly excited to be here at hearsay. actually is a new kind of rp concept for me so if im a little slow in coming up with ideas please be patient w me, i promise i’m engaged and interested. i’d also love recs of your fav murder mystery stuff for inspo! neway some info about ren is under the cut (along w some plot ideas!) and ill message yall once i have a chance to read over the apps so that hopefully i can come 2 u with some thoughts for plots~ ur also welcome to message me first of course or hit that like or really anything else lol!! discord avail on request for plotting, too, if thats more your style. 

kwon loren is a 26 yr old scorpio, horror enthusiast, entrepreneur (cough, drug dealer), n webtoon artist and she’s never met a villain she didn’t want to write a redemption arc for.

yes i almost exclusively chose her name bc it can be nicknamed into ren which obviously sounds like wren and i thought it was punny / suitable lol. 

unfortunately the only one of those that makes any money is the entrepreneurial bit and that is a totally illegal path. so her day job is her night job as the overnight manager of the gs25 near her dingy apartment building.  she works sunday to thursday nights, usually, since she makes the schedule she selfishly schedules the part timers on prime weekend night slots.  she also draws weird commissioned porn for folks w strange kinks (tentacles?? yoikes no judgement but yoikes) when she needs the xtra won.

she was the black sheep of her family even before her personality really showed itself, and once she revealed herself to be a tomboyish, unruly, temperamental, reckless, passionate, and alarmingly contrary child the whole thing just got worse. rlly the only person she was ever very close with was her grandfather, who is a somewhat-renowned murder mystery / horror writer. sneaking peaks at his books and manuscripts was probably what kindled a lot of her weird proclivities as a child, which she carries forward to now.

she’s quite excessive in a lot of ways. too much smoking, too much drinking, too much feeling, too much dreaming, too much scheming, too much writing.... basically the only thing she doesn’t overload on is sleep?? so check out those atrocious under eye shadows sometime bc its a yikes from me yall. 

u can track her moods pretty easily despite the fact that she’s got a hard to read face. once  you get used to her habits and mannerisms its rlly clear to see that she’s an open book. the only thing that can throw it off is that she’ll try to stop smoking abt once every 3 months, at which point she becomes a complete nightmare w very little notice. it usually doesn’t last very long unfort for her lungs.

speaking of smoking shes the kind of person to immerse herself in things easily and get totally wrapped in them. like, she’s v prone to addictions or obsessions. this can be with things, people, television shows, etc. she’s never known a good series she didn’t binge as quickly as possible, a good book she didn’t read cover to cover, sleep be damned. this means she’s often kinda grouchy or trying to sleep something off. she’ll also talk ur ear off about whatever she’s fallen into at the moment. 

just for a weird fact, she has a complex about her hair. its naturally relatively coarse and bushy and curly and frizzy. her mum used to pull it back every morning in a rlly tight ponytail and pin down all the unruly bits with bobby pins or barettes and she hated it, it always made her head hurt and obviously it made her feel like her hair was ugly.  so for a long time she chemically straightened it and did all kinds of treatments, but now she’s trying to maintain it more naturally. so yeah sometimes it looks like a birds nest but at least it’s healthier. 

she’s very picky about her surroundings and organizing her personal space, especially when she wants to work on something. she gets picky about things being in a good visual order, and if she notices something is out of place around her, she’ll hyper focus on it until she can fix it. this can be something meaningful (noticing she didn’t do the dishes) or something absurd (noticing someone left a napkin on the ground at the cafe, across the room, and having to go throw it away before she can focus on anything else). 

just like with her surroundings, with aesthetics, and with substances or media,  she hyper focuses on people too. when she decides someone is ‘hers’ she will go all in on them, becoming loyal to the point of honest to goodness fault. this isn’t to say she’ll tell them they’re the best at all times or be unrealistically enamored with them. she’ll still be fully cognizant of and happy to point out faults, but she won’t turn her back on them. she’d help you bury a body, basically, but she’d tell you what a goddamn psychopath you were as she did. 

FOR SOME PLOT THOUGHTS

her only real established canon relationships have to do w her drug trade or her much better cousin (just ask anyone in her family) so she’s very well open to just about anything. she’s canonically close to magpie and cousins w swallow, of course, and sells to an established handful. i’d love to get her a bit wrapped up in things these days, maybe some secret trading or ferreting things out. i imagine she feels loyalty to magpie and resents those who might come out with accusations against him. 

i’d love her to have an outcast ride or die best friend from high  school, someone who was also on the black sheep side of things. she did participate in the high school literary magazine (layout) and on the newspaper (though not as seriously as one might have hoped) and certain undesirables spread rumors about the english teacher “favoring” her (at least some guiding figure finally liked her dammit). so bullies from high school are fully possible. she was kind of a weirdo (duh) so i imagine it would have been pretty normal to pick at her here and there, though she did try to fly under the radar a lot. people who used to harass her coming to her for pills now could be a thing to explore, or someone who dated her in high school but didn’t really want to be “out” about it due to you know like dumb high school social differences so resentment grew and it was a whole teen movie drama that ended up without the happy ending and now its weird when they see each other, which could go many ways. those she’s befriended or so forth since coming back to town down on her luck, also, would be welcome! 

anyway if you made it to the end of this ily very much and i hope we can plot asap huhu

[modernausass]

FAQ

What is this blog?

This blog is a modern, college-based Assassin’s Creed au. This au has been in development for some time now, and this blog is a way for us to hammer out some of the finer details regarding everyone.

How many people run this thing?

Two! Chee handles the art side of things and Darki handles the text posts. The au is the brainchild of them both. Find more in the mun page.

What are the rules for asking?

Check the guidelines page! Almost everything is fair game except really NSFW stuff, and we’d appreciate it if you addressed specific characters instead of the whole group due to the sheer size of the cast.

Who is available for asking?

Check the Character page! All the available characters can be found there, but it really only consists of the game protagonists minus Edward.

Any Assassins and Templars in this au?

Nope, no assassins in this modern au! Just (mostly) normal college kids living their lives at university. However, they are part of a fraternity, which is affectionately referred to as the ‘brotherhood.’ The Templar gang has their own fraternity, and the two factions have a bitter rivalry.

What does it mean by (CHARACTER) isn’t available for asks at this time?

At certain times, you may find that a side character shows up for asks. They are not available all the time, but you will be notified when they are! Outside of these times, they will not answer questions.

Can I write/draw/make things for this AU?

Absolutely! Feel free to IM or send a ask if you have any questions!

Can I use your art for stuff?

Chee would prefer if you sent her a message asking for permission first!

Why don’t you guys post anything on Sundays?

That’s our break day! We hardly look at the blog on Sunday in order to do other things we feel like doing and to just take a day off. This keeps us from getting burnt out!

[lovelylogans]

lavender for luck: chapter five

see warnings here

art by neil

previous chapter | the timestamp/sequel

“Bit dismal, isn’t it?” Roman asks pointedly, as Logan’s car trundles past the pitiful excuse for a welcoming sign.

“Lots of parking, though,” Logan says dryly, gesturing into the nearest lot that, aside from about three cars scattered throughout, had their pick of spots.

“This is where Virgil grew up,” Patton says, a tone of quiet disapproval in his voice. “Where he lives.”

“I’m starting to see why he was so emo when we first met him,” Roman says in an undertone. “If I lived here I’d be miserable too.”

A pause, as they examined their surroundings, and Roman looks at the map again.

“So,” Roman says. “Do we start at the grocery store, or the tiny excuse of a library, or the gas station? Or whatever number of closed-up shops there are? Or, oh, look, a bed and breakfast—”

“It’s a Sunday in a small town, stands to reason things are closed,” Logan says, tapping lightly at the dashboard. “Could use a bit more gas. Besides, they might have instructions. Maps. Directions. They might even know where he lives, it’s a small enough town—everyone must know everyone here—”

“Gas station it is,” Patton agrees, shifting in his seat. “I could use a good stretch. I hope they’ve got snacks.”

“—then I suppose we’ll check into the bed and breakfast. I have a suspicion that if Virgil ignored all of our calls and texts, he might not be quite so open to seeing us all in person. It may take a while.”

“We’ll just curl up on his doorstep and refuse to leave,” Roman suggests, and Logan lets out a slight huff that might have been hiding a laugh, pulling in to the gas station and parking by one of the two pumps, setting it to fill up before going inside.

A man, their age, or perhaps a year or two older, stared at them, smiling a kind of aggrieved customer-service smile.

“Sorry,” He says, not sounding particularly sorry as he stands from where he’d been sitting and scrolling on his phone. “Not often we get out of towners. Sunday’s normally a slow day—”

“It’s no trouble,” Logan says, and then glances around the small excuse for a gas station. Fridges line two of the walls, and there’s about three aisles worth of snacks, which Roman and Patton are already perusing, and then back at the counter, where the man (whose nametag read JIMMY KAVANAGH in cursive white stitching) gawks at them openly. “If I could pay in here—”

“Yeah, sure,” Apparently-Jimmy says, waving a hand and squinting out to double-check the pump number.

“What’re you doing in Ligerion?” he asks, as he’s punching in the information. “I think the last visitors we had was over a year ago, now.”

Logan tries his hardest not to wince at the use of a singular verb with a plural subject, and busies himself with glancing through yellowed, old maps of the town. “We’re visiting a friend of ours.”

“Oh, yeah? Bet I know ‘im.” He says to Logan, who laughs politely, well-versed in small-talk and all of its intricacies, even if he wasn’t particularly genuine about it.

“Place like this, I suppose you have to,” Logan agrees, setting what looks like the most in-depth map on the counter. “I’m paying for all their snacks, too, plus this—anyways, we’re visiting Virgil. Virgil Fae.”

It’s like saying his name flips a switch. The color practically drains out of his face, and gone is the look, the conspiratorial one that seems like he wants to be first to know the business for the visitors. Now, he looks like he’s seen a ghost—like Virgil’s name alone shook him to his core. Apparently-Jimmy looks around the station, scandalized, before bending his head towards Logan.

“All right, look,” he says to Logan in an undertone, an edge of a laugh in his tone. “I get that you’re, like, city boys, y’all’re new around here. But don’t go shoutin’ it out—guess if you’re seeing a Fae you haven’t got much sense, though,” he adds, and Logan stiffens.

“Beg your pardon?”

His voice is louder than expected, and he can practically feel Roman and Patton’s questioning gazes on his back. The soft padding of Roman and Patton’s feet as they approach the counter, silently putting their things on the counter. Patton’s fingers brush soft, subtle, down the steel of his spine.

Apparently-Jimmy sighs, and looks at them. “Look, bit of free advice?” He says, as he’s starting to ring up the snacks.

“Faes aren’t friends. They’ll do a good job convincing you of it, sure, but that’s the way they are. They’re good at it. That’s how they get you. You’re not from here, I get it. But I am. People in this town… they’ve seen people like you get all wrapped up in the Faes and what happens to them. You’ll think they’re your people, they’re parts of the town, that they’re your friends. They are not.”

Logan did not particularly care what this person thought. He didn’t know Virgil. He didn’t know the quiet, earnest Virgil, the one who made his own garden in their land-locked, green-bereft apartment. The one who grew from snarling and grouchy to someone who tried, all the time, learning how to fit and change and be with people who cared about him.

Because if Virgil had lived his life—in a dark, dismal, small place like this, with people like this who suspected his every motive—Logan could understand why he had been so shut off to them, before.

Because of people like this.

Logan draws himself up to his full height, and feels his best well-bred sneer cross his face, disdainful. He puts down enough cash for the snacks, their gas, the map with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

“For your information,” and his tone was acerbic and cold, “which I’m not entirely sure will sink into your thick head, Virgil is one of the best men I’ve ever met. And we don’t particularly care about whatever horrid, false warnings you want to give to us.”

“Your funeral,” Jimmy mutters as they finally head for the door, and Patton has to grab Logan’s arm and practically shove him outside, lest he double back and—what? Punch him? He wouldn’t punch someone.

Would he?

He needs to calm down. He needs to keep a level head.

Roman, meanwhile, has stopped in his tracks.

“We’re idiots,” Roman says, and swivels to look at them. “We… we’re idiots.”

“Why d’you say that,” Patton prompts, and Roman gestures down the main road.

“You guys. Cora.”

They all freeze. Cora. Virgil’s great-aunt.

Who owns the only restaurant in town.

“We are idiots,” Logan breathes.

Patton checks his watch, and says, “Early dinner, then?”

They scramble for the car.

It turns out to be barely a minute’s drive, and Logan pulls into the first available spot, before they all head straight for the diner door.

The diner’s small, and neat. It’s kind of… cute, really, with a soda counter and booths, everything done in shades of red or white. Everyone in the diner is staring at them, though, and they swiftly slide into a booth.

“What is with this town,” Roman says in an undertone, stealing a glance towards an old man, who’s squinting at them suspiciously.

“It’s not exactly a hot spot for tourists,” Logan says dryly, and reaches for the menus—pieces of paper put into a plastic holder, as if the menu’s swapped around often, all tucked behind a condiments container.

Patton takes the menu, and observes it, before he pauses, stricken.

“What?” Roman asks.

“I—nothing,” Patton says. “Just—butterscotch milkshake.”

The scattering of butterscotch candies in the care packages that arrived twice a month, the ones Virgil claimed and shoved in his backpack and sucked on when he was studying.

“Well,” Logan says, “at least we know we’re in the right place.”

“Yeah,” Roman says, with a nod to the Auntie Cora’s printed on the window, “there were no other hints, at all.”

“Have you just decided to pick up the snark in Virgil’s absence, then?” Logan asks Roman, and Roman rolls his eyes at him.

“Hey there,” the woman starts, looking at her notepad, and then looks out with a smile. “What can I get…?”

She trails off, staring at Patton, who’s staring back.

“You’re… that nice boy,” the woman who must be Cora says, tucking her pen behind her ear, invisible in her toss of white curls. “Patton, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Patton says softly. “And this is Logan, and this is Roman. Thank you for your recipes, I know Virgil—” he falters, and continues, strangled, “I know Virgil really loves them.”

She clears her throat, tries for a smile, and fishes her pen back out. “Can I get you boys started with a drink?”

“We were wondering—” Logan begins, leaning forwards, but Patton’s hand closes around his wrist.

“We’d love to,” Patton says. “I’ll start with a butterscotch milkshake. Rome, Lo?” He says, glancing at them.

Roman meets eyes with Logan, shrugs, and says, “I’ll just get a water, thanks.”

“Water as well,” Logan says, and Patton rubs his thumb over Logan’s hand as Cora notes it down.

“Be right out with those, fellas,” she says, and goes back behind the counter, presumably to the kitchen.

“People were staring,” Patton says, and nods his head to the side, where a child is openly gawking and pointing at them. “Still are. If the way our friend at the gas station acted is any indication…”

“Virgil isn’t popular,” Logan says with a sigh. “Well spotted. I don’t know why I’m so off today.”

“Yes, you do,” Roman murmurs, and puts his head on his arms, letting out a gusting sigh. “Anx—I mean, when Virgil wrote to me back then—I thought he was exaggerating.”

As the meal goes on, and they each try to the butterscotch milkshake, which makes Logan think about Virgil even more, the people turn more towards their own meals and ignore them. The food is hearty and filling and warm; Logan thinks that Virgil’s constant praise of Cora is well-earned.

As they wind down, Cora brings over three plates balanced on one arm, dishes them out, and slides in the booth next to Roman, who hastily scoots aside so there’s room.

She’s brought them jam tarts, and a brownie for Patton. They all murmur their thanks.

Cora nods, gestures for them to dig in with a thin, strained smile, and says quietly, “You know, Virgil was named after my late husband.”

Logan isn’t quite sure what to say—he never is, in these kinds of situations.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Patton says somberly, and Cora gives him the same wan smile.

“It happened years ago,” she says. “Before you were born. We had a good life together—started this diner, moved to Loch Ligerion. Raised Virgil’s mother as our own, after his sister and her husband died. We knew, of course. When she came home from kindergarten all atwitter about the Fae boy in her class. We knew what it meant.”

The other three exchange glances, and Logan says politely, “I don’t think we do.”

Cora smiles, pats Logan on the hand. “Oh, I know,” she says. “He wouldn’t have told you about that. Any of it. Got too much flack about it here, poor thing, I think that’s part of why he went off to school. Didn’t phrase it to us quite like that, but Dee and I knew.”

It takes a while for the name to click, but Roman gets it first. “Dee’s… Virgil’s uncle?”

“Mhm,” Cora says. “He didn’t want Virgil to go at all, really, in his mind the fact that James—Virgil’s father—ever left town is what caused him and Violet to pass away so suddenly, before—” She cuts herself off.

“Before?” Roman prompts, and Cora laughs a little awkwardly.

“It’s… traditional, for there to be two Fae children. Occasionally more, but most commonly two. Virgil’s the first only Fae child in two hundred years.”

Patton lets out a low whistle. “Wow.”

“It’s… unusual, certainly,” Logan says, “but—”

“There are things at play here that you don’t understand,” Cora says kindly.

“Okay,” Logan says. “Would you tell us about those things?”

“It’s not my place.”

“No, but it could be Virgil’s,” Logan says. “Could you—could you just let us know how we could see him?”

She’s visibly hesitating, and Roman adds hastily, “Just to see him. Just… we want to make sure he’s okay. We didn’t even know he’d left, we thought something awful happened—"

Their desserts lay forgotten, and Cora glances nervously over her shoulder, before looking back to them.

“You seem like very nice boys,” she says. “Every time Virgil came home, he smiled more and more, and I know it was because of you three.”

They all brighten, a little, but she holds up a hand.

“But I saw James smile more and more because of my Violet, too,” Cora says. “Boys, I’m sorry, but… I’ll let him know that you’re in town, and that you want to see him. But I’m not going to be part of what leads you to it. He’ll be the one who makes the choice. I think the fact that he left town should tell you what he’s going to choose.” She nods to them, says even softer, “Eat your sweets,” and slides out of the booth, going straight for the kitchen.

“Well,” Patton says quietly, dipping his spoon into the melty brownie, “that’s… something, at least.”

“Something confusing,” Logan says. “I don’t know why she’s acting like us seeing Virgil again would be the end of the world.”

They eat their desserts slowly, dawdling over the last of their meal.

Almost theatrically, the door dings open, and a hush falls over the diner. Logan blinks at Roman, and they look to the door.

A man stands there, and Logan nearly chokes on his last bite of tart.

He looks like an older Virgil.

Except for the part that he’s scowling at the majority of the diner, wearing a cape and a bowler hat, and has unfortunately selected yellow as an accent color, rather than Virgil’s usual purple.

“That’s Virgil’s Uncle,” Roman says in an undertone. “Has to be, right?”

“Has to be,” Logan agrees, equally quiet, and they watch as Cora emerges from the kitchen with a brown paper bag, as the Uncle takes it and leans over the counter to chat with her, the way her eyes stray towards their table, how his grip tightens on the takeout bag.

And he turns around, facing them full on, and by Patton’s poorly-bitten off gasp, the other differences between himself and Virgil are made immediately apparent.

He practically glides over to their table, and unlike Cora, doesn’t slide in to sit next to Roman—he hovers over them, drawing himself up to his full height, glowering at them all with his yellow, snakey eye, a smirk straining the scar tissue on his cheek, the scales catching the fluroescent light.

“You must be the boys I’ve heard all about,” he says, voice quiet and precise and drawling in a way that Virgil, even at his meanest, could never quite manage.

“The boys who’d like to see him,” Patton says politely, and his smile turns even nastier.

“I’m afraid Virgil isn’t at home.”

“Tell us where he is, and we’ll get right out of your way,” Roman says, tilting his chin up proudly.

“I wouldn’t know what to tell you,” Uncle says. “Virgil leaving town, I’m sure it has nothing to do with you three.” He smiles at them, nods, and says, “Goodbye, boys.”

He sweeps out the same way he came, and Logan can see the other diners relax, as if all of them had been holding their breath.

Logan’s usually disinclined towards such metaphoric statements, but it’s undeniable, the sudden release of tension as Virgil’s Uncle leaves.

“Charmer,” Roman remarks quietly to them, and Logan pauses, touching his own cheek.

“Skin condition, maybe,” Logan murmurs. “Not sure which. And the eye… contact, maybe?”

“He looks a lot like Virgil,” Patton says. “Aside from, you know. The weird snakey stuff.”

At last, they pay, and tip, and venture to walk the main road of the town; it’s really not all that much to look at. The grocery store, a tiny library, Cora’s diner, the gas station, a couple other little, tiny shops that probably wouldn’t do them any good.

“Bed and breakfast, do you think?” Roman asks as the sun begins to set, and Patton, very suddenly, gasps.

“Cat,” he says, and moves to approach it. The cat looks to them, meows at them loudly, and trots over, purring noisily.

As the cat approaches, Logan can tell more—it’s an entirely black cat, the only bits of color being its large amber eyes and the twining of flowers around its neck. Logan’s no Virgil, but he can pick out anemones, a single daffodil, and purple hyacinths. Some he doesn’t know—Virgil would, he always did. Does.

Virgil, Logan thinks, and in that moment misses him so terribly he can barely take in his next breath.

And there, a little scroll of paper around her neck, as she lays on her back, showing her belly and tipping her head back, as if to ensure that they’ll see it. Patton takes it, hands trembling.

“Thank you,” he tells her, and the cat blinks slowly at them with their amber eyes, and sits back on her haunches, before licking at her paw and starting to clean her face.

“What does it say?” Roman asks, hoarse, and Patton fumblingly unscrolls the tiny piece of paper.

you need to leave, it says in Virgil’s spiky handwriting, and, I’m sorry.

“That’s it?” Logan says, taking the paper and turning it over. Nothing.

The cat meows, butts into Patton’s leg with her head, and sits back to scratch at the flowers with her hind paw, before giving him a look. Logan knows that Virgil’s good with cats, but he hadn’t known it was possible to train them this well.

“Oh,” Patton says, and carefully pulls the flower collar off of her neck. “Here you go.”

She meows at them, dips her head as if nodding at them in acknowledgment, and stalks away.

There’s a pause.

“Do you think she’s going back to Virgil?” Roman asks.

“We should follow her,” Patton says immediately, slipping the flowers onto his wrist, and without waiting for a response, following the cat towards the woods, Roman hot on his heels.

Logan sighs in exasperation before he follows his two boyfriends, who are following a cat, into unfamiliar woods. There are so many ways this could go wrong.

The cat often looks back at them, too, as if to say could you keep up?! and Logan has to take a second to remind himself that cats are not actually capable of such communication. The woods are dark and smell overwhelmingly of dead leaves and pine; there does, at least, seem to be some kind of path they’re following. Logan wonders how often Virgil walks it, when the last time he walked it was. Had he been scared of something? What had made him uproot himself from his life, a life he’d given no prior signs of showing malcontent with, a life that had been… good?

They break through the trees, and Roman whispers, “Holy shit.” Patton doesn’t even lecture him for language; the three of them are too busy staring.

Virgil’s house—manor?—looks straight out of a storybook. It’s black, dark woods, iron, green glass Logan can only barely see the suggestion of light through—the garden’s extensive, and the bluestone path leading to the back door seems to glimmer in the moonlight. There’s towers and spires arching up into the moonlight, and the cat keeps moving, seemingly ignoring them, and moves to the backdoor, yowling and meowing.

“Down,” Logan says, once his brain starts to work, “Get down, behind the bush—”

Logan shoves them, and they crouch behind the bush in time to see the door open, light spilling onto the lawn, Virgil’s Uncle backlit by the glow of the… kitchen, maybe? He says something undiscernable and gestures for the cat to come in, and she does. He looks out into the yard, squinting, before closing the massive door with a bang.

“That is,” Roman says, “a ridiculous house. You know, I’m starting to get Virgil more now. Dressing in all black all the time just makes sense when you live somewhere like that.”

“D’you think that his Uncle lied?” Patton says, soft. “And that he’s really home?”

Logan and Roman are both nodding before he even finishes the sentence.

“I don’t think we can trust that man at all,” Logan says darkly.

“Whenever Virgil mentions him, it always seems… weird,” Roman agrees. “Back when we were penpals, I remember just kind of feeling off about Virgil’s descriptions of him.”

“He’s clearly not going to let us in to see him,” Logan says with a sigh, and turns to his left. “Patton, what do you…?”

He isn’t there. Roman hits him on the arm, and hisses “Patton!” loudly.

Because Patton’s striding up the bluestone path, straight to the door.

Patton takes a breath to steel himself before knocking on the door, and glances over his shoulder to see Logan yanking Roman back to the relative safety of the bush and turns back in time for the door to open.

“Well,” Virgil’s Uncle says. “If it isn’t… what’s your name.”

“Patton,” he says, and digs in his pocket, before unearthing the cat tarot cards that Virgil had left behind, holding them up for his inspection. “Virgil’s usually the one who does this for me. I was wondering if you’d be willing to give me a reading.”

Virgil’s Uncle stares at the cards, and Patton swears he can see something flicker in his eyes before he smiles. He steps aside, and Patton walks into the house.

The décor’s all dark wood and greenery strung haphazardly through the room, a bit like how Virgil keeps his room at the apartment. Patton sits at the kitchen table, and Virgil’s Uncle clatters about in the kitchen.

“Tea,” he says. Patton gets the feeling it isn’t a question.

“Mint, if you have it,” Patton says, sitting down and glancing into the doorway that leads to the rest of the house, the stairs—Virgil’s room must be somewhere up those stairs. Patton, for a fleeting moment, wonders what would happen if he ran up the stairs while Virgil’s Uncle’s back is turned—but a teacup’s set before him before he can act on it.

“Which spread?”

Patton steels himself, and says, “The true love spread.” His voice is much steadier than he thought it’d be.

Virgil’s Uncle nods, as if it hasn’t affected him, and says simply, “Drink your tea,” as he begins to shuffle the deck.

He knows how this goes—cuts the deck without Virgil’s Uncle prompting him at all. It’s almost familiar, a warm drink, a tarot reading—but the surroundings are entirely unfamiliar. Virgil’s Uncle instead of Virgil, Loch Ligerion instead of the Busy Bean, mint tea instead of hot chocolate.

First and second, under them third, fourth, and fifth, sixth in a row alone at the bottom. You, your partner, what brings you together, what keeps you apart, what needs work, and outcome.

But then Virgil’s Uncle sits back and stares. “Tea,” he says, and sips at his own. Patton finishes it in three scalding gulps and sets down the teacup. Virgil’s Uncle takes it and tilts it, squinting, before looking at Patton, level-eyed.

“I must have calculated it perfectly,” Virgil’s Uncle muses, and Patton frowns at him. The room’s getting darker. Why is the room getting darker?

“I—what?” Patton asks. His tongue feels numb.

“You’ll have a bit of a headache in the morning,” Virgil’s Uncle says, and Patton’s balance faults, as he falls off the chair and to the ground. He tries to sit up.

“What did you do to me,” Patton gasps, head spinning, and tries to sit up again.

He can hear thunder—is it thunder? It sounds like thunder, and then someone’s hand on his face, and he forces his eyes open.

“Vurge-uhhl?” Patton forces out around his numb tongue.

“Jesus Christ,” Virgil says, like his voice is coming from the top of a well, “what did you do to him?”

“Virgil,” Patton tries to say again, blinking, fixating on Virgil’s eyes. His eyes are so pretty. Such an unusual shade of brown—like there’s bits of gold, like amber, like—

And Patton’s sinking, sinking down into the water.

“…hospital, or something, he’s been out for hours—”

“—and where do you propose we take him? The nearest medical help is a vet, which doesn’t seem—”

Patton groans and the voices stop and pick up again.

“Patton?” The first voice says, and that’s definitely Roman, and Patton tries to turn his face towards him, except that it feels like a herculean effort.

A hand on his cheek, a thumb over his cheekbone. “Patton, can you hear us?”

“Lo’an,” Patton manages, and adds, “Ro—”

“Hey there, sleepyface,” Roman says, soft and soothing, and a hand strokes through his hair. “Can you open those pretty green eyes for us, honey?”

With herculean effort, Patton forces his eyes open, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes.

He sees his boyfriends’ faces above him, crowded together, and he sees the looks of relief blossom across their faces.

“Hey there,” Roman says, and runs a hand through his hair again.

“Do you remember what happened?” Logan asks.

Patton blinks as the memories come back, bubbling sluggishly to the surface of his brain, and he tries to sit up in bed.

“I saw him,” Patton says, and both Logan and Roman push him back onto the pillows. “I saw Virgil, he’s at the house, he was—”

Patton’s cut off by a noisy yowl. They all blink and look to the window.

The black cat from before is scratching at the window, and, to put it bluntly, screaming at them.

“Let her in,” Patton says.

“Patton, your medicine—”

“She might have something from Virgil,” Patton says, and Logan sighs, nudging Roman to go to the window, before going to Patton’s bag and digging out his medicine as Patton pushes himself up onto his elbows.

When Roman opens the window, the cat launches herself at Patton, landing on her chest, and meowing in his face, making Patton thump back against the pillows.

She’s kneading his chest and meowing the cat equivalent of some kind of lecture—it’s a lot of angry-sounding mrorororwwww!!!! Mrrrrow! and occasional poking of claws as she kneads against his chest.

“I—” Patton says, and sneezes into her fur, causing her to make a disgusted hiss and leap a little further down the bed.

Just a little, though. Patton accepts his glasses and allergy medicine from Logan, as Roman coos at the cat, who gives him a Look.

“She has one,” Roman says, and takes the scroll, unrolling it, before frowning.

“What?” Patton asks, adjusting his glasses on his nose. “What does it say?”

“I—I don’t understand,” Roman says, and reads off, “The empress, the hanged man, two of cups, the devil, reversed two of swords, the lovers.” Roman exchanges a confused look with Logan, but Patton softens.

“It’s Virgil,” Patton says, soft. “He read it, he—give that to me, and my phone,” he says, and adds hastily, “Please.”

He’s awful at reading this—Virgil’s the one who knows how to read it. But—

Patton begins googling some kind of tarot card reading site, and Logan says, “Patton, what does it mean?”

“They’re tarot cards,” Patton says unthinkingly, before he flushes and clears his throat. “Um. I mean—”

He tries to think of another excuse, can’t, and sighs.

“Yeah, they’re tarot cards,” he says. “He asked me not to tell you, because he thought you guys wouldn’t believe him, but—you know those fliers around campus advertising for tarot readings?”

Logan’s eyebrows are lost somewhere in his hairline.

“That… was Virgil?” Roman says slowly.

Patton shrugs. “It’s how we met,” he says. “And I asked his Uncle to give me a reading, before he—I think he put something in my tea, but. Virgil ended up doing the reading, and these are the cards. Or at least I think so. So.”

The website loads, and Patton starts to cross-check meanings.

“Virgil,” Logan says slowly. “Was the one advertising his. Tarot services.”

“He’s pretty accurate about them, too,” Patton says.

“It’s all power of suggestion,” Logan begins, and the cat meows at him irritably, before curling up on Patton’s stomach.

He looks up each card. Empress, which is apparently him, represents a nurturing, caring, and supportive person with those around them, which certainly seems nice. But apparently when in a spread with the devil card, it could suggest that he’s causing damage to someone without knowing it, which is much less nice. Hanged man, Virgil, as he’s another person, potentially represents someone who is not who they appear to be, and could very well cause a big disruption in your life, which is… a little unnerving, especially when he sees an illustration of the hanged man. Then the two of cups, what brings them together, apparently means potential for a wonderful relationship in front of your eyes, and for an attached lover, the two of cups means something big will be happening in your relationship in a positive way. He can really only hope so. The devil, what keeps them apart, serves as a warning, and can point to lying or hidden motives, and could show someone whose association with the wrong crowd will ultimately be your undoing. And the reversed two of swords, what they’re meant to work on, could show a reminder that you have all the tools necessary to make the best choices you can for yourself, and you can be sure you are making the right decisions, which is reassuring. And the outcome—the lovers—Patton doesn’t think he has to look, but he does anyway. A resounding “yes!” to having a happy and fulfilling love life, but at the same time, since the devil’s in the spread too, it could mean that you and your romantic partner are not going to work out regardless of how hard each of you work on the relationship. Patton sets his jaw, but he can only focus on one thing.

He sends a text to Virgil, the latest in a long line of unanswered ones, I know you, okay? Any disruption you bring I’d love and sends it before setting down his phone at last.

“So,” Logan says, sarcastic, “what do the cards tell you?”

Patton disregards the sarcasm. “That Virgil probably isn’t what he appears,” he says. “That there’s going to be something positive happening in our relationship soon. A warning about hidden motives, about Virgil potentially hanging around the wrong crowd. That we’ve got all the tools we need to make the right choice. And—” Patton blushes, just a little. “That we’ll have a happy and fulfilling love life.”

He leaves off the warning of the devil and the lovers—he’ll keep it to himself for now.

“So,” Roman says, “What now? Cora’s not going to help us, and if Virgil’s Uncle’s delicate approach shows anything, it means he definitely doesn’t want us to see him either.”

“What now,” Logan says, “is we get some food from Cora’s, give Patton a filling breakfast, and let him rest. I’ll go to the library and research—maybe there’s some kind of house plan on record, or family history that’ll give us some kind of leverage.”

Roman groans.

“You’re welcome to stay with Patton,” Logan sniffs. “Or conduct some of your own research. Subtly.”

He pulls on his coat and leaves.

When Logan enters the library, his eye’s immediately drawn to the warped, twisted metal of some of the shelves, the dents in the walls, how small and outdated it is.

“Oh, wow, you’re one of those newcomers, aren’tcha?”

Logan turns and nods at the girl at the front desk.

“Would you be willing to point me towards some kind of archive?” Logan asks politely. “Newspapers, city hall meetings, something.”

She gives him a knowing look. “You’re looking for stuff about Faes, right?”

Logan hesitates, but figures it wouldn’t exactly hurt. He nods.

“They’ve got their own section,” she says dryly, hopping over the desk. “Ruth,” she adds, nodding at him, and leads him over to a beat-up little corner, with an uncomfortable-looking chair, a collection of filing cabinets, and several old journals.

“Microfiche is against the east wall,” she says, and turns to go. She pauses, before she turns back.

“I was in Virgil’s grade in school,” she says. “Went to school with him for eleven years. Is he really as weird as they say? He was mostly just quiet, round me, but by the way Jimmy Kavanagh talked, he’s the devil incarnate. Plus, well,” she says, and points to the warped, twisted metal. “Margot never really talked about it, but the whole town knew it was him, so—”

Logan blinks. The damage doesn’t look like it’s even natural—it’s as if it was left out in a storm, torn asunder by wind and rain, or maybe some kind of sculpture.

“Virgil’s one of the best men I’ve ever known,” Logan says honestly. “Excuse me.”

He turns to the file cabinets, and, after some meddling, pulls out the file of the oldest information—dated back to the 1800s.

He braces himself for a long day of research.

Logan’s deliberating going to get lunch and checking in on Patton and Roman when someone’s boots thunk down on the table, dangerously close to the Victorian-era excuse for files.

Logan looks up to glare and sees an only slightly familiar face grinning at him.

“Heya,” the woman—Gillian, he remembers—says to him. “What’s your name?”

He’s about to say it, when he remembers Virgil telling Gillian that Patton’s name is Puck, for whatever reason. Maybe she uses personal information for fraudulent purposes?

“Logic,” Logan says instead, and Gillian snorts, rolling her eyes.

“C’mon, I only used that trick to rile up Virgil,” she says. “You can tell me. Too much work to steal a name, anyways.”

Steal a name? Steal his identity, most likely.

“I trust Virgil’s judgment,” Logan says coolly.

“You’re looking through the family history,” she notes. “Where are you at? Maria, or have you gotten to Regina? Ida? You’re definitely not up to Cecelia yet.”

This was an interesting thing too—the Fae line’s matriarchal, rather than patriarchal. It seems to be, entirely, a Fae quirk, amongst the period-typical misogyny of the rest of the town.

“Got any questions?” She asks, and Logan looks at her. The combat boots, paired incongruously with an ankle-long skirt, ripped around the hem with tears going up to her thighs, the even more incongruous glittery top, her hair chopped messy and short, like she did it herself.

“Why should I trust you?” he says, and she hoots with laughter.

“Hey, you got the townie attitude already! Or, wait, did Virgil warn you about me? Say he did, it’d be the sweetest thing he’s said ‘bout me since he was six.”

“He never spoke about you,” Logan says. “Before or after you visiting our apartment, unannounced.”

She pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“You’ve got the usual attitude surrounding me already,” Logan says dryly, sifting through wills and town records (apparently Virgil’s ancestors were quite the delinquents, though at least half of them tended to be targeting them for being women, as most of the accusations were witchcraft, though there were a few concerning parallels between Faes and the mysterious deaths of those around them) and adds in a monotone “Ha,” just to clash with her laughter from before.

“Seriously, though,” she says, knocking her ankle against his, “no questions? None?”

“No,” Logan says.

“Not even about what Dee put in your friend’s tea?”

Logan pauses. There must be something on his face that gives off his hesitation, his curiosity, because she grins.

“You want to know that, don’t you.”

Logan gives her a level look, and says, “Do you know?”

“Course I know,” Gillian says. “Virgil’s not the only one in the family who understands plants, you know? Plus, where d’you think I’m staying? The B&B? You’re in the only room.”

Logan pauses, and says, “Will there be any ill effects?”

“Nope,” she says, cheerful. “Should just make him sleepy, a bit out of it. Should be wearing off by now.”

Logan lets out a soft breath, before he nods, and turns back to the old files.

“What, that’s it?” Gillian says, and she’s definitely irritated now. “Nothing about what Virgil might be hiding from you? I saw the cards—hanging man, devil, and lovers in one—”

Logan closes a journal with a crisp snap and a roll of his eyes. “Great,” he says. “The superstition’s hereditary.”

She laughs at him, then, conspicuously loud in the desolate library.

“Superstition,” she says, and cackles louder. “Superstition?! Wow. Wow, Uncle told me the gist of things, but I can never really be sure if I’m right with things with him—but wow. You really have no idea what you’re walking into, do you?”

Logan pointedly opens the old journal. Not by a Fae, by someone named Kavanagh, like the rude man in the gas station. He’s not going to engage with her anymore. He starts reading about Kavanagh accusing Maria of witchcraft, which seems fitting for the time period.

But then she starts shuffling a tarot card deck she pulls from her bra, and Logan lasts about five seconds.

“Is it a family tradition, or something?” Logan says irritably.

She grins. “Or something.”

“You know, this Kavanagh man accused your ancestor of witchcraft,” he says.

She grins wider. “A tradition that’s continued through the years,” she says, and offers him the deck. “I could do a reading for you if you want.”

Logan wrinkles his nose. “I’d rather not.”

She shrugs and stands. “Fine,” she decides. “I may as well tell you all the warnings. Virgil isn’t gonna break down and see you, because he’s terrified of what’s gonna happen if he does. And Uncle’s more protective over Virgil than he is anything else. If you keep trying to get to him, Uncle’s gonna put worse than those herbs into your system,” she says. “Because Uncle’s capable of some dark shit that you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

“Warning heeded,” Logan says coolly, “and disregarded.”

“Your funeral,” she shoots back, and strides out of the library. The girl who’d showed Logan around before—Ruth—peeks hesitantly out from the desk, once she’s safely gone. And Logan can’t help but overthink.

What is it with the people in this town, Logan wonders, but then his mind turns to Gillian’s warnings. Uncle’s gonna put worse than that into your system.

Logan frowns. And frowns some more. Before he shuts the journal again and picks up his coat, heading straight for the bed and breakfast, mind whirling.

“This is going to sound crazy,” he prefaces immediately, “and I’m still trying to piece together the whole of the theory.”

Patton and Roman look over at him, from where they’ve cuddled together on the bed, laptop balanced on both their laps.

Logan sits on the bed, takes a breath, and says, “I think Virgil’s Uncle, and thereby the family business, is in organized crime.”

Roman and Patton share a glance, and Logan winces—because him and Virgil are usually the ones sharing that glance.

“I know how it sounds,” Logan adds. “And I’m not saying it’s certain, but—but look. He put something into Patton’s tea to knock him out, and no one seemed fazed when they saw us walking back with him. The whole town is terrified of him. Virgil’s cousin—Gillian—she was at the library, and she told me that if we continue to meddle, Virgil’s Uncle would, and I quote, put something worse than those herbs into our systems, and that he’s capable of dark shit I clearly wouldn’t understand, and that if I disregarded the warnings it would be my funeral. Gillian told me outright that she’d steal my name if I gave it to her, which I can only assume is some kind of shorthand for stealing my identity, and—look, the crime counts for Virgil’s ancestors are ridiculous, I’ve barely made it through two generations without fielding several counts of mysterious deaths surrounding their lovers and those who are noted to have wronged them, and dozens of accusations of witchcraft.”

“Okay,” Roman says, “can we back up to the part where Virgil’s cousin threatened you? Like, outright told you it would be your funeral?”

Logan waves a hand irritably, and says, “I’m fairly certain she was just posturing.”

“You just mentioned the mysterious counts of death, though,” Patton says thoughtfully.

“In the eighteen hundreds—I haven’t gotten much further than that,” Logan admits, “I was going to see if you two wanted lunch before I went back to it, but then Gillian came.”

“Aw, Archi-nerd-es,” Roman says, grinning, “you took a break from research for us? We’re flattered.”

Roman ends up going to grab the easiest thing possible from Cora’s, and Logan takes Roman’s place, curled up against Patton’s side, and he runs a hand through his hair.

“How are you feeling?” Logan murmurs, and Patton snuggles into his side.

“Better, really,” he says reassuringly. “I took a bit of a nap while you were at the library, fixed me right up.”

Logan breathes a sigh of relief, and pets Patton’s hair again, because Patton enjoys such physical, comforting contact. “Good,” he murmurs. “Gillian said that would likely be the case, but. I wanted to be sure.”

“Meeting Gillian really didn’t bother you?” Patton asks, and Logan pauses.

“She seems like a difficult person,” Logan admits. “She tried goading me, I think. It didn’t really work for her. She mentioned—”

Logan pauses, and what Gillian said about Virgil finally catches up.

“What?” Patton asks, squinting up at him.

“I,” he begins, and sighs. Keeping this from either of them would likely poorly impact their approaches to Virgil. “She said that Virgil… that Virgil was terrified of what would happen. If he saw us again.”

Patton’s arms squeeze tighter around him, and he whispers, “I’m so worried about him.”

“I know,” Logan says.

“Why do you think he’s scared?” Patton asks plaintively, and Logan can only shrug.

“We can theorize,” Logan says. “Maybe Virgil’s Uncle dislikes the fact that he’s gay. Maybe the family business is something relating to organized crime and Virgil wanted to go clean, which the family didn’t like, and he thinks he’s protecting us by staying away. Maybe Virgil’s isolating himself and his family’s falling in line to support it, even if it isn’t entirely healthy behavior. Maybe it’s something entirely different. We don’t know. We can only continue to reach out.”

“What if,” Patton says, and he takes in a shaky breath. “What if we see him, and he says he never wants to see us again?”

Logan fights the instinct to say that wouldn’t happen, but he lets out a long breath. “If he does—which I believe is unlikely,” he adds. “Then I suppose all we can do is accept it. Go back to school. Move on.”

“What if I can’t,” he says in a whisper, and Logan tightens his arms around Patton, because Patton clearly needs comfort.

“You can,” Logan says. “Not—it’s not likely that he will. But if he does, you can. Roman and I will be there. Okay?”

He’s bad at this. Not debatable. He is bad with emotions and emotional confrontations.

Patton turns his face into Logan, and essentially maneuvers them so he’s practically laying on top of Logan, nose pressed at the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. Logan, fumblingly, places his hand on Patton’s hand, scratching at his scalp, doing the best he can. Roman’s better at physical contact than he is—

When Roman walks in with two takeout bags, Patton’s breathing is snuffly and soft and evened out against his skin, in a way that kind of tickles.

“Hey,” Roman says, soft, setting down the takeout bags and nudging off his shoes, before he carefully clambers onto the bed, against Patton’s other side. “He okay?”

“Napping again,” Logan murmurs softly. “And—well, he got a bit upset, because I—well. To put it bluntly, Gillian said that Virgil’s terrified of what’s going to happen if he sees us again. Which was upsetting to Patton, who seems to think that Virgil will decide he never wants to see us again.”

“Aw, Pat,” Roman says, spooning up to Patton’s side, and Patton makes a contented humming noise, buzzing against Logan’s skin.

“Logan,” Roman mumbles.

“Yes?” Logan asks, and Roman twines his fingers with Logan’s, so their hands rest on Patton’s back.

“I just,” Roman begins, and falters, closing his eyes before he opens them again. “I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

“Roman,” he murmurs, and Roman squeezes his hand.

“He drugged Patton, Logan,” Roman says, and there’s an undercurrent there, an undercurrent of Roman’s voice shaking with rage. “He probably knew we were right outside. What—if he treats us like that knowing there’s a witness—”

Logan’s already squeezing Roman’s hand back, shaking his head as much as he can without dislodging Patton.

“You know what Cora and Gillian said,” Logan says, soft. “He’s protective over Virgil. I—I wouldn’t think he’d hurt him. Hurt us, maybe, to keep us from potentially hurting him. But Virgil’s okay.” He has to be.

Roman pauses, and lets out a shaky breath, before his eyes focus on Logan again. “Do you want me to log into my old email and show you the stuff Virgil said about his uncle and the family business? If there’s some kind of hint I missed when I was twelve?”

Logan rubs his thumb over Roman’s knuckles. “That would be helpful, thank you. If you or Patton would like to go over those while we’re in the library, while I read through Fae records—"

“Ugh, just me, I think,” Roman says, and shudders theatrically. “Twelve-year-old me. There was… an abundance of copy-paste emojis.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Logan says, and Roman shoots him a playfully injured look.

After Patton wakes up, and they eat the lunch Roman brought from Cora’s, they all go over to the library. Patton takes over reading some of the journals as Logan sorts through city records; apparently, the massive house of Virgil’s is the house Faes have been living in since they came to Ligerion. The counts of witchcraft only fade slightly with the entrance into the twentieth century, which surprises Logan; history, admittedly, is not his main area of interest, but he’d thought the counts would fade in historical comparison to Salem.

Patton frowns a lot at the journals, likely because someone’s ancestors are writing mean things about Virgil’s ancestors. Roman’s scrolling constantly through his laptop, often wincing or putting his face in his hands before he continues reading. There’s the occasional break as they read something interesting, mostly Roman, but Patton does read in the journals about how Virgil’s ancestors could, apparently, appear from out of nowhere, and morph their faces, and more.

Mostly the city records are accounts of crime. Apparently, Virgil’s ancestors got up to some stuff; they apparently just outright ignored prohibition, and there were several counts of public drunkeness, lewdness, and the like, along with the continuous deaths of spouses. By a variety of very odd ways that just provide more evidence towards the organized crime theory. Drowned in the well, lightning strike, freak horse accident. One dropped dead in the midst of the town square.

The librarian introduces herself to Roman and Patton, eventually, and tells them much o the same spiel she told Logan—that she went to school with Virgil, if they need any help or have any questions—

Patton looks up from the journal, and asks, “Why do the Kavanaghs hate the Faes so much?”

Ruth grins, sudden, wider than Logan’s seen in his two days at the library. “Oh, that,” she says, almost gleeful, before she looks around and sits down at the table.

“So, like, Maria Fae was one of the two women of the thirteen founders of the town, right?”

“Right,” Logan says, because he’d read that. She’d been a woman with a baby and no husband, dressed in black, who wore sapphires until the day she died, commissioned nearly all of the capable people in town to build the house.

“So was a Kavanagh,” she says. “And, like. Maria was an unmarried woman with a baby, super scarlet letter, but she dressed in black, so I think a lot of people assumed she was a widow. Anyways—” she leans forwards. “John Kavanagh tried to instigate, like, a punishment for adultery, because she couldn’t prove that she’d been married, and it could’ve been adultery. So he moved the townspeople to try to shut her in the pillory.”

Roman frowns. “Pillory?”

“More extreme version of the stocks,” Logan says in an undertone. “Usually they were standing, on a platform, so they’d be publically humiliated. Please continue.”

“The day came, and they rushed the house,” Ruth says. “And, well, sexism, so it was supposed to be brutal. Throwing rotten food and dead animals and mud and… excrement, and stuff. A few theories think they were going to try to stone her. Maybe even whip her. But they tried to lock her in—and John Kavanagh got locked in instead.”

They all blink at each other, and Logan says incredulously, “How did they make a mistake of that magnitude?”

“It gets worse,” Ruth says. “So Maria walks away, home free, and Kavanagh’s just screaming after her. And all the townspeople try to unlock Kavanagh—but the device broke. So he was stuck in.”

“Stuck,” Logan repeats.

“Mhm,” Ruth says. “One of the town founders, locked into the pillory with no way to escape. Outsmarted and tricked by a woman, shame of all shame, and the town was ready to stone someone. So they try to get him out but realize that, one, the mechanism’s broken, and two, they can’t exactly cut him free without endangering him by a lot.” Ruth takes a breath.

“So he stays there for days. Stuck. Can barely eat broth, can’t excuse himself to go to the restroom, screams until he’s hoarse, threatens anyone and everyone into getting him to go free. It’s awful, but there’s some accounts in the old newspaper if you want the grisly details. Eventually, though, Maria wanders into town again, to get some supplies. The story goes, she walked up to the pillory, and didn’t say a word. Just stared at him, square in the eye. Those amber eyes of theirs—Faes, I mean—apparently, she just stared at him. And he died. And suddenly they could unlock it again, to take him away and bury him.” She leans back in her chair. “And everyone in the town started to learn that messing with a Fae was a horrible, horrible idea. Especially for a Kavanagh. But they do it anyway, and it never ends well for them. I’m surprised Jimmy’s only gotten spiders, really—”

“How did she do it?” Logan asks. “How did she manage to get John in the pillory instead—and lose the key? Break it so that he couldn’t get out until he was dead?”

“Spiders,” Roman says, at the same time, and types intently on his laptop.

Ruth shrugs, and spreads her hands. “Magic.”

Logan scoffs.

Rather than laughing it off, as if it’s a joke, Ruth shrugs, grinning.

“Yeah, I know how it sounds,” she says. “But I’ve been around this most of my life, so I’ve seen Virgil do some weird stuff, and those cousins of his are super obvious about it. Anyway, I should probably check the desk, but—if you wanna know more town history, let me know, that’s kind of my thing.”

“Magic,” Logan says dismissively, already standing. “I’m checking that microfiche. There’s a logical explanation that must have gotten tangled up in the superstitions of the time—”

“Wait,” Roman says. “Spiders. Virgil told me about the spiders—”

Logan pauses, and reads the email over Roman’s shoulder, Patton on his other side.

—i mean, I guess I’ve done a couple pranks. my cousins are way better at that kind of thing, though, but my older cousin g helped me flood gaston’s house with spiders once because his family and mine have hated each other for YEARS—

Roman scrolls over, to his own question in the next email, how did you flood his house with spiders???? that’s so scary, omg, I’d be terrified, I’m sure he deserved it though ⊙﹏⊙

I was six, it was really mostly g, she’s good at that kind of thing, was Virgil’s evasive response.

Logan glances, nods, and says, “Microfiche, then. You two, keep doing what you’re doing. Please don’t get into trouble.”

“How dare you,” Roman says, straight-faced, as if he and Patton have never gotten in trouble in their lives.

Logan manages to find the article in the microfiche, but it’s just a little snippet, mostly with the brutal, grisly details; nothing about Maria Fae, herself. After reading it, Logan can see how it’s a point of a family feud. Though in his memory, Logan can’t recall Virgil mentioning Jimmy Kavanagh at all.

He returns, and digs slowly through the journals, working slowly up until present day, until there’s the last one, that’s the most recent. Logan traces the embossed name on the front.

“Is it another Kavanagh,” Patton asks wearily.

“I—no,” Logan says. “No. It’s—it’s Virgil’s father.”

This had been what he was after the whole time—a source from a Fae, not from the townspeople observing them. And Virgil’s father, his Uncle’s brother—

“Oh,” Patton says. “Oh, wow.” Even quieter, “do you think Virgil’s read it?”

Logan hesitates, and Roman says, “Maybe. This section kind of seemed… untouched, though.”

Logan takes a breath and opens the journal.

It starts approximately, according to Virgil’s timeline, five years prior to Virgil’s birth; it’s a thick journal, and not a daily one, and Logan wonders if it’ll go to that point.

For the first couple years, it isn’t exactly scintillating material; he is, after all, a fifteen-year-old boy, even if he is a fifteen-year-old boy in a potential crime family. There’s complaining about school, and chores (even if the chores seem to be a bit unusual; Virgil’s father spends a page or so talking about how he’d had to trap a crow or his mother, which seems… unusual, to say the least. Perhaps the crow was a pest?)

But he talks about how much time he spends at Cora’s, though, and about the girl in his grade, Cora’s niece, Violet, his eventual wife.

—D seems to think that Violet’s just awful, though, so I tend to sneak off whenever he’s in the garden with Mom, which is really the only time she pays attention to us, whenever we can do the work for her with family stuff. I know the curse took dad away, but we’re right here, you know?

Logan frowns, reads that line again. I know the curse took dad away.

Fifteen’s a bit old to believe in curses, isn’t it?

“What’s that face?” Patton prompts.

“Oh,” Logan says. “Just—fifteen is too old to believe in a family curse, isn’t it?”

Roman’s head snaps up, and back down again, as he furiously starts to type.

“What?” Patton asks him, then.

“It’s just—I asked Virgil why he never talked about his friends, once,” he says. “And…”

He spins his laptop so they can see.

you asked about my real life friends. to be honest, I… well I mean I have auntie c and my uncle but they’re family so they don’t count. my friends are mostly the cats, haha, most of the other kids in town on’t like me much. it’s a pretty long story but basically I’m kinda like. stanley yelnats? from holes? except instead of just affecting me and uncle, it affects the whole town too. but also kinda zero too. it’s a really really long story, but basically most of the town hates me. hates us, I should say, my dad’s side of the family. I think the main reason we aren’t, like, chased out is bc they need the family business, otherwise we’d be like. super gone. plus I guess they’re kinda scared of us, that too. but, uh, I guess to answer your question—I don’t talk about real life friends because I don’t have any.

anyways, I’ll talk to you later, or whatever. tell me more about the backstage drama.

-anx

“Poor Virgil,” Patton murmurs, once he finishes reading.

“They need the family business,” Logan reads aloud. “People have mentioned going to Fae house, but they never talk about what they actually get there. Even Virgil—the closest he’s ever gotten is anything anyone needs, we can provide, for a price. Which—” He scowls.

“Is vague,” Roman fills in helpfully.

“Is vague,” Logan agrees, cracking open Virgil’s father’s journal again. “What business needs a teenage boy to capture a crow, and grow a garden of that size, and has available the drugs in Patton’s tea?”

A couple passages later, it reads, that Kavanagh girl’s accused me and D of witchcraft. I mean, it’s tradition, I guess, but all we did is curse her ears to fall off, and not even permanently! They were back in a week! D says we should have made it permanent but Vi said it probably wouldn’t be a good move. I think D’s gonna try to sneak something into Violet’s water bottle at school or something as revenge, but 1. He’s tried that a dozen times now and 2. she’s got a good eye, she’ll catch him.

Logan reads this passage aloud, incredulous, and Roman shrugs.

“Maybe ears falling off is some kind of slang?” He offers.

“For what?” Logan grumbles. “I’m more concerned about the potentially dozens of times Virgil’s uncle tried to poison Virgil’s mother.”

“There’s also the point of Virgil’s Dad never using Virgil’s uncle’s full name,” Patton points out, from where he’s contorted himself in his armchair so his legs stick in the air and his head tilts back to the floor. “The closest we’ve got is Dee, so.”

Logan shakes his head and mutters, “I’m starting to think Virgil’s the only normal person in this town,” before he turns back to the journal.

That is when things go from slightly odd to very strange.

Violet asked me out on a date today, is the only sentence written, the rest of the page blank. By Logan’s calculations, he must have been sixteen—and he turns the page to be confronted with cramped handwriting.

She’s beautiful, and she’s my best friend. I can’t do this to her. But God, I want to, I want to so bad. D’s running interference, for now, because he’s really the only one who gets it more than me. I don’t know what to do now. Do I avoid her for the rest of my life? Violet would never stand for that, she’s gonna march right up the tower to demand an answer from me. Do I turn her down? She knows how much I care about her, she’d know I was lying, and Violet doesn’t want to be protected from herself. She’s young, we both are, I can’t—I can’t let her do this to herself. Loving a Fae is a death sentence.

Logan reads that line again. Loving a Fae is a death sentence. Is this what Virgil thinks? Is this what Faes are raised to believe?

Mom’s no help—she’s actually talking to me for once, but it’s just all about Dad and how she had the best times of her life with him. I might have yelled at her, a bit. Okay, a lot. But she gets that I’m not like her, she has to. I don’t want to do this to Violet. I can’t do this to Violet. I don’t want to know how the curse is gonna get her. The well? Lightning? Car crash? Something entirely new? I don’t want to know. I never want to know.

Logan closes the journal crisply, looking over at Roman and Patton, before he asks, “Dinner?”

As they leave the library—Logan isn’t sure why—but he puts the journal in his bag and smuggles it out.

He can’t stop staring at the wall beyond his boyfriends.

They’ve all crammed into one bed, that night, all crowded around Roman, who’s laying on his back with an arm around both Patton and Logan. Judging by the snuffling noises, the inhaling and exhaling, his boyfriends are both fast asleep.

Logan isn’t. He can’t.

And he’s about to try to do something incredibly stupid.

He slowly extracts himself from the bed and puts on the clothes he’d worn during the day, glancing at the bed periodically as he tugs on his boots and writes a note.

Roman and Patton—

Couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk.

-Logan.

It suffices. He shrugs on his coat, slings his satchel over his shoulder, grabs one of the sets of keys, and walks out, treading softly outside.

It’s cold here, and even colder at night. Nowhere is open at night, either; well, Logan wagers the gas station might, but knowing what he knows now, he’d doubt a Kavanagh would welcome him back in, lest Logan transmit the Fae cooties by proxy, or some such ridiculousness. He wonders distantly about doubling back, holing up in his warm room, reading the journal he’s brought along with him.

Instead, his feet turn him to the woods.

He does, of course, understand how some people become afraid of the woods, especially at such a time of night. But such a thing would be foolish; the town’s high crime rate had been, after all, primarily due to Fae outliers that shouldn’t have been counted.

And then stupidly, stupidly, he starts to walk down the bluestone path.

Logan raises his hand and knocks on the door.

Almost immediately, despite the late hour, the door opens.

Virgil’s Uncle grimaces. “I was so sad to think you’d left town,” he sneers, before he steps aside, offering Logan a path in. Logan walks in, and says brusquely, “You’ll understand if I deny your offer of a nightcap.”

“I wouldn’t, actually,” Virgil’s Uncle says, and sits at the kitchen table. Logan sits across from him, back to the rest of the house. He wonders, only for a moment, if Virgil’s awake too.

Logan pauses, staring at him, before he takes a breath in.

“I know the appearance of your face is likely a skin condition coupled with either an ocular abnormality, or you decided to lean into the snake metaphors and added a contact,” Logan says bluntly. “I know that you have, quite literally, locked Virgil up into a tower for most of his life to prevent him coming to any perceived harm. I know that for whatever reason, tarot cards and similar occult activities are part of the family history. I know that you,” Logan says, and fluidly removes Virgil’s father’s journal from his satchel, even as he sees Virgil’s Uncle look as if the air’s been knocked out of him, eyes widening. “Apparently the curse keeps him from saying anything he actually means, but I get him pretty well. The rest of the world, however, does not.”

“Where did you get that,” Virgil’s Uncle breathes, fists tight. Logan ignores him.

“So I understand that I cannot trust a word out of your mouth,” he continues. “However, the repeated application of curses, and witchcraft. That’s what I don’t understand. Cora has seemingly decided to leave things up to you. So I can’t ask you, clearly, because you will lie to me. I can’t ask Gillian, because I don’t trust her. There is only one Fae who I actually trust. I figured I would start with the polite route. I would like to Virgil, please.”

“This is your attempt at a polite route?” Gillian snorts, from the cover of darkness, emerging just enough so the light could hit her red hair.

“Your attempt at a polite route was attempting to steal my name, telling me my boyfriend had been drugged, and minimalizing my efforts to understand,” Logan says. “If we’re going based on comparison—”

“Harsh, braniac,” Gillian says, and glances at Virgil’s Uncle. “You want me to, ya know.” She wiggles her fingers.

Virgil’s Uncle surveys Logan, tilting his head. “You said he’s—”

“Yeah, I know,” Gillian says. “Your empathy’s pretty low there, Logic. Might just max me out to make you feel something. Hope you appreciate it.”

Logan frowns. “What—” he begins, but he can’t say anymore when Gillian’s icy cold fingers brush against the back of his neck.

Roman’s woken up by the sound of sobbing.

It’s enough to immediately strike out any sense of sleepiness that he could have had, and he sits up immediately, and blinks.

He’s never seen Logan’s face get that blotchy before.

He’s never actually seen Logan cry before.

“Whoa,” Roman says, scrambling out of bed, which is enough to wake Patton, “whoa, whoa, hey, Logan, Lo Lo Lo. Are you okay?”

“I,” Logan chokes out, and gasps, “I don’t know what she did to me,” and bursts into a fresh round of tears.

“Can I touch—”

Logan’s already yanking Roman in, though, burying his face into Roman’s bare chest as Roman wraps his arms around Logan tight, exchanging a panicked look with Patton. This was never how it worked. Patton or Roman were the big criers in their relationship, he had never, not once, seen Logan admit that he was feeling any emotion other than frustrated or stressed. It feels downright unnatural, hearing Logan cry, cry genuine and deep, crying with his whole heart.

Logan’s hugging is clumsy, just like how his sobbing seems to be clumsy—like he doesn’t quite remember how to cry and breathe, so there’s sobbing jags which ends with him gulping in a desperate lungful of air. He chokes on it, a couple times, and can only cry more.

Roman hates this. He hates Patton crying, and he’s only seen Virgil cry once, sulky and self-loathing and furious at himself, and he’d hated it then too, even when he’d still half-hated him. Logan’s upsets were small and difficult to see, sometimes exploding into outbursts, but never outbursts like this. He can only lean to pick Logan up and distribute him gently onto the bed, where he immediately clings to Patton as Roman slides in behind him, as Patton makes nonsense shushing noises coupled in with it’s gonna be okays, scratching gently at Logan’s scalp, and Roman presses himself against Logan’s back (cold) and wraps his arms around his waist.

The only things that move are Patton’s hands through his hair, his mouth with the soft murmurings, and Logan when his body’s wracked by sobs, coming in irregular and intense, like tremors, shaking Logan all up inside so that he couldn’t even speak.

Roman’s grip tightens around Logan’s waist, and he presses a kiss against the back of his neck.

And, all at once, Logan slumps, spent, and Patton asks “Logan?” panicked, shoving his hair out of his face.

“That’s exhausting,” Logan says, hoarse. “I hated that. How do people actually enjoy emotional release?”

“Because it’s an emotional release,” Roman says, propping himself up on his elbow and looking closely at Logan’s face as Logan scrubs hastily at his face with his sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Patton asks, soft and concerned. “Did something happen?”

Logan hesitates, and says, in the same hoarse voice, “I don’t know how she did that.”

“Who?” Patton asks. “Gillian? How did you run into Gillian?”

Logan curls up tighter, and Roman tugs the covers over them, thinking of how cold he’d been.

“Well,” Logan says, weakly. “I didn’t exactly. Run into her on accident.”

It takes a couple seconds to click.

Patton gasps. “You went back alone?!”

“I didn’t eat anything,” Logan continues, the same weak, thready, exhausted undertone in his voice. “Or drink anything. I tried to… I tried to talk to him. Virgil’s Uncle, I mean, I brought the journal, but she—” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what she did to me.”

“Go back to the start,” Patton advises.

Logan shudders, but he speaks.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “So I decided to go for a walk. And I ended up… well, I ended up going down the bluestone path. Knocked on the door. He was up at this hour, for whatever reason, and he let me in. So I started… addressing him, I suppose. I told him that I knew he’s a pathological liar—there’s something accounting that in Virgil’s father’s journal—and… a couple other things. I brought out the journal, to show him. I don’t think he knew the library had it. And Gillian came out of the darkness, and she said—” He takes a breath. “She said, your empathy’s pretty low there. Might just max me out to make you feel something.”

“Logan,” Patton murmurs, but Logan shakes off his attempts at comfort.

“And then she… she put her fingers against the back of my neck. Like this,” he says, and reaches up to brush against Patton’s nape with his fingers. “And I just… I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t—” he shakes himself, and says in a hoarse whisper, “How did she do that?”

“I don’t know,” Patton says. “A drug wouldn’t do that, would it?”

Logan’s already shaking his head. “Not with the sudden come down I had,” he says, and twists his head to look at Roman. “I think it’s because…” he grimaces. “I know how this sounds, but I think it’s because you kissed my neck. Something about the affected area.”

“What, like true love’s kiss?” Roman asks, and immediately kicks himself. True love’s kiss, they’ve barely been dating for not even a month, it’s way too fast—

But Logan’s cheeks tinge pink, and he turns his face into Patton’s chest.

Roman grins, despite the fact that Logan had been sobbing hysterically just a few minutes ago and leans to press another kiss to the nape of his neck.

Eventually, Patton’s gently coaching Logan into trying to sleep again (“crying drains you out, okay? trust me, I’d know”) and Roman slides out of bed.

“I’ll grab something to eat, if you want,” Roman says. “After Logan’s nap.”

It’s a sudden swap of how it’d been a couple days ago; Patton had been the one snuffling into Logan’s chest, and now it was the other way round.

“Not tired,” Logan mumbles into Patton’s chest.

“Sure thing, nerd-coleptic,” Roman says, reaching over to rub his back. “I’ll get something that’ll taste good even if it has to wait a while to be eaten. Keep an eye on him, Pat, okay?”

Patton winks at him, and says, “Eye-eye, captain.”

Logan groans, and Roman chuckles, tugging on a shirt and his coat before heading over to Cora’s.

Only to stop in his tracks.

“You,” Roman declares furiously, storming up to the counter Gillian’s leaning against. “What did you do to him?!”

Gillian rolls her eyes, and says, “Did either of you figure it out yet?”

“I kissed him on the back of the neck,” Roman snaps, “What did you DO?!”

“No need to get shouty,” Gillian says. “You look less hot when you’re shouty. I’m an empath, theater-for-brains.”

The wires in Roman’s brain shorts out. “What?” He says, frowning, and Gillian rolls her eyes.

“Here’s the—” Cora falters, and glances at Roman, before she tells Gillian, “Here’s the food, Gillian. And the receipt.”

Gillian frowns. “No Fae discount?”

“That only applies to my favorites,” Cora says. “Which you ain’t.” She turns to Roman, and says, much warmer, “How can I help you, honey?”

Roman can’t help but shoot Gillian a smug grin.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gillian says, and reaches out, cupping his face. “Laugh it up.”

She strides out of the diner as Roman finds himself bent double, laughing so hard it doesn’t even make a sound anymore.

Cora quickly reaches over, brushes a hand against his cheek, and Roman stops.

“What,” he gasps, trying to gain his breath, wiping under his eyes, “was that.”

“Leave it to her to let the cat out of the bag,” Cora says. “She told you, hon. She’s an empath.”

“That’s—” Roman begins, before it hits him.

That Kavanagh girl’s accused me and D of witchcraft—

“—Look, the crime counts for Virgil’s ancestors are ridiculous, I’ve barely made it through two generations without fielding several counts of mysterious deaths surrounding their lovers and those who are noted to have wronged them, and dozens of accusations of witchcraft—”

“—Magic,” Logan says dismissively—

“—I didn’t know you knew coin magic too.” Pearl’s piping voice echoes down the hall.

“I know all kinds of magic,” Virgil says—

“Okay. All right, hon, that’s it, right on the barstool, there ya go.”

Roman looks at Cora, and says hoarsely, “Magic?”

Cora worries her lip between her teeth. “Yes,” she says, at last. “Magic.”

Roman gets out his phone, and he makes a call.

Cora explain it to tell Logan at least fifteen times before he accepts it, but the more and more Roman thinks about it, the more it makes sense. The tarot cards, the weird spacing out, the family business, the way Virgil’s coffee never seemed to get too cold and the cats seemed to love him and Virgil knew exactly what to do with the cat who gave birth in his bathtub—the boy he loves is magic.

And cursed. That part… makes more sense of why he ran away from them, now. Roman couldn’t imagine living with that kind of fear.

“We have to tell Virgil we know,” Roman says immediately, once they’ve taken lunch and grabbed a booth.

“How,” Logan says, irritably. “Gillian’s there, she’ll—and Virgil’s Uncle—and if they really are magic—”

Roman takes a napkin and starts to sketch.

“Okay,” Roman says. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

Virgil’s starting to lose count of the days.

He’s eating because Uncle shoves bags of food from Cora’s at him. He’s sleeping because he rarely leaves his bed. Most of his social communication comes from Crow, who rarely leaves his room and has formed a semi-permanent rumbling warm spot on his stomach.

It’s night, that much is clear. The candles in his room are lit. He’s not sure if he did that with a wave of his hand or if Uncle came into his room while he was napping.

Virgil only lifts his head when there’s a crash that comes from downstairs, but only slightly. Virgil frowns, hesitates, and lays his head back down in his pillow.

“Do you want me to check?” Crow asks, leaping softly down from his bed and stretching.

“Please,” he says hoarsely, and she jerks her cat-chin towards the glass of water on his nightstand before she slinks out of his room. He takes the glass, and takes a sip, and then starts to gulp it down when he realizes how dry his throat is.

He wipes his face with his arm, and frowns at the empty glass, before he starts to rifle through the latest (cold) bag of Cora’s food. She’s sent him extra sweets instead of extra vegetables, which is truly just a sign of how bad she feels for him. And little written updates about when any of them step into the diner (usually Roman.) He can bear to read them sometimes.

He might even shower, soon. The world’s his oyster.

There’s a banging at the window, and Virgil frowns, before looking back at the food. Probably the wind.

More banging. Virgil sighs, before he heads over.

Immediately he gasps and throws open the window.

“Roman, you idiot,” Virgil says furiously, “what are you doing?!”

Roman looks up again. “The magic boy, all locked up in his tower,” Roman said, trying to smile like none of that sentence affected him at all. “And you teased me about being too overinvested in fairytales. I don’t wanna hear it from you ever again, Eugene Fitz-hurt-bert.”

“I—” Virgil says, before he reaches down and grabs the collar of Roman’s shirt, hauling him inside. He might be trying to separate himself from them, but magic help them, Virgil still loves him.

“Woo,” he says, shaking out his hands. “Thanks, it’s chilly out there.”

“Roman,” Virgil says, and his voice breaks. “Roman, what are you doing here?”

Roman licks his lips, hesitates, and says, “You said you wouldn’t do this again.”

“What?”

“Leave me without an explanation.”

Virgil closes his eyes, and turns away, wrapping his arms tightly around his middle, trying to defend against the wave of emotion that washes over him just then. God, being in love sucks.

“Virgil,” Roman says, and he coos, “Virgil” and steps back into his line of sight. “Virgil, it’s okay, I—we know what’s going on now, okay?”

Virgil snorts.

“That you’re magic,” Roman elaborates. “And that you have a curse on you. We know. Okay?”

“Then you have your explanation,” Virgil says hoarsely. “That’s why I left. That’s why you have to stay away.”

There’s another, louder, crash from downstairs, and it suddenly clicks.

“Oh my God,” Virgil says. “Oh, my God, are Logan and Patton wrecking my house?”

“I actually don’t know exactly,” Roman says cautiously. “They’re just supposed to distract your Uncle and Gillian—”

“They’re going to kill them,” Virgil says, and flings open the door, and steps straight into the living room, nearly running straight into Patton’s chest.

“Virgil!” He squeaks. “Oh, Virgil—”

“Wait, this is—this is downstairs, your house is magic too?” Roman demands, stepping after and shutting the door behind him.

“Logan’s right behind me,” Patton pants, “I—”

Patton is nearly knocked over by the force of Logan running into his back, and Virgil has to catch him.

Logan looks at him. “Virgil,” he says, and falls immediately silent.

“Hi,” Virgil says hoarsely. “So, um. How did that. How did that realization go over?”

“Honestly,” Logan says, “it wasn’t until your Uncle sicced the snakes on us until I actually believed it.”

Virgil has to bury his face in his hands again, and groans, before uncovering his face.

“You guys need to leave,” Virgil says weakly. “I—I get that you might have been… concerned, but you guys realize I have good reason now, right? So you need to go. Right now.”

“Have you been eating?” Patton says, disregarding him entirely, and Virgil drags his hands down his face.

“I’m fine,” he says. “You three will continue to be fine if you get out of town. I—go back to school, I’ll pay my share of rent, you can find a subleaser, but—”

“You are not fine,” Logan says, frowning, “the bags under your eyes are much heavier than usual.” “Will you three listen to me?!” Virgil explodes, and there’s a knock at the door, and he turns to see his Uncle, expressionless.

“Should I,” he begins, and falls silent.

“I was just telling them to—” Virgil says.

“Sorry, but that’s not happening,” Roman bursts in. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“You don’t get it,” Virgil says.

“Could we have some privacy, please?” Logan asks lowly, and Uncle turns to Virgil.

“I—just for a bit,” Virgil says, at last. “And if you see Crow, send her here. Please.”

Uncle frowns. “Don’t remember your history,” he says at last, before he steps away, closing the door behind him.

Virgil takes a deep breath and looks at them.

“I’m going to kill you,” Virgil tells the three of them, voice only a bit watery.

“That’s not true,” Patton says, soft.

“It is,” Virgil says tightly. “Back to the nineteenth century. I can’t—I can’t stop this.”

“Has it ever affected three people at once?” Logan says fairly, and Virgil swallows.

“It might if—” Virgil hesitates, but plows forward. “It might if a Fae did a true love spell.”

Uncle had been furious when Virgil had gasped out the explanation when he’d gotten home. The yelling had nearly shaken the dust from the rafters.

They look at each other. “True love spell?” Roman says.

Virgil takes a shaky breath. “One of the only rules growing up was not to do a complicated spell,” he says. “I ignored it. I found a true love spell when I was seven, and I—I tripled the ingredients. I thought I was putting in things that would contrast in just one person, but—” He gestures feebly to the three of them.

They look at each other, surprised, before they turn back to Virgil.

“You wished for us,” Patton says, sappy.

“I made you,” Virgil says. “I twisted you into creation, I doomed you to—”

Logan frowns. “There’s records of our existence before we were seven.”

“Magic is powerful,” Virgil says, hoarse. “Maybe I put those memories in your head. How would you know?”

“You might have power, Virgil,” Logan says, “but I highly doubt you were that powerful at seven.”

Virgil’s shaking his head, though, because Logan doesn’t understand. Logan’s smart, but he wouldn’t understand. Faes understand Faes. No one else.

“Okay,” Patton says. “I—Virgil, staying away from us isn’t going to make you love us any less. It isn’t going to make us love you any less. It’s just going to make everyone miserable.”

“We won’t know unless I try,” Virgil says, hoarse.

Patton reaches forwards, but Virgil steps hastily out of his reach. If Patton tries to touch him or hug him right now, he’ll fold. He can’t do that.

“Virgil,” Patton says. “Trust me. I would know. Staying away from someone does not make you love them any less.”

Virgil’s eyes close, and he wraps his arms around himself again.

“Virgil,” Roman says, his voice soft. “We’re out of balance, without you. We were right last year. We work, but not as well. I—we can’t—” He breathes, deep, and says, “Please come home.”

Virgil squeezes his eyes shut. He resists the urge to clap his hands over his ears.

“Please come home,” Logan repeats, soft. “I—it’s impossible to run herd on them alone, Virgil. We miss you.”

“Plus,” Roman adds, “you know how stubborn we all are, we’re just going to keep having this conversation over and over and over again.”

“How would I—” Virgil says, and shakes his head. “No. I’m not giving in. You will die if I give in. I couldn’t—” There’s a lump in his throat. “I couldn’t survive that. My first three friends in the world, I can’t—you can’t make me be what kills you. Please don’t make me be what kills you.”

“Virgil,” Logan says, voice soft. “We’re different. The curse has never worked on anyone gay, let alone anyone with multiple partners. If it truly is a curse for your true love, singular, then—then the fact that you used a spell to make yourself have three might have outsmarted it.”

Virgil’s shaking his head. “You can’t outsmart it,” he says. “You can’t. That’s how my father died, you can’t—”

“We’re not suggesting outsmarting it,” Logan backtracks. “We’re suggesting… circumventing it. Do you know how the curse was placed?”

There’s something absurd about Logan using his usual scholarly voice to talk about magic, something in Virgil’s brain thought, but he’s too upset to acknowledge it.

“No,” Virgil says. “Great-great-whatever-grandma took that secret to the grave. And some Faes have skills inclined towards necromancy, but no one’s—no one’s managed to contact her about it.”

“Necromancy,” Logan says blankly, before he shakes himself. “Right. But—if you don’t know—it could have had terms. Singular true love. Opposite sex true love. Your family operates in the gray area, doesn’t it?”

Virgil grimaces, because, well, it’s true.

“Virgil,” Patton says, eyes at full puppy power, “please. Please. Can we at least… try? We don’t know if it’s true love. Not yet. Can’t we just try?”

Virgil’s eyes close. He knows, though. He knows it is. The spell says so.

“Anx,” Roman says, and Virgil’s eyes swivel towards him. He steps closer. This time, Virgil doesn’t back away.

“Please. Please, it’s hurting all of us if you stay away. If you stay with us, at least—at least we can be happy now.”

Virgil looks away, and blinks hard, and at last there’s the tears coming down his cheeks.

“Can I kiss you?” Roman whispers, and Virgil’s eyes snap to him. Barely, imperceptibly, he nods.

Roman’s hands cup his cheeks, and he uses his thumbs to wipe away Virgil’s tears, before he leans in.

It’s soft. Gentle. Nothing like what Virgil imagined Roman would kiss like—his lips, soft and lush and a bit cold against his. He pulls away, and Logan steps forwards next.

“May I kiss you,” he says formally, and Virgil chokes on a laugh, but nods.

Logan tips his chin up a little, before kissing him the same way Roman kissed him—soft, and gentle, and his lips are just a bit chapped, but warm.

Patton, last, and they both laugh wetly at each other, Virgil at last reaching up to wipe at the tears on his cheeks.

“Can I—” Patton begins, before he rushes forwards.

This is, however, exactly how he figured Patton would kiss—eager, and fullhearted, all clashing lips and feeling the curve of his smile against his mouth.

They pull back, and Virgil laughs a little.

“Okay,” he whispers, before he nods. “Okay.”

There’s still a question, though, and one Virgil won’t be able to answer for all the long, happy years to come.

He has no idea which one of them got the good kisser part.

[themousai]

Q+A: NEWMEDS

You guys have all been involved in several other well established bands, how did you all meet? And what made you guys decide to start creating together?

Myself (Nick) and Brodie (Joe, drums) had been good mates for a long time. We worked a few nights together at Brodie’s bar and started to discover each others music taste. That's where the idea grew for NEWMEDS, we sorted a practise room and started looking for the right guitarist. Mark had just become available after parting with a previous band. We both kind of had the same idea to get him anyways. Brodie had previously been at music college with him and i had just started talking to get to know him. We practised together as a 3 piece for a while and realised we wanted a bass player to get involved. We had a lot of interest from good musicians that heard the first song we put out which was called "Rosyln". We knew the person had to fit the bill though, enthusiastic, good stage presence, could help with backing vocals, and likes a good night out. We knew Sam from the music scene, he is notorious for been in several bands at a time, but he had just left one. He had showed love for the song, and said he would love to get involved. We asked him a few days later, he snapped our hands off. It's 4 lads from 4 different, but not too different backgrounds, its no limits, no restrictions on sound, i think that would interest any musician starting a band.

Your hometown, Hull, has just been crowned UK City Of Culture – tell us what the music scene is like there? What’s one thing you think is done really well, and what’s one thing you’d love to see improve? Well i think the City Of culture stuff is slowing down now, the torch gets passed on, i think Coventry have it now. It did a lot for the city though, a lot of people were negative about it, saying they would have done this and they would have done that. But mainly i think its put eyes on us from places we wouldn't have been heard. It's been really positive for everything not just music. The music scene has ALWAYS thrived in Hull, there's always been quality bands, and it's still the case. We know a lot of the musicians from Hull, many have been in bands for years, some younger kids starting up for the first time. To make music is always a positive thing, if your music connects with one person then you've made a difference right? There are a few independent venues that have been there for years and now we are attracting bigger promotion names. It's good and bad, things change when big companies come in, sometimes not for the better. The work and progress places have made by themselves to get to that position is quickly over looked, and the bands that used to play don't get a look in sometimes. I hope that's not the way it goes here, but time will tell i guess. It would be nice to see more local bands be given a shot at playing those bigger support slots. In the Leeds and Newcastle O2 academies they will only give support slots to local bands, that's cool, we should learn from that.

Are there any stand out bands in the scene that you wish everyone would listen to right now? Im gonna answer this from a perspective of hard work and the pay off from it, because so far we haven't played with a whole load of bands in NEWMEDS.  LIFE from Hull, are a very hard working band and its finally paying off. Stew Baxter (Drummer) worked for years for the Warren Project in Hull, improving the scene and bringing opportunities for bands and musicians in Hull. He also helped us massively and made us believe in ourselves, whenever im feeling at a dead end with trying to push the band further i know i can just ask him his opinion and get an honest answer. From a point of bands that we've seen or played with so far The King Is Dead are super tight live, as are Strange Bones, as are our friends from Three Day Millionaires.

Your sound is really something special - blending together black metal, punk and emo, with a little psychedelic edge – where do you guys draw inspiration for what you create? I guess it just comes from such a huge range of different influences. Also the bands we have been in previously definitely help us in terms of what to do, and not what to do. Our songs always have a driving drum beat, nothing complicated, but always solid and memorable. The things Mark can do with a guitar astound us every time. He has completely nailed the sounds he wants, he has built his own sound, and amazes us every time. Mark comes from the more Black Metal side of music, but has also played in Blues bands and many many other genre bands. I personally grew up on Hip Hop, Metal and Hardcore Punk and Emo. Brodie was always into Skater Punk and Rock, playing in bands of a similar style. Sam has played in bands from Mathcore to Dad Rock but has similar influences to myself in parts. I think we are such an open book for new ideas that it just works. We are constantly in the group chat showing each other new music and ideas for songs, everyone is hugely creative and talented. The music creates itself, if it sounds good it stays, if it sounds out of place we will usually say "Good, now let's work and adapt it a little".

Run us through the creation of one of your songs – do you find each has a similar recipe? Or does the process change every time? A lot of our songs have come from a simple drum beat. Mark and Sam smash ideas out over the top of it, and then we work on structure. We will chop and change bits down move them around leave them for a week, make a rough recording then "skim the fat" off. Once finished with the music, we will make another recording so i can sit and write lyrics. I'll spend countless hours getting the lyrics right, sometimes i've written 10 sets per song. I would never do it another way, the lyrics are so vital. If people can't relate to the lyrics i doubt they will feel the song. We don't write all the songs the same way, sometimes idea's have come from one of us having a beat, or a riff in our heads and then you have to go through the humiliating process of "mouthing" it to the band because we don't always have the capability to pick the guitar up and show Mark what we mean, or jump behind the drums and smash a beat in our head out.

Lastly, convince our readers to come out a show in 3 words. We giveaway vodka

Answered by Nick Cobley

Quick Fire

The one song I wish I wrote is...  Miami - Taking Back Sunday Three things I can’t live without are… Hob Nobs, Pacifico and music Phones out, or phones away if you’re watching a gig... Phones away! Three adjectives that describe my life are… Hungover, Drunk, Hungover If I held a world record it would be for... Bones broken in my body! My first memory of loving music is… listening to Black Sabbaths self titled in the car with my dad. The song of mine that I am the most proud of is... "What's Your Problem" My favourite venue i’ve ever played is… 100 Club in London The ideal environment for me to create music in is... A sweaty room with the lads. b>If I could have any two bands open for me they would be...  Every Time I Die and Highly Suspect

Answered by Sam Rudderforth

Keep up to date with NEWMEDS Facebook | Spotify | Instagram

Interview by Mandie Hailwood

[rhodesmystery]

where are you up to in the game and how are you liking it?

so im in year 3 right now. taking it as slow as i can because i fell into the gem trap during year 2. 

like, i am enjoying it. I'm hit with that serious nostalgia value, and the parallels and stuff between the books. also other things, such as naming fang, being at hogwarts the same time as charlie, bill and tonks, starting school once voldemort has been defeated, and even seeing interiors of common rooms we never got to experience anywhere else as much.

its also nice to have the mc, and even with the small amounts of backstory the game provides, you can develop them further. like i connected my girl to some families and threw in classic drama and stuff, and with no specifics on jacob either, you can do whatever you want. changed up what type of wand i wanted her to have to reflect what i believe she’ll end up like, planned out what type of career i see her having... yknow? that sort of stuff

it just sucks that the way the game is setup, energy is the real problem. yes, the micro transactions will go back to the developers, but like there is no need for them to rely so heavily on it and fall into what many other game developers do these days. 

they could do at the very least energy overflow, for when you level up. that way it adds the 25+ on top of whatever you have (as i have levelled up sometimes when i have a decent amount of energy left, and it ultimately resets it). even just a higher base level energy, that increases as you level, or every two levels (instead of being just in classes, which could just be bonus). like increasing the threshold helps too, when you get to certain classes, and they require like 15 per star. or when you have 8hr classes (considering there are a loooooot of them as you progress).

reducing it from 4 minutes to even 2 would also help. this is pretty much a visual novel, so they can take a page out of the book of other games. i know plenty of people have voiced subscription basis response, but as we dont know ETAs for when they release years (and I'm honestly assuming theyre going to release half a year at a time... just to keep interest), that doesnt seem to work either. the intended audience for this game seems to be all over the place, as it is playing on the nostalgia value heavily for a lot of older fans, but there are plenty of younger fans involved too. 

like the arguments go back and forth for it, but if they have only made it a month since release, and a lot of it is negativity that you see officially, then they need to go back to the drawing board and work out what they need to do. but it also relies on the company themselves being open to accepting what the community voices, because they will notice a large drop-off in reception pretty soon. there have been some really awesome suggestions, and repeats of the same things, so its not like they can continue to ignore it. also too, making themselves available on places like twitter... its the internet. they gotta be willing to listen and change. 

what i REALLY wish they would consider is duelling against other players of the game. we’re already connected to the internet when playing, and many other games are able to incorporate it. login bonuses will also be awesome, with like a 7 day login reward each sunday, and then when you hit milestones, it will help drag the game out too. working up towards quidditch would be really good, and i would seriously love either seeing a world cup, or something like the triwizard tournament (as it technically wasn’t revived until 1994, and the game takes place in the 80s). like if they start adding things to the game to build up a sense of community in game, like having everyone contribute house points to their house, like how pottermore used to be like, and offering rewards, ending the cup race after a month or something, like they could take this game up a few levels. make it not so negatively talked about and regarded poorly.

[shytiff]

May Small Wins

1 - lazed, went to racheel’s place and put my motorbike there, went to slipi jaya with silvi devi reza to watch seobok (it was fun!!), had iftar at the yumz green sedayu. It was raining when we get back. prayed maghrib and isya in some random mosque. went back and arrived at like 8 past sumn. showered, slept like a babyy

2 - lazed, slept and woke up at like 11, went to nila’s house, practiced doing eyeliner by borrowing nila's (focallure brand), iftar at green sedayu foodcourt (originally intended to go to the yumz but it enforces actual distancing) with angkot ppl minus tik will. Arrived home at about 9-ish.

3 - magang as usual. Went to rm. Took mrt to lebak bulus. My inaco salary finally came. My head kinda hurts after tarawih. Ended up skimming over bj alex lmaooo. Did not shower today lol,,,,

4 - added dr dafsah's revision to the excel database otw to rsf. Pak nardi took a while to arrive. Left rsf early to go to the bank. I (((finally))) activated m-banking lmaooo wow the features are neat wow im not jahiliah anymore. Found this method of just let it sweat anyway during tarawih lmaoo. Preferably with long sleeves bcs somehow you feel less of the sweaty feel compared to tshirt.

5 - sampling - data entry - RM as usual. Theres no new RM. Read a goood dramione fic by bex chan even if its not complete, its okay. Im okay :"))). Iftar was soup, salad, chicken katsu and french fries. Its been 2 days that i practiced sleeping-to-rain-sound. The first night was spent as a dreamless quick sleep (its over before you knew it), but tonight i dreamed abt almira's wedding lmaoo.

6 - no sampling today!! Still went to rsf tooo go to the mall w regen lmao. Did some data entry. Went to PP by mrt. Went back by going to halte gbk and thankfully the kalideres one arrived after only waiting for 5 mins. Its surprisingly quick, compared to lebak bulus - pesakih trip. Took abt 20 mins to jelambar.

7 - no sampling today too. Dr vera gave us lebaran cookies! Did gcp for bu suryati a5. Went to rm, finally finished the available rm. Went home early. Can finally relax since its the weekend.

8 - literally laid in bed til my body hurts. Rly want to read sumn but dunno what. Finally decided to read momoiro heaven. And rere hello. And after iftar i read lack of love. And just like tht, my saturday was gone. Cant bring myself to do things

9 - its another day of lazying (or self sabotaging, cant tell). Read spy family and its effin hilarious. Wasted my sunday. Cant bring myself to even move and i just laid in bed all day.

10 - last day of work in the weeekend lmao. Felt better than being in AR, but still not that much productivity. Went to RM. Phone call w fianti along the way to plan food in almira's bridal shower. Went back at 12-ish. Picked up my dress from risma busana. Walked to and fro halte kebon jeruk. Prayed zuhur close to ashar in kfc's mushola. Felt better after ~8k steps. Had homelab's green tea mixed with vsoy. It honestly made me feel better. Matcha, or caffeine, sure is amazing. At least i had a sense of normalcy before losing all the will to self-care

11 - consumed internet entertainment u til i was sick and tired of it. Watched a lot of cut videos. Granny came and stayed over. So i slept upstairs

12 - same as 11 but upstairs. More relatives came near iftar time so i excused myself to shower. Slept in mom n dads room at like 12-ish. Watched hp goblet of fire since keisha and karins newest obsession was draco. We squealed together over liking enemies to lovers trope haha,,,,

13 - Somehow all of dad's jakarta relatives came for lebaran. the last time i checked, there were some bridges being burned. prayed eid at home. watched perempuan tanah jahanam (which was surprisingly not scary). ate. napped. talked about personal things w keisha and karin. i cant believe the time has finally come where we talk about this kinda stuff. watched you’re next (it barely has any plot, just gore). they went back at about 8 pm and i just sleptttt yall lmao i didnt shower today. disgusting, i know

14 - cam barely get out of bed. Managed to shower at zuhur time. Watched dalbang and laughed like crazy bcs its just that funny. Read fanfics. Tiktok. Ate once and had greenfield yogurt at the evening. Fell asleep. Woke up at 1 and snacked on 1 pack of oat krunch

15 - run bts. Originally planned to go to flavola but it was still closed, so i went to dm's dunkin. Ordered orange juice and oeanut choco donut but somehow the price wasnt package price hhh. Turns out my clires account was somehow banned. So i contacted the admin. Instead of doing dr dafsah's excel i ended up taking off the makara sticker from my laptop. Bought some stuff for almira's bridal shower. Bought arirang at hari2 (its funny bcs yesterday i was seeing online marketplace, planning to buy it, but turns out hari2 the magical place had buy 2 get +1 deal for arirang.

16 - run bts. Managed to move my body a bit. Did 20 squats (ill elaborate on this later). That improved my mood. Tidied up some of my stuff. Saw the paper bag of random memorabilias by friends.

17 - went to rsf by tj. left kalideres 06:45 and arrived at RSF 8:15. sampling. went to RM (still no new ones). picked up by mom. went to salemba for almira’s bridal shower. originally planned to get padang at citra minang behind BK but it was closed. so we drove around looking for open ones. ended up buying it in a small (but crowded) padang place near a big padang restaurant lmao. was the first one to arrive at acacia. checked in, pulled the bed near the wall. showered. its hilarious sometimes with a bit more serious discussion anjayy. went home w febby who drove and clara

18 - went to mcd to get lunch (since everyone’s fasting) and tried to muster the will to do something. i didnt manage to do anything except shopping online (brought dusty pink hijab at hijup). got spicy chicken and iced coffee. (spoiler alert: tomorrow i got mencret2 lmaooo). read my suha and beyond the skidipapap its actually rly good

19 - went to RSF (with mom as usual. quickly snapped RM pictures while mom was waiting. went with her to mami’s house bcs she and uwak will fly to banjar. finally got to meet haekal, he’s such a smiley babyy its basically free therapy. planned outing with nisa lmao. from soekarno hatta we went to vintage vibes lmao since we’re already out. vintage vibes is more crowded now. and there’s less good findings now. went back emptyhanded. ate chicken arirang since there’s no food. fell asleep at like 06:30 until early morning lmaooo

20 - woke up at 2-ish am, played my phone, fell asleep at like 9?, woke up again at 11 lmaooo. went to sbux. had matcha latte. did some inaco work. todays the most productive ive been this week.

21 - went to gi with febby to also meet up with fi, bought falsies and glue (later proved to be of a horrible quality), siraman and pengajian almira (first time seeing an actual siraman), went to blok m w nes ren ara gen. Tried naruto takoyaki at little tokyo, went to daitokyo (i didnt eat anything), and got matcha cake, sakura and mango raspberry gelato at kebun ide. Picked up by mom. Renata gifted me bts 2021 winter package photocard 🥺🥺

22 - iluni internship webinar by dr naldo. Grabbed fried chicken master. Stupid time management etcetc made my start makeup at 12 (febby went out at 13:30). My falsies and hijabdo was done by herrr thank god for the help. Went to swissbel. Didnt take a pic w almira bcs time. Almiras wedding at damai indah golf pik. My skin was TERRIBLE at the wedding. The make up didnt stick prolly bcs of vitacid. Thank god for masks,,, went back home w febbyy. Made tiktok lmao

23 - lazed. Went to flavola. Its finally daytime caffeine again w kopsuscok. Did dr triya's translation work and finished it at home. She transferred the fee at like 11pm

24 - off to RSF with mom. no new medical records. wrote fuad’s name on the medrec borrowing form. continued to nisa’s place w mom. lazed, played w haekal, put some patient’s phone number on the inaco excel. Off to GBK with nisa and sarah. parked at abc field (shouldve parked near GBK’s H gate). saw moja museum 2.0, took lots of pics. mo paint (moral lesson: draw the background first!! not the foreground). finished at 16:30. ashar at masjid al-bina. nisa dropped me off at gbk tj station. prayed maghrib on the bus since the traffic was so ughh. met atikah in lippo puri. decided to eat seirockya so we walked to puri. talked about a certain someone along the way. we rly talked about it while walking until we arrived at seirockya. atikah treated me uyeyy since she and racheel will stay in depok for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. got the shoyu ramen and gyoza. took the taxi to atikah’s place. mom’s waiting there lmaoo i was like “noo dont wait at jco, just wait at atikah’s”. still felt energized that night in my bed. no sleepy2. like 100% awake. 

25 - woke up at like 9:30. i basically did nothing today. didnt even shower lmao (i showered last night). read the good teacher in one go. zoom meeting w dr eva. i rly need some structure in life, goshhh

26 - showered and went to mcd. got nasi uduk, breakfast wrap and milo for 26k (thanks mcd app promo and mcd duta garden’s menu machine, i dont have to interact with another human). planning to do dr dafsah’s excel after all the data is complete, and still no new inaco data, so i ended up.... online shopping at bobobobo....... (bought outer and white culotte). tidied up the writings on my stickies (plenty of words has accumulated). ordered onejai for emir juan (expensive!!! 79k no promo lolll but free delivery. i was baited by gojek’s 1k 2 week subscription and felt like hmmm i should get something since we live in the middle of nowhere and free deliveries felt significant at that particular time when im holding my phone lmao). fell asleep after drinking vsoy + matcha lol its soft caffeine no longer works i guess

27 - woke up late as usual, went to sbux at 1 pm. tried white peach matcha frapp. the peach overpowers and u can barely taste the matcha. tried to read something useful (in medicine) but skimmed 2 ppt and then i saw solid’s bitly for isip. finished reading banana fish. couldnt bawl my eyes out because im outside.

28 - checked out rsf. Still no new ones. Immediately went back. Lazed and wasted my time

29 - iluni webinar. Here comes the impending life crisis. Ate nasi uduk and mie goreng telor today. Tried vsoy golden grain with matcha. It has almond aftertaste. Line call with kris for almost 4 hrs until 11 past sumn pm.

30 - more iluni webinar. Dr Eric, SpPD, PhD was rly cool. Tried daily box (butter soy chicken). Quite tasty. Mkg w regen. Videocalled in the mall w silvi racil bcs its ale and nadaa's wedding today. Bought gooma 500ml matcha w gofood pickup discount. Ate sushi go (the shoyu has mirin btw). 50k+ you get 6 piece of sushi (2 salmon) and matcha cake and ocha. Quite a nice deal. Talked abt cryptocurrency lmao. Went back and forth w TJ. All hail tj

31 - planned to do at least some productive stuff at home. turns out nila is outside and had some time to spare. so we went out. i met her in citra 6. we went to pik’s white beach. its scorching hot since its 2 pm. spent like 15 mins there. we had wanted to stop by monsieur spoon but THERES A QUEUEEE even if its a hot afternoon. so we ate tom sushi at green sedayu. talked a bit afterwards in nila’s place and then i was picked up by emir. tried gooma’s matcha. its not sweet like sbux. approved by mom (who doesnt like sweets). but its more expensive than sbux’s 2L 100k promo lol. (45k after gopay pickup promo for 500 ml). reread bj alex lmaooooo found new tidbits

[nase-weis-blog]

I can't believe my #Shoutoutsunday Artseries has almost come to an end! Now that only a few sundays are left in this year I really have to think about who must be included here by any means. And one person among those is definitely @tobias_beck_official a man who's changed so much in my life while entertaining my on very high levels! :D It's rare for me to sit alone in my room not able to stop laughing but Tobias has gotten me to that point quite some times :) He's a well known speaker in Germany and his work isn't available in english yet but I think going international is part of his plans so be prepared ;) And have a lovely sunday <3 :)⠀ ⠀ Ich kann kaum glauben, dass meine Shoutoutsunday Reihe schon fast wieder vorbei ist! Jetzt wo nur noch ein paar Sonntage in diesem Jahr übrig sind, muss ich wirklich überlegen, wen ich hier unbedingt mit reinbringen möchte. Und eine dieser Personen ist definitiv @tobias_beck_official . Dieser Mensch hat eine Menge in meinem Leben verändert und das während er mich so sehr unterhalten hat! :D Für mich ist es eher selten allein im Raum zu sitzen und laut los zu lachen, aber Tobias hat das schon einige Male bei mir bewirkt :) Vielleicht sagt euch sein Name schon etwas, denn er ist ein erfolgreicher und gut bekannter Speaker im deutschsprachigen Raum! ;) Ihr kennt ihn noch nicht? Dann aber los! :D Und habt noch einen wunderschönen Sonntag <3 :) ⠀ ⠀ #tobiasbeck #bewohnerfrei #bewohnerfreipodcast #speaker #mindset #tobiasbeckuniversity #awesomepeople #inspiration #motivation #lifechanger #art #recommendation #drawing #instaart #comicart #portrait #digital #personality

[gyrlversion]

Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

Photo: Shutterstock (pigeons)

Depending on how you count, I’m in between four and 18 active group chats, across half a dozen different apps that occupy most of my time on my phone. Right now, I’m in a one called “Ramius’s Boys,” which is devoted to sharing quotes from the film The Hunt for Red October and submarine-related links; another called “News and Politics Discussion Group,” for arranging Mario Kart matches and, most important, talking shit; and a third, “No More Furry Nudes I Promise” — though, to be fair, that one probably shouldn’t be counted as “active” because no one trusted the promise its creator made in the title. One friend described to me a group chat she’s in with one “overriding rule”: The only thing allowed is GIFs of the Hulk. Another friend told me she’s in a group chat dedicated to sharing photographs of Cobb salads called, naturally, “COBB COBB.”

In some ways, group chat feels like a return to the halcyon era of AOL Instant Messenger, once the most widespread method of messing around with your friends on the internet. But in my life, group chats — on Apple’s iMessage, WhatsApp, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, or any number of other apps or platforms — aren’t simply additional modes of socialization, drawing on the IM conversation or the chat room. They’re an outright replacement for the defining mode of social organization of the past decade: the platform-centric, feed-based social network. For me, at least, group chats aren’t the new AIM. They’re the new Facebook.

Like Facebook at its best, they’re pocket sources of interpersonal nourishment. Some of my group chats were created for utilitarian reasons, like planning a bachelor party, but have since outgrown the limiting stricture of “having a particular reason to exist.” Most have been freewheeling and themeless since their inception, cast haphazardly and sustained by gossip and boredom and the opportunity to make fun of someone else’s typos. The paradigmatic message of the group chat is one my friend Sam sent recently: “Wanna see something mildly funny?” In group chats, the answer is always “yes.”

It’s easy to forget, 15 years, 2 billion users, and an ethnic-cleansing controversy or two later, that Facebook was a place for this kind of purposeless sociality before it was a place for repeatedly blocking and reporting your step-cousin. More than that, it was a piece of essential social infrastructure — a new layer of life that efficiently, and aggressively, reorganized social existence, describing and enabling friendships, cliques, parties, and even memories, formalized as they would eventually be by Facebook photo albums uploaded on hungover Sunday afternoons.

As it happens, Facebook’s mandate was never to facilitate social life. It was to draw new users in and keep them there, even in alienating and potentially antisocial ways. Over the years it grew beyond the original, limited social contexts in which it began, and chased user engagement at the expense of its users’ well-being. The arrival of parents and bosses into the same social space as college friends, and the introduction of the implicitly competitive News Feed, with its opaque multi-metric ranking system, created the sense that this once-friendly space had turned against us. But by the measurements important to investors, it was successful, and the endlessly updating, always-available feed was adopted as the model for all social networks. The result was, depending whom you talk to, either every single bad thing that’s happened in the last five years, or just most of them.

As feeds grew hostile, though, the rise of the smartphone, with its full-screen keyboard and its array of free messaging options, gave us a new, context-specific, decentralized social network: the group chat. Over the last few years, I and most of the people I know have slowly attempted to extricate our social lives from Facebook. Now it’s the group chat that structures and enables my social life. I learn personal news about friends from group chats more often than I do on Facebook; I see more photos of my friends through group chats than I do on Instagram; I have better and less self-conscious conversations in group chats than I do on Twitter. I’m not alone: The Avengers are in a group chat; the actresses of Big Little Lies are in a group chat; Beyoncé is in a group chat with her mother and Solange. (Jay-Z was apparently not invited.) Group chats have become so fundamental to daily life, in some cases, that they are the first place people turn for help: During the shooting at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, on May 7, BuzzFeed News reported that students took to group chats to share moment-to-moment updates.

And Facebook knows it. “The future is private,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told developers at the company’s annual F8 conference on April 30. “Over time, I believe that a private social platform will be even more important to our lives than our digital town squares.” He unveiled a new design for the Facebook homepage that emphasized private, user-created Facebook Groups, rather than the default-public News Feed, and announced to the crowd: “This is about building the kind of future we want to live in.” I doubt everyone is as invested in group chats as I am. But if Facebook has its way, they soon will be — on Facebook.

To me, the reorientation of Facebook around private groups feels less like the company “building the kind of future we want” and more like its attempt to force itself back into a social life I’d rescued from its feed. Last year, the technology writer Navneet Alang wondered in a column in the Globe and Mail if it would be possible “to save social media from Facebook.” That is, could we extricate from the globe-spanning behemoth that is Facebook, Inc., the many uses and experiences that can make Facebook, the website and app, so enjoyable? The flowering of group chats points us in one direction. In almost all ways, I find the group chat an improvement over the machine-sorted feed. Freed from the pressure to stand out from thousands of other posts, conversations on group chats tend to be comfortably subdued — even appealingly boring — in a way that Facebook status updates or tweets never can be. Because most group chats exist on platforms or apps that don’t rely on advertising money or user engagement to support themselves, they’re only as addicting or exploitative as any social interaction might be.

You don’t “check” chats the way you check an endless feed: Conversation flows when enough people want to have it, but there’s no algorithm to find and surface an unseen chat message that you might engage with. What you get instead is distraction the old-fashioned way: with intention. The feed, at its worst, is a passive and slack-jawed experience. The group chat requires some level of active engagement. Whatever conditioning has led us to seek validation from the glass-and-metal rectangles in our pockets is obviously at play in the group chat as it is on other social platforms. But it occurs at human scale, with distinct reactions from a handful of friends for a minorly funny joke, rather than at the alien scale of behemoth platforms, with likes endlessly mounting for a Facebook post in which you dunk on the president.

Like any social network, the group chat has its own social mores and prerogatives. Every group chat contains recognizable archetypes — the out-of-it person who asks “wait, what?” about every conversation; the (psychologically self-actualized and professionally successful) member who keeps the group chat on mute, meaning they don’t get alerted every time someone sees a Cobb salad — and undergoes regular cycles of high and low activity, depending on the schedules and time zones of participants. Every group chat has smaller orbiting sub-chats featuring new constellations of the original group’s members, created to plan surprise parties, or, worse, to complain about the guy who keeps asking “what, what?”

Which is another way of saying that group chats aren’t always beautiful and healthy expressions of friendship. The distraction of the group chat may feel more fulfilling than the distraction of Instagram, but it’s still a distraction — sometimes even from fulfilling in-person socializing. Orienting your social infrastructure around sharply circumscribed friend groups might help avoid the dreaded collapsing of social contexts that occurs on Facebook, but it can also reinforce cruel in-group/out-group dynamics. (Though, in their defense, because group chats can’t be crashed by angry strangers or malicious trolls, they’re only ever toxic in the familiar and reassuring ways that friend groups have been since middle school.) Private group chats can create echo chambers as distorting as the decontextualized noise of a public social feed.

Nor are any of the many companies whose products I use to talk to friends particularly benevolent. Apple’s iMessage, my most frequent group-chat app, ties my phone number up in difficult-to-extricate ways with its proprietary system, and splits friends in two tiers — blue and green. (My friend Dan became so incensed at being left out of iMessage group chats that he rigged a home server so he could receive iMessages chats on his Android.) WhatsApp is routinely accused of being a vector of misinformation in India, where it’s been linked to mob violence, and in Brazil, where it’s a source of far-right “fake news.” (Not surprisingly, WhatsApp is also the most “frictionless” of any chat platform, and it’s telling that the first step in reducing the flow of misinformation on the app is to disable the “forwarding” button.) It’s also owned by Facebook, the very company I took to group chats to get away from.

But even if most of these corporations are untrustworthy, at least there are many of them. The key advantage of the group chat is that “social graph” of your friend network exists in your head, and not only on a server in Iceland, which means you can easily abandon one platform for another without any trouble — or, as most of us do, occupy many platforms at once. The result, as Facebook knows all too well, is an internet much closer to the one we might want. “The only thing I still enjoy doing online/with technology is texting,” Sam, the friend who wanted to share something mildly amusing, told me. “All of the rest of it is torture/agony/hell. But I fucking love iMessage.”

*A version of this article appears in the May 13, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

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[ladyem-s-grimoire]

(26/12/2017)Rules have been updated >>Link<<

General

Please be kind and patient with my replies!

Art posted here belongs to me Cirathiel AKA Cir , DO NOT use it for other muses.

English isn’t my mother tongue, si gustas podemos rolear en español.

Do not beg for drawings don’t asume that if you follow or we are mutuals I’ll draw something for you. (If i could I’ll draw for every one but I don’t have time and…just two hands).

NSFW allowed,Not SMUT. I don’t mind a touch of gore.

My personal life and my job goes before my roleplay blog.

Semi-selective“Oc” blog,  I just wanna mention that I won´t block you or reject your starter.

Please do not think that because you followed me I will do the same. But do not be afraid sending me asks even if we are not mutuals.

About shipping, my muse is completely devoted to her shadows especially the crow in romantic terms Please read “The lady” “Damnatis familia”. We can discuss their /future/ bonds,  but don’t force any kind of relationship.(read headcanons)

I have all the right to drop a thread if I feel umcomfortable or bored,(not a common practice, I try to finish what i’ve started) and  please do not force a reply I know when it’s my turn. (that’s insta drop)

Please let there be no god-modding

Remember, roleplaying is for fun.

Any kind of problems, talk them with me and don´t post them on public. IM is always open.

Bonus:I will not turn anyone into a “shadow”, the circle is exclusive for my Ocs

If you read the rules, please send: “Who is the voice that laughs inside my head?”

For more information read “Curiosities&Others” (a mix of comments and headcanons)

Shadow- SS

Only on Saturday-Sunday.

Availability: Some of them may not be as social as the others. -available-/-Not aviable-

Whispering to the shadows

You can ask them whatever you want: opinion on, relationship with others, about the others members of the family (includes  “Em”).

Do not try to persuade them to do or not do/stop doing something, it will be a waste of time.

Any type of violence or negativity toward any member of the family will be returned with the same coin. ♥

Anon Asks related with the sexuality/private life of any of the member would be ignored, if you are curious about it, use the IM system, There are some things I prefer to keep behind the scenes.Actually I prefer to avoid this kind of thing, it makes me feel uncomfortable on many levels.

I prefer to know who is asking: can be IC, OOC(top priority)

-Still open for future changes/additions-

Please avoid sending starters without reading the rules before, any questions IM and AskBox is open.

[indiglo-soul]

Calling all of my hippy gypsy lovers this up comming weeking to come and enjoy a weekend of Music, Art, & Healing with me and many other beautiful celestial beings. Located on a secret underground desert location near the Kramer Junction in the High Desert Mojave of Southern California. Ill be dropping the closing set on SUNDAY 8PM-10PM @ this Underground Desert Camp-out Jan. 19th-22! Please do not hesitate to send me a msg reguarding this event!!! Namaste! LOVE to give to a NEED? enjoy YOUR community? then come VIBE with US! we would like to invite you to help a sweet soul that got caught up  :( BY COMING TO PARTY !!!   :) that's right we are orchestrating a FUNNNdraiser event! save the date and COME OUT and donate 100% of the proceeds are going to help a family recover from recent and overly expensive legal issues 100% of everything that will be presented to you and that has been planned for you has been DONATED!!! everything from the land to every single gifted artist you SEE has been GIVEN FREELY and CHEERFULLY to this cause! cause! we will only be coming out of pocket for the sound guy and the porta potty guy :) we just gotta folks ! we invite you come and see how much FUN a little winter shindig on a mountain with FAMILY can be! support homie (adam james ward) and give back with CHARITY! please do not ask questions or post comments on this platform about specifics. please instead contact adam directly ~ thank you :) however PLEASE BE INFORMED that over half of the donations to this gathering have been by people that have NEVER met adam - but they were DOWN to support! they are paying it forward and "giving" back, because we all know what it's like to have been "given" we are ALL doing our very best to ensure your ticket is well worth the investment, creating a place for your pleasure and enjoyment we will be gathering on a safe and secure parcel of land, with the landowner's permission, 12 miles past adelanto approximately two hours from los angeles 2,400 feet UP - so DRESS WARM OR DANCE MORE !!! (both would be best) AND WOOD !!!!!! please bring it if you can! we will be camping out for THREE days in the beautiful mountains under the stars please come to CAMP and stay to PARTY !!! WE WOULD LOVE for YOU to join us! read the attached survival guide in its entirety!!! PLEASE ! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-4SN9eMQhhb8dD4DngqYq_bIq0CMDOkfuUKTRfPoxm8 if you do, you will hear, FEEL, and see, WE vibe at THESE frequencies ... ................................................................... musical vibrations DELIVERED by the following:: woods homie is so fresh he ain't got no link ! bellhop ~ Terrakroma https://soundcloud.com/bellhop-music grizzwald ~ Othersound, Proper Channels LA http://soundcloud.com/grizzwald zahrte https://soundcloud.com/jeremyzahrte persu persona ~ Your World Productions https://www.mixcloud.com/DJ_Aldana/ musashi ~ Pots n' Kettles, Housewerk http://soundcloud.com/musashi low-key ~ Super Trippy Hippie, relove, IndulgEnt, xtrnl https://m.soundcloud.com/dj-low-key/low-key-hood-house-07-26-2012 orion https://soundcloud.com/orionmoya/live-at-terrkaroma-bump-in-the-night-halloween photon A.D. http://soundcloud.com/photonad charkra con ~ Housewerks https://soundcloud.com/chakracon Dj Sprk-E ~ Seismic Awakening Facebook Sprk-E DJ/Remixer SoundCloud Sprk-E Seancrandal.com jason esun ~ Bright People https://soundcloud.com/jasonesun rose kennedy https://m.soundcloud.com/getarosed michael harmony facebook.com/michaelharmony13 frequency guru ~ DubTrybe http://www.facebook.com/ frequencygurumusic mylow ~ The BlackBird Bus, IndulgEnt https://www.facebook.com/myles.schmidt.3 goodjob ~ Online EPK, Skurpty, IndulgEnt www.artistecard.com/goodjobgian www.soundcloud.com/goodjobgian nikroma ~ Zenon Records, Terrakroma https://soundcloud.com/aragon drew holly ~ Terrakroma, Super Trippy Hippie, IndulgEnt http://soundcloud.com/drewhollyofficial http://facebook.com/drewhollyofficial jamie schwabl ~ Wülfpack, Tropical LA http://jamieschwabl.com/ DRMESCAPE https://m.soundcloud.com/drmescape sojourner https://soundcloud.com/sojournermusicpage/estranged anthony beville https://soundcloud.com/anthony-beville/gypsy-tape-vol-2 boogie https://m.soundcloud.com/djelboogie https://twitter.com/IAMDJLBOOGIE tripsy ~ Pleasure magickpleasure.com soundcloud.com/tripsymusic Facebook.com/tripsymusic alex brutus dels ~ Big Heavy Music, Insomniac OGs http://www.mixcloud.com/alexdelshouse http://www.soundcloud.com/big-heavy-music sethadelik https://soundcloud.com/sethadelik blackass ~ tackle-box https://soundcloud.com/blackass-ringleader/this-is-techno Djnc Odie ~ Desert Rats https://soundcloud.com/djnc-odie ben annand ~ Tropical, Moontribe https://www.facebook.com/benannandmusic indiglo ~ Funk Punks, Love Circle Family, Desert Rats https://soundcloud.com/indiglo_soul https://www.facebook.com/indiglo.soul/ unknown17 https://soundcloud.com/un-known-17/efbdofmmr4ci trip https://m.facebook.com/acidoverloard/ sadhu ~ Independent Minds https://soundcloud.com/sadhu-im ironing board mafia ~ Rebel Scum DJs facebook.com/IroningBoardMafia ................................................................... hot and fiery vibrations SIZZLED by:: matthew torch reyna spinning from his spirit while he dances with fire michael wauschek bringing the flame to his fire game estrellita shanti   swirling twirling bright shining fuego flame, it's all wrapped up in her name lala graciously dancing with fire, keeping you warm and taking you higher leo roars like a lion flows like water,   without even trying ryan toasty sandwich vibes jack blazing forward with flame, better stand back and remember the name sinderella pyro princess isaac harnessing the inner warriors healing flames mayascape hypnotizing you with her flame by drawing you into her fire ................................................................... clip vibrations BUZZED by:: david bickett cutting it up while cleaning you up! FREEEEEE hair cuts to anyone between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on sunday ................................................................... lights! smiles! BE STILL... vibrations CREATED with YOU by:: reid godshaw ~ harmonic light https://www.facebook.com/HarmonicLights/ making magic with colors, light and your beautiful faces ................................................................... chillin' while GRILLIN' vibrations folded by:: grizzygrub https://www.facebook.com/grizzysgrub/ the taco man with the very best TAN offering meat and veggie options - yuuum! ................................................................... cacao chai and chocolate vibrations CONCOCTED by:: cody avellon vending raw cacao chocolate, hot spiced chai, hot chocolate, coffee, and essential oils all weekend long ................................................................... delightfully colorful vibrations WRAPPED by ::: beky enso providing snazzy sexy hair wraps for FREEEEE to whomever (guys and gals) while her supplies last! ................................................................... calming soothing HEALING vibrations given FREELY to YOU from ::: modessa rhiannon rose providing direct lineage reiki, group guided meditation for your healing and "feeling" needs ................................................................... laying you DOWN to serve up some TOUCHY feel GOOD vibrations ::: rebecca ann & danielle putting their hands and hearts into stretching, pulling, and massaging your bodies all throughout the weekend for FREEEE ... we all KNEAD this ! ................................................................... bringing WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE vibrations ::: alicia rae leading workshops this weekend teaching us about gems, crystals and essential oils, given freely from her heart and mind straight to yours ................................................................... setting a SAFE and HEALTHY vibration for us all ::: the galactikats providing psychedelic harm reduction and first aid services for our safety and yours, they will be available the duration of our time together ................................................................... no blushing, no rushing, just BRUSHING vibrations STROKED for YOU by ::: the ever-flowing storm of pigmented creations by momo moonflower ................................................................... sound and power vibrations SOLIDIFYING and AMPLIFYING all of US through:: astral audio and energy jon emilio ................................................................... BUT wait there's MORE ... even MORE vibrations to be announced !!! PLEASE NOTE ::: the door will be open for early entry at 2:00 pm on : thursday january 19th 2017 get the most BANG for your BUCK get in early - set up and get READY to party !!! music will start at 10 PM THURSDAY ~ 1-19-17

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