#and we ought to think twice and then three times before we apply it or nod along with someone else's application of it

[aeide-thea]

the thing about stele3's addition to this post is that i'm 100% with it until the final sentence—nonconsensual outing is heinous! and does, i agree, feel especially egregious coming from someone who's gay himself!—and then i start to have a serious problem with it.

like. 'traitor'? you really want to deploy the language of nationalism here, and connect moylan's actions (that, again, i too decry!) to legal charges that in the united states incur the death penalty? that's really how you want to play this? 'and should be treated as such'? if a conservative used this kind of ambiguous-but-suggestive language to paint a target on someone's back, we'd call it stochastic terrorism; it doesn't sound any better to me coming out of a liberal's mouth, and i'd like to suggest that it shouldn't sound better to you, either.

thinking about the whole "only queer ppl should play queer characters" thing and how Lee Pace got flack for playing a gay drag queen back in the day by his homophobic father. when he accepted the role he said "there was something about telling this story that was important to me" even before he was out / maybe even before he himself knew that he wasn't straight....like maybe we should stop demanding that actors either out themselves or give up roles that speak to them, even if he hadn't come out, the role meant something to him, it meant challenging his father's attitude, and fuck if it didn't have a profound impact on me as a young in-the-closet teen watching him perform it.

[beifongnation]

The Spirit of Change- Chapter 7: Made To Be Broken

Description: Lin and Kazuo find themselves back in one another's orbit following the events of Book One. This is the story of how their 'arrangement' evolved into a relationship. (In Progress)

Read it on AO3

Rating:  T

Story:

By now, Lin was accustomed to arriving at her office with nothing but an entire pot of black tea keeping her upright. It wasn’t anything new; the frequency with which Amon continued to terrorize her dreams was almost becoming so routine she didn’t think the word ‘nightmare’ any longer applied. However,  this particular sleepless night was not Amon’s doing. She laughed bitterly to herself thinking that perhaps she could thank Kazuo for this little reprieve, if she were feeling at all forgiving. She wasn’t, of course- which is why she let her telephone ring itself off the hook three separate times last night. If she were going to be stuck reimagining just what she should have said to him, then he ought to be doing the same.

A cursory glance around the room at shift change told her she wasn’t alone in her exhaustion, she counted at least six yawns and twice as many drooping heads that snapped back to attention at the last second. Her officers were feeling the pinch, she didn’t need a status report to see that, but Captain Hong hung back at the end of their hand-off to give her one anyway, “we need to talk.”

It was the last thing she wanted to hear at the moment and her expression told him exactly that, but her arm extended outward to indicate he should follow her into her office. As soon as Hong closed the door behind him he told her, “we need Saikhan back.”

Lin rounded her desk, falling back into her chair in the sort of unprofessional and familiar manner she would only allow herself in front of an old friend, “No.”

Hong moved forward, body language pleading, “Lin, come on! Look at you! You’re slouching for spirits sake, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you slouch,” he pulled the chair from in front of her desk and placed himself in it, leaning forward, “we’re exhausted. All of us- I got guys putting in eighty hours. Hell, I’m putting in eighty hours!”

Lin sighed, leaning forward to push her new copy of The Gold Murders off the stack of correspondence that awaited her. She bent the blade from the forearm of her uniform to slice the envelopes open, “Hong, I would not ask you to do anything I am not willing to do myself. I am well aware that we are all working far longer hours than we should be, but please keep in mind it is temporary. Bringing Saikhan back from leave is not the answer.”

“It’s not too late,” Hong reasoned, “you can reinstate him before his leave is up.”

“Or I could promote someone with better judgment,” Lin quipped, unfolding the schedule Tenzin had sent over. She scanned it as Hong continued to plead his case, deflating further at the list of required reports the Council had requested her to present at their upcoming meeting.

“You’re not going to find another metalbender with Saikhan’s skill, let’s face it. The guy is a master-”

“Yes, my mother would agree,” Lin interrupted, looking up from the sheet of paper in her hands, “but he’s also someone that rounded up and arrested innocent people for being non-benders. I don’t know about you, but given the current state of the Republic- I don’t think bringing him back onto the force would go over very well.”

“My guys don’t like it, Lin- the way they see it he was just following orders.”

“Well, as Chief of Police I’m ordering you to drop it, how’s that?”

Hong raised an eyebrow, frustrated.

“Listen, some of my guys lost their bending, Lin. Even though they’ve got it back- they’re not right, something’s off. They don’t like that it looks like the department is siding with Amon’s supporters.  I’m telling you this because it’s got legs, it could be something bigger- bringing Saikhan back in would send a good message to these guys.”

Suddenly, Lin felt very alert, as if all the black tea had hit her at once, “I understand-”

“I don’t think you do-”

“I understand,” Lin repeated, a little more forcefully, “he took my bending too.”

Hong’s eyes went wide and he brought one meaty hand up to rub his forehead, “Shit, Lin. I didn’t know.”

“Nobody does,” Lin confirmed, “and I would prefer it to stay that way. I’m only telling you this because I need you to hear me when I say that I do understand where they are coming from, but they’re going to have to find a way to deal with it. End of story.”

“Alright, yeah, I got it.”

“Good,” Lin concluded, turning her attention back to the schedule in her hand, “I need to shift the schedule for Monday by the way,” she passed the paper to Hong, “I’ll need an all-hands with the Captains before I make my presentation to the Council.”

Hong nodded absently, still clearly processing Lin’s confession, “Yeah, whatever you need…spirits. I need a drink.”

Lin opened her next piece of mail, remarking flippantly, “Good news: you’re off for the day.”

He chuckled, “Drinking at 8am. Haven’t done that since our Academy days.” Lin hummed in the affirmative, mostly focused on the letter in her hand. “That reminds me,” Hong continued as he stood to leave, “are we on for cards this Friday?”

Lin looked up, rolling her eyes, “Did you not just get through telling me that we are spread too thin?”

“Fair enough,” he admitted in a laugh, “feels like you’re just trying to weasel out of hosting though.”

Lin ticked her head, “Well this is the second month in a row I’ve postponed, perhaps you guys can pick up without me.”

“Nice try, Beifong. You won last time, you know the rules- it’s your turn to host.”

Lin grimaced, “Fine.” Just as he approached the door she stopped him, “Hong- send Khen in on your way out.”

“No problem,” Hong agreed, exiting finally. Khen appeared in her doorway in short order.

“You wanted to see me Chief?”

“Yes, I need to rearrange my schedule for Monday and I’ll need you to help me pull some reports.”

Khen nodded, coming further into her office, producing a pen and notepad from his utility belt. He began scribbling down her requests; contact the Captains, pull all arrest records for the past year and note the nation of origin for each perpetrator, summon Officer Song for a private meeting. The last item caught his attention and he looked up, smiling.

“I assume you’d like that meeting before meeting with the Captains?”

Lin nodded, “yes, but please keep that between us for now.” He had correctly deduced that Song was being tapped to backfill the Captain position Hong had vacated when he was promoted to headquarters.

“I’d say that’s well deserved,” Khen offered, “And I’ll get going on those reports.”

“Thank you,” Lin followed, catching Khen suppressing a yawn as he turned to leave. She frowned at the sight of it.“Khen?” His head snapped up and he readied his notepad again. “One last thing- when you’re done with those reports head home for the day and get some rest.”

“But-” he began to protest, but Lin cut him off.

“I appreciate how much time you’re putting in here, but like you told me- some mandatory time away from headquarters is probably a good thing.”

He tapped his pen to the notepad once, “Thanks, Chief.”

When she was alone again she went back to her stack of correspondence, but her eyes kept wandering to the book on her desk. The very sight of it was putting her in a bad mood so she pulled open her top desk drawer and threw it inside, shutting it away with finality. Just as she opened her next piece of mail there was a knock at her door.

“Chief?” Khen poked his head in, “Princess Ursa of the Fire Nation is on the line for you.”

Lin sighed audibly- it was almost as if Ursa had a sixth sense for these things, “I’ll take it, thank you.”

Once Khen ducked back out the door Lin lifted the earpiece from its pedestal with a disapproving shake of her head, “You’re up early.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” came Ursa’s regal voice on the other end of the line, “Izumi is hosting an end-of-session luncheon for Parliament today and I’m exceptionally peeved at you for stealing away the only guest I care to engage with at these things.”

“Well, you can have him back anytime,” Lin assured her, tearing open another piece of mail.

“Playing coy again as always, I see,” Ursa quipped, taking on a sign-song tone, “but I know what you did last night.”

Lin scoffed, “I highly doubt that.”

“I called your house and got no answer so try again,” Ursa returned.

Lin’s stomach sank, if she thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse about what had transpired between them she was sorely mistaken. Realizing that the phone calls she had ignored had just been Ursa nosing around stung; it was like getting disappointed all over again. She must have been quietly considering this a little too long because Ursa followed up with, “Hello?”

“I was home,” Lin said finally, “I just didn’t answer.”

“Lin, why do you bother with this little-miss-innocent act? We both know that I got Tenzin’s telegram to you at Representative Kazuo’s apartment with pinpoint accuracy. I think I deserve a little gossip in return. So tell me- how did he go about sweeping you off your feet this time?”

Lin scoffed, “Well, he started off by insulting me and I proceeded to tell him this whole arrangement was off and I left. I went home and ignored calls I thought were from him, but you’ve just cleared that up for me so thank you.”

“Wait. Back up. What do you mean?”

Lin could practically hear Ursa sitting forward in her chair, “I mean exactly what I said. It’s over and done with. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Are you sure what he said was insulting? Or were you just feeling sensitive?” she asked, tone skeptical.

Lin rolled her eyes, this was a typical reaction from everyone in her life whenever Lin asserted her feelings, “Yes, I’m quite certain it was insulting. He accused me of sleeping with Tenzin.” There was a brief pause on the end of the line and then, a sudden and gregarious cackle. “It’s not funny,” Lin insisted hotly.

“Why on earth would he say that?”

In her desk chair, Lin shrugged, “because he’s depraved.”

This assessment somehow made Ursa laugh even harder, “and here I thought that was part of his appeal,” her amusement abated a little then, “really though, why would he even think that?”

Lin pursed her lips, tongue clicking in condemnation, “He said Tenzin was ‘all over me’ at the welcome reception. Really, Tenzin thought he was being helpful by rescuing me from having to talk to Kazuo.”

“Rescue you?”

Lin nodded, “He thinks Kazuo is irritating-”

“He would,” Ursa commented dully.

“Well, I think he believed he was doing me a favor by getting between us all night.”

“What a hero,” Ursa added, “what did his wife think of that?”

“She wasn’t there,” Lin reported.

“Lin!” Ursa yelped, “So you’re telling me that every time Kazuo tried to talk to you Tenzin appeared and stood between you and that his wife wasn’t even there?”

“I see what you’re trying to imply, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Nothing,” Ursa agreed, “but it sounds like he’s got a reason to suspect something might be going on.”

Now, Lin was sitting forward in her chair, “Again, that implies I am the type of person that would engage in something like that.”

“Oh Lin,” Ursa purred patronizingly, “he’s been cheated on before, remember? It was huge society news here at the time- personally I was relieved, I couldn’t stand that girl,” she made an audible gagging noise before continuing, “but he’s probably just feeling a little insecure. I figure you, of all people, can understand that.”

“Well,” Lin ventured, losing a bit of her zeal with that reminder, “it’s not as if we are an item or anything.”

“All the more reason for him to wonder then,” Ursa volleyed without missing a beat, “I don’t know, Lin. I don’t think it’s that crazy to ask given the circumstance.”

Lin let out a sigh. While Ursa may have made a few interesting points, she wasn’t quite ready to let go of her hurt feelings, not after having opened up to him the way she had back in the Fire Nation. Lin didn’t show her vulnerability to hardly anyone and to have it met with such an indignant questioning of her character in return was an affront she wasn’t sure she could overlook. Certainly not without an apology at the very least.

“Well, I do,” Lin said finally, “and I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Oh fine,” Ursa pouted, “but one last thing- I only called you once last night. So if you ignored any other calls then they weren’t from me.”

Lin hated to admit, even to herself, that this revelation stirred a little butterfly of excitement within her. “Alright.”

“Alright,” Ursa echoed, “I’ll talk to you later. Wish me luck today.”

“Good luck,” Lin returned with a roll of her eyes- she would kill to have a boring luncheon be the worst thing on her calendar, “and Goodbye.”

“Goodbye!”

Lin rested the earpiece back onto its prongs with a sigh, reminded that her own calendar did indeed require updating. She pulled open her top drawer to retrieve her datebook and was faced with Kazuo’s gift once again. She regarded the book for a moment, lifting it finally to gain access to her calendar just below- pulling both back out onto her desktop.

She flipped open her calendar first, feeling a little twinge of melancholy as she thumbed past the previous day in which she had double underlined the welcome reception. Lin never double underlined anything. After updating her schedule for Monday her eyes drifted back to the Gold Murders again and she lifted it, opening the cover to reveal Kazuo’s hotel key and something else she hadn’t noticed before; a hand written note.

Lin,

I apologize in advance for contributing to your insomnia.

xo, Kaz

His note coaxed a derisive chuckle from her; when he wrote this he could not have known just how applicable it would be, though the book had nothing to do with it. A second chuckle followed, this one a little more fulsome, when she realized that this note was likely meant as a double entendre as it technically accompanied both the book and the room key.

“Ridiculous,” she grumbled, lifting the key and rolling it between her fingers absently. She supposed she ought to return this to Hangshan Hotel’s front desk, now that she would surely not be needing it. The thought of returning the key to him directly gave her pause. Typically, Lin was expert in holding a grudge- few could outperform her in this- but she hated to admit when it came to Kazuo her resolve felt weakened. Even now as she daydreamed about it, she imagined using the key on his door instead of placing it in his palm.

This softening of her willpower was a direct result of talking to Ursa and she made a mental note to avoid her phone calls until the Council had been properly dissolved and Kazuo was on a ship headed back to the Fire Nation. Lin had plenty of work ahead to distract her in the meantime, surely. At least enough work today to keep her mind from thinking too much about what Ursa had said.

It would only be a further six months….

Lin closed the key inside the book once more, pushing it away in a huff. She plucked her datebook from the desk, gathering six months worth of pages between her fingers, observing how thin this representation appeared. Six months was not such a long time, she thought as she let the pages slip between her fingers until the week at hand presented itself again.

Her eyes fell on Tuesday and she pulled out an ink pen to scribble in the meeting Tenzin had requested at City Hall. A presentation to the Council and the Committee Heads. Lin sighed. It was only six months, but how many times would she have to see him in between?

The amount of reports requested by the Council would have been completely absurd under any other circumstance. In her entire career, Lin had never spent this much time poring over numbers and reports, diagraming charts only to rework them again after an errant paper was found to have drifted off the edge of her desk. It had been quite an undertaking, but she supposed that is exactly what reforming an entire government required. She had help, of course, and it was a good thing because the past two days had been filled end to end with preparation.

Now, the evidence of their hard work burdened Khen in the form of files that threatened to block his line of sight as he followed her up the front steps to City Hall, accompanied by Hong. The three of them entered the large doors and were promptly greeted by the Council Page, who checked his pocket watch with a chirp of pleasure, “Ah! Right on time.”

He led the three of them to the main chamber room, pushing open the doors and announcing their presence. Lin gave him a quick nod and a thank you as she entered, marching up the center aisle to greet the Council, who all sat in their regular spots, but now with the heads of their nation’s transition committees at their side. Lin didn’t miss Kazuo attempting to smile at her from beside Councilwoman Qian, but she pretended to, playing it cool though her heart sped up at the sight of him.

Undaunted, Lin bowed, regarding them all with an even expression she had perfected in this very room- if she could manage to look impassive at her weekly meetings with Tenzin just after he had effectively ripped her beating heart out of her chest and gotten married on top of it, ignoring Kazuo’s presence would be a walk in the park.

As the Page assisted Khen in passing around the files, Lin launched into her presentation with nothing but the stenographer’s clicking keys to accompany her. As she spoke, the Council and Committee Heads followed along, flipping the pages of her presentation and scribbling notations in the margins. She passed the baton to Hong for a few sections, specifically those outlining their budgetary needs for the coming year, which they were keen to lock in before the installment of a President.

Lin kept her eyes trained on Hong throughout his presentation, standing rigid and focused with her hands clasped behind her back. The temptation to look Kazuo’s way was strong, particularly because she could feel his eyes on her, but she managed to resist the urge until Hong passed the presentation back  at which point her traitorous eyes flit in Kazuo’s direction for only an instant, but it was long enough to catch him raising his own eyebrows in recognition. This infinitesimal exchange may have escaped everyone else in the room, but Lin understood the look that passed between them conveyed that Lin wasn’t as disengaged as she had previously claimed.

Mercifully, there were very few questions for her to answer at the end and Lin was surprised that none of them came from Kazuo. When the Council seemed satisfied, Tenzin cleared his throat, “I think that will be all,” he looked at Lin and smiled, “thank you, Chief Beifong. And thank you, Captain Hong.”

Both Lin and Hong bowed in acknowledgement, turning to make their exit as Tenzin informed the rest of his group that there would be a fifteen minute recess before their next meeting with the City Attorney. The sound of their chairs scraping against the marble flooring gave Lin reason to pick up her pace- nearly causing her to run directly into the City Attorney, who was waiting just outside the Council Chambers for his meeting.

“Excuse me,” Lin apologized, side-stepping him quickly. He mimicked her move, blocking her progress.

“Chief Beifong,” he greeted, “no need to apologize. I’m actually glad we ran into one another.”

Lin sighed, shooting a sidelong glance at Hong; the feeling was not mutual- any meeting between the Chief of Police and City Attorney was almost certainly bad news for her. She addressed the attorney in her path with a curt nod, “Raiko.”

“My office has just received a formal complaint from former Chief Saikhan. He’s contesting his suspension,” Raiko informed, receiving an audible sigh in return, “I’m wondering if I can’t get on your calendar later today to go over his complaint? Perhaps two o’clock?”

Lin nodded, frustration evident, “Yes, of course.”

Behind her, Khen produced a datebook from his pocket and began scribbling in it, expression skeptical. Noting his anxiety, Raiko added, “unless you’d rather avoid a confutation and reinstate him instead.”

Hong gave her a significant look as Khen looked on, hopeful.

“Two o’clock is fine,” Lin assured.

Raiko nodded, demeanor suddenly shifting into that of a used satomobile salesman, “And as long as I’ve got you here, I should let you know I’ve decided to put my name in the running for President.”

“Oh yeah?” Hong smiled, “That’s great. Good luck to you!”

Lin stayed silent, but Raiko was unbothered, “Thank you. I hope I can count on your vote,” he looked around Lin at Khen, “and yours too!”

“Uh… sure,” Khen agreed with a shrug of his shoulders.

“We should be going,” Lin asserted finally, causing Hong and Khen to fall in line behind her like little ducklings. They moved forward with a nod of acknowledgement for Raiko, making it only a few steps before their caravan was halted again- this time by a voice from behind.

“Chief Beifong!”

A bolt of anxiety shot through her at the sound of Kazuo’s voice, stopping her in her tracks. Hong and Khen paused as well, turning to face him. Decades of friendship made Hong particularly fluent in Lin’s body language and he read her like a newspaper headline declaring war. He took a step forward to intercept Kazuo as he approached.

“Representative,” Hong greeted, “If you have any follow up questions I’m happy to answer them for you.”

Kazuo blinked, not missing a beat, “No, actually your presentation was very thorough, thank you though.”

Before Hong could clarify, Lin was at his side holding Kazuo’s gaze, “It’s alright Hong, I’ll meet you back at headquarters.”

“Lin-”

“Go,” Lin told him, more sternly this time, “I’ll meet you back at headquarters.”

Khen and Hong exchanged a look, finally taking their orders and continuing down the hallway without Lin, whispering amongst one another all the while.

As soon as they were out of earshot Lin whispered, “Do you really think this is an appropriate time?”

Kazuo looked a little incredulous, “you haven’t been answering your phone, should I have sent an apology by messenger hawk?”  

Lin clicked her tongue in disapproval, peeking around Kazuo to see Raiko pretending not to notice their interaction as he waited outside the chamber doors, “anything would be better than ambushing me in the middle of work, yes.”

Kazuo shrugged, “Well, then I apologize for that too.” Lin rolled her eyes, but he continued, “We can take this conversation somewhere else if you prefer. We can talk about it over dinner? I can pick you up around seven?”

Lin gaped at him, stunned by his nerve. Clearly, he assumed he could charm his way back into her good graces, which would have made her laugh, except that is exactly what was happening. It was much easier to remain angry at him when he was out of sight. Now that he was standing just inches away her resolve was diminishing. Her inability to stay angry with him was a phenomenon she couldn’t even explain to herself- she supposed this was what people meant when they talked about having chemistry- his mere proximity sparked an unusual reaction within her. Of course, having chemistry with someone like Kazuo was terribly inconvenient, but she couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes kept darting to her mouth as he awaited her reply. She’d read once upon a time, in one of those ridiculous magazines Suyin used to subscribe to that this was a sure sign of attraction. While she had rolled her eyes at the statement when she read it years ago, she understood it now as her eyes darted in the same way. Everything about this should infuriate her and yet the only thing frustrating at this very moment was how inappropriate it would be to step forward and put her lips on his.

The very thought of doing so shook her out of her thoughts and she crossed her arms, glancing over his shoulder at Raiko again, “I don’t want to be seen in public with you.”

Kazuo’s eyebrows jumped, looking genuinely wounded, “Ouch.”

Lin cringed, scrambling to clarify herself, “No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s not you. I’m sorry, I just- I’d like to keep this private.”

He nodded slowly, ticking his head back slightly to indicate Raiko over his shoulder, “You know, I’m fairly certain Raiko over there has seen two people in conversation before,” he leaned in then, whispering scandalously, “he may have even seen two people eat dinner together.”

Lin gave him a withering look, “People talk.”

“Ah.”

It was clear he understood her hesitation then and she was grateful for it. Still, he was undeterred, following up with, “then we can have dinner in my room- no prying eyes there.”

Lin sighed, ironically feeling as if she were obligated to make amends to him after her rude comment. She glanced up at him, last bit of defiance crumbling under the weight of his hopeful gaze.

“Alright.”

She couldn’t decide if the grin he gave her in return was annoying or flattering.

“I’ll pick you up-”

“I’ll meet you there,” Lin corrected.

He nodded, “Seven o’clock?”

“Seven,” she agreed. They held each other’s eyes for a beat.

“You really did have a great presentation, by the way.”

Lin gave him a critical look, though the blush in her cheeks was likely evident, “I’m leaving now.”

He chuckled, “Alright. I’ll see you later.”

With a lift of her eyebrows and a turn of her heel she made her exit without another word.

The walk back to headquarters gave her some time to consider her approach- sure, her initial plan had been to avoid him for the next six months, but that was clearly out the window. Her attraction to him wouldn’t allow it and she grappled with the idea that she wasn’t as steadfast as intended when it came to resisting his charm. Still, she had no intention of allowing her emotions to get the better of her going forward- she had a lapse in judgment back in the Fire Nation, but she excused it as a transitory moment of weakness. From now on, Lin decided she would take care to keep their interactions strictly physical. There would be no more talking into the night, no more sleeping over; she was content to maintain an amiable friendship, but at the end of the day they were just two consenting adults engaging in a basic function of biology- nothing more. Dinner this evening would be a great time to clarify her terms and she was certain Kazuo would agree to them. In fact, she was reasonably sure he’d be relieved to find that they were both on the same page.

Lin entered Headquarters feeling far more awake than she had in days, passing Hong as he gathered his coat from the rack beside Khen’s desk. He chuckled at her attempt to pass him without comment.

“Welcome back!”

Lin gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement, continuing to her office. As soon as she closed the door he was knocking on it, “got time for a debrief?”

Lin sighed, pulling the door open and giving him a warning look.

Her look was received accordingly and he put his hands up innocently, coat slipping down his forearm, “I’m not saying anything.” Lin stepped back allowing him entry and he waltzed in, a look of amusement barely contained, “I just wanted to check in with you about Saikhan’s complaint.”

“What about it?”

His expression turned serious then, “Listen, I’m telling you this for your own good- let this one go unchallenged. Pay him out, put him on desk duty- whatever you have to do but don’t push back. We’re gonna lose officers over this.”

“If that’s what it takes…” Lin returned, “Anything else?”

Hong let out a long breath, dejected, “Guess not.”

“Thank you for your help today,” Lin told him with finality.

“Yep,” Hong returned, leaving her office with a shake of his head.

Lin closed the door behind him, feeling a little sting in her eyes- it was no secret the morale was low and the burden of turning that around was squarely on her shoulders. She understood countering Saikhan would damage her relationship with her metalbenders, but sometimes the popular thing to do and the right thing to do were not the same thing. She swiped at her eyes quickly, sniffing once to clear her frustrated tears. She just had to hope that over time they would come to understand her decision or at the very least- respect it.

The rest of the day felt like it was dragging on and Lin couldn’t be sure if it was dread or anticipation that made it feel that way- the only thing she was sure of is that by the time seven o’clock rolled around there was a pit in her stomach.

Lin stood before the door of Kazuo’s suite, fist curled to knock while the room key lay in her pocket. She brought her fist down finally, holding her breath. There was no answer and she deliberated for a moment, deciding he must have not heard her. So, she knocked again, a little louder this time.

And again there was no answer.

She felt the heat of anger rising in her cheeks- there was no way he didn’t hear it that time- and suddenly her anger was overshadowed by embarrassment for bothering to come here in the first place. She was just about to leave when she heard the elevator doors ding just down the hall.

Kazuo stepped out, arms full of what appeared to be groceries.

“Lin! Sorry I’m late- have you ever tried to find a purple scorpion pepper in this town? I thought Republic City was supposed to be a cosmopolitan melting pot but I went to two- two- different markets and nobody had even heard of them!” By now he was standing expectantly beside her in front of the door, “No wonder you said you can’t get good Fire Nation food here!” She blinked up at him, quietly aware he had no idea of the spiral she’d just been about to devolve into. Hands full, he motioned at the door with his elbow, “you have the key I gave you?”

“Uh, yes, I do,” Lin replied, collecting herself quickly and unlocking the door for him with the key from her pocket.

“Thanks.” He passed her, depositing the groceries on the kitchen counter just inside the suite, “I was planning to have this ready by the time you arrived but- big surprise- Tenzin had a speech ready for the close of proceedings- I was expecting him to talk for five minutes, maybe, but he went on for forty-five minutes!” He looked at Lin, flabbergasted, “Forty-five!”

“Is that unusually long?”

“When you don’t say anything, yes,” Kazuo replied, “especially at the end of the day. Anyway- sorry- did you want a drink? It’s going to be a while before this is ready.”

Lin glanced at the groceries, “You’re cooking?”

He smiled, looking rather pleased with himself, “I was planning to, if you don’t mind waiting. Remember when you were staying at my place you said you never found good laksa in Republic City? I thought it might help me get back on your good side to make my mother’s recipe for you. Of course, it won’t be quite right because of the purple scorp-”

“I’ll take a drink,” Lin interjected, smile spreading. He returned it devilishly, making his way over to the drink cart to mix up a concoction. She watched him work, feeling all the anxieties from earlier slipping away. While she had her doubts about his culinary prowess, the mere fact that he went out of his way to attempt making laksa of all things endeared her to him. She did recall mentioning that she had never found laksa as good as the kind sold out of a food stall on his block in the caldera, but she hadn’t expected him to remember that.

He returned, passing her a glass that he clinked with his own, taking a sip. He walked back to the kitchen and began unpacking the vegetables.

“Do you need any help?” Lin wondered, sipping her own drink as she watched Kazuo rinsing the lemongrass.

“You want to be my sous chef?”

Wordlessly, Lin came to stand beside him at the counter, flicking her wrist and bending a knife from the butcher block so that it sailed past him by an inch and snapped straight into her waiting hand.

Kazuo flinched, surprised by the suddenness of it.

“Well,” he said, eyes wide, “I suppose now would be a good time to formally apologize.”

Lin laughed, realizing just how aggressive her action seemed and she made a show of placing the knife carefully down onto the counter with two hands, “Sorry about that.”

“I forgot you could do that,” he chuckled, setting the lemongrass down beside the knife. He  turned to her then, taking on a more genuine tone, “I really do want to apologize about what I said. I wasn’t intending to make a statement about you. I think the world of politics has made me a little cynical and I thought maybe I had read you wrong.”

Lin studied his face, reading nothing but sincerity in his eyes. “Thank you.”

“I have to say, though, I wasn’t wrong about how he was acting,” Kazuo qualified as Lin began to shake her head in disagreement, “It was…excessive.”

Lin laughed a little at that, not quite sure how to explain that Tenzin just came off that way because he disliked Kazuo so much, “It’s not what you think. Tenzin and I have just recently gotten back to a place where-”

Kazuo waved his hand dismissively, “You don’t have to explain. I’m not trying to police your relationships.”

“Good.”

“I’m just saying…” he leaned in conspiratorially, “my condolences to his wife.”

There was a time in Lin’s life in which a comment of this nature would have occupied her grieving brain for weeks, analyzing and turning over every word, looking for some hope that she had mattered to Tenzin, that someone else could confirm as much. But now she wanted nothing more than to forget he existed. “I don’t want to talk about Tenzin.”

“That’s a relief.”

Seeing her opening she straightened her back, “But maybe this is a good time to clarify things. Set some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?”

Lin nodded, indicating the two of them, “For this, I mean.” He didn’t even bother to disguise his amusement and Lin scowled, “what?”

“You seem like someone that would have rules for this sort of thing. So, go ahead. Let’s hear them.”

Lin fixed him with a stern look, “We’ve never explicitly discussed this, but if you’re going to be here for six months I think now is a good time.”

“I don’t disagree,” Kazuo returned, gesturing for her to continue.

“Alright- first rule is: don’t follow me out of the council chambers like that again. I don’t want people discussing me or my personal life. Especially since we aren’t- since we’re not-”

Kazuo leaned in, clearly entertained by her attempt to categorize their relationship, “Aren’t what?”

“A couple,” Lin supplied finally, surprised to find that saying so out loud felt mildly disappointing. For his part, Kazuo continued to watch her in a most beguiling way, spurring her on in setting some boundaries. Regrettably, she needed them for her own sake, particularly now as they held one another’s gaze. Lin broke it first, eyes darting to his mouth in that familiar way. When the door had closed behind them only ten minutes before, Lin was confident winning her over would be a nearly impossible endeavor. She imagined it would take more than one evening to thaw the ice in her veins, but standing here alone with him- she felt heat instead. It was moving slowly into her cheeks and building between her legs.

“Fair enough,” he agreed, “And what else?” Lin gave him a quizzical look, having gotten carried away with her own thoughts. “I assume you have more than one rule?”

“Oh,” Lin remembered, “right, well, this is a nice gesture,” she began, pointing at the lemongrass on the countertop, “but going out to dinner? It’s too close to a date and I think we should avoid those situations.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she asserted, hitting her stride, “and in the spirit of keeping things casual- no more sleeping over.”

It was Kazuo’s turn to look skeptical, “what if you’re tired?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she rolled her eyes in response.

“I’ll manage.”

“Alright,” he agreed, “one question, though.”

“Yes?”

“Is kissing allowed?”

Lin smirked, “I suppose so.”

“Even now? Or should I wait until after dinner?”

Lin bit her lip to keep her smile from spreading, “I’m not that hungry.”

“Oh, good.”

He leaned in, catching her mouth with his own and Lin returned his kiss enthusiastically, losing herself in the sensation. It was almost as if his touch softened her in every respect, suddenly her hard edges were docile and yielding- relaxed and electrified all at once- readily assisting him with the buttons of her blouse which slipped off her shoulders along with the burdens she carried. This was just what she needed at the end of a long week, made even longer by denying herself moments like this. They were falling back onto the sofa in the sitting room in no time, agreeing the bedroom felt much too far away. It was a relief to finally be here, doing what they did best when they were together.

Lin rested her head on Kazuo’s chest with a satisfied hum, smiling lightly at the sound of his heart thumping rapidly just under her ear. “Okay, now I’m hungry.”

Kazuo let out a laugh from beneath her that shook her whole body, sweeping her up in his mirth, “Wait, wait, wait- wasn’t there a rule about dinner?”

Lin shifted, sliding her arm across his chest and resting her chin upon it in order to look him in the eye, “going out to dinner.”

He chuckled, pushing a strand of hair back from her face, “got me on a technicality then?”

“You offered!”

“That I did,” he agreed, running his hand along her hip before patting her backside once, “you’ve got to let me up in that case.”

Wordlessly she obliged, climbing off of him and gingerly collecting her discarded clothing to redress. He followed suit, dressing again and making his way back over to the small kitchen of his suite. She sidled up alongside, chopping the base of the lemongrass into a v-shape, peeling back the dry outer layer and sipping her drink.

As it turned out, Kazuo knew which ingredients went into laksa, but the order in which they should be put together appeared to be unknown to him, proving ripe ground for a little teasing from Lin who dutifully supervised his actions- interrupting more than once to correct his technique. He took all her instruction in good humor, writing off his culinary missteps as the pitfalls of working in an unfamiliar kitchen with improvised ingredients, much to Lin’s amusement.

The final result didn’t hold a candle to the laksa Lin had enjoyed at the Capital only weeks ago, but it wasn’t bad either- certainly on par with the Fire Nation fare available in Republic City.

“It’s the pepper- it’s not the same without the purple scorpion pepper,” Kazuo excused after sampling a little from the bowl in his hands.

“It’s not bad,” Lin insisted, twisting noodles around a pair of chopsticks.

In keeping with her theme of staying casual, they sat along the sofa, facing one another with legs crossed, bowls of laksa in their respective laps- foregoing the more formal setting of the dining table. It was a departure from Lin’s normal inclination for formality in all things, but there was something so cozy and comforting about sharing space in this way. The evening had not gone as planned- just this morning she was content to avoid him for months and now here she was in his suite enjoying a meal in their shared afterglow, talking to him about her day.

It was easy to talk to him, even in places where it ought to have been hard- their overlapping professional associations allowed her to bypass a lot of exposition and relay her thoughts and ideas without having to explain the background. There was only one topic she’d come to so far that required a little extra discretion and that was Saikhan’s suspension. She had mentioned her two o’clock meeting with the City Attorney as being “awful” and declined to elaborate when he asked what made it so bad.

“I can’t really get into it,” she told him vaguely.

“Because it’s an active investigation?”

“Yes,” Lin returned, stopping suddenly, “Wait. How do you know about that?”

She hadn’t told a soul about the investigation into Saikhan and what exactly had possessed him to do Tarrlok’s bidding, but the actions he took in her absence were not Council approved and certainly outside the guidelines of the Police Force Code of Conduct. Lin knew that better than anyone, having revised them herself upon taking office. It pained her to keep this information from her officers- almost as much as it pained her to entertain the idea that someone she trusted so deeply could be corrupted like this,  but she didn’t dare speak an accusation against him without solid evidence- and that is precisely what the City Attorney’s Office was working to find.

“We met with the City Attorney right after you left, remember?”

Lin was aghast, “Yes, but he’s not supposed to brief the Council with the Transitional Committees present! Investigating a former police chief for bribery is not something he should be shooting off at the mouth about- it’s a very delicate matter that requires discretion but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Raiko of all people would be blabbing about it to anyone who will listen! And to think, he wants to run for President. Ha.”

“And he’s going to win,” Kazuo added confidently before taking a sip of his drink.

Lin scowled, “What makes you think that?”

“The climate,” he shrugged, “it’s going to be a nonbender for sure- the national mood guarantees as much. The voters of Republic City are already familiar with him so he’s got visibility on his side, and now he has this bribery case to use as a talking point.”

“It’s not a case,” Lin corrected, “it’s an investigation that has not been completed. We don’t know for sure that Saikhan took a bribe or if it was simply incompetence.”

“It was definitely a bribe,” Kazuo assured her, setting his bowl on the small table at this side, “that’s Tarrlok’s style.”

“How would you know?”

“He tried to bribe Koji in the past,” Kazuo explained nonchalantly, “I guess he didn’t want to push his luck by approaching me directly- maybe he knew about us- who knows.”

Lin’s eyes practically bugged out of her skull and she set aside her bowl to emphasize her shock, “He tried to bribe a member of your staff and you didn’t report it?”

Kazuo chuckled, “Report it to who? Tarrlok? Come on, Lin. The whole Council is corrupted to some degree- except maybe Tenzin.  This whole reformation of government isn’t just because of the nonbending revolution. Besides, Tarrlok was smart about how he did it- with the right representation in court everything he said to Koji could have been written off as innocent conversation, but he was testing the waters, no doubt about it.”

Lin dropped her head into her hands, grumbling, “I hate politics.”

“Well, you’d better get used to them, because I promise you that Raiko is determined to find something he can use in this investigation- going hard on the Police Department for colluding with Tarrlok to oppress nonbenders will get him a lot of votes. He’ll be a nonbending hero for being tough on bender supremacy.”

“Not the police department,” Lin snipped, “Saikhan.”

“The people won’t make that distinction,” he replied apologetically.

Lin leaned back against the arm of the sofa with a disheartened sigh, realization dawning on her, “This morning Raiko suggested that I reinstate Saikhan and avoid this whole investigation.”

Kazuo sucked his teeth, “I hope you told him no.”

“Of course I did!”

“Good, then he can’t implicate you in the result. My guess is he was hoping you’d drop the investigation so he could call you complicit when they found evidence of corruption and then have an excuse to appoint a new Chief of Police.”

Lin shook her head, reaching for her drink and lifting it high, “well, here’s to hoping he loses,” she tilted it back, polishing it off in one rather long gulp.

“He won’t,” Kazuo insisted, “but you’ll be fine.”

Lin shot him a skeptical look. Perhaps the sudden infusion of alcohol was taking effect, but she challenged him, “No offense, but you’ve also thought you were going to win elections before…”

He put one hand on his chest, comically dipping his head as if he’d just been speared through the heart, “Wow.”

“I’m sorry,” Lin offered, sitting forward again with an impish grin, “I’m just saying you don’t know what the outcome will be.”

To her relief he was laughing, “You are exceptionally bad at flirting. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Actually, yes.”

He laughed harder in response. “Well for the record, I only thought I was going to win the first time I ran for the Council- after that I was just trying to make a point. And see you, of course.”

Lin’s eyes narrowed, shaking her head, “And see? You’re exceptionally good at flirting. Where do you come up with these lines?”

“It’s easy when they’re true,” he shrugged.

She scoffed, but couldn’t disguise the blush in her cheeks, “Anyway what point would you be trying to make by running every election cycle and losing?”

“It was a good way to challenge myself,” he returned plainly, “and besides it allowed me to make and maintain connections here that have really helped me in my work back home. I realized pretty quickly that my chances were slim as a nonbender, but if I hadn’t come here to campaign I never would have met Hiroshi Sato and convinced him to open his first international production plant in Fire Fountain City. After one good networking dinner here I brought 4,000 jobs back to the Fire Nation with me.”

He was a little more animated now- clearly energized by telling this story, and though Sato’s name gave her a slight recoil she couldn’t help but smile at Kazuo as she spoke- his enthusiasm was almost tangible.

“That makes sense,” she agreed, “but what do you mean your chances were slim as a nonbender?”

He looked at her blankly for a moment, “Really? Lin, when was the last time a nonbender served on the Council?”

She paused for a moment, tilting her head in thought, “I suppose it would have been one of the Air Acolytes…”

“You’re right, it was-”

“...Batsa!” They said in unison.

Kazuo nodded, “okay and he was succeeded by….”

“Tenzin.”

“Right. So, the only eligible air bender in the world replaced Batsa at the ripe old age of what? 20?”

“About twenty, yes.”

“Okay and there has been exactly one other nonbender to ever serve on the Council, can you guess who it is?”

Lin rolled her eyes, “Sokka. Obviously.”

“Yes, a founding member of the Council. So, in the history of this country there have been two nonbenders that held a position on the Council- one created the Council itself- so that’s a given. The other was essentially a placeholder until an actual bender could age into the position… I think you get where I’m going with this.”

“I do,” she admitted, “I guess that’s never occurred to me.”

He took a sip of his drink, shrugging, “Why would it?”

“It paints a rather stark picture.”

Suddenly this little bit of trivia, which had been available to her all this time, was reframing her view of the dissolution of the Council. In the past month she’d held nothing but resentment for the idea and for the equalists who had forced the issue, but she hadn’t considered how the Republic looked from their perspective. Her internal thoughts must have been externally expressed on her face because Kazuo gave her a smile and said, “Don’t feel bad, we’re used to it.”

“That makes me feel worse actually,” Lin returned, flatly.

“Then that calls for another drink,” Kazuo announced humorously, standing to make his way to the bar cart. Lin glanced at the clock, surprised to see how late it had gotten.

“Actually, I’d better get going,” she said, standing as well. She gathered their laksa bowls and made her way to the sink, “I have to be at work early- I don’t think my officers are feeling very forgiving as of late so I’d better not risk oversleeping.”

Kazuo approached her looking slightly disappointed, collecting the bowls from her hands and placing them in the sink himself, “I’ll take care of these.”  

Lin smiled up at him, suppressing the urge to kiss him again, “I’m glad we… talked.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it now?”

She rolled her eyes, “I would be the last person to know.”

“Fair point,” he laughed, “but I’m glad too. Would be a waste of six months in the same city otherwise.”

“Yes, it would be.”

It was hard to tear her eyes away from his now that the time had come, but she reminded herself to stay firm inside the boundaries she had set. The evening had been wonderful; full of great sex, good food, and stimulating conversation - it was a combination she didn’t experience for years at a time and it was enough to fill her head with all kinds of fanciful thoughts if she wasn’t careful. This was a temporary arrangement, they were friends, that was all.

He broke their gaze first, moving to fetch her coat off the back of one of the dining chairs. He held it open and she shrugged it on, “Thank you.”

They walked to the door together stopping just before it to exchange a kiss goodnight. It was a slow, sensual kind of kiss they lingered in, both reluctant for it to end. Kazuo deepened it a little by stepping in closer and sliding one hand along her jawline, giving Lin cause to stretch her arms up over his shoulders, linking her fingers behind his neck to pull him in further. Their simple goodnight kiss intensified then and he used his free hand to draw her hips in to meet his. Lin could feel his excitement plainly against her and she pushed her hips into him signaling that she had indeed changed her mind about leaving- at least for now. Together they crashed up against the door, undressing one another with urgency- this time, though, they made it back to the bedroom.

Sweaty and satisfied, they parted on a string of kisses, attempting to catch their breath in the moments between. Kazuo kissed her neck once more and slid off of her, taking up residence beside her in his bed.

“Whew,” Lin laughed, heart-pounding as she stared up at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Kazuo agreed, “I think we have some work to do regarding the ‘goodbye kiss’ concept.”

Lin nodded, “I suppose we do.” She caught a light chill, shivering at the sudden loss of his warmth and Kazuo shifted the blankets over to cover her without missing a beat.

And just like that she felt warm again.

She turned to her side, coming nose to nose with him, “I should go.”

In truth, it was the last thing she wanted to do. She realized she could stay here for days just enjoying the sensation of his hand running softly up and down her arm.

He sighed, “You’re right. Get out. You know the rules.” Unamused, Lin glared at him and he laughed, “I’m kidding!” When her expression soured further he pulled her in close, kissing the top of her head, “Aww. I’m joking. Besides, haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘rules are made to be broken?’”

Against his chest, Lin grumbled, “You kidding? It’ll be inscribed on my mother’s tombstone.”

“She sounds like a wise woman.”

“She’s not,” Lin assured, pushing off him a little so that their eyes met again. She yawned, “but neither am I- you were right. I am tired.”

“Then go to sleep,” he told her with a shrug, “I’ll set the alarm early enough for both of us.”

He twisted at the waist, reaching over for the clock to wind the alarm. Lin watched him from where she lay, tucked in at his side, thinking of the million reasons she had to get up and go home to her own bed. He set the alarm on the nightstand, turning back to pull her in for another kiss- this one short and sweet- and she decided that maybe, just this once, it was okay to break her own rules.

[universitypenguin]

What happened to u? U okay?

Hello!

First off, thank you for your concern. I appreciate it and I needed it after the past two days. To answer your question - I'm doing great.

I don’t have a lot of context about your question, but I’m guessing your concern is due to my recent blocking spree. A day ago, I went through my followers list and found some minors. I’ve previously seen smut fanfic writers concerned by underage people interacting with their posts. Until I had to block a few of them, I wasn’t aware how uncomfortable it would make me feel.

Since the blocking spree, I've had a lot of thoughts. I'm about to spew them everywhere. You might regret asking me if I was okay. Sorry about that. No one needs to read this whole manifesto about my rollercoaster of emotions the past few days. But in the interest of transparency, I'm posting this very long note.

What I want my readers to know is the following:

Tumblr is both a place for fanfiction and a social media site.

When I interact with followers and write explicit content, I have to be careful about what I'm saying and who I'm saying it to.

I don't intend to block or purge my followers in the future.

As long as I appropriately tag and put warnings on my work, that is adequate protection for my blog. Everything I write containing explicit content is tagged.

However, I won't interact with users who don't have an age stated in their bio.

There have to be boundaries, given the content of my writing. But I've also come around to the realization that I'm not capable of policing every interaction. Tumblr is a public forum. Minors following me makes me uncomfortable. But by the same token, my work is clearly labeled at 18+ and so is my blog.

There's a lot of explicit content out there for minors if you really think about it. In my high school freshman English class we talked about the book "The Color Purple." Believe me, that was explicit and we were only 14. Any minor with a library card and a Google browser can access a lot more intense content than what I write. I hope they're all being safe, but I can't have a melt down blocking spree again.

I'm not a cop, I'm not a parent, and what minors consume is down to them and the adult responsible for them. If I know someone is a minor I'll block them, should I notice they're trying to interact with me. Otherwise, I'm not purging my followers ever again. It's too much drama. I'd rather leave Tumblr than do that twice. I'm tired and I'm starting to work on my post graduate classes, I work full time in a demanding job, I'm in the process of editing my novel, and trying to keep up with my personal life. Quite literally, I don't have time to block. Writing fanfic is supposed to be my fun time. Let's keep it that way.

Due to the fact that some people I blocked were later unblocked after I took a closer look at their blogs, I'm posting a full explanation below. A quick summary is this:

After only writing for three months, I'd amassed 500 followers. On Monday I blocked almost 200 of them. Then I reviewed my block list and editing down some people who were prematurely blocked. [I assume the anon is one of the unblocked who had me disappear from their dash. Sorry!] This blocking thing isn't sustainable. In the future I'll run my blog differently as far as interaction goes in an effort to be responsible.

Continue reading for the saga of:

The Great Blocking Spree and Existential Crisis of an Erotic Fanfic Writer.

The Blocking Spree:

On Monday I realized a thirteen year old was following me and interacting with my work. This creeped me out.

*Commence blocking spree*

Then I realized how daunting my followers list was. I had 500 followers prior to Monday. That day I blocked about 200 people (some of them prematurely - more on that later.) So after the daunting task of trying to assume, to check bios for ages, to review blog content and determine the user's age, I was tired. Today, I even took a moment to reconsider if I wanted to use Tumblr. Because if all this is my responsibility, maybe I don't have the time or dedication to manage it. When I can be chill, I try to be. This attitude also affected by blocking. It contributed to me unblocking people. When I was doing the blocking spree, I'd give people with no age in their bio a fair shot by reviewing their posts.

I blocked some bot accounts, then a bunch of blank blogs, some ambiguous people who very well could be of age. For the first 100 followers I was pretty aggressive. Then my attention span dropped off and I was a bit more ambivalent. I realized I was doing a crappy job of moderating and wondered what the point was.

The point was that the thirteen year old interacting with my work freaked me out. When I found two sixteen year old followers, it pushed me to continue the purge.

So on I go, blocking. I'm so responsible for doing this, right? But my methodology is crap. What is context for being an adult? Someone had posted about budgeting advice. I thought the budgeting advice was too good for it not to have come from an adult. But my father's a financial advisor and to be honest, I could have given that level of advice at fifteen just from osmosis. Someone had pictures of themselves entering their marijuana plants in the Oregon State Fair. Okay, you've got to be over 18. I didn't block them. Someone else complained about their stats professor and I didn't block them. But in retrospect, one of my high school friends got permission to take college level math courses when we were seniors. She was seventeen when she had a stats professor. The thought circles back - what am I accomplishing here? Next, I went back and unblocked someone who ranted about her Tinder matches being 60 year old men. I wondered if their post was even real. I've lied on the internet before. Nonetheless, I persisted and worked through all 500 followers. When I was done I had 312 followers left.

Post Blocking Spree Existential Crisis:

I know that all the blocking in the world can't stop a teenager who wants to read smut fanfic. I'm not much for posting on social media and I'm not used to a lot of anonymous interaction online. Honestly, I got rid of my SM accounts during college when I felt it was wasting my time. This is the first time I've really use a social media site to post content since college. My twitter account is unused, my Instagram is for close personal friends only, and my TikTok is for mindless consumption of cat videos. (I've trained the algorithm to feed me only cat videos, it's great and I highly recommend it.) I don't post on TikTok, so I don't consider it full use, just lurking.

Okay, Alice, get back to the point....

Right, being anonymous on social media. My blocks are a fence and it's based on self identification from the blogs that follow me. I have little faith in underage consumers to out themselves. I have even less faith in their honesty or respect for an adult's boundaries. They're at a stage in life where they want to push the boundaries. Telling them no is all but inviting them in. I did my blocking spree because I was worried about backlash from someone's parents. But what reasonable judge would come after a fanfic writer? Come on. Logical thoughts but me emotional distress was still brewing.

Why I am the one responsible for who clicks the follow button on my blog? I've always clearly identified what I write and tagged my work as smut.

That thought snapped me out of my whirlwind of anxious thoughts. So I started looking into the laws. My regular work involves medicine, not the legal profession, so I was lost. I found some state level laws that made me glad I'd gone on a blocking spree. California and Florida have specific language in their laws about 'providing minors with explicit content.' But what exactly is that? What I researched applied to the following activities: co-writing smut fanfic with other people, sexting, roleplaying and online messaging.

I run a fanfic blog with limited interaction. I've never done an ask. I don't roleplay on here and I don't want to.

The blocks weren't personal. They were partly based on the awareness that Tumblr is an interactive site and a place that's had a problem with child pornography in the past. But I'm not the smut police. I suck at blocking, and I doubt I did a good job of purging my followers list. This is when it hit me that boundaries are only what I can enforce. They've never been about how other people relate to me, only how I relate to them. (Wow. I've never sounded more like my mother in my life...) After this thought, I started considering what actions I ought to take if I wanted to keep posting fanfic on Tumblr.

My Post Blocking Spree Clarity...

It's up to me who I interact with. I don't have to reply to every comment and re-blog, but I'd like to. I'm stuck between wanting to write for everyone and handling interactions on a social media site that's mostly anonymous.

The fact remains: I can't be the smut police because I suck at it.

What I've decided is that I'll make it very clear on my blog that this is an 18+ space where I publish erotic fanfiction. Smut will always be appropriately marked. I'm not going to interact with reviews, re-blogs, and messages from accounts who don't have their age in their profile. I won't include them in my tag list either. The internet is a public forum. Just as with publishing erotica, once it's out there online for download, it's done. As a ghost writer and an author, I don't control who buys my original fiction, which is just as spicy as my fanfiction. (Trust me, it's explicit. I once had a romance editor tell me I should dial it back on the smutty parts of a novel because "it's a lot of sex for a non-erotica market.") The key difference on Tumblr is about interaction. And that's something I can control. I can decide when I reply to other users. What brought me around to this was the realization that even after the blocking spree, I can't review every single like I get. That's an amount of time and mental energy that's beyond me. Just the past two days have been exhausting and sapped my will to write. Which sucks because I need to go write the next chapter of "Restitution" before tomorrow.

I think the reasons I went on the blocking spree are nuanced. The thirteen year old freaked me out. So did the other underaged people who had ages in their bios. But it also relates to my work. In my job I've seen some nasty child abuse cases. Early on in my career, when I was a 23 year old new hire, I was working on an autopsy for a child abuse victim who'd been murdered by their parent. It was so terrible and graphic, I had to ask one of my older colleagues to take the case. This colleague didn't like me. But she took one look at my face and took the file. She closed out the review without a question and never brought it up again to anyone. I was very grateful. Where I used to work (and where this incident took place) was a major city that holds the unfortunate title of being the human trafficking capital of the US. And something I learned working there was that most human trafficking victims go with their captors willingly. In two years at that job, I never saw one who'd been kidnapped from a dark alley like you see on TV. They were all groomed on social media and thought they were escaping their families (who were often overbearing, toxic, or dysfunctional) for a get away with friends. It was a fun adventure with their internet buddies, until it wasn't.

In retrospect, the underage interaction I found on my blog made me react because of what I've been through. The autopsy case kept coming back to me today while I was at work and I've finally untangled my emotions enough to figure out what caused my melt down. When I was blocking, I was feeling an anxious motivation that I know can only stem from the stress I deal with at my job. Don't feel sorry for me about this - I know my work in medicine helps a lot of people and it's a tremendously satisfying career.

Our Saga's Resolution & How I'm Going to Deal With This In The Future...

- - - - -

In post block clarity, I offer this conclusion:

I'm writing on a public forum. My work is appropriately tagged as smut. In the future, I will also use the tag #no minors to help with filtering. I've always asked underage people not to interact. And on a public forum, what more can I reasonably do? Going forward I will only interact with those who have their age posted in their bio. But blocking sprees and policing every interaction isn't feasible.

I'll review how I'm going to run my tag lists as well. I need to think it over and let my followers know my decision as to if I'll continue using them. Because tagging is definitely interaction and my current tag list was not screened at all. *face palm*

Finally, to my readers who have blank blogs or don't have an age listed. I respect your right to privacy and I'm careful with my personal information as well. But I've also had an uncomfortable two days. If you've lasted through this venting session until now, you must understand that I'm upset by underage interaction. I'm setting my own boundaries and going forward, I'll own my side of the internet. No interaction from me, unless I know your age. Full stop - no exceptions. I think it is reasonable for me to suggest that you leave something on your blog that signifies you are not a minor, whatever that may be. Someone who I didn't block that stands out in my memory had a bio that said "90s baby." It was simple, direct, and left no doubt they were over 18. No age reveal and not even a name. If you put something like this on your blog it'll help explicit content creators feel more comfortable about their interactions.

I went on a spree this Monday and I admit to being heavy handed and aggressive about pruning followers. I had an emotional reaction due to work stress and I didn't think things through logically. I'm relieved for the chance explain myself and set new boundaries that I'm capable of sticking to in the future. But remember - the block button is on my side of the screen. At the end of the day, you might be unhappy with me for the block, but it's my button, it's my blog, and I'll use it as I see fit.

Thank you for reading.

[kieraelieson]

Centaur AU 5

To say Thomas worried the rest of the day would be an understatement. He tried to keep it to himself, but it must have been palpable, since Roman came into the stable bright and happy, and his smile dropped immediately. His eyes went wide, clearly sending messages to the others, but he didn’t say a word until his jockey was gone.

“What happened?!”

“It’s not that much to be concerned about,” Logan said. “My legs are hurting, nothing more.”

“The vet has been called at least!” Roman said, a flash of anger in his eyes. “If—“ his words fizzled out as he turned to see Thomas.

“No, no, Thomas called the vet. She’s coming tonight to help,” Patton said, his tone calming.

“Well,” Roman looked like the wind had been taken out of him. “Good.”

And that somehow reminded Thomas. The very visit probably wouldn’t be over in a few minutes, he would be late to get home again. He was now Extremely glad he’d gotten a cell phone for Remy. Perhaps after a month or so he could afford one for Emile too.

He went to the phone, ignoring the quiet talking from the others.

Remy didn’t pick up right away, and Thomas called a second time.

“Look, I don’t know who you are—“

“Remy, it’s Thomas.”

“Oh. Sorry, this is a weird number. Wait—- don’t tell me you got lost this time!” Remy laughed. “Emile! You’ve got to hear this!”

“No, no, Remy, I’m not lost, I’m still at work. I just called to say I’ll probably have to stay late again.”

There was a vague, displeased grunt. “What, overtime twice in a row? You did negotiate for overtime pay, right?”

Thomas sighed. “No, I’m not sure I’m even getting paid at all for it.”

“What?!” Remy yelled. “Thomas, you are A Doormat!” The sound went a little fainter. “Emile, tell him! He’s not even getting paid for staying late!”

“Really, Thomas, you do need to stand up for yourself in terms of fair payment,” Emile said.

Thomas chuckled slightly, sighing. “I know. I really do. This is just more important than that. I’ll explain when I get home, and I’ll even try to figure out a way to renegotiate.”

“We’ll hold you to that,” Remy promised.

“Be safe and reasonable,” Emile said. “If you get very tired, it may be better to quit before your task is complete or to stay the night there.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Thomas said. “Love you guys.”

“Yeah, yeah, all the mushy ‘we love you too’,” Remy said distantly before hanging up.

Thomas smiled a bit. He really missed them, even though it’d only been a few days, they seemed really long.

And then he heard a car stop and a door shut. Hopefully that was the vet.

He turned to offer his most reassuring smile to the centaurs before going out to meet her.

“Oh, hello, are you Thomas?”

“I am, yes, and I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Dr. Avery. Would you help me carry some things?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not surprised something finally happened,” Dr. Avery said, her tone rather annoyed. “I’ve been saying all you recent grooms are lazy and uneducated.”

Thomas tried not to take offense, but really, he was undereducated. He hadn’t had barely an idea of what to do.

“For a centaur like that one you need to be applying liniment all the time, and keep support for his legs between, and he really ought not to be sleeping standing.”

Thomas nodded, extremely glad for the information, though a part of him grated against the tone it was delivered in.

“And he really needs some kinds of exercise other than those competitions. Without the variety, eventually he’ll be unable to do anything else. Maybe it’s even too late already.”

Thomas nodded again.

They entered the stable, and the silence was almost oppressive. All four centaurs stared intently at them, very still, and not making a single sound, not even in response to Thomas’s small smile.

Dr. Avery went right into Logan’s stall, and he narrowed his eyes at her slightly before moving into the middle of the stall, crossing his arms and staring firmly at the wall. It somehow cut into Thomas to see it. As if the vet visiting was something that had happened long ago, and ended very unpleasantly, and this was some sort of unpleasant truce. But he didn’t know what to do about it. He, they all needed a vet, and he strongly doubted he would be able to call his vet. There would be so much paperwork, even just to begin, and Logan was hurt now. Not to mention that the owners might well hate the idea of switching vets.

Dr. Avery unwrapped Logan’s legs and ran her hands carefully over them, making small displeased noises as she found… whatever she was finding.

“Thomas, go out to my truck, there’s a portable x-ray machine. Bring it here.”

Thomas ran to obey quickly.

The vet examined each of Logan’s legs very carefully, and then studied the x-rays, frowning intently, but not saying much. Thomas felt like his breath was held the entire time, waiting on the professional judgement.

“Well, first of all,” she said, still staring at the papers.

Thomas nodded quickly. “Yes?”

“This is going to be expensive to treat,” she said, her tone sour. “There are a number of faint cracks in the cannon bones. I’m quite frankly shocked he hasn’t broken his legs. He needs to stay off his feet as much as possible, and his legs need support, as well as dietary supplements to build up the bones again. He will not be able to participate in any of those competitions whatsoever for 12 weeks at the very least.”

Thomas nodded firmly. He was sure… well, he was desperately hopeful that the Authiers would pay for it.

“But on top of that the mental aspect cannot be discounted. I’ve known this centaur for quite a few years. It will be a long, and painful recovery, if it’s handled just right. I don’t think he’ll pull through it. Centaurs are finicky like that once injured.”

Thomas felt as though she’d managed to slap them all in the face, and Logan at least twice. He wasn’t sure if he was more shocked or angry.

“Add all that to the likelihood that he won’t be able to do many competitions afterwards even if he did somehow pull through it, and from the inactivity his muscles will be atrophied, he won’t be the same for… perhaps six months or more. I don’t know that you’ll, or rather, that the Authiers would find it worthwhile to keep him around anymore.”

Thomas felt like he might fall over. His voice came out squeaky and faint. “Are-- are you seriously suggesting that---”

“Putting him down. Yes.”

There was a choked sound from Patton, who looked both absolutely terrified and like he might throw up. Thomas wondered if he looked the same way. There was suddenly a scream.

“NO!” Virgil had reared up and kicked the door, hard.

Dr. Avery paled. “Why is he loose like that?! That is a violent centaur!”

Thomas, in what was probably a powerful move Emile would berate him for later, managed to shove everything down all at once and put on a conciliatory smile.

“Thank you so much for coming. I will talk to the Authiers, and call you again with their decision. If you leave, it will be easier to get him under control again.”

Virgil was still screaming, the sound more animal than human, and the stall door would not hold much longer.

“That’s at least a three man job! I’ll get the tranquilizers.”

“No.” Thomas said firmly. “Please leave. Now.”

Dr. Avery shook her head like he was crazy, but grabbed her stuff and left.

Thomas shut the stable door, and then heard a cracking of wood. In seconds Virgil was in front of him, rearing up threateningly. If he hadn’t already so far detached himself from the situation, Thomas might have screamed. And then he would have most assuredly died. But he didn’t, he raised his hands slowly and silently in surrender.

“You won’t touch him!” Virgil screamed.

“Virgil, please. I swear to you I will never let anything like that happen to Logan. I swear. I will do everything I possibly can, and if that doesn’t work I’d kidnap him before I let someone kill him. I promise Virgil, everything I can, I will do to make him safe. I promise. Please. Please walk back to your stall. Or to Logan’s. I’m sure he would appreciate you with him.”

It was as if dark clouds started to be blown away as Virgil stood down, taking a step back and turning to look at Logan.

Thomas collapsed to his knees, suddenly sobbing.

Something was going on, but he didn’t know what, only that his breath was coming short and he couldn’t stop himself, nearly curled up in a ball, heavy sobs wracking his body. And then strong arms picking him up and holding him in a hug.

“It’s alright. Everyone’s safe for now.” Someone said. “You did the best you could.”

Thomas tried hard to stop crying. He needed to be the strong one. He needed to fix everything. “I’m so-sorry, I’m trying.”

“It’s alright. We’re all alright for now. Let it out now.”

Thomas slowly managed to regain some kind of composure, and realized that Roman was holding him, knelt down on the floor with him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. You- you shouldn’t have to--”

He was cut off and surprised by Roman squeezing him in a tight hug. “Thomas, you’re giving us the best you have. Thank you. It’s enough.”

And somehow that made him want to cry all over again. Not the same desperate sobs, but it still made him sniff, and quite a few more tears ran down his face. “Thank you, Roman.”

“I’m sorry,” Virgil said, his voice quiet and low. “Did-- did you mean what you said?”

Thomas nodded firmly. “I’ll never just stand by while they kill someone. Especially not for being hurt.”

Patton burst into tears, which, judging by his wet face, were not the first by far.

“Is Logan ok?” Thomas asked.

Virgil looked up at Logan’s face, which he could see from his place snugged up against his side. “He’s out.”

It took Thomas a second while his brain screamed ‘he passed out???’ to realize Virgil probably meant he was heavily dissociated. Thomas couldn’t blame him. But… this was probably what the vet meant about centaur’s and their minds once they got injured. It wasn’t their fault, it was a whole life long of trauma. But for Logan to get well again he would have to be present.

But not yet. He deserved to calmly make his way back. He deserved… anything, after being talked about like that. Someone literally threatened to kill him while he stood there listening! Thomas felt anger rising up in him, bringing with it a rush of heat and energy. He was calling the Authiers. And he was not taking no for an answer.

He took the phone with him into the closet, where he couldn’t be so easily overheard. None of them deserved any more bad news.

“Hello?” A familiar voice asked, with loud music in the background. It was the woman who had hired him, and he felt bad to say, he didn’t remember her first name.

“Hello, Mrs. Authier, it’s Thomas Sanders.”

“Oh, Thomas! Do you need something?”

He was going to have to phrase this right if he had much hope. “I’ve been looking into the things that the other grooms did, and I’ve found several problems.”

“Uh huh. Well give me the quick version, I’m a bit busy.”

Thomas took a deep breath. “One of the centaurs needs medical care, and I need more time here. I’d like to be hired full-time, and be able to bring things over here to stay.”

“Oh, that was excellently quick. Is that everything?”

“Um, yes?”

“Great. I’ll give you an empty check for the medical care, and send my lawyer to talk with you in the morning about rearranging the schedule. Are we good now?”

“I… yes. I think so.”

“Great! There’s a party up at the main house, and it’ll go most of the night if you want to join.”

“Uh, thank you.”

“Call anytime, you’re a good summarizer!”

And then she hung up. Thomas was dumbfounded. It was entirely not how he’d expected it to go at all. He was wondering more and more what kind of crazy people he was working for.

He called Dr. Avery, and went to voicemail, which he preferred quite a bit. “Mrs. Authier approved the medical treatment. If you can come in the morning and give me care instructions, I’ll do my best to be sure they’re followed.”

And then Thomas let out a long, relieved sigh. He came out of the closet to many tense faces.

“She said yes. We’re going to treat Logan, and help him the best we can.”

Roman and Virgil sighed in relief, and Patton nearly cried again. “Oh, thank goodness!”

“And,” Thomas said, and suddenly had all eyes fixed on him again. “I think, I might be moving to stay here. Would that be alright with you guys?”

There was a strange silence.

“Well, what we think about it wouldn’t really change anything,” Roman said.

“Of course we’d love to have you!” Patton said, overlapping Roman’s words.

Thomas nodded solemnly. He could understand if they didn’t want him here. They barely knew him, and it’d take away the privacy they had at nighttime.

“Well, for tonight then, I need to wrap up Logan’s legs again, and probably after all that mess Virgil at least could use a brushing down. Would that be alright?”

Thomas looked mostly at Virgil, who nodded, but reluctantly, and didn’t meet his gaze.

And Thomas had to admit, even with the exhausted numbness settling over him, he was scared to be between Logan and Virgil, even though he knew, and they knew too, that he was only trying to help. Logan was still almost frozen, a glazed look in his eyes as he turned lazily to watch Thomas.

Thomas ran a hand gently over Logan’s flank, and over again. He didn’t know if Logan would appreciate petting or if he’d be annoyed or insulted by it. He just wanted to find some way to help, and to perhaps comfort and reassure a bit.

“I’m really sorry. If I’d known what she was going to say I would’ve had her outside to talk.”

Logan didn’t respond at all.

Thomas tried giving a rather wry smile, but it fell a bit flat.

“If you’d come out of this stall, Virgil, it’d be easier for me to brush you,” Thomas said, turning and going back to the closet to get a curry comb.

Virgil was standing in his own stall when Thomas came back out, and he was standing stiffly, his eyes darting around a bit, though he turned his head away to make it less obvious. Thomas wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he didn’t blame him. He felt antsy and jittery himself, and just wanted to get done and get home.

But as he entered the stall Virgil stepped away from him. “I’m sorry. F-for earlier. I-I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s alright,” Thomas said, raising the brush. “Just stand still now and we’ll be good.”

Virgil flinched back and away, holding his arms close to his chest, a wide-eyed scared look on his face. It finally registered to Thomas that something more was wrong than just fading adrenaline.

“Virgil, I’m tired and kinda crashing, it’s making me kind of dumb, and I’m gonna need you to communicate here with me, ok? What’s wrong?”

Virgil’s eyes flicked to the curry comb, but he didn’t say anything. A tremor started and ran over his body.

Patton came to the rescue, leaning over the walls.

“Virgil doesn’t like that brush.”

Thomas frowned down at the innocent curry comb. “It’s no worse than any other brush, Virgil.”

“It hurts! Especially when you’re mad or tired.” Virgil blurted out, shutting his mouth immediately after as if he’d said something bad.

The only way this kind of brush would hurt was if it was practically slapped against…. who was Thomas kidding, with the rampant abuse, it was incredibly likely that exactly that had happened.

“It wouldn’t hurt if it’s done properly,” Thomas promised. “Would you let me try? If it hurts you I promise I’ll go back and get your favorite one instead.”

“You promise?”

Thomas nodded firmly. “I promise.”

Virgil shook his head, a tremor running down his whole body. “Promises break.”

Thomas thought about it for a minute, and then went out and grabbed a lead rope, tying one end around his wrist.

“Do you trust Patton? The whole time I’m brushing you he can hold the other end of this rope, and the instant it hurts you he can pull my hand back.”

Virgil looked to Patton, who seemed more than a little nervous about the idea, but still nodded and accepted the end of the rope.

“O-ok.”

Thomas gently set the brush against Virgil’s side, waiting for the flinch and shiver to die down a little before he moved the brush at all. Virgil was all covered in sweat, and Thomas tried to move just right to get it off without moving too quickly and startling him.

He was a little surprised, but also a little not, that by the time he’d finished one side Virgil was relaxing into it. It must feel good to finally reach through all the hair and get properly brushed, and to get really clean.

He’d just wanted to get home a bit ago, but this was more important. It wasn’t just brushing down a centaur, it was getting Virgil to trust him, to trust brushes. It was healthy for Virgil’s coat too. And probably it was helping relax a lot of stressors for him. He needed it, far more that Thomas needed to get home. So he took his time, did it the best way, which also happened to take a long time.

And once he was done Virgil was so relaxed his eyes were drifting shut.

“There. You did very well, Virgil. And thank you for helping, Patton.”

Patton smiled and yawned. “You’re welcome, Thomas.”

“I’ll probably head home now. Is there anything else any of you need?”

“It’s nearly midnight,” Logan said, startling Thomas by speaking.

“Yes?”

Logan just gave a small nod, as if that meant something to him. “Thank you.”

Thomas nodded. “You’re welcome.”

He closed stall doors and turned off all the lights but one, finally leaving. When he got home, for some reason, he didn’t go into the house, he went into the stable. Only barely awake, he dropped onto the hay next to where Emile was stretched out, laying prone.

“Thomas?”

Thomas gave a weak grunt in acknowledgement before falling asleep.

[jenivi7]

First Lines Tagging Meme

I'M SO HAPPY TO BE TAGGED IN THIS TWICE!  Thank you @ink-flavored and @clyde-side !! (I almost just did this on my own too because I love babbling about my own fics...)

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

Now pinned and under a cut because it became a really long, really good introduction to me and my stories! 

Hello!

Unnecessary and overly wordy introduction/personal musings: I love opening lines so much. When I worked at a bookstore, I used to open books and hardcore judge them on their first lines. I had barely any free time to read at that point so if it didn’t grab me in the first line or two, I put it back. The first Harry Potter book is actually in my pile of really good openers. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” (Subtle alliteration, HELLO??) So I'm super excited to see if my own first lines come even close to the standards that I apply to other people lol. MY OWN MONEY IS ON NO. I have the feeling that I'm so frantic trying to get the story down on paper before the good words disappear from my head that I'm not actually paying attention to the first line. BUT LET'S SEE, SHALL WE.

So just straight up going backwards, I've written and posted TWO BRAND NEW THINGS after being away from fandom almost entirely for 10+ years! They're drabble length but they're shiny and new! <3 (All available fics are linked!)

1. Tango:

She teaches them to dance so that they can dance with her but when Atem gets that mischievous smirk on his face and pulls Yugi into his arms, their bodies spark and the dance floor smolders at their heels.

(The fic is so short that this is a full 1/5 of it but actually, I think I crammed all the good stuff right into that first line. This already might be my favorite. Like it says there in the line itself, Puzzleshipping.)

2. No Betting:

Anzu sat at the kitchen table writing carefully calculated answers onto sticky notes before attaching them to a fourth-grade math worksheet.

(Peachshipping! This one doesn't pop off until about line five so here's the rest of that bit:)

She had the same arrangement with her spouse as most parents had. When the kids were good they were hers. When they were bad, they were his. And when they were winning at games because they picked up rules with uncanny speed and read their opponents with more insight than ought to be available to a child, they were definitely, definitely his.

3. If you wanted honesty that's all you had to say (working title):

When he realized that the figure sitting under the game shop display window and smoking wasn’t Ryou, the physical body response was as though it had discovered a coiled snake not two feet away.

(This one! It's a NEW half finished(?) WIP. I actually started this one before the drabbles but wanted to finish before posting it. Then it got out of hand, then work got out of hand, then I started a couple more projects and well. I keep putting words on it though and eventually there will be a Kleptoshipper that turns into Puzzle and Tender for your reading enjoyment. Also, fair warning - don't use song lyrics as a working title. Every time I look at the document I get the song stuck in my head.)

Now we have polished up reposts of old stories for their move to AO3, where I'll basically keep my master archive. Not full re-writes but I fixed a bunch of typos and awkward sentences and they're much stronger for it. Most of these are from a pairings contest way back when so LOTS of different pairings and lots of AUs!

4. Human:

It was like a bad noir, the thought crossed both of their minds.

(Scifi AU, Rivalshipping. That one's not bad for a first line. Actually no link at the time of writing cause the re-edit is going up in like, a half hour? an hour? a half day? It's my next project after finishing this, finishing up the edit and posting it on AO3. Now with link!)

5. Blood:

Fingers through midnight black hair, whispers in his ear, touches that sizzled along the skin, awakening nerves and senses. 

(Dungeonshipping, Pegasus x Otogi, vampires AU. Oh that’s a nice first line! <3)

6. Crazy for You:

The keys are too large and too heavy for the doctor more used to more modern facilities but she doesn't say anything, just follows the orderly as he pulls the large door open.

(Manipulashipping, Anzu x Marik, Psychward AU. Still one of my favorites from that era. Big bold warning though, THIS ONE CONTAINS NON-CON)

7. Finality:

“What are you doing here?”

“Saying goodbye.” Bakura’s translucent arms swept across the graveyard. “Is this not an appropriate place for it?”

(First two or so bits of dialogue as the first first is a generic question. You can tell this is one of the really old ones just by that but it's a sweet, sad little Tendershipper that still has a special place in my heart.)

8. Pieces of You:

Glitter caught the light, leaving shimmering trails in the air as it got everywhere.

(Glittershipping, Anzu x Kisara. Another one that's special to me. Kisara is my girl and my first writing muse. <3)

9. Cambodia:

“It was summer of fifty three...”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, it can't have been fifty three. You might be that ancient but I'm not. It must have been sixty three.”

(Jiishipping. Yes. Sugoroku x Arthur. HEY, IT CAME UP IN THE RANDOM DRAW FOR THE SHIPPING CONTEST OK. And my writer's brain hasn't backed down from a challenge yet... Another one that takes 4 lines to pop off but it's a good start. Actually, here's the rest of the bit just because I cannot get enough of these two bickering:)

“What do you mean it must have been sixty three? You don't even know what story I'm trying to tell.”

“Am I in it?”

“What?”

“So you're deaf now as well as daft? AM I IN IT?”

“Of course you're in it, y'old coot. Don't know why I'd tell a story without you in it when both grandkids are sitting here.”

10. Coffee and Cigarettes:

"Cigarettes and coffee? That's not a very healthy lunch." 

Mana crossed her legs and took a refined sip of her own coffee even as her company was not. 

(Mischiefshipping, Mana x Thief King Bakura. Oh this one I'm actually sad that it doesn't immediately sparkle in the first line cause it's one of my absolute favorites of everything I've written. And I think it's the only time I've ever written Mana but I LOVED IT AND HER. Oh no! I lied, I've written her at least one other time though I don't think that one quite captures her sheer chaos energy like this one does.)

11. A Million Missed Chances:

Somewhere along the line, someone made a choice.

(This one. THIS ONE. I think this is by far the most epic idea I've tackled. I still don't know if the sheer scale of the thing came across in the actual fic but in my head it was massive and I remember pounding away at my teeny tiny laptop late at night because the whole thing hit me maybe a day or so before the story was due for the pairings contest. We only had a week to write each fic and my really good ideas never came to me before the very last minute. T.T Conquestshipping, Mai x Valon.)

12. A Fear of Falling:

She drove.

Like she always did when something bothered her.

(Oh the first chapter on this is also one of the really ancient ones. Like one of the very first things I wrote. That first chapter really shows its age and is a little shaky but the others are better and the last one is what fits into the chorological order here. Polarshipping, Jou x Mai. One of my very first ships. Probably THE first actually <3)

13. What Our Creators Make Us:

"Well, well." The match flared, scattering dark shadows until it was blown out and the only light that remained was the red glow from the cigarette end. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

(Psychoshipping, Marik x Spirit of the Ring Bakura. With a bit of Bronze, Angst and Tender in the follow up. Old but I'm ridiculously proud of it, hence it's place in the master archive. Ahaha you can tell how old it is though by how clever I think I am. I thought it was funny to make my audience figure out who was talking and not reveal the characters for a good fourth to third of the fic. Ahhhhhhh. Sorry about past me.)

14. A Revolution of the Spirit:

It wasn't fair.  It just wasn't.

That they were close was understandable (you don't get much closer than sharing headspace) but that even now, after deals were made with gods, endless arguments, compromises and the ultimate guilt trip that he had only been a teenager when he willingly sacrificed himself for all of humanity, things she had only half seen and only partly understood even though they had all been there to witness, that even now Atem continued to invade Yugi's personal space as though he belonged there got on her nerves.

(Woah Nelly! That third sentence should probably be three, four and five. Even if I just split it in half we'd continue the pattern of things popping off in the fourth line. I think that's one pattern that's emerging! A really good bit takes me about four lines to set up and deliver! Oh, the challenge was Revolutionshipping, Anzu x Atem, but the fic is actually Spiritshipping, Anzu x Yugi x Atem.)

So confession time, I haven't been out of fandom completely, I just hadn't written my own standalone stories in a very long time. There are a few (ok ok more than a few) long-running rps that @miss-moberg and I have been adding to on and off over the years. I can't resist throwing in a couple of these.

15. Cafe!

The door shut behind them with the soft click of the latch and the exhale of a breath long held.

(This opening line was from December of 2020 when we rebooted a very old Prideshipper and that is a damn good opening line if I do say so myself. I can definitely see the difference now between the newer works and the older ones. I've gotten better, she's matched me pace for pace and eventually something will be finished, I'll work up the courage to ask permission to post it and the whole internet will get to see how brilliant the two of us are together.)

16. Treasure Hunt!

"Ryou, I think you're going to regret letting me tag along on your adventuring this time."  Yugi didn't bother turning away from the airplane's tiny window to see if his seatmate was paying attention.  He was more thinking out loud with his friend playing the role of a convenient sounding board.  "Because I think this trip is the only thing I'm going to talk about ever again."

(One more from RP because it's got that fun, four line punch that we've discovered is a pattern for me! Opening entry is from 2017.)

Also, in truth, my count is a little off when I say I'd been out of fandom 10+ years. I've been away from YGO for that long but I did spend a brief stint in Homestuck where I read a ton of fanfic, flirted with a couple group RPs and even wrote a tiny bit. 9 years without writing a new fic isn't as impressive as saying ‘over a decade’ but it is a little more accurate.

17. What You Will:

In the land of fair Illyria, along a small, sandy stretch of its rocky shore, a ship has come to ruin and one lone woman lies still as death among broken wood.

(The beginning of a Homestuck/Twelfth Night crossover that I'm still determined to work more on someday. It's only got a single chapter but it's magic though now I'm concerned about not being able to recapture that. Not a bad first line though. The style is so different it took me reading it a couple times before going, oh yeeeeeah, that's pretty good!)

18. Relentless:

You pull him to the deck and then across it by the remains of his shirt. Let him say one last goodbye. His ship pillaged, his crew murdered, his hands bound behind his back and at your mercy.

Funny word, that. Mercy.

(The first line is pretty decent but there's that four line combo again! Five but I could basically fix that with a comma. Featuring the troll ancestors Mindfang and Dualscar because every time Hussey introduced new characters they were instantly my favorite.) 

19. Black:

There is dark and there is dark and there is dark and then there is black. She is black. Licorice and coal. She is hate and resentment and everything that tastes bitter, the kind of black that coats the tongue like oil, drips down the back of the throat and keeps going.

(Oh wow. Am I allowed to say that about my own work? A Terezi/Vriska drabble that I'm putting as much here as I think I can get away with because it's so good that it fucks me up a little going back and reading it.)

And here it gets tricky because I think the more recent of the old, old fics are in the Drabbles and Shorts collection on ff.net and I can't see a post date. So I'll just pick a good one to end on.

20. Two Princes:

It was inevitable as the rising of Ra's chariot after a long night, as the flooding of the river banks every spring, and Atem always knew that Yugi's kiss would be as warm and gentle as the evening breeze in the summer that brought relief from the scorching day. It was.

(How about the final honor going to more Puzzle/Blind? This probably has the strongest first line of its era. Actually I'm not sure when it was written. It was just hanging out in my writing folder and, thinking about it, I probably wrote it when I was fading from fandom the first time around but still trying to hang in there. No wait! That’s too sad, we can’t end on that! Lets add one more to the list for the sake of personal narrative!)

21. Linger:

The world doesn't need him anymore. It doesn't need his sword and it doesn't need his pen.

(A tiny Princess Tutu afterward that I wrote for myself. Nice one-two punch in the opener. Also it rounds out the personal story that accidentally developed here with a line later in the fic, "Words, however, never stray far from a good writer..." Like, wait, stop. Past me, how did you know T.T)

Did that take a sudden emotional turn for anyone else or was that just me. Can I offset that a little with an honorable mention? Let’s do that while I collect myself. Here’s one more.

Honorable mention: Ryou and the Thief

There was a storm gathering and too much magic in the air. Much more than occurred naturally and magic at this level was never a good thing.

(I can’t have a list of things I’ve written without having Ryou and the Thief on it. If you click on this one though, BEWARE, it’s old, it’s silly and it has a ton of explicit gay sex that… would be written very differently if we were handling it today I’m sure! This is the first RP @miss-moberg and I ever did together and our excuse to Gemship and Puzzleship turned into us running the boys through a whole adventure based on the Osiris myth. It’s the longest thing I’ve ever completed and I’d still consider it kind of my legacy.)

And that’s the last 21(+1!) stories that I’ve written! 

The clear winner of best first line for me is 15. Cafe! It’s short, elegant and manages to contain a whole mood even without the context of what’s going on and who’s involved. (Spoilers: It’s Seto and Mokuba making an AU escape from Gozoboro.) Close second is Tango, the most recent story. It’s neat to see just how much better I’ve gotten and also really cool to see that even if the first line itself doesn’t contain a punch, it’s usually because there’s a nice, strong idea being set up and delivered in the first four lines (or so). What a pleasant surprise!

AND WOW, this whole tag thing didn't need to be so long! Or personal! Seriously, if you get this tag from me the challenge is only to list the first lines to 20 stories and maybe try to draw one or two conclusions from them. You all thought I was joking when I said I loved talking about my own writing! But actually, I guess it’s fine like this as I ended up using it as a way to re-introduce myself. Like, "Hey, I used to live here a long time ago and oh my god I love what you've done with the place!" Rather than being someone who's just popped up out of nowhere a few weeks ago to creepily bother all your best of the best creators so....

^///^ Hello!

Thanks for letting me ramble!

Tags! I think I've seen most of the authors I follow do this already but on the off chance you haven't been tagged yet: @elexica (checked your blog to see if you'd already done the tag and saw that you're another person returning to writing fanfiction after 10+ years. Same! Hello!!), @danieco, @draconicmaw, @nedjemetsenen (has someone tagged you already?) and two shots in the dark, @miss-moberg and @edmondia (I'm so sorry you two. T.T Please feel free to block me forever.) And please, anyone else who wants to babble about their own writing! Do this, it was so much fun. <3

[merryfortune]

Day 5 / Awkward Hugs

Social Interactionism 2021

Event: @hugsaku

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Ship: Wisteriashipping | Spectre/Yusaku

Word Count: 1.8k

Tags: Developing Relationship, Bittersweet, Fluff with a Sad Ending

AN: since today’s Hugsaku prompt overlaps with my birthday, it was only natural for me to write Spectre/Yusaku as a birthday treat to myself (hence why, no spoilers), they can hug twice in this fic as a treat

  Yusaku’s plan, like they usually did, involved three steps. There might be more steps or issues within those three, broad ideas but so be it. That’s also how it usually was.

  One. He would apologise to Spectre.

  Two. He would find the Earth Ignis.

  Three. He would reunite Spectre and the Earth Ignis.

  He wasn’t sure if the steps to his plan were in descending order or difficulty or not, but he would abide by these three steps to the best of his ability. Of course, coaxing Spectre out into the open, one on one, was going to be difficult and it was part of step one. Yusaku could have just sent a letter addressed for Spectre or even an e-mail but he thought that was impersonal. He wanted it to mean something big and something dear because when he wanted to apologise, he wanted to do something more than just create a clean slate between them. He wanted to earn Spectre’s trust and maybe even affection as the third step in Yusaku’s plan would likely hinge on that.

  However, Yusaku thought that Spectre was even more hermetic than him which was saying something. Yet for all that agonising, just sending a summons for Spectre and Spectre alone at the usual spot for his and his team’s encounters with the Knights of Hanoi, though mainly Ryoken, was enough.

  Quite honestly, Yusaku was expecting to be stood up when he waited by the Stardust Road. He stood with his hands laced over the rail and he stared out to sea. All around him, dusk descended with orange skies and indigo clouds; it dyed the sea that lapped at the rocks and cement below a very, very dark colour and just as Yusaku thought that Spectre might not appear, a familiar stranger dejectedly stood beside him, leaning over the rail with him.

  “I didn’t even hear you.” Yusaku murmured.

  Spectre snickered. “Most people usually don’t. If I’m not careful, if I’m not making a fuss, most people won’t notice me at all.”

  “But Ryoken does?” Yusaku guessed.

  “Yes.” Spectre replied with a bitter smile.

  There was a moment of silence between them. It was uneasy but not necessarily uncompanionable. It was just there to acclimatize them between greetings and the actual conversation, of which, Yusaku initiated it and very boldly at that.

  “I’m sorry.” he said.

  Spectre harrumphed. “Whatever for?”

  “For tricking you into destroying your field when we duelled. That was a cruel thing to do.” Yusaku said. “I can tell you have a very genuine affection for your Sunavalon cards. So, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s water under the bridge,” Spectre said, “but thank you. I appreciate the sentiments.”

  “I’m glad. Because, well, I felt bad about that.” Yusaku stated.

  “You shouldn’t though… I goaded you into, remember, I wanted you to do something cruel and I ought to be impressed that you exceeded expectations.” Spectre replied.

  “Well, now I’m trying to do kind things.” Yusaku said.

  Spectre’s pupils dilated at that – and Yusaku noticed even if it was a small quirk of his body language.

  “No, don’t tell me…” Spectre said, realising where this conversation was going, he had thought it was strange that Yusaku would call him out of the blue like this but he figured he would indulge it, he was his master’s servant after all, so he assumed – hoped – it was eventually going to funnel to him.

  “Yeah,” Yusaku murmured, “I am. I want to bring back the Earth Ignis, or just, um, Earth as he’s called.”

  Spectre shook his head. He wanted to chastise Yusaku, but he couldn’t find his words. He just looked stiff instead.

  “I was hoping you would help but I don’t want to force you.” Yusaku added.

  “I’ll allow it to happen,” Spectre elected to reply, “but I won’t help.”

  “Thank you.” Yusaku said.

  Yusaku was expecting the conversation to end there. He was right. It did. But not how he thought it would. Spectre, slovenly, pushed himself off the railing, ready to return to the marina and retire to the yacht for the night because dealing with Yusaku was exhausting but not quite.

  Yusaku was somewhat surprised as Spectre gave him an unexpected hug. He blinked and he felt Spectre’s arms surge around him. His hug was tight and Yusaku wasn’t sure what to do as he felt Spectre’s head beneath the crook of his chin and his arms on his waist. Yusaku swallowed and he half-heartedly tried to push Spectre off him. He didn’t feel in danger, even if Spectre was a peculiar and oftentimes unpleasant person, but he did feel… Awkward being hugged by him.

  “What are you doing…?” Yusaku asked, blushing.

  Spectre got the hint that now was the time to stop and it seemed he didn’t appreciate being rejected like that. He straightened up his coat and looked mildly annoyed. His brows furrowed and his eyes fixated on some weedy flower growing between the pavers on the ground.

  “I thought it was appropriate. It’s a kind thing, isn’t it?” Spectre asked. “You apologised and now you have yet another channel for your sense of justice so. I thought it was the least I could do.”

  “O-oh, well then,” Yusaku murmured, “thank you.”

  “Well, good luck, I might not want to be involved in whatever it is you plan to do to bring back my Other Self but good luck. I will make sure we don’t… intervene on whatever basis we can find to prevent further resurrections of the Ignis.” Spectre said.

  Yusaku hazarded a small smile. He appreciated it but he didn’t know how to say it beyond words. He figured there were other actions that he could take – and he did take them.

  Steadily over the next few weeks, Yusaku with the help of Kusanagi and Ai, he began to piece together the data belonging to Earth. It was getting much, much easier after all the practice that he had gotten with Ai and then applied that to bring Flame back to Takeru and Aqua back to both Miyu and Aoi. Though, that didn’t make the finding of the pieces all that easier, just the putting them back together and Earth was in plenty of pieces but as Playmaker, Yusaku found them all.

  He restored Earth back to form and Earth was overjoyed to see his good friend Ai once more. They had a hug or two with Ai crying and screaming that he was so glad that yet another of his friends was back; just two more to go. Playmaker was fond as he watched Ai jump and down with Earth in his arms, it was quite the sight to behold given the fact that Earth was much bigger and much heavier than Ai.

  But in the midst of that jubilation, Earth looked up with sorrowful eyes at Playmaker. It seemed he knew where this was heading. Even if he and Spectre hadn’t been all that close previously, there was a disappointment to what Earth had in mind for if he came back.

  “I didn’t remember Aqua first,” Earth began to explain as Playmaker, atop his D-Board, made a beeline for where he could hope to find Spectre, either alone or with Revolver, “I remembered him.”

  Ai nodded. It had been the same for him. He had remembered his dear Yusaku before he remembered anything else or any of the others. It was bittersweet.

  “There he is.” Playmaker commented quietly and he saw Spectre on his lonesome.

  He was standing in the shade of a tree. It was wiry with white bark; its beet purple foliage moved slowly on the breeze. That appeared to be the most natural place for him to reside, he was staring out into the distance of the sort of asteroid field-like area on the hinterlands of the Neo Link VRAINS. The roots of the were spilling out the bottom of the rock platform that it and Spectre was planted on.

  Playmaker drew in closer and Spectre looked up at him. He had a morose look on his face. He took a breath.

  “You fulfilled your goal, I presume?” Spectre asked.

  Playmaker nodded and he made a hand gesture. He allowed Earth to follow through on it and Spectre’s eyes widened. For a moment, he looked completely and utterly happy. Childishly happy. But then he flinched.

  Earth lifted his hand and he didn’t know what to say.

  So, Spectre decided to say it for him.

  “It is good to meet you,” he said, “but I don’t believe our continued meeting is advised.”

  Playmaker inhaled sharply. He was surprised – almost offended – to hear that.

  Spectre came closer to the edge, came closer to Earth and he reached up to where Earth floated against gravity. Gingerly, Spectre pet the top of Earth’s head and he liked how the Ignis’s skin felt on his fingertip. There was a muted joy to Spectre’s expression.

  “I did my best,” Spectre said, recalling the Incident, “for my Mother, she would want me happy and proud, so I duelled my best for you. But when I was told, the new goal of the Hanoi was to destroy the Ignis, I accepted that whole-heartedly. So, I did my best. I endeavoured to eliminate the Ignis if it meant I was useful. I – I don’t believe I can go over the past ten years of that goal so easily, to say nothing of the others, Revolver-sama and the Lieutenants, and even if we are neutral, trying to atone. I want to be my best self for you, Earth. Until then, I don’t believe it to be advisable for you to remain with me.”

  Ai made a strange expression, but it was the same that Playmaker was making. A certain defensiveness which had become unguarded as Spectre explained himself.

  Earth nodded. “That makes sense. I can accept that decision, Partner, but when you are ready, I will be too.”

  “Thank you.” Spectre said and he turned to Playmaker. “Can I ask something selfish of you?”

  “I think I know what it is, but it’s not selfish, Spectre.” Playmaker replied.

  “Can you please home him, please? Keep him safe?” Spectre asked.

  Playmaker nodded. “I can do that for you, yes.”

  “Thank you.” Spectre said.

  Playmaker let his D-Board drop a few more levels and once they were at a mismatched but even height, Spectre hugged him again. Playmaker stiffened but this time, he hugged back as he felt one of Spectre’s hands close to his neck and the other round his waist. Gratitude emanated from Spectre’s hug and though Playmaker felt awkward, he wasn’t a hugger, he didn’t think himself good at it, he still tried to return Spectre’s sentiments. He mimicked back and he could hear a repressed sob in Spectre’s breathing as they held each other in this embrace.

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 22: Sasha

Basira brings the first tape before the week is out, and Sasha is apparently the only one surprised that Jon doesn’t seem happier about it. As a matter of fact, he seems downright distressed.

The assistants normally stagger their lunch breaks so there are at least two people in the Archives at any given time, something they’ve done almost since the beginning, but Jon comes out of his office and suggests all three of them go together, and Tim and Martin hustle Sasha out before she can ask questions. It’s Tim who points out, sotto voce while they’re standing in line at the cafe, that Basira probably called to say she was dropping by and Jon wants them out of there to preserve the fiction that he’s not telling them what’s going on. Sure enough, they pretend to ignore Basira in the parking lot on their way back to the Archives and re-enter to find Jon sitting on the edge of Tim’s desk, turning a tape over and over in his hands.

“That was quick,” Martin comments. “Thought it’d be harder for her to get them to you.”

“I did, too. I wasn’t—anticipating anything before next week at the earliest. And since I don’t know how soon she’ll be back with another one—or come back for this one, for that matter—I kind of have to listen to it as soon as possible.” Jon looks up at them with a pained expression.

Sasha frowns. “Am I missing something? Why’s that a bad thing?”

“Because I don’t…the real statements take a lot out of me. Live ones are worse. According to the Primes, doing more than one a week is going to be a drain. At least until I…build up my tolerance, I guess.” Jon sighs. “Which I’m not altogether sure I want to do.”

“We could record any real statements you get for you,” Sasha offers. “Then you can just listen to the tapes.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you all,” Jon says, looking shocked. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

“Yeah, but you’re the Head Archivist. Why would it affect us like that?”

“It’s the statements, not the position,” Martin says. “Each one is a thread that binds you closer to the Eye. Regardless of who takes it.” When they all stare at him, he blushes and adds, “I talked about it with Martin Prime while I was recovering. He told me he read more than a few statements over the last year and a half he was at the Institute.”

Jon rubs his forehead. “All the more reason I should keep doing this. I just…I don’t want to lose myself, either.”

Tim hesitantly reaches out and puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “You won’t. I mean, Jon Prime hasn’t lost himself, has he?”

“Only because he has Martin Prime to keep him grounded.”

“Well, you’ve got us.”

Jon smiles, but says, “I don’t want to put the burden of my humanity on you.”

Martin tilts his head. “Even if we offer?”

“Even then. I just…it’s not fair to you.” Jon sighs, obviously frustrated. “And I’m curious. There’s no denying that. Especially about…this. Gertrude actually seems to have labeled it properly. And—well, I only met her once or twice, and I-I was very new at the time.” He looks at the three of them. “Did any of you?”

Tim shakes his head. “Apparently I’d remember if I did,” he says, shooting a look at Sasha.

Sasha shrugs. “You would. We talked a fair amount. She—she said I ought to apply for the position of Archivist if it ever came up vacant.”

Jon flinches, but doesn’t say anything. Martin swallows. “I think she avoided me, actually. Never could figure out why, but any time she sent up to the library for something, Diana made a point of sending anyone but me with it. Which was weird, since usually she took any excuse to get me out of the way for a few minutes.”

Tim drapes an arm over Martin’s shoulders. Jon looks embarrassed, but stares at the tape in his hands. “I suppose I’d just like any insight to her time here. And, well, even with—” He glances up at the ceiling. “Even with what we know, there’s so much we don’t. And I understand that, there are some things we need to discover on our own, and other things we won’t believe until we have proof. Still.” He sighs. “And on top of that, I find myself wondering if the Eye is going to have any influence over the tapes Basira brings or if it’s going to be random.”

“What’s this one?” Sasha asks.

Instead of answering, Jon hands her the tape. Sasha peers at the label—a case number, a name, and the words Algasovo, central Russia. “Well, I doubt Basira picked it at anything but random if she wasn’t being influenced somehow.”

She passes the tape over to Tim and Martin, who study it before handing it back to Jon. “Does that mean anything to you? Algasovo?”

“No. I’m not sure it means anything to Basira, either.”

“Hang on.” Sasha sits at her desk and flips open her laptop. A few keystrokes later and all four of them are peering over her shoulder at a list of search results. All of them are generic, or else written in Russian—basic information about the town, the weather, and the surrounding area. “It’s a nothing village in the middle of nowhere. But Gertrude obviously thought this was important enough to put on tape.”

Martin nods. “And if it’s something we need to know about…”

“I suppose I’ll have to listen to it,” Jon says with a sigh. He stares at the tape again, and there’s something in his eyes Sasha recognizes—something hungry. He wants to listen to it. But there’s also something in his eyes that she sees reflected in Martin and Tim’s—fear. He’s afraid of what he’ll become as much as he desperately wants, needs to know.

She thinks about what Martin said, about how the statements will affect all of them no matter who reads them. She thinks about Martin Prime quietly telling Jon Prime that you being here might help him. She thinks about all of them listening to everybody’s statements all at once and not getting half so wiped as Jon looked on Monday when Basira left after making her statement.

“What if we listen together?” she blurts.

Jon looks up, obviously startled. “What?”

Sasha taps a fingernail on her desk. It’s getting ragged, she really needs to make an appointment for a manicure—maybe this weekend, she thinks. “If it’s going to affect anyone who records it, or reads it or listens to it or whatever…there’s probably a finite amount of energy to it, right? It’s not like we’ll all absorb the full amount of fear, it’ll most likely be more…it’ll get siphoned out and divided between the four of us. If we all listen to this tape together, maybe we can stop you from becoming…like that. Or at least slow it down. Maybe it won’t take so much energy from you.”

Jon hesitates and looks at Tim and Martin. Tim shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

“I’m up for it if you’re willing,” Martin agrees.

Jon swallows, then nods. “All right. Let me go get the tape recorder.”

Martin blinks. “What, you want to do it here? In the open?”

“I don’t believe there’s any point in hiding in my office to do it. Or Document Storage or whatever. Nobody’s likely to come down and interrupt us. It—it should be fine.” Jon leaves the tape on the desk and heads into his office.

“I’ll make us some tea. We’ll probably need it.” Martin fishes four mugs out of his desk drawer and disappears in the direction of the break room.

Sasha watches him go. “We really ought to just set up a tea station here in the Archives. Save wear and tear on the carpets.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but that’s not half a bad idea,” Tim says. “Bet Jon would agree.”

“Agree to what?” Jon comes over with the tape recorder in hand. “Where’s Martin?”

“Getting tea. Sasha suggested setting up a tea station here.”

Jon pauses. “Actually, why haven’t we done that before now?”

Tim’s right—Sasha was being sarcastic, but she enters into the discussion anyway and they’ve got a list of things to pick up after work almost fully written by the time Martin returns with the same cups he always uses for them. They rope Martin into the discussion, since he’s the one who knows the tea procedure inside and out, and they’re all a lot more relaxed by the time they settle down to listen to the tape.

Sasha’s attention is immediately piqued by the statement. Gertrude’s familiar dry, reedy voice sounds much more intense than she remembers from their conversations. It’s obvious the statement is real—it comes across in the texture of Gertrude’s voice—but she reads it calmly, no hesitation or upset. Something about the scenario draws Sasha in as much as it frightens her. Maybe it’s knowing that it killed her in the Primes’ timeline, or maybe it’s just that it’s the antithesis of the entity she’s essentially bound to, but the Stranger scares her the most out of all the entities. It fascinates her, too, which she supposes isn’t the greatest sign in the world, but too much of her mind is focused on the statement to really care.

At last, the statement ends. Gertrude gives a short summing-up that makes it clear, at least to Sasha, that she never intended for these tapes to be used by anyone outside the Institute, or indeed outside the Archives; her supplemental makes reference to things she obviously already knew and speculates in a limited sense about the nature of the younger brother of the statement-giver, and then the tape clicks off.

The scrape of a chair breaks the spell, and Sasha blinks up in time to see Martin, his face creased with empathy, wrap Tim in a hug. Tim doesn’t even bother to stand up from his chair, just clings to Martin like he’s drowning. Sasha can see the tears rolling down his face. Shit.

“Tim?” Jon slides off the desk, looking a bit shaky, and puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim reaches out blindly and pulls Jon into the hug, too.

Guilt rises in Sasha’s throat. She should have guessed. Out of everyone in the room, she’s the only one who knows why Tim came to work for the Institute in the first place, and it really should have occurred to her as soon as Gertrude uttered the word circus that this one would hit Tim hard. Add in the younger brother in peril and her dry comment about them being lucky to escape with only significant mental trauma, and it’s no wonder he’s crying. But she was too wrapped up in the statement to even think about him, let alone notice what Martin evidently picked up on immediately.

God, some best friend she is.

“Oh, Tim,” she whispers, penitent. She gets up from her seat and joins the group hug, hesitantly, not sure if she’s welcome. She doesn’t want to wedge herself in the middle of things, so she just squeezes Jon and Martin closer to Tim and prays that’s enough.

Someone is murmuring something, over and over, and it takes Sasha a second to realize that it’s I’m sorry and a second longer to realize it’s Jon, apologizing repeatedly into Tim’s hair. Christ, he’s starting to tear up, too, and he doesn’t even know why Tim’s so upset. Unless he’s figured out the whole mind-reading thing already. She doesn’t think so, though.

Finally, Tim takes a deep, shuddering breath and pulls back. The others ease off, with varying degrees of reluctance, and Martin fishes a tissue from somewhere on the desk and offers it silently. Tim takes it and wipes his face. “S-sorry,” he says hoarsely.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jon says, obviously trying to be brusque, but it’s as obvious a lie as when he was trying to be brusque with Martin the night of the attack. “You have nothing to apologize for. I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you listen to that.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Tim closes his eyes and breathes deeply for a moment, then looks up. “My—I still owe you a statement, I think. Not today,” he adds quickly, evidently seeing the slight panic that crosses Jon’s face. “You can’t take that, and neither can I. Just…whenever you think you’re up to it. But—short version, I lost my brother to a Russian circus. It’s why I joined the Institute.”

Sasha actually knows precious few details beyond that—Tim may have told her the whole story, but they were both drunk at the time and she’s blurred out a lot, although she remembers the salient points. Jon looks stricken. “Tim, I—I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should have. I never told you.” Tim finishes off his tea in one long swallow, then pushes back from his desk. “I—I need some air.”

“Take your phone.” Jon’s voice is soft. “Call if you need us.”

“I will. I will.” Tim pockets his phone and heads out.

Jon watches him, then turns to the other two. He still looks shaken and visibly distressed. “Did you know?”

“I had no idea.” Martin touches his shoulder gently. “Jon, sit down. I’ll—I’ll get you another cup of tea.”

“Not right now. I’m fine.” Jon does sit, though, and he squeezes Martin’s hand briefly before looking up at Sasha. “Did you…?”

“He told me once,” Sasha admits. “I don’t remember most of the details, honestly, but I knew about Danny. I just didn’t make the connection while we were listening to the statement.”

Jon rubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t even notice—God, I was so focused on—I’d have stopped it if I’d known.”

“I don’t think you could have,” Martin tells him. “I—he started turning grey right after Gertrude mentioned the circus, and by the time they realized the brother was missing he was starting to hyperventilate. I wanted to tell you to stop the tape, o-or try to intervene, or something, but I—until the tape stopped, I couldn’t move. It was like sitting there listening to Martin Prime rattle off that chamber of horrors all over again.” He sounds frustrated and upset. “Like I was bound there. I don’t get it. It’s not like I’ve never interrupted you doing a recording before.”

“Only once,” Jon says. “And you—” He freezes, suddenly stiffening, and looks back and forth from Martin to Sasha. “Oh, God. You’ve both interrupted me, but that’s the point, you came in in the middle of the recording. You’ve never been there from the beginning.”

Sasha gets it, all of a sudden. “Because we were there from the start, we got caught in the—the threads of the statement. I wonder if anyone ever interrupted Jon Prime if they’d been there from the start?”

“I—I don’t know. I suppose I can ask.” Jon rubs his forehead again. “Not right now, though.”

“No, not right now,” Martin says firmly. He stands up from his desk and moves towards the shelves.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks.

“Getting Leanne Denikin’s case file,” Martin answers over his shoulder. “There’s just a couple things I want to look at.”

Sasha looks at Jon and shrugs. “While he’s doing that, let me see what I can pull up about our statement-giver. Gertrude said she recorded this in ‘97?”

“Y-yes,” Jon says, looking a bit shaken.

“That was almost twenty years ago. The Internet’s come a long way since then. Bet I can find things she could have only dreamed of.” Sasha cracks her knuckles and opens up her laptop again.

Jon raises an eyebrow at her. “Do you read Russian?”

“No, but there’s this nifty thing browsers do now where they’ll translate whole pages for you. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Mostly.” Sasha offers Jon a cheeky grin. “More technology Gertrude didn’t have access to. And I have no idea if she read Russian.”

Jon’s eyes go slightly unfocused for a moment. “She didn’t. The Eye might have occasionally led her to read or understand a language she didn’t know, but only if doing so would give her the knowledge the Eye craved.” He closes his eyes and winces, shaking his head as if to clear it, and it’s only then Sasha feels the faint buzz of static receding. Before she can say anything, though, he adds, “The Roger Rabbit principle, I suppose.”

“The what?” Sasha and Martin, who’s just returning with a file in hand, say in unison.

“Did you ever see that old movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It’s a blend of animation and live action—it takes place in a world where cartoon characters are real people and live alongside actual humans, although they live in a-a suburb of Los Angeles, I suppose, called Toon Town. The eponymous Roger Rabbit gets accused of murdering a man and turns to a human detective for assistance. There’s a segment in the film where the detective—Eddie Valiant—and Roger are handcuffed together, and Eddie is attempting to cut the cuffs off, but the box he’s using is wobbling, so Roger slips his hand out of the cuff and steadies it. When Eddie realizes what he’s done, he demands to know if Roger could have done that at any time, and Roger replies, ‘Not at any time. Only when it was funny.’”

“I think I get it,” Sasha says, glancing at Martin.

Martin nods. “You’re saying the Eye only lets the Archivist access languages otherwise unknown if it gets something out of it in return. Like extra fear.”

“Something like that.”

Martin sits down and drops two files on his desk. Sasha cocks her head. “What’s that second one?”

“Oh—since Gertrude listed the case number, I figured I’d see if I could find the paper file somewhere in the shelves.” Martin waves one of them at her. “It was in the back corner. I think it’s one of the ones Martin Prime said he was gathering, that he could sense were real.”

“What makes you say that?” Jon asks.

“You won’t like my answer.”

“Try me.”

Martin looks up at him. “The shelf was almost packed solid with cobwebs.”

Jon bites his lip. “You’re right. I don’t like that answer at all.”

Sasha tries to disguise her laugh as a cough as she goes back to her search.

She gets absorbed in the work—a totality of focus she’s only noticed a few times before—and is therefore caught off-guard when a mug of tea suddenly appears at her elbow. She looks up, startled, just in time to see Jon surprise Martin with his own mug. Sheepishly, Jon says, “I was starting to feel a bit useless, but I—I don’t know that I want to be alone in my office right now.”

“It’s fine. Thanks.” Martin offers Jon a warm smile, which Jon tentatively returns. Sasha wonders if they’re moving towards a romantic relationship. She also wonders how much faster they’re moving than the Primes did and if she’s going to have to shoot Tim before he uses the two of them being together as an excuse for why they should give it a go, even though she’s fairly certain he’s mostly joking about their “will they-won’t they” storyline.

“Either of you found anything yet?” Jon asks.

Sasha shakes her head. “Well, I was able to verify that Ivan Utkin did die in 1984, just like Gertrude said—it’s not that I doubted her necessarily, just that I wanted to be sure. That’s young, though. He was only forty-eight. His obituary doesn’t list cause of death, and, well, that was the height of the Cold War, so I’m not sure if the records exist anymore. I’ll keep trying, though. Yuri Utkin died in…” She swallows. “May of last year.”

“Around the time Gertrude Robinson died.”

“A bit after,” Sasha specifies. “The twenty-fifth.”

“Ah, the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May,” Martin murmurs, not quite under his breath. When Sasha gives him a funny look, he adds, “Discworld reference.”

Jon shifts his attention to Martin. “Anything interesting in there?”

“It’s definitely the same circus. I mean, we knew that, Gertrude specifically called out Nikolai Denikin in her summing-up, but I’m guessing that the steam organ Utkin mentions in his statement is the one up in Artifact Storage, which…isn’t great.”

“No,” Jon agrees. Something suddenly seems to occur to him. “Sasha, how long have you been with the Magnus Institute?”

“Six years,” Sasha answers. She’s been in academia for ten years—well, eleven now—but the first few years after graduating she worked for the EPCC, until the project she was on shut down and she needed to come to London anyway. “Since August of 2010.”

Jon seems to deflate a bit. “So you weren’t here when the Calliophone came in.”

“No, but—Martin, you were here, weren’t you?”

Martin nods absently. “Yeah, I—kind of remember it getting delivered? Not surprised nobody can find the paperwork, though.”

Sasha looks over the top of her computer. “Why do you say that?”

Martin looks up, too. “There was some staff turnover in Artifact Storage about that time. There were a lot of injuries over the month, and at least six people quit. Then the head at the time—um, Henry Winchester—died and…I heard it was kind of messy.”

Sasha’s interest is caught. “Messy how?”

“Christ, Sasha, I don’t know. It didn’t happen on Institute grounds, so it’s not like I saw it. I just remember a couple people muttering about crime scene photos and peri- versus postmortem injuries and whether it was something that would end up in the Archives at some point.”

Sasha bites the inside of her cheek and stares at her computer for a second, wondering if she can dig up the police report and see what happened. Then she shakes her head slightly. It’s not relevant to anything they’re working on right now and she doesn’t need to be using Institute resources—including time—on personal projects.

“Actually, Sasha, do you think you can see what you can dig up on that?” Jon asks, and Sasha looks up sharply, wondering if he really is reading her mind. “If it’s…if Henry Winchester’s death was ‘messy,’ it’s possible that whatever killed him was…well, whatever killed Leanne Denikin’s ex. And, ah, being able to connect the death of the previous department head to an artifact from one of our statements might give us a bit of clout wh—if we have to tell them to leave another artifact alone.”

“I’ve got to admit,” Sasha says, backing out of the network of old Soviet record sites and tapping into the series of back doors she normally uses to access police records, “even knowing what we know, it still seems hard to believe that someone could be killed by an evil clown doll.”

“It’s probably not actually the doll,” Martin says absently. “Probably just a manifestation of the Stranger. There were clowns in the circus, after all, it’s not without the realm of possibility that the doll in Denikin’s steamer trunk was just an effigy of a real clown.”

Jon gives him a look of mingled amusement and amazement. “You’ve really got the hang of this side of things, haven’t you? The rest of us are fumbling in the dark and you’re marching in front with a spotlight.”

Martin’s cheeks turn pink, but he shrugs. “It just…makes sense, I guess. It’s like—like I’ve had this bag of puzzle pieces my whole life, only they’re a photomosaic and they aren’t really distinct enough to put together easily and there aren’t any distinct corners or edges to it. But now someone’s finally given me the box, so I can see what the whole picture is supposed to look like. Makes it easier to put together the right way.”

“We’re lucky to have you,” Jon says with a smile.

If Martin blushes any harder, the heat is going to set off Sasha’s computer fan. He mumbles something and goes back to work comparing the two statements.

Sasha hits a wall in researching the police records. No, not a wall—a black hole. There’s simply an empty space where the records ought to be. She backs out and tries again and again. Still nothing.

“We may have to get Tim to work his magic on this,” she tells Jon. “I think this might go past hacking files and into seducing file clerks.”

“Are you saying you don’t think you’re capable of seducing a file clerk on your own, Miss James?” Jon asks with a lift of his eyebrow. Sasha makes a rude noise in his direction and he smirks.

Martin looks up. “Where is Tim, anyway? Shouldn’t he be back by now?”

The smile melts off of Jon’s face. Sasha glances at the clock at the bottom corner of her screen and is astonished to realize it’s nearly four in the afternoon. “I’m not letting any of you boys go off on your own in the middle of the day anymore. Every time I do, you disappear for hours on end.”

Before Jon or Martin can answer, Jon’s phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket and answers with a crisp greeting. Instantly, his expression shifts. “Tim! Are you all right? We were just—what?” A frown puckers his forehead. “You’re where? How did you…never mind. I know where that is. Stay there. I’m on my way.” He hangs up and slides to his feet, then opens Tim’s desk drawer and fishes out his keys.

“Is everything all right?” Martin asks, a little anxiously.

“It’s fine. Tim got himself turned around and needs a rescue.” Jon flips through the keys and mutters under his breath, “I never pegged him for the damsel in distress type.” Straightening, he adds in a normal tone of voice, “I’ll be right back. Martin, if you can, go through the Hector Silvana file and see what we still need to follow up on…Sasha, have you had a chance to look into those incidents in Jason North’s statements?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.” Jon turns on his heel and strides out of the Archives.

Sasha waits until she hears the door close, then tilts her laptop slightly closed and looks over at Martin. “So, while the Helicopter Parents are out of the Archives, how’s the search for a new place to live going?”

From the way Martin’s ears go pink again, she knows she’s right; he’s been avoiding the topic. Tim is still weirdly persistent about them staying at his house, and while Jon puts up halfhearted protests, Sasha doesn’t think he’s actually all that keen to go back to his own flat. Sasha’s been crashing in Tim’s bed since the Primes moved out, mostly because the others keep protesting the idea of sleeping in there and she’s just tired of arguing and also slightly tired of Tim’s living room, but she’s ready to go home. As much as she loves her boys, she looks forward to having her own space again.

“I’ve been looking,” Martin says, a bit reluctantly. “There are a few…Martin Prime told me where he ended up in his timeline, and it’s—it’s not bad, really, but it’s a bit out of my price range. He didn’t have a choice, he had to get somewhere in a hurry and it was the only place he could even come close to affording. I know Tim’s going to eventually want me off his sofa, so I’m looking, but…”

“Well, if you need someone to put in a good word for you, let me know,” Sasha says. “I don’t think there are any units open in my building, but my landlord runs a few different ones. Might be able to get you a good rate.”

“Th-thanks. I’ll let you know.”

Sasha re-opens her laptop and goes back to work. She somehow doesn’t think Martin’s going to ask her for a recommendation. As a matter of fact, she’s already mentally betting with herself against him asking Tim how much he’d charge to rent out his spare bedroom. They might all live alone, normally, but she’s noticed over the last couple of months that the boys seem much more relaxed sharing a space than they did before. And besides, living alone in the Archives for weeks on end probably isn’t good for anyone’s sanity. No wonder Martin wants to be around people these days.

She’s managed to verify an apparent lack of supernatural involvement in two of the incidents involving Jason North when she hears footsteps and Martin looks up from his work. The look of relief that spreads over his face tells her without looking around that it’s Jon and Tim returning, none the worse for the wear.

“Thanks for the lift,” Tim says, sliding into his seat and bumping his shoulder against Martin’s companionably. “Seriously, I didn’t realize I’d wandered so far, I just—”

“Tim, it’s fine. No real harm done,” Jon says, in a tone that indicates they’ve been having this argument for several minutes. “It’s been a long day and you needed to clear your head. Nothing’s actively trying to kill us at the moment, so far as we know. It’s fine.”

“Yeah.” Tim opens his laptop. “Still. Next time I need space, I’ll go…I don’t know, reorganize a shelf or something. Feels more productive.”

“At least it’s a nice day,” Martin says, but there’s an element of uncertainty in his voice as he glances at one of the high-set windows in the Archive. They’re technically underground, and while it was nice enough when the three of them went to lunch earlier, that’s no guarantee it still is.

“Yeah, it is. Oh, and, ah, I found something kind of interesting.” Tim reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, which he waves at the other three with a slight teasing grin.

Sasha can see in his eyes, though, that whatever it is, he’s very, very serious about it. “Oh? Do tell.”

Tim unfolds the paper and spreads it out on his desk. Sasha, Jon, and Martin all crane their heads over to see. It’s one of those flyers that real estate agents set out sometimes in front of houses for sale or rent, which is when Sasha remembers that Tim technically rents the little semidetached house they’ve all been crashing in lately. This one is terraced, but looks bigger, and appears to be in a halfway decent neighborhood. The price at the bottom is surprisingly reasonable for a house in London proper.

“Are you thinking of moving?” Sasha asks, surprised.

“Well, yeah. I-I mean, I wasn’t before, necessarily, but…well, I’ve been thinking. I’ve been living in that same house since, well, before Danny died,” Tim says softly. Martin looks up, eyes filled with sympathy. “It might not be a bad idea to start over somewhere new, you know? And it might be nice to own something, to start putting down roots. Plus, this one’s bigger—three bedrooms, it says. A-and I thought, well, I mean, if all of us went in together, it might…” He trails off.

Jon looks more startled than he has all day. “Wait. You thought—you wanted all of us to—”

“Well, it’s just—” Tim looks at Martin. “You need a place still, and I know—I thought it might be easier to share expenses on a place than to go full out on your own. And I’ve—I’ve kind of got used to having all of you around. I like it.” He looks from Martin to Jon to Sasha and back, his eyes almost pleading. “It’s just an idea, but—I mean, I thought I’d see if you guys were interested.”

Sasha is touched, but she’s also a little worried. Tim can be impulsive and tends to throw his whole heart into something, and he’s also been known to pin all his hopes on a single course of action. If he’s had the idea of all of them living together permanently in his head for more than a few minutes, it might not be easy for her to extract herself and go back to her own flat. It has to happen, though. She’s got just enough of a life outside the Institute that it’s important for her to get away.

Martin picks up the flyer and studies it more closely. “Says there’s an open house on Saturday afternoon,” he says, handing it over to Jon. “Might be worth taking a look, anyway.”

Tim brightens visibly. Jon examines the flyer, then nods slowly. “I think that would be an excellent idea.”

He offers it to Sasha, who smiles and shakes her head. “You boys have fun. I’ve got an appointment Saturday afternoon.”

It’s not exactly untrue. Second and fourth Saturdays are visiting days, and Sasha hasn’t been by in a while, so she probably ought to go. Plus she really does need to get her nails done. But it’s also a convenient excuse to avoid going and not have to pretend she’s going to be splitting the mortgage with them. Because Sasha knows herself well enough to know she’s not going in with the other three if they decide to do this. She values her independence, she values her privacy, and she does not want Tim to entertain any hopes that they might actually get together at some point. Besides, she picked her building for a reason, one she’s still not ready to share with the boys. She should probably feel guilty for keeping secrets, but she doesn’t.

“We’ll let you know what it’s like,” Tim promises.

Sasha smiles and nods and goes back to work and tries not to think about the fact that she’s basically going to break Tim’s heart.

[aphrodites-law]

A Bit of Clarity 🍂 (3/?) The visions had started last autumn, a year ago now. It had caused a bit of chaos for some, a bit of clarity for others. Two days ago, Clarke Griffin had been perfectly fine managing both her Café and her stress. But now she was curious - so deeply curious about the vision of herself entwined with the aloof Lexa Woods that it was leading her to complete distraction.

[part 1] [part 2] 

A week after parting ways with Niylah, a sudden sense of loneliness hit Clarke. It wasn’t that she regretted the decision, but the possibility had always been there and that in itself had been enough to avoid confronting the glaring emptiness of her apartment. Her celibacy had felt more like a choice than it did now.

Clarke knew that the vision was the main culprit for the sudden realization that she had built her dream life but had no one to share it with. Wells had Raven and his passion for theater keeping his life beautifully busy outside of the café, while Gaia had the next five years mapped out thoroughly - her own dreams soon to be achieved. They didn’t have time or space left to fill, and Clarke had fooled herself into believing the same applied to her. She had menus to think of; new coffee beans and bakes to taste test; ingredients to purchase. She had events to plan; social media accounts to update; phone calls to answer. It was a headache most of the time, but she had a long list of successes to be proud of.

It wasn’t easy to admit that she’d neglected a part of her life - that she’d never had anyone to come home to in years. Sometimes, she couldn’t even be sure she’d ever felt a fraction of what Wells felt for Raven - if she’d ever gazed at anyone with such adoration. It would happen eventually, she’d always thought. She had time for that. But the truth was that the future had already come, and Clarke was alone. Alone and no closer to understanding a vision that she wasn’t even sure she could trust anymore.

It was a gloomy thought for a gloomy evening. Clarke enjoyed her plate of homemade ravioli nonetheless, a Saturday treat for an otherwise dull week. She had expected it with so many logistics to deal with before the café’s upcoming 3-day event, but it didn’t help that time had seemed to slow to a crawl. It was pointless to deny the source of her disappointment though:

Lexa hadn’t showed. Not even once for a croissant or an early morning espresso. Clarke had secretly hoped she would, unable to stop thinking about their brief encounter at the party. Something had changed and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Lexa knew it too. Which only made her absence more nerve-racking. Clarke had taken to reading the Gazette again, scrolling down the app mindlessly during breaks. She'd caught Lexa's name a few days ago and read her most recent articles, unable to stop herself once she'd given into her curiosity.

Her most engrossing story had been a special report on the Mountain Men, a group of people who had lived in isolation in the Costial mountain chain for a hundred years. They were a very particular case - their bloodline seemingly passing down a deathly allergy to the sun, or solar urticaria. Yet they had chosen to live in isolation rather than accept any aid, building their own bunker in the 1900s, a complex network of rooms and tunnels. It was only ten years ago that the last of them had finally emerged from underground, pale and weak creatures but otherwise strong willed. In her story, Lexa was remarkably descriptive yet respectful of their privacy. They lived on the outskirts of Costial now, helped by modern medicine and custom-made protective clothing, though never quite able to stand the sun regardless. Lexa had written that she'd met with them at night, and had been surprised when next she knew the sun had risen and they'd spoken for hours. The Mountain Men were neither a cult nor a mystery to solve - they were human beings who craved human contact like anyone else, only dealt with a different set of circumstances at birth.

Reading her words had given Clarke more insight into Lexa's work, but hardly anything on her as a person. And Clarke couldn't help but crave more of her.

The hope for some clarity came on Sunday morning. Clarke went to the farmer’s market for fresh ingredients and a bag of quince, planning to tempt Wells into using them. He was the only person she knew that was so fond of quinces he could be bribed with them, though it could be an acquired taste.

The farmers’ market was always busy; the sort of organized chaos that Clarke lived for. She stopped at her usual stands - first the vegetables and fruit, and later the meats and cheeses. Her bags were nearly bursting when she decided to leave, having been tempted by olives and a few sachets of spices at a new stand. It seemed like a couple had cropped up in the past three weeks. Sundays were never a rush, and there was still time to head back home before the café.

Clarke stopped short when she looked toward a honey stand and noticed Lexa chatting with the vendor. She had a dark brown jacket on and a long knitted scarf wrapped twice around her neck, the only sign that she might be bothered by the chilly morning. Colder winds were starting to sweep through Costial, but Clarke didn’t mind how quickly winter was approaching. It had always been her favorite season - and it was good for business too.

With the busy activity, Clarke knew that she couldn’t stand still in the middle of the alley. On impulse, she walked toward the stand.

“Lexa. Hi.”

Lexa turned to her, eyebrows rising in surprise.

“Busy market today,” Clarke said, trying to appear more casual than she felt.

Lexa looked between her and the man behind the stall. “It is. Hm. Clarke, this is Gustus. His bees make the best honey in the state.”

Gustus laughed heartily. “Flattery won’t get you a third pot.” He spoke with an accent Clarke couldn’t place, but his tone was strangely comforting.

Lexa’s ears seemed to pink, though it might’ve been from the cold.

“I’m just trying to help your business,” she countered.

“Sure, sure.”

Lexa glanced at Clarke. “Gustus was stubbornly staying on his apiary with a cardboard sign a few miles away. I convinced him to apply for a stall here.”

“A whole five feet of space,” Gustus grumbled half-jokingly.

Clarke smiled. “I know the struggle. They turned down my business partner and I a few years back.”

“What were you selling?” Gustus asked.

“Well that was the problem - nothing consistent. We wanted to do sweet and salty bakes, but we don’t grow any of the ingredients ourselves. They didn’t like that - said we ought to just open a bake shop. It worked out pretty well in the end.”

Lexa nodded, but her eyes stayed on Gustus and the stall. “Clarke owns a coffee shop,” she clarified for him. “It’s very good.”

Gustus’ expression shifted from a frown to amusement. “Very good? From you, that is high praise.”

Clarke didn’t have the time to question the statement. Lexa shouldered her full bag with a glare at him. Clarke realized then that Lexa had yet to fully look her way, let alone address her directly.

“My baker loves honey cakes,” Clarke brought up, trying not to worry. She hadn’t done anything to warrant a cold shoulder... had she? “I’ve been trying to get him to switch from his usual brand - and honestly it would be much easier for me than trekking to the East bank.”

Gustus brightened and wrapped a pot in newspaper. “Try it. See if he likes it.”

Clarke took out her wallet, but he declined.

Lexa scowled. “That’s not how you turn a profit, Gus.”

He scratched his long beard. “But it is how you cultivate interest and loyalty.”

When a couple arrived at the stall, Clarke moved to the side and Gus excused himself to answer their questions. Now stood much closer to Lexa, Clarke felt the need to fill the silence.

“How was your week?” She asked.

Lexa’s whole body seemed to tense. “Busy. Yours?”

“Long.” She bit her lip. “I read your piece on the Mountain Men. Crazy story.”

Lexa finally looked at her, as if suddenly jolted. “You did?” She sounded surprised, but there was a spark in her eyes.

Clarke nodded. “I’d heard about them obviously, but I’d never realized some of the family still lived near Costial.”

“They keep to themselves.”

“But you got them to open up.”

“It’s my profession. Besides, I’ve found that few people can actually stand to die with their secrets. Eventually we yearn to be heard.”

Clarke’s heart raced under Lexa’s gaze. There didn’t seem to be an in-between with her - she either didn’t look her way at all or stared at her like she might undress her. Though Clarke was aware her reading of Lexa’s expressions was likely very skewed.

“I don’t believe that,” she replied. “We all have stories we’d be happy to bury forever.” 

“Maybe I'm just too boring a person to have any," Lexa said quietly. She didn't expand on it and Clarke suddenly felt like she couldn't hold her stare any longer.

“I should get going,” she said.

“Did you drive here?”

“I did.”

“I’m that way too.”

“Oh okay,” Clarke replied, though Lexa had already started walking after a quick wave at Gustus.

Clarke fell into step beside her. “I’ve never seen you at the market before,” she said.

Lexa shook her head. “I usually just come in the last thirty minutes.”

“When they’re more amenable to haggling - smart.”

Clarke swore she saw the ghost of a smile on Lexa’s face, but she was well-aware she couldn't just keep staring at her profile for much longer. She glanced at the top of her bag. “Margie’s brie is really good.”

Lexa let out a little hum of agreement. "Her blue cheese is even better.”

As they passed the parking lot, Clarke threw caution to the wind. She had to at least try to understand the walking enigma by her side.

"So... last year we had an open mic weekend to drum up some publicity for the café. Friday to Sunday. We’re doing it again next week."

"Starting a tradition?" Lexa asked.

"Hoping to. People can sign up in person or through our website and perform some original stuff. We've already got a decent list.”

"That's a great idea."

Clarke tried not to think too much about her erratic heart. "It should be a fun time if you wanted to drop by; get inspired…"

Clarke herself had gotten an itch to be creative after last year's event. Being surrounded by aspiring musicians and comedians had reminded her just how much she needed her own art as an outlet for stress. She'd put her drawings to the side for the café but picking up a pencil again had felt like coming home. She figured Lexa, who had seemed quite comfortable surrounded by comedians the night of the play, might feel the same way about such a setting.

But her reaction was odd. She stopped with her brow furrowed. "Inspired?" She asked.

"To write?"

Lexa’s body immediately stiffened, almost like she was upset. "I see. I'll try to find the time."

"Great," Clarke said in relief, choosing not to worry too much about her interpretation of Lexa’s reaction. It was clear by now she couldn’t read her very well. "I'll put a slice of cake on the side for you."

Lexa shook her head. "You don't need to bribe me, Clarke.”

Clarke frowned. "I wa-"

Lexa looked at her watch. "I should get going. I'm interviewing someone in an hour."

"Have you found any patterns yet?" Clarke couldn't help but wonder, though the question was also a poor attempt to speak to Lexa longer.

Lexa glanced up at her, her eyes lighter than Clarke remembered in the glow of the morning sun. Yet it reminded Clarke of the party too - how close Lexa had been, when now it suddenly seemed like she couldn’t wait to get away.

"I guess you'll have to read the article."

And with that, Lexa was walking to her car, leaving Clarke with the distinct feeling that she wasn’t any closer to understanding her.

* * *

With the ongoing preparations over the week, Clarke barely had a second to herself. Her interaction with Niylah on Monday morning had gone well though, awkward for just a few minutes before Niylah had cracked a terrible joke about starting a band called the Rolling Scones for the open mic.

The makeshift stage arrived in two pieces early Wednesday, and with Wells, Gaia and Harper's help, Clarke was proud to say it didn't look too shabby - and definitely a step-up from last year's. Raven had come around to help them with the sound setup, a task she had essentially summed up as 'nobody touch my cables or I'll electrocute you.' And far be it from Clarke to question a professional sound engineer.

Around 5pm, with a tired back and sore arms, Clarke had again drifted toward the end of the counter and started drawing. It was a character this time - a scraggly woman atop a mountain staring out at the horizon. She'd started it after reading Lexa's article, wondering how one could stand to live hidden in the dark for so long, and what they might've felt after leaving the comfort of what they knew for complete uncertainty.

She glanced up toward Lexa's spot, trying not to think about her. It was such a strange shift - from being a regular customer to not stopping by once in two weeks.

"Hello."

Clarke dropped her pencil and walked back to the other side of the counter, smiling at the young man standing behind it.

"Hi, what can I get you?"

"Are you Clarke? I mean- the owner?" He asked with a slightly nervous stammer.

"Co-owner, yep."

He extended his hand. "I'm Aden Baltimore. For the Polis Gazette."

His handshake was limp, but Clarke could tell he barely even knew what to do with his body. His checkered shirt was too loose and his tie too long, like he had ransacked his father's closet. His dirty blond hair was neatly combed and he smelled strongly of cologne. Clarke guessed he was eighteen at most.

"What can I do for you, Aden?"

He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I'm here for the article? Lexa said that late afternoon was a good time."

He dug into his messenger bag, trying to find something. It looked very similar to Lexa's satchel and Clarke wondered if he was a protégé and maybe very eager to resemble his mentor.

"Here's my ID," he added, showing Clarke his Gazette badge. It was endearing, to say the least, but Clarke wasn't sure what to do with it.

"What article are you talking about?"

"To boost the mic event. Didn't you set it up with her?"

Clarke’s smile fell.

A puff piece. Lexa had sent a teenager to write a puff piece on the café. Clarke wasn't sure what was more embarrassing: that Lexa had assumed her invitation had been a request to advertize the open mic, or that she'd sent someone else to do it. It hadn’t even crossed Clarke's mind. Was that what Lexa had thought of their interaction? That it had been a means to an end?

"It'll go up tomorrow morning in This Week In Costial," Aden said, then looked around anxiously. "Did I mess up? It starts Friday, doesn't it?"

"Yes, absolutely, it does," Clarke assured him as she shook off the lingering feeling of vexation.  

Aden relaxed. "Can we sit down for a few minutes? I just want to make sure my notes are legible."

Clarke glanced at Wells and Gaia in the kitchen, both laughing about something. She didn't feel much like laughing herself. But the sooner she gave Aden what he needed, the sooner she could occupy her mind with something else.

"Sure. Let's do it."

They sat at one of the center tables. Aden took out his phone, a notepad, and three different pens.

"How long have you been at the Gazette?" Clarke asked him curiously.

Aden tried the first pen on the notepad but discarded it when the ink barely came out. "I just started a few months ago. This is my first time reporting," he admitted bashfully. "I'm taking a gap year before college and wanted some real experience."

“That’s smart. How do you like it so far?”

“I love it,” he gushed, looking more like a boy at Christmas than a teen fresh out of high school. "It’s so much easier to learn through practice.”

Clarke nodded. “So you’ll be writing the piece?”

“I’ll structure the notes and work with Lexa on it. She has to approve everything I do."

"Hm. Do you like working with her?"

"Lexa's great," he said, coming out of his shell the more confident he was in the topic. Clarke couldn’t fault him for his awkwardness - everyone had to start somewhere. "We were both new at the Gazette around the same time, so she says we need to stick up for each other. I like that. Lexa doesn't care about rank, just what a person can bring to the table."

Clarke had stopped counting the ways Lexa surprised her. But in the last few weeks she had learned that the reserved, serious woman who sat in her café was one hell of a poker player, related to the owners of the Polis Hotel, and revered by a teenager. Not to mention, in all likelihood, a particularly intense lover. Clearly, Clarke still knew nothing about Lexa Woods, and it seemed like that was precisely Lexa's doing.

It stung. Clarke understood that she was only a café owner, barely a blip in Lexa's routine, if at all these days, but it was Lexa who had initiated their first conversation. Clarke had hoped it meant a step closer to being friendly. She had thought maybe Lexa just naturally kept to herself, but it seemed like everyone and their mother - quite literally, in Gaia's case - knew a side of her that Clarke wasn't privy to.

"So, what can we expect from the open mic?" Aden finally asked, forcing Clarke to sweep away any other thought.

* * *

The article was short and sweet, though one of the longer ones in the entire section that spanned three pages. Clarke had to admit the publicity wouldn't hurt, and it didn't hurt either when the Gazette also tweeted about it.

What did hurt, early on Friday, was Wells coming into the café with a grimace.

"What's up?" Clarke asked him, barely awake. Today would be a long day, but they were ready for whatever may come. Or so Clarke believed.

Wells took out a folded flyer from his pocket and slid it on the counter. "You're not going to like this."

Clarke opened the flyer, her heart dropping in her stomach when she read it: FINN'S COFFEE & BAGELS OPEN MIC EVENT. FRIDAY TO SUNDAY, 10AM TO 6PM. 50% OFF EVERY PURCHASE.

Clarke gritted her teeth. "I'm going to murder him."

Wells cringed. "I guess now's not the time to add he finalized his deal with Titus & Son to sell his bagels?"

Clarke crumpled the flyer in her hands. "No, Wells, now is not the best time."

Feeling a blind rage course through her, Clarke grabbed her coat and went out the back of the café, passing a baffled Gaia.

She walked down the street with a fury in her eyes, fully intending on finding Finn Collins wherever he might be hiding. She’d wait him out at his house if she fucking needed to. But his shop down the street was a good start - his hideous coffee shop with the large letters of his name on every available surface, even the plastic forks.

When she opened the door, it was with the force of her anger. When she walked inside, it was with clenched fists. She scanned the moderately crowded area for a pretentious suit and a cocky grin, knowing he had to be expecting her. That bastard had made sure she'd only learn about his copycat event at the last possible minute, but she’d speak her mind. Oh he was going to hear her. 

Or he would have.

Clarke's resolve crumpled when she spotted the last person she'd expected to see. It felt like whiplash. There, sitting at a corner table, typing away, was Lexa. Clarke had to blink a few times to believe her own eyes, but there was no mistaking her. Whatever momentum she'd gained screeched to a halt.

And when their eyes met, when Lexa finally spotted her and stilled, equally surprised to see Clarke, it felt like time slowed. Clarke couldn't even explain why it hurt so badly to see her there, just that it did. Because of course. Of course Lexa would take her habit elsewhere. Of course she would go to the chain hell-bent on driving Clarke's business into the ground.

She hadn’t been sure what to make of Lexa's disappearance; if she was just too busy, cutting down on caffeine, or perhaps trying to save up on cash for the holidays coming up. It wasn't any of Clarke's business to know. But seeing her in Finn's shop, on the same street, typing away like she always did, drinking some green monstrosity… rational thinking flew out the window. Lexa had the sense to look away at least, though her hands didn’t move on the keyboard anymore. 

Clarke couldn’t even stand the sight of her, so deeply embarrassed that she’d invited her to come over when all this time Lexa had already chosen a different establishment. Embarrassed that she'd hoped to see her at her usual spot again. Embarrassed that she even cared.

With the taste of bitter disappointment in her mouth, Clarke left without even bothering to find Finn. Her body felt numb, like the sight of Lexa had replaced her anger with ice. It felt personal and Clarke didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand how a person could seem to care one day and look away the next. Could it truly be because she had refused the interview? Was that the way Lexa did things? Stuck around for a story until she was sure there was nothing to be squeezed out? Clarke couldn’t think of another reason.

Whatever it was, she was done seeking Lexa out.

-

[part four]

[misunderstoodnotevil]

Series 1, episode 3

To begin with, I find it interesting how Pamuk is said to be a Turkish diplomat instead of an Ottoman one (a quick research showed that in Western Europe they did use Ottomans and Turkish alike) and it's quite amusing (to me) that an actor of Greek descent played the Turkish character.

Let's talk about the episode now, This is where you actually understand that there's not going to be any consistent characterisation of Thomas here. Who has been the one to go against authority so far (shown as a bad thing because how dare he?)? O'Brien and Thomas. Who's the one sneaking behind Gwen's back to bring her typewriter in the kitchen and rat her to Carson and Hughes? O'Brien. Who tries to take Gwen's side? William! What does Thomas reply to the perfectly logical "Why shouldn't Gwen have a typewriter if she wants one?". "Mind your own business." Yes, that's the same Thomas who two episodes previously was proclaiming he didn't want to be a footman any more. We learn servants have to right to privacy, courtesy of Ms. Hughes. Anna, Mr. Bates and William come as the good guys. Everyone else? Not so much. Of course, some are forgiven because they are the good guys. I won't even start with O'Brien's "What's wrong with being in service?" and what follows. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a villain just as much as the next girl, but -just like Thomas- this is the woman who was humiliated by Cora and Ms. Hughes in the previous episode, who claimed there was no real friendship among anyone "in service". Is this her way of taking her revenge on someone of a lower status than her? As a writer, I always try to find the motivation behind every person's actions. And "yes, she/he is the big bad meanie" sometimes doesn't cut it.

[Matthew is quite taken by Mary. Edith's attempts to seduce him are fruitless. Mary doesn't know which suitor to choose from. Except Matthew. Clearly, he's beneath her.]

Enter Kemal Pamuk. An attaché at the Turkish embassy (read Ottoman Embassy). He's a son of one of the sultan's ministers and he's in England for the Albanian talks. The first time Mary sees him it's like she's never seen a man before. We first see him in a hunting party, where

Thomas carries the tray of food. Dogs seem to want some. If Thomas could get away with it, he'd prefer to sit down and eat the food with the dogs, I think.

* "Is that one mine?" Once again, from the reaction of the participants the audience gets to conclusions; 1. Pamuk is a handsome dude. 2. Mary likes him. 3. Carson wonders if it's alright for "Pamuk to be Thomas"'. 4. Gwen thinks he doesn't look like any Turkish (I wonder how many Turks she knows). 5. Anna thinks he's beautiful. And Thomas knows every little thing that crosses their minds.

[So if you - the viewer- don't think Pamuk is handsome there's something wrong with you. (In later episodes, they try to convince the viewer Lavinia is not beautiful, which, in a way, is even funnier, IMO. But that's for another time)]

Robert calls Pamuk "a treat for the ladies" and "gorgeous Turk". Objectification at its finest (kidding).

In case you wonder why Pamuk doesn't have a valet, it is because his valet remained in London because he doesn't know English, In the meantime, in Pamuk's English there is not the slightest accent. Like, not even a little to show that the guy is a foreigner. But his valet doesn't know English. Why, but because Thomas has to become his valet.

Robert hopes Thomas doesn't mind "helping" Pamuk. "Oh, you know Thomas, milord. He has to have a grumble, but I gather he cheered up when he saw the gentleman.' For one thing, what gentleman? For another, what the bloody hell? "He cheered up when he saw the gentleman"? By now, we, they and the whole world knows Thomas is homosexual. In the closet, but everyone knows. (Except Daisy, because she's what? 13?)

Now, can I say that Thomas is an idiot? Why, yes I can. And Bates' witty remark foreshadows the next scene. Because why not? The epitome of amazing writing!

So, while we are all here wondering what "Turkish culture" is (eunuchs protecting the Sultan's harem? the taboo of homosexuality? the unquestionable eroticism of the hammams?) and why Thomas seems to be so interested in it, Pamuk leads him on, because Pamuk as an aristocrat is a clever bastard and Thomas as the servant (and anachronistically, let's call him gay), is an idiot, who just has to make a move at him so Pamuk can blackmails him to take him to Mary's room and have the story progress. Or it could be that Thomas' experience is solely the Duke and he's as subtle as a thirsty elephant.

As I wrote when I started this, Thomas' sexuality twice now, puts at risk the inhabitants of Downton Abbey. His sexuality is shown as something that leaves him weak and easily taken advantage of. And because it's Thomas (the de facto antagonist by now), it's not exactly a good thing, is it?

"That will teach you to believe what the English say about foreigners. I ought to report you." Pamuk pretended he didn't know how to fix his bowtie, we don't know why he left his valet in London, he was friendly enough and held small talk with Thomas about "Turkish culture". It's as if he [gasp] knew about Thomas' sexuality from before.

This is again where I want to mention that while Thomas is Pamuk’s valet and attempts to flirt with him he seems smaller in heigh than Pamuk, but when he’s advance is denied and is humiliated by Pamuk, he’s in his actual height and taller than Pamuk, despite the fact he seems blank and numb.

Later on, as Robert talks about Mary and her suitors he claims "no one's sensible at her age. Nor should they be. That's our role." I think we can assume Thomas and Mary are roughly the same age. But doesn't the same apply to him too?

Anyway, the only redeeming part in his involvement in Pamuk's seduction of Mary is that he saw her following Pamuk out of the room. If even that. Then again, it had to happen so Mary's story to go forward. Does it change anything for Thomas? He's one of the three people involved. Pamuk dies, Mary has to face the consequences of it for the next two seasons (at least). What about Thomas? What does he learn from this? To stay away from male aristocrats, and not make a move at men until he's certain his affection is reciprocated? Stay away from men in general?

When Anna helped Mary moving the body she considered who they could ask for help. Bates is out of the question, for obvious reasons and "William can't keep a secret and Thomas wouldn't try to." I'm almost looking forward to snarky for no reason Thomas we'll have plenty in the future. Because so far, this second hand embarrassment is nerve breaking.

And, then it's Thomas of course who finds Pamuk dead. Which is followed by some comments about his character. Later on, Robert discusses with Carson about how the maids took the news of Pamuk's death and he says [and I quote] "Don't let the footmen be too coarse in front of them. Thomas likes to show off, but we must have a care for feminine sensibilities. They are finer and more fragile than our own." I am thinking back and try to remember if there was ever any positive comment about Thomas. The answer is no.

 I have to be honest here, the first time, some 9 years ago this was the episode I stopped watching Downton Abbey, which is a decision I now regret because I missed watching and being part of the discussion when it was new and exciting. Alas...

*

"I'll be asking the same question later, so you better have an answer ready."

While Thomas smirks at Ms. O'Brien when she says that, it does make me wonder the kind of relationship they have. "you better have an answer ready" seems to be having an "or else" missing there. So when he does share the story with her the fact that "he doesn't want to get in trouble over that" means that he wants to keep it a secret, both his own involvement and the whole dark affair. Right?

PS I applaud Rob James-Collier for giving an extraordinary depth (and beauty) in a so far one dimensional character.

PS 2 As my lack of knowledge is vast & my horizons are narrow (quoting Jarvis Cocker is a favourite pastime) if anyone can provide info as to what Thomas was babbling about Turkish culture, I will appreciate it.

[nonbinary-octopus]

Virgil the Wee Vampire Chapter 11:  Adoption?

Summary: Virgil is presented with a choice.

Content/Trigger Warnings: there’s a little blood, but I think we’re otherwise good

Wordcount: 2.1 K

Chapter 1: The Hungry Little Vampire

Masterpost

More stories

~~~~~

“Hi!” Patton answered happily, waving.

“Come in,” Logan invited. Roman walked through the door as slowly and carefully as though he was carrying a glass of water filled to the brim, but Virgil still wobbled on his shoulder. Then he leapt off. For a second, Logan thought that he had fallen, and Roman clearly did as well, as he gasped and his hands shot up to catch the little vampire. However, a second later they realized that it must have been intentional.

Before their eyes, Virgil changed forms. His arms became wings, his ears grew larger, and his hair darkened and spread all over his body while his clothes seemed to vanish. In less time than it takes to describe it, Virgil was a bat, flying toward them.

He landed on Patton’s head, and as Logan watched in awe, the transformation happened again in reverse. It was every bit as fascinating as the first time, and Logan was enthralled for every short second. His fingers itched to take notes, but he restrained himself.

Roman, freed of his burden, walked normally over to Logan’s bed and flopped onto it. “Virgil’s awake,” he announced unnecessarily.

“Thank you, Roman, we hadn’t noticed,” Logan said dryly.

Patton giggled. “Do you like it up there, Virgil?” he asked.

“Yes,” Virgil answered, making himself comfortable.

Patton tried to look up at him, but of course since Virgil was sitting on his head, tipping it back accomplished nothing, except for making the little vampire grab onto a lock of Patton’s hair with each hand to keep himself in place. Patton froze. “Sorry.”

“Perhaps a different perch would be more ideal,” Logan suggested. “One which allows Patton to move his head.” He glanced around his room, wondering what the spots favorable for a vampire would be. “You may alight on any surface in the room,” he offered at last. “Or, I doubt that Patton would have any objection to holding you in his hands again. Would you, Patton?”

Patton started to shake his head, but froze again with a small wince. Logan suspected that Virgil had pulled on his hair, though he also thought it likely that it had not been intentional. “I’d like that, actually,” he said softly. Looking up with just his eyes, he asked, “Virgil? May I hold you?”

The little vampire hesitated, looking around the room. Then he said, “Okay.”

Patton reached up, very carefully extracting Virgil from his hair. One particularly curly lock had twisted around the vampire’s leg, and Logan wished Virgil was comfortable enough with him that he could help disentangle them. But before too long, Virgil was sitting in Patton’s hands again, looking a little nervous, but not overly so.

“Have you eaten yet?” Logan asked, though he suspected he knew the answer already. As he’d thought, Virgil shook his head.

“Oh, you must be hungry!” Patton exclaimed. He shifted his hold so that Virgil could access his fingers again. However, the two bandaids from yesterday were still there, and Virgil looked hesitantly at them.

“Based on what happened before, last night’s bite has probably healed,” Logan said, now wishing he’d taken a look at it earlier, and Patton’s older bite as well. “However, it would still be preferable to make the new puncture in a different location.”

“Okay, um…” Patton tried to move his hand around to let Virgil bite a different finger, but separating one from the rest was oddly awkward and difficult. He could have offered the pointer finger from his other hand, but Virgil was sitting in that.

Roman sat up. “Wanna bite me tonight, Diminutive Dracula?” he offered.

Virgil ducked down in Patton’s hand, looking uncertainly at Roman. “You… won’t be upset?” he asked cautiously.

“Would I have offered if I would?” Roman asked. Virgil didn’t answer. “No. No, I wouldn’t have, and I won’t,” Roman said after a moment.

“Then… okay.”

Roman got off of Logan’s bed and came over. “Here you go,” he said, curling most of his hand into a loose fist but extending his pointer finger toward Virgil.

Virgil still looked hesitant, but he put his hands on Roman’s finger, one on each knuckle. Roman gave him an encouraging smile, and the vampire bent his head to bite.

Logan wished that he could see more clearly how exactly Virgil fed. Perhaps he should offer his own finger the next time, so that he could observe. From this distance and angle, he could not tell if Virgil was sucking the blood out, or allowing Roman’s finger to bleed and lapping it up.

If there was a next time, Logan decided, he would certainly volunteer. For now, he opened the bottom drawer in his desk to fetch the first aid kit he kept there. If Virgil stays, he noted to himself as he picked out the things he needed, I’ll need to get a lot more small bandaids.

When Virgil had drunk his fill — and Logan realized suddenly that he ought to time the event — he released Roman’s finger, and Roman drew it back. Instantly, another bead of blood appeared, and Roman lifted his hand on autopilot toward his own mouth. Logan grabbed his wrist.

“Roman, that’s unsanitary,” he scolded, using the alcohol wipe in his other hand to clean the wound instead. “Here, hold this.”

Roman pouted, but he obediently held the wipe in place as Logan opened the bandaid. Then he pulled it away, and Logan applied the bandaid. This box of bandaids were a beige instead of the brightly colored ones Logan kept in most of the common rooms, and were fairly close to Logan’s skin tone, so as to be nearly invisible when applied to himself. Against Roman’s skin, it was less effective. It would have been even less so on Patton’s or Virgil’s, though for opposite reasons.

“There.” Logan took the bloodied wipe from Roman, and threw it in the trash along with the other bits of garbage. “Patton, you can open your eyes now.”

Patton, whose eyes had been tightly squeezed closed, opened them, looking down at the little vampire with an extremely fond expression. “Feel better?”

Virgil nodded quietly.

“Thanks, Roman,” Patton added, looking over to him. Roman perked up happily.

“No problemo, Padre,” he said.

“Virgil,” Logan said, and the vampire’s gaze whipped over to him. “Apologies for startling you. I was wondering, would it be beneficial to space out your food? I mean, would two smaller meals, separated by some hours, be better than one large one early in the evening?” When Virgil only gave him a blank look in response, Logan explained, “For humans, we tend to split our food intake into three meals a day, but it is often healthier to split it even further, into many small meals. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about vampires, nor is it possible for me to look it up, but it may be that it is the same for you.”

Virgil looked up at Patton, and then back to Logan. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I always just drank what I could when I could get it.”

“That is fair. I thought that might be the case,” Logan said. He was, of course, disappointed that he didn’t get an answer, but he understood. “Perhaps we can discover that in the future.”

“Speaking of the future,” Roman said, “we wanted to talk to you about what happens next.”

Virgil flinched at his words, immediately hunkering lower in Patton’s hands.

“No, no, you’re not in trouble!” Patton said quickly. “And you’re the one who gets to pick!”

Virgil hesitantly peeked out at the others again. “What are my choices?” he asked.

“Simply put, to stay or to go,” Logan answered. “We think it would be more beneficial to your health if you were to stay with us, as we can provide you with shelter, companionship, and a steady source of human blood, but of course that comes with being around humans all the time. Alternatively, we could bring you back to where we found you, or to any other location of your choosing, and you could leave, with no obligation to come into contact with us again.”

Virgil blinked at him in surprise.

“Obviously, if you stay, we will need to make some changes to the current setup,” Logan continued. “Your sleeping arrangements, for one. I believe Roman and Patton have already been making plans to build you a more cave-like structure.”

“I know some people with the skills,” Roman confirmed, winking.

“And of course we’d have to make sure you can get in and out of the house by yourself!” Patton added. “It can’t have been fun being all cooped up all night.”

Virgil looked stunned. “You… you would let me come and go… as I wish?”

“Certainly,” Logan said, at the same time as Patton and Roman assured Virgil of the same, though with all three of them agreeing at the same time, it was impossible to tell what the others said. “Whatever you choose, you will not be our prisoner any longer,” Logan continued. “Indeed, it was cruel for us to keep you captive as long as we did. I apologize for allowing my curiosity to override my decency.”

Virgil looked around at the three of them. “I want…” he said slowly. “I want… I want to go outside.”

“Okay,” Patton said. “Of course, whatever you want.” He at once exited Logan’s room. Roman and Logan trailed after him through the living room to the back door. Patton opened it, stepping out onto the porch.

Though the sun had set, the night air was still comfortably warm. Virgil visibly relaxed as Patton carried him out. Roman hopped up and sat on the railing running around the edges of the porch, and Logan leaned against the outer wall of the house next to the door.

“Do you want to stretch your wings?” Patton asked softly.

Virgil looked up at him, then nodded. “Yes, please.”

Patton flattened out his hands, and Virgil transformed again. Then he dropped off the side of Patton’s palm, spread his wings, and did a quick lap around the perimeter of the porch. The little vampire flew around Patton twice, causing him to giggle, and then shot straight up until he vanished into the black night.

“Oh, Logan,” Roman said after several moments, bringing Logan’s attention back to earth. “Virgil says he can talk while he’s a bat, but we can’t hear him.”

“Hm,” Logan replied. “Most likely his voice is ultrasonic while he’s in that form, much like echolocation. I wonder… do you think it sounds like regular bat communication, or like higher pitched English?”

Roman shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Patton was still peering up into the sky, but it didn’t look like he could see Virgil either.

“It probably feels good to have enough room to fly around again,” Logan remarked. “I would not be too surprised if it took him several minutes to return.”

Patton nodded slowly. With a sigh, he leaned against the railing opposite Roman. “He’ll come back when he’s ready,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as the others. “I don’t think he’d leave without saying goodbye.”

“Nope,” Roman agreed.

For a few minutes, the three housemates relaxed in companionable silence, looking out into the night. Then Roman said, “Oh, hey, there he is,” and pointed.

Sure enough, a black bat flitted into the circle of light cast by the porch light. Patton perked up. “Hey, Virge,” he said happily.

The bat hung back near the edge of the light, flying back and forth.

“It’s alright, Virgil,” Logan said reassuringly. “We’re not going to grab at you.”

Slowly, the bat came nearer. Logan expected him to land near Patton, if not on him, and was surprised when instead the vampire shifted forms as he approached the far railing, across from Logan. He landed gracefully, with a practiced air, and didn’t stumble.

Logan did a double take. When they had last seen Virgil in his humanoid form, he had been dressed in purple. The vampire before them, while wearing the same style of outfit, had a different color scheme, red with a splash of yellow, and he carried himself differently. Patton gasped, and Logan didn’t need to look at his friends to know they’d made the same realization as he had.

This wasn’t Virgil.

The new vampire eyed all three humans warily, and demanded, “What have you done with my brother?”

~~~~~

Chapter 12: Family Reunion

[skgway]

1825 June, Thurs. 30

6 3/4

12 50/60

Steph, after having called on my aunt, came at 10, to tell us his opinion – He thinks more favorably of her this morning and hopes she will be able to bear a gentle course of medicine – Says her liver is affected – It is torpid, and there is a scarcity, I think he said, of bile – He will try the blue pill, of which Mr. D– [Duffin] approves, and thinks Steph talks very sensibly – 

They both agree we had best try Buxton, after my aunt has taken Steph’s prescription for about 3 weeks at home – After which, and on seeing the effect of B– [Buxton] (which cannot be guessed at under a fortnight) we shall be better [al?] how to decide about abroad or not, etc. etc. – 

Read aloud great part of this mornings York Chronicle – Mr. D– [Duffin] and I went out at 12 – Called and sat a while with my aunt – Then at the Belcombes’ – Where Mr. D– [Duffin] left me to go to Hornor at 2 – Sat talking to Mrs. B– [Belcombe]. Steph and his wife seem to have exceeded their income by five hundred a year ever since they were married in the spring of eighteen hundred and sixteen and she owed nine hundred pounds before out of her nine per annum. I suppose from this they owe between five and six thousands. 

Mrs. B[elcombe] settled the allowance Harriet was to have for housekeeping at forty pounds a month. Steph paying for liquors, servants, wages, coals, house, rent, and taxes and she could not make it do. Why did they enter into dinner parties with ladies? But they might retrieve if they would but manage better etc. etc. 

Louisa sent down a message to say she should be glad to see me upstairs – She told me π [Mariana] was blinded. Harriet Milne had so completely thrown dust in her eyes she now took her part and blamed Mrs. Steph. It was Mrs. Milnes flirting with Mr. Meene that caused all the disagreeables and from Lou’s account I cannot hesitate to think Mrs. M[ilne] the bane of all their comfort, and that her conduct can never be depended on. 

Said Lou, ‘What will become of us if anything happens to my father? I shall go to my uncle.’ I said she was right but in the meantime should watch Mrs. M[ilne] narrowly. Assume the authority of virtue over vice and never let her stir without her, but mamma too is blinded. Her uncle had told her he never [saw] a womans feelings so easily excited as Mrs. M[ilne]’s. 

Lou would not have gone to Hull with her and Mr. Meene, but if she had not Anne would, and this would not have done – Mrs. M[ilne] got up one morning at six and met Mr. Meene downstairs, I fancy at or near the water closet, for Eliza suspecting something had watched. On Steph’s having noticed how early Mr. Meene had got up, ‘yes’ he said, ‘to go to the news room’. And on inquiry Steph found he had never been there. 

Steph thought of all this at first but now his eyes were blinded too. Lou insinuated that Mrs. M[ilne] had committed not only once, or even twice. Said nothing criminal could be proved. Said Lou, I don't know that if one may judge from writing more foolish. She said I to be so unguarded as to trust to paper at all rates. 

A second time she said it was well Mrs. M[ilne] and Mrs. Meene had quarrelled, for if Harriet had gone to the Broms something would have happened. She thought she did not like 𝛿 [Charles Lawton] and was safe at Lawton. Ah said I, I don't know that, The only day she was at Haugh End she rode above twenty miles with Major Priestly and told him she should be most happy to come and stay with them. I hope, said I, for Mary P[riestley]’s sake she will not. 

On this something was said about π [Mariana]. I somehow mentioned the three steps business last September, but one on blackstone edge. Said I should never forget it and hinted that our ever being together was very doubtful. Anne came and interrupted us.

I soon took my leave, but Lou going down with me. We walked up down the passage perhaps half hour. Here I opened on the subject, saying it was a comfort to me to have named it to Lou. That she might remember what I had said. Whatever should happen in future, she was the only one to whom I cared to appear in some degree justified. But I charged her not to utter what I had said, for I knew not my own mind. As yet I had said not a syllable of it to π [Mariana] nor should till I knew myself better, for I might come round again. 

I knew not for on revient toujours a ses premiers amours but I had never felt so oddly. π [Mariana] talked of coming to Shibden, but I hoped the visit would fall through. Lou asked if I should come to the festival. I said I thought not but certainly I should not if π [Mariana] came. Lou said how much she π [Mariana] loved [me]. She had done it at first against the wishes of all her family.

I asked if Lou remembered telling me she was worldly. No, she had quite forgotten. But if she did say so she meant only with respect to her marriage. I said the subject gave me great uneasiness. It was odd enough I had not thought of it abroad, but it occurred to me the moment of my return to Shibden and I had never been able to shake it off. 

Lou asked if it was owing to any preference I felt for any other. I said no. Is it, said she, Mrs. Barlow? No. Is it Miss de Sans? No. She should be sorry that so old a friendship should . . . . . here she stopped. Ah, said I, heaven only knows. For I do not. I never so little knew myself. I know not what I shall feel or do. 

Anne just came to us, but went away immediately and I took my final leave of both. Anne would wonder what had passed, for I felt as if my lips looked white – When upstairs Lou had said in her musing that she knew not what would become of them. What do you think of the lawyer? Meaning Eustace Strickland whom π [Mariana] had told me (in Paris I think) that she had refused. Ah, said, I why did you refuse him? But we both seemed to leave the subject to talk of π [Mariana]. Certainly I thought no more of it – 

It was after 3 before I got to Hornor’s – He was out – Would not be back of 1/2 hour – Went into Micklegate to say, I could not be back in time to dine at the D– [Duffin]s’ – Mr. D– [Duffin] seemed disappointed – But there was no remedy – Met Miss M– [Marsh] and Miss D– [Duffin] walking – They took a little turn with me, and got back to Hornor’s at 3 50/60 – 

Waited a long while – On examination Mr. Hornor found I had five upper double teeth with greater or less holes in them (of which I had not had the most distinct suspicion) and I had them all stopped with gold – My gums in very good order – My teeth requiring very little scaling, but that little was done – Should not use a too hard brush – Moderately hard – Bought 6 of Mr. H– [Honor]’s tooth powder. 

Should have some little mechanical action – The greater the tendency to form tartar on the teeth, the rougher the powder should [be] – The tops of the gums should be well brushed so as to clean away the tartar in its soft state – The tooth powder I use equal parts dragon’s blood, bolammoniae, and dragon’s blood, very good but would be improved by something to make it rather rougher e.g. one tenth proportion of the whole ingredients of powdered cuttle-fish bone (os sepiæ) or finely powdered pumice stone – The former would be rough enough for me – Powdered chalk (simply) a very good tooth powder – 

The scaling my teeth ought to have been 10/6, but I only paid the 5 /. [shillings] for the tooh drawing and the 7 /. [shillings] each for the teeth stopping – It being 5 1/2 when all this was done, went over to my aunt who ordered me a mutton chop which I relished more than anything I had had since our arrival in York –

After this wrote and left for the post office a couple of pages to my uncle (Shibden) to say, I had been detained, and that my aunt and I should post it together tomorrow, hoping to be off at 12, and at home about 7 – my aunt fancying I half said so. I had had the two pounds to pay Hornor from Miss Marsh, gave me two sovereigns. She is always good to me and would give me anything –

Told my aunt my conversation with Louisa about M– [Mariana]. Left my aunt just in time to get to the D– [Duffin]s’ to tea at 7 – Found a note from Louisa B– [Belcombe] and small parcel for her sister Eliza now at Haugh-End – Having heard Miss Duffin say yesterday after dinner she liked caraway seeds, and added Miss M– [Marsh] could eat them by the ounce I bought her 6 oz yesterday evening, but forgetting them brought them home this evening and running upstairs the moment I came in, and put them on her toilet – 

I saw by her manner afterwards she had seen them, but, not being tete-a-tete, she took no further notice of the thing – Yet she was evidently pleased by the attention – After tea we all walked (Mr. D– [Duffin] called to see Miss Day) 1/2 way to Acomb – 

Fine day – Very fine evening – Sat talking till 10 1/2 when Miss M– [Marsh] and I retired – E [two dots, treating venereal complaint] O [two dots, marking discharge] –

[in margin] Told Lou I should always be interested for her should be happy to do anything I could for her in point of advice or otherwise, and when she wanted a friend I begged she would apply to me – 

[in margin] Mrs. B– [Belcombe] gave me this morning Steph’s letter to Dr. Kenny enclosed in a note to myself. The letter open having requested to see it and shew it to Mr. D– [Duffin] who approves – But seems to think not much of anything but the pills – (the blue pill) – Handsome letter to Dr. K– [Kenney] will be glad to hear from him or see him at his house should he visit York –

[booklovingturtle]

Cardan’s POV of Chapter 15

LOL, y’all already know what I mean by “Chapter 15″ so let’s just dive straight into my version of Cardan’s point of view.

Cardan's head had been spiraling from the moment he felt the weight of Oak’s small hands placing the damned crown on him. He felt like a pendulum ready to break off its axis. Swing violently between wanting to prove to the Fae that he wasn’t some child playing dress-up and reminding them just how unfit he was to be one of their princes, let alone their king. All of this was ignoring Jude, the one problem that he never seemed to get enough of.

He knew swearing himself to her would end poorly. He was expecting her to use the oath to embarrass him, manipulate him, betray him, even. However, the last thing he expected was for Jude to deal him the worst punishment he could imagine. No longer was she the mortal girl trying desperately to prove herself. No, Jude Duarte had shown everyone that she was capable of far more than they could have ever imagined. 

As his seneschal, she was privy to more about Elfhame than its residents will ever be despite their long lives. Thanks to her ability to lie, though, she was unexpectedly good at making sure that no one knew the secrets she carried. Including himself.

Now, Jude was staring him down, looking ridiculously calm for having just told Cardan that Nicasia was the failed assassin who ruined his night of vices.

“You mean she tried to kill me?” He didn’t know whether he was more shocked or infuriated “Honestly, Jude, how many secrets are you keeping?” 

The question was of course rhetorical. He knew that when it came to Jude, there was no bottom to her trove of deceits. Despite him knowing that, the silence that rang between them before she continued felt like another form of betrayal.

“She was shooting at the girl, not you. She found you in bed with someone, got jealous, and shot twice,” Jude said as if that made any of what she was explaining easier for him to deal with. “Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for everyone else, she’s a terrible shot.  Now do you believe me that she wants you?”

Her flippant attitude added kindle to his already burning temper. He was angry and Jude and Nicasia. Worst of all, at himself for feeling so upset at being misled yet again his seneschal. “I know not what to believe.”

“She thought to surprise you in your bed. Give her what she wants and get the information we need to avoid a war,” Jude spoke the last bit as if asking him to pass her a sheet of paper. Her face was hard, spine pulled back and head held tall. She looked ready to strap him to the couch behind her if that's what it took to get him to listen to her.

Of course, it would take much less than that to get him to bend to her will. “Are you commanding me?” He hadn’t realized that he was moving until he was millimeters away.

The ire in his words seemed to surprise her. “No. Of course not.”

I’m the king, he’d said to her earlier. This close to her, Cardan did not feel like a king. He felt very far from the High King of Elfhame. His fingers curled around her face, trying not to remember what it felt like to dig his hands into her hair.

“You just think I ought to,” he wasn’t sure where he was going but for once he let the pounding in his chest lead him. His mouth kept moving but he’d stopped listening to his own words. 

He knew how Nicasia felt about him. Cardan was no fool. Much less was he unaware of how he could affect the men and women of his court. In reality, Jude’s plan was a sound one. Nicasia wanted him. Jude wanted information from Nicasia. It only made sense to move him around her chess board until all her pieces slid into place.

Perhaps that’s what made him so angry. Knowing that even now, even as the High King, he was still nothing more than a moving piece in someone else’s game. Perhaps it was time for Jude to feel like a pawn in his own.

“Tell me how it’s done. Do you think she’d like it if I came to her like this, if I looked deeply into her eyes?” Cardan watched the fire in her gaze blaze a little differently. Her walnut eyes darkened and a small breath escaped her as his tight grip turned soft.

“Probably,” the breathlessness of her voice was not the reaction he was expecting. “Whatever it is you usually do.” Jude was trying to seem unfazed by him and it provoked him to continue.

“Oh, come now. If you want me to play the bawd, at least give me the benefit of your advice.” The constant spinning in his mind slowed down as he focused on gently stroking the pink, hot skin of her cheek. Cardan followed the blush as it creaked down past her lips, down her throat. There he could see her pulse hammering under his fingers. “Should I touch her like this?” 

“I don’t know,” Jude lies yet again.

Lies. That’s all that came out of her heart-shaped lips. Even knowing this, Cardan couldn’t quell the urge to taste those perfectly crafted lies. He knew that if he stopped this match now then they could both come out relatively unscathed. He would always remember how her hands fisted as if fighting their own urges, but it would be better than remembering what they felt like against him. He felt like he had dived off a cliff, expecting to find some sort of purchase before he reached the end. Instead found nothing but empty air beneath him as he pummeled faster and faster.

He moved forward so his mouth moved against the round shell of her ear. “And then like this? Is this how I ought to seduce her.” It felt more as if she was seducing him with nothing more than her humanness. “Do you think it would work?” Cardan asked to continue his charade, though he wasn’t sure if it was for her sake or his.

Jude was shaking beneath him and the irony of it was not lost to him. Months earlier, Cardan was the one trembling with too many emotions to name as Jude was the one relishing in his misery.

“Yes,” she suddenly said. The honesty in that one word was too much for him to bare.

His mouth was on hers, hands once again against her neck. He tasted the lies beneath every word she spoke, felt the truth her own body couldn’t hide as she dug her hands in his hair. It was almost unholy how quickly his body responded to hers. How his every thought was on the softness of her skin, her smell, and the way she came alive under his hands.

Then they were both falling onto the couch and he wasn’t sure who had moved first. Cardan landed on top of her and he followed her lead as she pulled him into her embrace. She was pushed up against him and the feeling of her beneath him was enough to bring him back to himself. Cardan pulled away, trying to reel in the intensity of his desire but when his eyes met hers, he wanted nothing more than to unleash it.

She looked dazed. It was so far from the undiluted hate in her eyes he usually saw that he had to force himself to remember exactly who she was. Who he was.

“Tell me again what you said at the revel,” his heart raced, begging to draw closer to her.

“What?”

“That you hate me,” he pleaded. He needed to hear her say it. Needed to know that when she said it, she was speaking the truth yet still hoping it was another one of her lies.

“I hate you,” Jude said but it didn’t hold any of the fervor it usually did. Instead, it sounded more like an unwanted confession.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He was kissing her again, this time hoping to kiss the confession away. She continued to whisper those three words against him until his own voice betrayed him.

Cardan hands were on her skin, feeling the curves of her body and undoing the buttons of her clothing. He was desperate to feel more of her, see more of her. Ripping away his own jacket, he looked down to see her stripping of her doublet.

As more of Jude is revealed, he realized that there was never any bottom to the cliff he leaped off of. This dive was going to kill him.

He’s saying something to her but all he can hear is how shallow their breathing is. Everything about her is too much for Cardan to handle. Her hands shake as they run along his body.

He wishes that he could say that Jude, small, human Jude, was everything he was told humans were. Ugly, dull, pathetic creatures with meaninglessly small lives. But as he stared at her creamy skin, mostly untouched by the sun, he knew that none of those words could ever apply to Jude. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked bare and laid out before him. He wanted to say that in all his life, he had never been more terrified than he was right now. He could say none of those things.

“I want to tell you so many lies,” he said in their place in hopes that she would see through his words to the truth of his statement. When she didn’t respond, he made his way down her body, towards the center of her own desire.

She yanked on his pants, releasing his tail. He was never good at controlling how his tail revealed his own emotions, but today, it mirrored his every thought as it wrapped around Jude. She responded by reaching out to run a hand down his chest. 

Cardan could tell by the way that she hesitated before every breath that she had never gotten this far before. The thought of Jude with her terrifyingly clever mind still being so inexperienced in the one area he considered himself skilled at made Cardan feel more pressured than ever before.

His hands had been lightly toying with her skin, running up and down the length of her thighs but he finally gave in to his needs and moved to touch her.

Jude bit her lip as a soft moan escaped her. She arched her back as he continued his slow, methodical movements. Cardan was gentle with her as he watched her every breath. Jude moved under him, like liquid fire burning a path straight through him. Every sound she made was a quiet concession of how he worked her. She threw her head back, eyes shut tightly as one hand moved its way up to her breasts.

He kissed his way up from her chest to her ears, trying not to leave any marks even as she dug her nails into him. Though he’d never been with a human, he knew that they healed slower than his kind did so he tried to be mindful of it as he left open kisses along her body. He hoped that the scratches she made would last a lifetime, but he knew she would never forgive him if he’d left some sort of claim on her.

As her breathing picked up, he felt whatever this was coming close to an end. Fae were more carnal beings than humans. He didn’t care how inexperienced Jude was but to her kind, this was far more important than he could begin to understand. Suddenly, she cried out, her body going taut and then loose beneath his fingers. He watched, wanting to savor every moment of her bliss before he gave her one last kiss.

Kiss me until I am sick of it, he was reminded of his own drunken words. At the time he thought it was a foolish request because he thought Jude would never degrade herself by being with him. Now, Cardan understands that was wrong. No matter how many kisses she allowed him to steal or what scheme her treacherous mind demands him to play a part of, he will never be sick of Jude.

[halberdierminister]

Okay I set meself some new goals for the new year. How have I been keeping up with them?

1) Write 250 Words Each Day

I have missed a couple days this month, but I have certainly written more than the equivalent of 250 words times 31 days. So while I did have some misses, I more than made up for them. This one is both a hit and a miss, but far more hit than miss. I am mostly on track with this goal.

2) Read At Least 55 Books This Year

If we are counting audiobooks, which we ABSOLUTELY ARE, I have finished ten books this month and am close to finishing two more. If I keep up this kind of pace, I will have met my goal by midyear. We will see if that happens, but I am very well on track with this goal.

3) Get A Full Time Job

I have not done this yet. But I did work two jobs all month with a grand total of two days off. I applied for 24 different jobs this month. This doesn't quite equal out to one job per day, and I certainly didn't do this every day, but that's a fair amount of effort. I worked a lot and I worked on the job search a lot. I've also edited my resume, worked on making a brand new one, and designed my own business cards. I think I am making some progress on this but it is just so hard to tell. I am working on this goal, but I do not know if I am on track.

4) Move Out

Yeah obviously this hasn't happened yet. Kiel and Steph have offered to let me move in with them in Milwaukee if I need to or if I get something there. It's so tempting to take them up on it. I might if I have no leads on the job search by the end of March, but both Kiel and I agree that this winds up with the risk that I just get stuck working at Target again. It's so difficult. And yet today, when my parents were out of the house, I hooked up my Nintendo Switch to the television and just played some video games and I also took out my ukulele and sang some dumb songs and I just felt like myself for the first time in a while, and God I just miss that so damn much. I wanna move out so fucking badly it hurts. Ugh. I will get there. I just need the full time job first. I do not know if I am on track.

5) Drink Less Soda

Well, I drank less soda. I didn't cut out soda altogether, but at least half the days, or maybe even most of the days, I didn't have any soda at all. And the days I had soda, I'm pretty sure I limited it to one, except maybe once or twice when it was two. But by and large I am still cutting down on soda. So that's good. I'm not losing weight, but that's probably because I'm not working physically anymore like I was at Target. The last two days I lifted weights, maybe I'll work out more? Either way, I just needed to cut down on soda, and by gum, I have been doing that. I am on track with this goal.

6) Get Something Published

I am going to be published in Eclipse, a fanzine based on Problem Sleuth the Intermissions of Homestuck. I finished the first draft of my fic for it this year. I also found a zine I might want to send some stuff to tonight, and I still intend to send stuff into The Green Light and Red Cedar. I don't know if I have anything good enough for Steam Ticket, but who knows? I should also submit to more places, and I have been bookmarking pages that have promising listings. I am mildly on track with this goal, but I ought to put more into it.

7) Finish Writing A Legitimate Businessman

I have written 6,654 words on this fic in this month alone. This is the most frequently I have ever updated it. It is not finished, but with every update I near the ending. Some of the endings have been as short as two or three hundred words, most have been around six or seven hundred, but at least one was fifteen hundred words, making it the longest chapter written in years. I am on track with this goal.

8) Write More The Revelation of Takaya According to Jin

I have not written ANYTHING on this fic this month. I did listen to some Lovecraft on audiobook and I've been reading a lot of poetry, so I'm gaining fuel I suppose, but I am not on track.

MINOR GOALS

9) Finish Playthroughs Of:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- Success! I beat it on accident and started a new one. So this one is COMPLETED.

Persona 3 Portable 100%: I am on the last day or two. I tried fighting Margaret once this month and got royally scuppered up the barrelstopper. These sorts of super-hard turn-based battles are literally not fun. I also don't have any Armageddons and I don't know if it's possible to beat Margaret or Elizabeth without them. I don't know if it's worth it to try, but I also don't know if I shouldn't beat this and start a new game plus again. It's just……. I'm literally these two boss fights away from 100%, and I've NEVER gotten this close before. Guh. What I really need is Armageddon though. Sigh. Who knows.

Persona 1 Good Ending: Yeah I don't think I picked this up at all this month.

Pokemon Sword: I have beaten the main game and am partially through the post-game plot. It's just kinda boring at this point, but I will beat it I'm sure.

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: I haven't picked this up this year, but I plan to. It's a fun little game. I'm at Cinnabar Island, so I'm pretty close to the end.

10) Record More Ukulele Videos

I played my ukulele a lot today?? I tried recording a song but didn't like it. I'm working on some stuff though, so I'm not doing this yet but I am at least getting started on practicing and planning

11) Record Let's Play Videos

Not even a little bit.

12) Duolingo?

I've done Spanish on Duolingo every day for 33 days straight. SUCK IT, Me from 2008.

GOALS I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD

13) Set up my turntable and listened to records on my own.

14) Added to my collections of books, amiibos, video games and movies, often in unexpected ways and sometimes at large amounts for little money. And sometimes not. Whoops. I cannot be trusted with money. Ugh.

15) Work out?? I have done so a little bit two days in a row. Maybe I can keep this up and do more. I ought to, since I'm not at Target anymore, and since I won't be at MATC for the time being I will have more free time to do so. It's worth a shot.

So I'm doing pretty well on the ones I can keep track of. I'm not doing PERFECT, but I do think I am doing really well.

This is 1250 words, by the way.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 167

There’s about nine or ten days left before the Cell Games.   Dr. Brief is busy working on fixing Android 16.    He has specs from Dr. Gero’s lab, but they’re for android 17, and 16 has a completely different design, because 16 is truly an android, and not a cyborg like 17.    Meanwhile, 16 plays with Dr. Brief’s cat.    I’m not sure if it’s safe for the kitty to lick so close to 16′s open wound, but I’m not a robot or a robot doctor or a cat, so what do I know?

Bulma’s mom serves up cake.    Eat, drink, and be merry, I guess.  

Oolong and Roshi start stuffing their gross fingers into the cakes to claim them, and it’s pretty friggin’ gross.   Seriously, I’ve seen Frieza cut in half, but this scene is what really bothers me.    Those two can’t even eat that much cake anyway, so it’s just disgusting.   Chi-Chi is right to want to keep Gohan away from them.

The others all chill out and watch TV.   This looks like a pretty cozy scene.   

I really want to know what the deal is with this show.   

Vegeta can’t sit on the floor like everyone else because he’s the PRINSUVOLLSAYINS or whatever. 

Yamcha gets restless and decides to go outside to train for Cell.    Krillin offers to join him, and then Vegeta gives them shit for being no match for Cell.    Yamcha reminds Vegeta that he’s no match for Cell either, so maybe he ought to keep his mouth shut.   Yamcha’s like “Yeah, welcome to our world.”   And Krillin starts chanting “One of us, one of us.”

Then Bulma arrives, having returned from Kami’s Lookout, and she’s all anxious to see how Future Trunks is doing, to the point where she crashes into these guys. 

This whole part right here just bugs me.    I don’t like how Vegeta gets lumped into a comedy gag like this.    Why wouldn’t he just move out of the way?   Or simply murder Bulma before she could get near?    That’s kind of his bit, isn’t it?  Also, I don’t really see Bulma being this kind of character.    Chi-Chi, sure, but not Bulma.   It just feels off.  

She calms down once she knows Future Trunks is okay, and then Baby Trunks grabs onto his hair.    Everyone laughts.    Well, not Vegeta.   

Never mind that shit!   Here comes Cell!

This whole scene fucking rules.    Cell just smashes his way into a city, makes a giant hole in a TV studio, and when he puts his hand on the reception desk, it deforms as his hand moves towards it.     I’d call this Big General Zod Energy, except General Zod wasn’t anywhere near this cool in Superman II.   

He asks where they film the TV that gets broadcast all over the world, and the frightened receptionist tells him that he needs Studio B on the top floor.   Cell just floats straight up and the floors rip open as he moves towards them.    None of that elevator nonsense like in Movie 7.    Cell just goes where he wants, how he wants.   

Back at Capsule Corp, Yamcha slips on Krilin’s bald head.    Vegeta’s probably watching them from the window.     “They’re right,” he thinks to himself as he watches Yamcha plant his bare feet into Krillin’s face.   “I’m one of them now.”

Meanwhile, Roshi watches aerobics girls on TV, and I guess in Dragon World they film that shit live, because Cell floats up into the studio and ruins the shot.  

They change it to a cooking show, and he’s there too.    

Then they switch it to... I guesss this is some sort of stage musical?   I don’t understand how TV works in this world.    They filmed all of these shows in the same building, live, and aired them on three separate channels?   

I don’t know what this was supposed to be, but it’s not shown from Bulma’s TV, so maybe this one was being taped.   

Finally, he ends up at Studio B, and smashes through the anchorman’s desk.   

Hyperbolic Time Chamber Update: Gohan has a nightmare about Cell killing Chi-Chi and Piccolo right in front of him.    Holy shit!    How does he know what Cell looks like?    How did Goku know what the androids and Vegeta were doing while he was laid up with the heart virus?    

I was telling a friend of mine how this liveblog is helping me recalibrate for the fanfic I’m writing.   I didn’t think I needed it, but this helps me remember what it is I’m trying to work from.    I gave my Super Saiyan OC a lot of reasons to have trouble sleeping, and at times, I felt like that was kind of dumb and cliche.    But now I realize why I did that in the first place.    Nightmares and sleepless nights are par for the course for Super Saiyans.   The only reason we don’t see Trunks having bizarre prophetic nightmares is because he grew up in one.    Showing him sleeping poorly seems kind of redundant, you know? 

Turns out, Gohan had a fever, which isn’t too surprising, considering the extreme conditions of this place.    Once again, Gohan apologizes for not being good enough or strong enough to live up to the expectations he has for himself, but Goku’s totally cool about this.    Goku’s been there, after all.    More importantly, Gohan is far, far stronger than Goku ever was at his age.    To put this into perspective, Gohan probably just now turned 11.    Goku was 12 when Bulma first met him.    As much as Gohan looks up to his dad, I think the reverse applies too.   

Goku tries to tuck him in, and  Gohan murmurs something about his desire to protect the others.    Gohan’s laser focused on this.    He may not enjoy fighting, but he’s completely devoted to the mission.  

Back to business, Cell is here on TV to announce his new tournament, the Cell Games.   First he introduces himself as the monster who killed all those people in Gingertown, Nickytown, and elsewhere.   He says he no longer needs to feed on people, but he will be kicking the ass of everyone who shows up at his tournament in nine days.  

Is that Piccolo’s TV, or Tien’s?    Either way, I find it hilarious. 

Basically, the Cell Game only resembles the Tenkaichi Budokai in the sense that you can lose by giving up, or by falling out of the ring.   Otherwise, it’s a very different format.    Instead of an elimination bracket, it’s a gauntlet match.    Cell stands in the ring, and fights each competitor.    If he wins, the next guy steps up and he fights that guy, and so on.    The idea is to see how many of these fights Cell can win in a row with no time to rest.    In theory, the more fighters who show up, the better chance of them wearing Cell down.   

Perhaps most critically, lethal force is not illegal, as Chi-Chi speculated.  If Cell kills you, you lose, not him.   Frankly, that just makes sense.    In the Tenkaichi Budokai, the idea was to defeat your opponent, not murder him, so lethal force would get you disqualified.    

But the Cell Games are for the fate of the Earth.    If Cell wins, he plans to kill everyone on the planet.   So why should he spare his opponents?  Why should he disqualify himself if he accidentally kills an opponent?  

On the flip side, why should his opponents worry about killing him?    If there was a no-kill rule, and Goku managed to kill Cell, that would technically make Cell the winner, but who would care?   Also, what would happen if Goku managed to beat Cell by ringout?  Would Cell abide by the rules?   He never really explained what would happen if he lost.   I assume he just didn’t see that as a possibility, or maybe he expected his opponents to try to kill him no matter what, so it wasn’t important.  

I’m not the kind of Cell fan who spends a lot of time looking for ways he could reform, although I do feel like it’s a shame that he couldn’t see the value of sparing the Earth and making the Cell Games a regular thing.   Like, let’s say he held this competition, and he survives to the end, win or lose.    Wouldn’t it make sense to stage a followup tournament for next year?     If the Saiyans could give him good sport twice, why not a third time?   And then the Cell Games just becomes this annual event where everyone gets together to see how many fights this bug man can win.   

But the reality is that Cell’s too big a dick for that.    His perfect form was built on thousands of innocent victims, and his tournament ring is sitting on top of farmland owned by a guy her murdered.   He killed that news anchor right before he announced this game, and he closes his announcement by blowing up part of the city he’s in.    Yeah, Cell loves fighting, and you might talk him into doing Cell Games II next year, but he also loves terrorizing helpless people, and he’d be doing that for the entire year until the next event.   I suppose this is what sets him apart from Vegeta and Piccolo.

Anyway, everyone is suitably terrified by Cell’s announcement.    Cell is the first villain to announce his presence to the world since King Piccolo conquered it over a decade ago.   The Saiyan invasion was known to the world, but there was very little understanding of what was going on.   Goku’s role in that battle never made it to the news media, and the other Z-Fghters who did get televised all died in battle.    To the world at large, they just knew that East City got destroyed by aliens, then there was a battle in some remote location, a bunch of martial artists and camera crews died, and then the aliens were gone.   

This is something that’s always interested me about Dragon Ball, because I’m used to comic book universes where the main heroes and their adventures are well known to the public.  I guess Superman was sort of the origin of that whole idea, since he worked for a newspaper, and he was such a powerful character that it was big news whenever he did anything, even in secret.     In some of Superman’s earliest outings, he seemed very interested in keeping a low profile, like he didn’t even want people to know he existed, but the costume sort of undermined that idea.    Eventually, he settled into the formula of being a public figure, and then writing about his own adventures as Clark Kent. 

Other superhero franchises have followed that premise, although it gets kind of strained in places.  If Mr. Fantastic invented a flying car years ago, why does everyone in Marvel still use real world technology?   A lot of fantasy worlds try to sidestep that problem by having the super-powered characters exist in secret.    Harry Potter’s whole deal is that wizards are real, and they have a whole secret society going on under the nose of the rest of the world, although it’s not very clear why they felt it so important to do this in the first place.   The real reason is that J.K. Rowling wanted Harry to grow up in a normal household, instead of some parallel world where everyone knows magic is real.  

Dragon Ball sort of tries to have it both ways.     It’s mostly like the real world, but it can have advanced technology like the Hoi-Poi capsules and hovercars, and then there’s remote parts of the world where they don’t have those things.   Trucks with wheels are still a thing, probably because Toriyama likes to draw real cars and made-up cars and he saw no reason to have to choose.   As for Goku, he just goes in, whips ass, and leaves.    If there’s media attention for his actions, so be it, but he’s not interested in it, so he doesn’t pursue it.    One day the Red Ribbon Army got wiped out, and the world has no idea how or why.    One day, King Piccolo got taken down, and the world found out about it, but they knew almost nothing about the boy who did the job.   One day, Vegeta got sent packing, but he eventually came back, and no one knows who he is, or what happened in between.  

And Goku’s fine with that.    He sees no point in giving press conferences, or explaining What Just Happened to the rest of the people.    He’s a very minor celebrity for participating in the Tenkaichi Budokai competitions, but only hardcore martial arts fans would have heard of him.    I’m a pro wrestling fan, but I’d have to look up the last three winners of the G1.  

And maybe this is one reason I dig this show so much.    Over the years, western comic books have gotten increasingly mired in pointless details.    You look at the new Spider-Man movie that’s coming up, and the general idea seems to be that Spider-Man needs Nick Fury to tell him what to do.    That’s how the comics have been for decades now.    These days you can’t be a superhero without some government agent telling you which way to pull up your tights.    It’s bullshit, but the writers think it’s more “realistic” that way.    Come to think of it, pro wrestling fell into the same trap a while back.    It used to be that you’d turn on wrestling and they’d just show a bunch of matches, and it was taken for granted that some unseen authority booked the card.    Now every American wrestling promotion has to waste time on all these in-story CEO’s, general managers, commissioners, and assistant general managers, and they all argue over which of them outranks the other.   It’s dumb.   Just let them fight.    Dragon Ball’s gonna let them fight.   

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 1: The Note Dawdling Tension Plays (Part 1)

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

CHEL: Here we see the first page, and are introduced to our protagonist, ZOOSMELL POOPLORD! Sorry, I mean John Egbert. The joke names used as a running gag, and also the actual names which end up applied to the characters, were the suggestions of the players of the original forum game.

BRIGHT: Homestuck does start out strongly in several ways. It immediately establishes the protagonist and location. It sets the tone it will use, one based heavily on a text adventure computer game. It introduces the reader to the inventory system...

And here the first feature of Homestuck becomes apparent: although a hugely popular and widely known webcomic, it is very slow to get going. The new reader who arrives on the recommendation of others ends up scratching their head and wondering if they’re in the right place.

TIER: In ancient times (so somewhere in 2014/15) I actually attempted to read Homestuck to see what the occasional weird noises the name caused were going on about. I'm very certain that I didn't even make it to meeting any of the other kids I was so bored.

CHEL: Same here. It took me two or three attempts to get to that point. The problem is that the intro is left over from its days as a forum game, in which no one was expecting it to lead into the epic story it became. It worked great for that format, but less well now. And here we start on our first counts.

GET ON WITH IT!: 1 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 2

How Not to Write a Novel lists multiple errors which could be said to apply here:

The Waiting Room - wherein the story is too long delayed Here the writer churns out endless scenes establishing background information with no main story in sight. On chapter 3, the reader still has no idea why it’s important to know about [the background info, in this case how badly John fails at using technology]. By chapter 7, the reader would be having strong suspicions that it isn’t important, were a reader ever to make it as far as chapter 7. Zeno’s Manuscript - in which irrelevant detail delays narrative momentum Any scene can be killed by description of every meaningless component of whatever action the character undertakes. As in Zeno’s Paradox, in which an arrow never reaches its target because it must always travel half the remaining distance, the reader begins to feel as if the end is further and further away.

A comic about a kid failing to master a video game inventory system is mildly amusing once, but not when it drags on this long, and it’s not particularly fitting for an epic adventure involving the fate of universes. Well, that’s not quite fair; introduction to mundane life and slow revelation of the magical goings-on works fine for books like the Harry Potter series. But, to take Philosopher’s Stone as an example, multiple different odd things happen over the course of Uncle Vernon’s regular boring day, increasing in scale until it’s very clear something strange is going on, and establishing multiple aspects of the wizarding world, e.g. owls, their fashion, the existence and disappearance of a mysterious villain, the fact that the wizarding world is supposed to be secret.

John fucking about with his sylladex and putting up movie posters for page after page doesn’t tell us anything new. Failing to use the sylladex once would be enough to get the point that magical video game inventories are a thing in this world and John’s not very good at using them across, and then we really ought to move on, and we can already see the posters on his walls so we don’t need to see him hanging more. Possibly we could have needed the latter in a purely text format where we couldn’t see the walls, or in a comic without text description at the bottom where attention would need to be drawn to them on-panel. Admittedly, it does establish him picking up the hammer, which becomes relevant, but we don’t need a full page each for both the action of him picking up the hammer and the action of him hanging the poster.

… Who hangs a poster with nails, anyway? His walls must be in a hell of a state.

For that matter, that’s another HNTWAN entry or two:

The Second Argument in the Laundromat - a scene which occurs twice NEVER use two scenes to establish the same thing. We do not, under any circumstances, want a series of scenes in which the hero goes to job interviews but fails to get the job, or has a series of unsuccessful dates to illustrate bad luck in love. This works in the movies, where three scenes can pass in thirty seconds, but not in a novel. The Redundant Tautology - wherein the author repeats himself If you have made a point in one way, resist the temptation to reinforce it by making it again. Do not reexpress it in more flowery terms, and do not have the character reaffirm it in dialogue […] This point is worth repeating; don’t reiterate. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 4

Additionally, people with a lower tolerance for “lovable clumsy dork” characters are going to come to hate John before the comic’s even started, though it’s probably best that people who are going to hate the main character learn that quickly so they can leave. I can understand not wanting to lose the forum game which originally spawned the comic, the other people involved would probably not be pleased, but perhaps it would be better saved as a side story and trimmed down when the comic proper was released. At least they could be compressed down by showing multiple failures and multiple poster-hanging actions on single pages.

One other minor gripe might be the neologisms, such as “sylladex” meaning inventory. I found it fairly easy to pick up and it does make the tone and narration nicely distinctive, but it’s a level of extra complication. How Not to Write a Novel has a couple points on excessively baroque wordplay - do you guys think it’s worth giving it a point for that?

BRIGHT: Possibly not in this case - wordplay is a feature of HS and this one is at least made fairly clear. There are plenty of offenders later on as I recall though...

CHEL: Okay, seems fair. In this case it is more of a feature than a bug. It does establish the narrative voice and add to the video game theme. However, the movie posters also bring up an addition to our third count.

Plus, a black president? Now you’ve seen everything! WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 1

A reference to the song “White Suburb Impressionism”, by IAMX…

"IAMX - 'White Suburb Impressionism" (Watch on YouTube)

… this count goes up whenever characters behave in a way which suggests they’re, well, white and suburban (or wealthier), despite any attempts to present them otherwise. This would have passed without comment, but Hussie later tried to claim he’d always intended the kids to be “aracial”, so any reader could project themselves or their preferred headcanons onto the kids. As we’ll show you, we don’t believe him, or at least don’t believe he succeeded. That would probably be difficult to pull off, anyway. Race affects a lot more than features on a stylised sprite.

FAILURE ARTIST: Now, I can’t quite put my finger on it but John’s and Dave’s opinion on black presidents in movies (that it’s a gimmick ruined by Obama’s election) feels like something that would only come out of a white mouth i.e. Andrew Hussie’s. Not the most egregious case of implied whiteness but still worth noting.

CHEL: The point of the joke here is not 100% clear, and that’ll be a thing which comes up later as well. See, I agree that’s Dave’s opinion, but I thought the point was that John genuinely didn’t know there was a black president at the time of writing because he’s already been established to be not exactly a genius and so far he’s been focused on movies and video games instead of real life. Maybe I’m underestimating him, though, since admittedly not very much of him has been shown at this point and it’s been a while since I read the whole thing. I’m not going to start using the ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY count here, though, because here Hussie clearly was trying to be funny. It just isn’t clear to me what about it was supposed to be funny. That’s probably my autism talking, though. Jokes are hard. I agree that it sounds like a white kid’s opinion either way - even the dimmest black American kid would know Obama existed, and so most likely would non-black people of colour.

Anyway! Things pick up a bit when John, under the username ectoBiologist, starts chatting to the second character to be introduced, currently known as turntechGodhead, though the second topic of conversation is a reference to a 1989 movie which, as time goes on, will be familiar to fewer and fewer readers. Luckily, the writer realises this, and the content of the conversation makes the reference sufficiently clear without falling into As You Know dialogue.

FAILURE ARTIST: Namely, their conversation is about a scene where - pardon me for being gross but it’s in the comic - a character accidentally ingests urine instead of apple juice. John and TG are surprised the character knew it was urine but I find it weird that someone with working smell would not know what it is. Urine has a distinct odor.

CHEL: Well, be fair. According to the drawings, the characters in question don’t have noses!

FAILURE ARTIST: On a more pertinent note, this conversation is an edited version of one Hussie and a friend had. Perhaps Hussie was TG? TG is practically an Author Avatar for Hussie. Sure, Hussie literally appears in the comic later, but TG seems to fit his true personality better. We’ll see how that affects things for better or for worse.

BRIGHT: This is also the reader’s introduction to the Pesterlog. This is one of those things that seems like it should be out of place in a webcomic - it’s just a page of two people talking to each other in chatlog format, with no other information - but the Pesterlogs actually work surprisingly well.

FAILURE ARTIST: When I first read Homestuck, I didn’t know you had to click on the Pesterlog to open it. I just sat around wondering what amazing conversations they were having. I’m not the only one I think who made that mistake.

CHEL: Yeah, I think I briefly had the same problem, but I don’t remember for sure. Possibly more attention could be drawn to the button.

TIER: I would've probably ended up in the same boat if the friends that recommended I read Homestuck didn't specifically tell me not to accidentally overlook them!

CHEL: That’s not exactly a writing error, so I’m not sure it falls under our jurisdiction, but it’s a point that ought to be brought up. The Pesterlogs do work well once the reader actually sees them, anyway. It’s actually pretty interesting to see how much information can be conveyed in a conversation without falling into As You Know Bob. Let’s check what points are introduced in this first one, for example:

- John really loves what he got for his birthday, a Little Monsters poster. From this we know he’s not spoiled (this is how you do it, Meyer) and easily entertained, and likely has a good home life, as he’s so happy and grateful about a gift from his dad.

-turntechGodhead has apple juice in his closet. This establishes his odd home life, and gets explained in more detail later.

- Some things about the personalities of both kids. John is enthusiastic and a joker, TG is mellower, sarcastic, rambles a bit, and at least plays at being cool.

- John really wants to play the SBURB Beta, a game mentioned earlier which is late being released. TG is less keen, again trying to be cool about it.

- Said game got “slammed” by critics, despite the fact that we learned earlier from John’s SBURB-logo calendar that this game has been hyped to hell and back and must be popular, with merchandise and reviews being released before even the beta version of the game is out. Something weird is going on; someone really wants a lot of people to play this game.

Not bad considering a total lack of body language reference or narration. Das Sporking’s seen authors using traditional narration do worse!

FAILURE ARTIST: The (adult) critics of Game Bro get into shenanigans that prevent them from playing the game they reviewed. Perhaps there’s something in the game that prevents itself from being played by adults, just like how adults can’t pilot Evangelions in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

CHEL: Not sure. Doesn’t one of Dad’s online friends play it, or at least get caught up in it, later on? Though that part’s obviously supposed to be a joke… Maybe instead it’s a built-in way to stop anyone who might be listened to warning others what it does?

As established earlier, said beta is late; this is a reference to the originally planned launch date of the comic, three days before it actually ended up being released. Also, there’s a pun you may have missed in the background. The programming files on John’s desktop include the phrase “^CAKE”. The ^ symbol is called a carot. Get used to noticing those. It’s pretty amazing how many references, self-references, puns, and recurring themes are worked in, and people such as revolutionaryduelist have made semi-careers picking them all out. We won’t bother with all of them or we’ll be here all century, but we’ll pick up on any obvious ones.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie majored in computer science so there’s lot of computer science in-jokes in the beginning.

BRIGHT: Something I just noticed: One of the other files on John’s desktop is ‘TYPHEUS’. It even has a Denizen icon! Probably something that has been brought up plenty of times before, but still nifty on a reread.

CHEL: Typheus and Denizens will come up later in the comic.

TIER: When he feels like it, Hussie is immensely good at foreshadowing later events in pretty subtle but solid ways. It's stuff like this that makes times when he does fumble look worse than they probably are in comparison.

[birdandbasket]

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