#but that’s not a huge issue unless i got a bunch of people banging down my door for full BB sets

[overheaven]

got some thingies in the mail >:)

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

[greekletters]

who likes elevators?

hey everyone! back again today with a new one shot. 

Prompt: We are trapped 

-------------------

That meeting couldn’t have gone any worse than it had. Your presentation was flawless. It was more of an issue with the audience. Just a bunch of old men sitting at a boardroom table, listening to you drone on about technology and how introducing more of it will advance the business they’ve been keeping in the dark ages for years. 

Instead of being praised for the innovative thoughts you had, your boss had spent the last half hour shaming you for progressive thought. 

Honestly, you don’t know why you keep this job. You absolutely hate it. It makes you feel creatively stunted. Sure, the pay was decent. It allowed you to live comfortably. But you had watched too many of your male coworkers ascend the corporate ladders of this company and many others for accomplishments far less than your own. 

So when you step your first solemn footstep into the elevator, you release a heavy sigh of defeat. As the elevator begins to hum and pass from the nearly highest floor down towards the lobby, you start to replay the meeting over in your mind. 

What was keeping you here at this trash job? Was the money really enough to compensate for your ambitions? Hardly. 

The elevator begins to slow about midway through the journey. When the doors slowly pull apart at the eleventh floor, there it is. The one thing that you want to stick around for. The one thing that made it worth coming to this building for all week. Something that made the menial work you do worth tolerating. 

Weiss Schnee. 

The Schnee Company took up floors five through eleven of the building. And every now and again, you got a glimpse of the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen in your entire life. In this elevator. And you just weren’t ready to give up this elevator yet. So when Weiss Schnee steps into the elevator with you, you politely nod and step to the side. 

“Good afternoon.” She greets you, her voice slightly nasally. 

The doors slide shut once again, and the humming of the elevator resumes. Tenth floor, then the ninth. Then you hear something that resembles the sound of the air brake on a bus and a loud grinding sound. And the elevator comes to a slow stop. 

“What is going on?” She leans forward and repeatedly presses the button for the lobby. 

“I think the motor in the elevator blew. Or at least that’s kind of what it sounded like.”

“Are you some undercover elevator technician,” she looks at the ID badge clipped to your jacket pocket “Blake Belladonna?”

“Um no, definitely not.” You reach across her and hit the emergency alarm button on the panel. 

“Hello?” A voice echoes through the intercom. “What is your emergency?”

“Other than being trapped in this damn elevator?” Weiss answers back, annoyance ringing clear as crystal in the metal box. 

“We are aware that the elevator has ceased to function as expected. Please don’t be alarmed. We are currently looking into it, Miss Schnee.”

“How do you even know who is in the elevator?”

“You have to scan your ID prior to being able to summon the elevator, for security purposes. Are either you or Miss Belladonna hurt? Will you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine.” You say, leaning against the far wall. 

“I require no medical attention. Assuming you are getting us out of here sooner, rather than later.”

“We are doing our best to get the two of you out of there as soon a-“

Before he can finish, the ambient lighting in the elevator cuts out. Leaving only the emergency track lighting at the ceiling edges. 

“Great. This is just great. We are, we are-“

“Trapped.” You can’t help but notice the irony of your situation. “We are trapped.”

You are trapped in an elevator with only ambient emergency lighting, with the girl of your dreams, after the literal worst day of work you’ve probably ever had. How could this get any worse?

“Hey!” Weiss starts banging on the door of the elevator, and grasping at the crack where the doors meet trying to force them apart. Crazy. The girl of your dreams might be crazy, or at the very least, claustrophobic. “Get us out of here!”

“Would you like me to help?” You know there’s no point, but you offer anyways. 

“With?” She looks at you, questioningly. 

“The door?” You point a finger to where she’s been standing and take a few steps toward her. 

Carefully, you wedge your fingers in the doorframe and pull with all your might. But the doors don’t budge. Not really surprising. Taking a few steps back, you take your original place and slide down and sit. You have a feeling this isn’t going to be a quick rescue. 

“You’re giving up? Already?” Weiss continues trying to pull the doors apart, with no success. 

“Well, even if you got the doors open, where do you propose we go? We are in between floors.”

“Perfect.” Her shoulders slouch and she moves to sit a few feet from you. “How do you know so much about the mechanics of elevators?”

“I don’t know much about them. But I do know the motors have a safety feature that keeps the doors from flinging open or slamming shut too quickly. And if the motor is blown, we won’t have enough leverage to override that feature and get the doors to open.” 

“What exactly is it that you do here, Blake Belladonna?” She squints her eyes and it makes you a little nervous and uneasy. 

“Well um, I work for Ironwood Communications.”

“Doing?”

“Right now I assist the Chief Technology Officer and oversee about 75% of the companies technical support teams.” 

“Right now?” She quirks an eyebrow. 

“Not sure how much longer that will be the case. I had a huge presentation for technological expansion today and I’m pretty sure it totally bombed.”

“I don’t know much about you, but you seem fairly thorough at risk assessment.” Motioning up to your surroundings. 

“Well, the last thing that happened before stepping into this elevator was a reprimanding from my boss about needless changes, the exhaustion of resources and being misaligned with company goals.”

“It couldn’t have been too bad.” Waving her hand to dismiss the notion.

“They didn’t even let me finish the presentation. Told me they would ‘circle back.”

“Ah.” She nods. Knowing full well what that means. The two of you sit in silence for the next few seconds before you hear her clear her throat. “I have an idea. Pitch it to me instead.”

“What?”

“Your presentation. I assume you reviewed it enough to be able to present at least some of it from memory.”

“I suppose I can, if you’re really interested?” This honestly wasn’t the first conversation you had imagined having with your beautiful elevator dream girl. 

“Go on.”

And so you give the same presentation, in its entirety, that you gave an hour prior. It takes almost 45 minutes. But this time, Weiss engages with you, asking questions, all of which you answer. After you complete your makeshift presentation, Weiss takes a few moments to ponder something. 

“You know, the Schnee Company is currently looking for a new Chief Technology Officer, our current one is looking to retire.” She looks back up at you. 

“I heard some people talking about that in the cafeteria the other day.”

“How would you like the job?” The blood in your veins runs cold. 

“Wh, what?” You shake your head. “Forgive me, I’m so sorry. But are you offering me a job? In the elevator?”

“Now that sounds foolish, doesn’t it?” She laughs. “But yeah, I think I am.”

“You smiling is unfair.”

“Why is that?” The lights flicker and come back on. And you grab the handle lining the walls and pull yourself off the floor. 

“Makes my judgement feel a little clouded, is all.” Extending your hand to help her off the ground, she takes it and hops up, coming face to face with you in the confined space. 

The elevator begins to move slowly. 

“You want to know one of the best perks about being the Chief Technology Officer of the Schnee Company?” 

“The stock options? Or the retirement?”

“When the Chief Financial Officer asks you out, you won’t have to say no because of a conflict of interest with your current company, or due to a fraternization policy. Unless you just really want to say no, which I doubt. And I will also make sure that they compensate you properly for your work.”

The doors slide open and Weiss Schnee steps out into the lobby in front of you. 

“Two weeks.” You take a step from the elevator and follow her into the lobby. 

“Excuse me?” She tilts her head slightly to one side. 

“I would love to accept the position, but I would ask that I can provide proper notice to my current employer.” She shakes her head as though to clear her thoughts. 

“Of course. Not a problem.”

“You seem surprised.”

“I honestly didn’t think it would be that easy.”

“Oh, it is the only easy thing about me, Miss Schnee.” She quirks an eyebrow before turning and walking away. And you realize what you just said. “Wait!” You trot after her. “That came out completely wrong.”

“Oh it’s fine, I’m completely up to the challenge.”

She winks at you before walking out of the doorway and to where ever it is that Weiss Schnee goes. Hopefully, you will soon find out. 

[acraftedmistake]

A Person Who Has Never Played MCSM Writes A Story About MCSM Chp. 6

YEEEAAAAH CHP. 6 BABY!!

Ended up changing a huge chunk of stuff, especially past the halfway point so it took a bit longer than expected!! As always, thank you guys for being patient with me! Hope you like the chapter! <3 

“So...” Aiden placed his coffee cup on the kitchen table and stood up to finally stretch, “That’s what you know about us, huh?”

“Mm-hm.” Jesse nodded, still seated.

“And Gill and I were a couple of ‘bullies’ huh?” his voice had a sense of relief to it, like he was expecting much worse to come from Jesse’s mouth.

“Yup.”

“And if I asked Olivia about this she’d respond with a similar answer?”

“... More or less?” Jesse avoided eye contact with Aiden and Gill, who still didn’t seem fully convinced.

Gill spoke up “You look like you’re holdin’ somethin’ back.” scanning Jesse as if he expected more information to make itself visible.

Jesse felt himself getting sweaty like he was caught red handed in a lie. His throat got tight but he tried to push away his worries. He didn’t ‘lie’, in fact, he told the truth. Some truth. He had only told the two about the minor harassment that had happened before Jesse became “The New Order of the Stone”.  The name calling, ruining his creation back at Endercon, Jesse believed that was enough for Aiden to paint the whole picture.

‘Besides,’ Jesse thought to himself, ‘If I shared EVERY detail about everyone here, we’d be here for hours.’ he breathed in, reassuring himself.

“Well we can’t necessarily prove him wrong,” Aiden said “And--as vague as he was--everything sounded too specific to be a lie.”

“So what? We’re just gonna believe him till we have more proof?”

“Unless you have any better ideas, yes.” Aiden said, not sounding too fond of the idea either.

The three were still in silence with Aiden thinking to himself once again. He found himself trying to force his mind to believe everything he had been told was all made up. It sounded fake--an ‘Endercon’, being in some silly rival gang--but it didn’t feel like a lie. When Jesse explained his side, there was an odd sense of genuineness to it, and as much as Aiden was waiting for his brain to set off any alarms as the story was being told, they remained untouched and soundless.

‘It couldn’t be the truth.’ Aiden thought, ‘It all sounded like a half baked lie.’ but his gut was saying otherwise.

Jesse, admittedly, was a bit confused and unsettled that neither Aiden nor Gill had uttered a word about what they knew about Jesse. They were very open about their anger towards him, restraining him twice knowing he’d attack and accused him of being crazy. ‘Like Gill said,’ Jesse thought, his face concentrated as it stared in no general direction, ‘It feels like they’re holding something back.’

“What should we do now? I feel bad for standin’ around doin’ nothin’.” Gill spoke up, getting the attention of the others. He talked in a noticeably slower manner; Jesse must have forgotten what Gill and his irritating voice was like. It was like he couldn’t quite grasp what he was told so he spoke close to the pace of a turtle just in case realization struck him half way through.

“Yeah.” Aiden agreed. “I was thinking we could kill two birds with one stone and head over to Hadrian’s now. I don’t want to wait until tomorrow with the risk of not getting anything valuable at all. Especially if there’s a much bigger issue at hand.”

Gill stood up and pushed his chair in, “Sounds good to me. It’ll be a quick trip. But...” he leaned against the dark brown dining table and turned his head to Jesse in an uncomfortable position, “What should we do with him? Lock ‘em here?”  

Aiden made his way to the window in the living room and peered through it, watching the buildings and the people who went in and out of them. He thought about Rose and wondered if she and the others were able to make it to the library.

He sighed and hesitantly said “No. As much as I don’t want to do this, we’ll have to bring Jesse along with us.”

“What--” Gill started but halted as Aiden began his explanation.

“It’d be two of us watching over one of him, plus when we get to Hadrian’s, that’ll be two extra sets of eyes on him. And let’s say he IS lying about all this...” Aiden circled around Jesse like a shark. Gill nodded along.

“If we leave him here, he’d break or steal our items, escape, get himself or other people hurt, a whole bunch of risks I’m not willing to take.”

“Yeah! ‘N we can beat ‘em up if he acts up!” Gill said a little too enthusiastically as he cracked his knuckles.

Jesse peeped, “Can I get a say in where I-”

“No!” Aiden and Gill responded simultaneously.  Jesse jumped by the sudden, angered answer.

“I just don’t want anything stupid to happen that we could’ve prevented.” Aiden ended his explanation on an unnatural note; it seemed like he wanted to say more but decided against it. He left the kitchen, Gill watched on but Jesse remained seated. Just to be safe.

‘Anything stupid… that we could’ve prevented’, those words bounced back and forth in Jesse’s mind.

‘Oh jeez, Olivia!” a surge of realization and panic ran through his body and the need to run out to find his friend had to be repressed. He couldn’t up and leave with Aiden and Gill watching him but an awful, rising feeling of anxiousness kept commanding him to escape.

Because if anything happened to her, it’d be on him for never checking on her, asking if her heading off with three known enemies was a safe idea or okay with her, or heck, even giving her a reassuring thumbs up could’ve made a difference. How could he keep quiet when Olivia volunteered to go along with those girls? Maybe everything was happening too fast and he was so caught up and confused in the mess he didn’t register what Olivia was doing. She can handle herself, they’ve been in worse situations but he felt like an awful friend regardless.

‘She’s gonna be fine.’ he told himself, ‘If she wanted to join them, there had to have been a reason for it.’

“Hey,” Jesse turned to Aiden who held the door open, “Let’s get a move on.” he tilted his head towards the outside world.

Gill grabbed Jesse’s arm with a bone-crushing grip and lifted him off of his chair, causing it to fumble over to the ground. Both Jesse and Aiden seemed a bit off guard by his sudden action.

“Gill! Don’t--That isn’t necessary, thank you.”

Gill took note of Aiden’s tone and let go of Jesse, looking ashamed.

“I know you mean well but we don’t have to attack him unless he starts… Freaking out.”

“Yeah, I can get up myself, thanks.” Jesse hissed as he held his aching arm.

Gill scratched the back of his neck and grinded his teeth before saying “I’m sorry, it’s just the girls always tell me to be more rough ‘n I didn’ know if you wanted th’same...”

Aiden groaned ‘Of course they did.’

He spoke up again, “You know what, that’s alright, misunderstandings happen. Not our biggest concern right now.” he motioned towards Jesse, “If you want to move him along--carefully--you can. Just to make sure he doesn’t run off.”

Gill, without hesitation, shoved Jesse along as he walked and apparently had the strength to push him forward with ease. His large hand on Jesse’s back was enough to move him out of the house and to the front gate in seconds without Jesse needing to take a single step. The second they reached the end of the yard, Gill immediately stopped pushing and let Jesse fall to the cold, stone road with a loud thud. Jesse rubbed his jaw and shook the hair out of his face while glaring at Gill as he continued walking at a slow pace, facing the house and waiting for his friend to catch up.

Jesse sat up and heard footsteps come from behind; definitely Aiden. He didn’t need to turn around, he didn’t even need to glance at Aiden, he could practically feel his mouth open to release a judgemental comment.

“Again,” Jesse said as he pushed himself up, “I can get up myself.” He followed Gill to where their yard ended and the path began, not giving a second of his time to Aiden.

Aiden joined the other two and scanned the street, seeing if there were any individuals or groups of people near their destination. He focused on a small, one story, wooden oak building. Compared to the other taller, more refined buildings with their sturdy bricks, stone, concrete, and obsidian and their bright lights inside that beamed through the windows and illuminated the streets, the tiny structure had vines that started from the roof and ended at the ground and was banged up with chunks missing here and there. It was a miracle that it was still standing.

The little building was nearly hidden by the surrounding ones and the only thing that kept it from completely disappearing was a small, lit lamp that hung from the overhang, swaying gently with the breeze.

‘Is it even open?’ Jesse thought to himself, leaning in slightly to study the building a bit better. It didn’t even have a sign. And maybe it was because it was placed between the--what appeared to be--the giant public library and the blacksmith he caught a glimpse of earlier, but it looked exceptionally tiny. He hadn’t even stepped foot into the place and he already felt cramped in there.

Then a thought crept from the back of Jesse’s head, ‘Will I know Hadrian?’ He wasn’t thinking about it too much before, but it finally clicked with him why that name rang a faint bell: Hadrian from The Games. It had been such a long time. ‘He’s not the only Hadrian in this world, it could be anybody...’

“Hey-!” Jesse felt someone’s hand grab his and squeeze it before dragging him behind them, giving him no other choice but to move his feet, his shoes scraping the pavement with each step.

“Head down and don’t say anything.” Aiden whispered loud enough for Jesse to catch; he took bigger steps which made walking with him feel like a marathon.

As Aiden kept his focus on the little building, Gill kept his on Jesse. Not that he had to, as the brunette did what he was told and wasn’t too fond of starting conflict tonight of all nights. He hated staring at the floor though. If he wasn’t looking at the face of someone that hated him, he was staring at the ground. It didn’t help that the surroundings seemed to tease him with the sounds of people talking, doors closing, or any signs that the world was lived in and he was prohibited from seeing it.

Luckily, the journey only took two minutes at most and the trio came to a stop. Jesse brushed strands of hairs out of his eyes and carefully lifted his head up, unsure he was allowed to do anything without Aiden and Gill’s explicit permission.

Jesse was used to being the “leader” in one way or another, and he didn’t mind listening to other figures in charge as long as it meant he could help, but something about being bossed around by Aiden of all people didn’t sit with him well. He felt that he was being talked down to, given basic commands that you’d give to a dog. It was almost humiliating.

As Gill and Aiden had a quiet exchange, Jesse blocked them out and he scanned the place for a label, sign, anything that’d hint at what this place might be.

The front door of the old building? Well, the door looked like the only decent part of the exterior. The only visible window was a little one on the door that probably allowed people to peek through to see the inside, but it was covered up by the curtains on the other side and an “OPEN” sign with its once bold colors faded from the sun’s light. How welcoming.

“...And hopefully we’ll get something useful. Got it?” Aiden asked, Jesse whirled his head back to them.

“You bet!” Gill gave his friend two thumbs up.

“Jesse?”

“Right!” Jesse responded on command, absolutely unaware of what they were talking about.

Aiden smoothed his hair down and went to zip up his leather jacket; he stopped himself, remembering where it was and huffed to himself, a little embarrassed as the two watched the scene play out.

“Alright,” Aiden shifted their attention onto the more important matter. “I’ll go in first, Jesse...” he stared at the curly haired boy while trying to come up with a quick solution, “You’re between Gill and I.”

Aiden opened the door, a bell tied around the other side of the rusted door knob jingled until it soon hit the wall.

Jesse stepped in, feeling Gill squeeze himself in and closing the door behind him. The cool air was replaced by a muggy one. Two large shelves on both sides of the room that touched the low ceiling gave Jesse the impression that they’ve been boxed in; that if they spent any more than a couple of minutes here, they’d suffocate. Aiden and Gill’s height and broad shoulders squishing against him were not easing out this feeling.

“Who is it?” a raspy yet smooth voice shouted from somewhere.

“Aiden! I brought some friends.” Aiden shouted back as he moved forward.

Jesse was hoping that the rest of the place wasn’t as confined as the entrance and he’d have enough space to look around or even stand comfortably without Gill breathing on the back of his neck. Jesse observed the shelves, noticing the variety of objects that were shoved into them without any thought, looking as cramped as he felt. Nothing about the objects was consistent. Not the sizes, nor purpose or material. You would have an old journal next to a sharpened sword, or a helmet sitting by a lump of coal. Some items had a small strip of paper tied to them with prices scribbled on. ‘Okay, so this is someone’s store.’ Jesse thought to himself. He breathed in and got a noseful of the earthy smell that consumed the area, it sort of reminded him of ‘An antique store?’

“Oh, Aiden!” a cheerful, feminine disembodied voice spoke. “Is Gill with you?”

“Yep. And... Someone else.” Aiden muttered the last part while sucking in his gut to make it through the end of the cluttered barrier of shelves, trying not to knock any of the items over.

“I’ll be there in juuust a second, boy.” the raspy voice said, followed by a loud crashing sound. “Minute.”

Jesse slipped out of the awkward hall and stood on the left of Aiden with Gill on the right. To the left of the three, there was a counter with a cash register that looked relatively cleaned. Jesse scanned the rest of the place and the first thing that caught his attention were the amount of white candles lit and scattered throughout the area. From stubby to slender, their delicate flames danced about and lit the organized chaos surrounding them.

Jesse peered over the end of the right bookshelf and managed to see a decently sized stage that took up a quarter of the already small store, it was made of the dirtied spruce wood as the floor and stood only two feet tall.

There was an oak podium with a candle on top of it. The podium was in fine condition compared to the quality of everything else Jesse’s eyes landed on. The stage was awfully cluttered too; books, swords, and broken remains of statues stood on there. The statues, as fractured as they were, seemed to be based on the same person. A man who wore nothing extravagant but a plain t-shirt, long pants, and battered shoes. Though some statues had bits of variation to them. One of them, which only had the man’s torso, head, and right arm, had him holding a bow high into the air as he looked in the same direction. Another one was just the legs, but there was a sculpted sword that laid beside him.

They looked a bit unnerving, they almost reminded him of the face he saw in that temple earlier. The lack of color didn’t help.

Facing the stage were two rows of several chipped, cushioned chairs set up similarly to a classroom. Some chairs had a pile of books beside or on top of them.

The rest of the place? Nearly impossible to decipher. Walls were covered with papers and post-it notes, any sort of drawers, shelves, and desks that could be made out had been engulfed and surrounded by more... Junk. Could it be classified as junk? Some items are or could be useful, such as armors on stands that could be spotted, pickaxes, but then you’d have rocks. Actual rocks sitting around, abused books, worn boots; if someone sneezed, the whole place could collapse.

The mess was... Worrisome. With all these candles around, it’s a wonder how a fire hasn’t started yet.

The only areas that were actually clean and spacious were the counter and a small clearing on the opposite side of the stage. There were stacked boxes, instead of a mess, that seemed to frame around an older, oak door that was wide open. Jesse was able to make out the end of a bed, ‘Okay, so it’s someone’s house AND a store. Weird.’

Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the doorway and Jesse felt his brain shut down for a moment as the exact person he feared to see appeared. Hadrian. The same long, purple checkered robe with those small, thin, tinted glasses that sat close to the edge of his nose. His white, slightly curled hair contrasted the dreary, brown washed interior of the house-store.

He adjusted his robe to fit comfortably with his bright golden inner dress and began heading towards the counter, picking up a book that sat on top of one of the stacked boxes and flipped through it, skimming the contents and not paying much attention to the walk-ins.

He adjusted his robe to fit comfortably with his bright golden inner dress and began heading towards the counter, picking up a book that sat on top of one of the stacked boxes and flipped through it, skimming the contents and not paying much attention to the walk-ins.

Hadrian glanced at the trio with a smile on his face, “Aiden, Gill--Oh, and Jesse! What brings you fine boys here today?”

He placed the book into the already disorganized bookshelf next to Gill, “Sorry about that little wait, Mevia and I have been tryin’ to clean this old place up for once!” he chuckled to himself.

“Come in, come in! You’re always welcomed here! Mevia will be out with us in a split second.” Hadrian motioned them to come on in, the boys followed behind, still cautious with their surroundings. Jesse couldn’t force himself to be at ease, despite the warmest welcome he’s received all night, his body remained tense. This was going too smooth. Even Gill and Aiden were put off by Hadrian’s reaction, they watched him intensely as they followed, waiting for the eruption.

“The girls aren’t with ya today?” Hadrian asked.

Aiden sat stiffly in the back row of the chairs, resting his elbow on the top slat in an attempt to make himself relax. “Nope, went to the library.”

Gill plopped himself right next to Aiden, his back slouched over as he kept watching Hadrian. Jesse hesitantly sat a few seats away from them and was caught off guard by how uncomfortable and rigid the chairs were. What deceiving cushions.

Hadrian’s mind seemed occupied with everything else BUT the boys, his eyes wouldn’t focus on a set subject and he ran into a chair, knocking it over. He huffed to himself and picked it up, “Gill, you missed our little--our lesso... Our...”

His sentence began to trail off and he stumbled on his words until he fell silent, staring at the chair blankly.

He whirled his head around and scanned the boys again. Aiden, Gill...

Jesse saw the gears turning quickly and the realization hitting in Hadrian’s eyes. He had to do something--anything--to ease the moment!

“Hi?” was all Jesse could manage to say with an awkward wave.

“SWEET STEVE ABOVE US! MEVIA, IT’S JESSE!” Hadrian ran over to the stage then stomped full force into a wooden plank, causing it to flip up and reveal a chest underneath the section of the floor. He opened it and whipped out a loaded crossbow in the blink of an eye and aimed it at Jesse’s head.

All the boys were caught by surprise, Aiden and Gill flinched but remained seated unlike Jesse who shot up and reached behind his back to grab his sword--only to remember Cassie Rose took it from him earlier. He cussed to himself.  

“I’m getting the impression I’m not well liked here.” Jesse whispered, keeping his eyes on the crossbow.

“Good guess.” Gill said.

Rushing footsteps could be heard pounding the ground throughout the building, but the person--Mevia--remained hidden in the shadows. Everyone was on guard.

Aiden stood up and rotated his body to wherever the sound was coming from, still remaining in one place. Sword or no sword, Jesse didn’t want to be a sitting duck. He dug his feet into the ground and curled his hands to fists, head whipping around frantically, readying himself. His senses were in full swing; he became immersed by his surroundings, every rustling paper, every flick of a flame, nothing was missed. Then the steps came to a stop. Jesse thought--no--was certain that they ended right by the counter, she must be hiding behind it. He turned his head carefully towards the counter while still keeping Hadrian’s weapon in sight.

And maybe, maybe he was getting paranoid, but he swore he saw movement.

Should he head towards there, sit back down, talk? Or maybe he could--

“MOVE!” Aiden barked and shoved Jesse to the floor. Olivia’s green hat covered his eyes as he fell but this time Jesse managed to catch himself and didn’t hurt his face for the umpteenth time tonight.

‘I’m starting to feel like I’m getting to know the floor better than anyone else here.’ Jesse grumbled to himself.

A loud crack shot through his ears.

Jesse barely lifted the hat up to see the sharpened blade of a diamond axe centimeters away from his face. Its pronounced shade of blue shined from the candles’ lights, and the axe’s blade was lodged into the wood flooring standing at an angle, its handle inches above Jesse’s head.

“Well, that’s one way to hand out a souvenir.” Jesse attempted to lighten the mood.

Aiden, while not too thrilled with Jesse’s comedic timing, scanned Jesse’s body to make sure he wasn’t hit anywhere then turned to the direction where the axe was thrown and shouted “MEVIA!”

On the far right of the store, where a large, unstable bookshelf stood, a crouched figure shifted and caused it to rattle. “Hi, Aiden!” the cheerful voice greeted him from the top.

The figure leaped off and the weak lighting revealed Mevia herself. Brushing her long, dull blue hair out of her face and patting down her black dress--with the bottom quarter red--to get the dust off of her with one hand, the other holding a second axe.

“I know you mean well, but could you not move him next time? Thank you!”

Jesse rolled away from the axe as the little get together took place, ‘Looks like they’re friendly with each other.’

“You know how I--” Aiden was about to begin when Hadrian cut him off.

“And YOU know how we feel about THAT boy being in OUR house.” Hadrian jabbed his finger into Aiden’s chest while his other hand still held the crossbow with no signs of tiring out.

“Unless you brought him here to settle the issue out ourselves, I’d recommend you put him back in that cell where he belongs!”

“I actually have a reason for bringing him here this time.” Aiden’s vexed tone began mixing with a defensive one.

Hadrian shifted his head up but kept his eyes on Jesse, prompting Aiden to keep going.

“We went to the Shrine Of Eyes, saw him there, he doesn’t seem to remember much except... Well, me.” He kept it short, he didn’t want to keep repeating the same story unless he was asked for more details.

Hadrian let out a scoff, “So you forgot about EVERYTHING?”

Jesse sat up and brushed the hair out of his face, “Not necessarily ‘forgotten’, more like... I don’t know what’s going on.”

The old man chuckled and shook his head, “Well, I do say, this is definitely abnormal. Mevi, what are your thoughts on this?”

Hadrian watched Mevia twirl her axe around playfully, an amused smile on her face. “Very convenient timing!”

She approached Jesse, gripping the handle of her axe. “Almost as convenient as me having my favorite axe in hand while you’re in hitting range!” She threw her arm up and over her head, the smile still on her face. Mevia didn’t have an exact area where she wanted to strike Jesse, she just wanted to hit him.

The second Mevia brought her axe down by a millimeter, Olivia’s hat flew off his head as Jesse’s legs already pushed him off the ground and had him moving in reverse without him realizing. He backed himself against a bookshelf and watched as Mevia struggled to swing her axe down an inch more. She swished her head around, hair flying into her face and she was eye to eye with Aiden, who held onto the blade with a strong grip; unaffected by the edges digging into his fingers.

“We came here for a reason.” Aiden said again, releasing the axe. “If I wanted Jesse chopped up, I would’ve done it myself.”

Mevia lowered her weapon and clicked her tongue, “Oh, I’m sure you would’ve.” She stashed her axe away and grabbed the other on the floor, “But I’ll bite, why?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter if you believe him or not, we saw him near a portal with Olivia and need anything you have about…” Aiden slowed down at the sight of Hadrian and Mevia’s bugged eyes.

The woman raised her axe at Aiden and twirled it as if it were a part of her arm, “I’m sorry sweetie, I must’ve been hearing things. Could you... Repeat that?”

Hadrian had yet to move a muscle. He hadn’t even blinked. His mouth hung open as his body remained frozen.

Aiden attempted to backtrack with a swear leaving his lips, “I was going to tell you about that soon.”

“Olivia was th--” Hadrian began but stopped mid sentence, grabbed Aiden by the arm and dragged him to the bedroom, throwing the crossbow to the ground. He halted at the door frame and turned to the three, “Mevia, Gill, keep an eye on that boy! We’ll be just a moment.”

And with that, he shoved Aiden inside and shut the door.

The group hadn’t the chance to react in that frame of time.

“Wait, you’re going to leave us here and expect them to NOT kill me!?” Jesse shouted to no one in particular. Gill wasn’t too big of an issue, he was more rough than deadly, it was the woman that sat on a chair, sharpening one blade of her axe with the other, that he was worried about.

~ ~ ~

Hadrian began pacing around the bedroom, something he wasn’t able to do in the cluttered store, and stroked his chin. While the room itself was much smaller, it was more spacious. It only had two beds on opposite sides, their sheets were both a dreary shade of marine--which made the white pillows pop--and were neatly done and appeared untouched. One slender, dark oak wardrobe that contrasted the spruce floor with dust bunnies all around it. And at the very end of the room, there was a large portrait.

Aiden had seen it many times before when he had visited. It was a commission--Aiden remembered--a painstakingly detailed painting of Hadrian, Mevia… Oswald? That wasn’t his name, but he was a larger man with a fluffy, white beard, and another woman whose name also slipped his mind. Hadrian loved to share stories about him and the other three when they were younger, but Aiden never met the other two in the portrait. Only heard stories.

“Sit down, sit down.” Hadrian waved towards one of the beds. Aiden sat down and sunk into the mattress. The old man went through another few rounds of pacing about then stopped to adjust his robe, fixing his posture in the process.

“Alright. I want you to tell me what happened--anything you can remember.”

“Did you really have to bring me into a different room for this?”

“Listen, this could all be some big, elaborate story that The Hero’s Awakening could’ve set up. I don’t want to take any chances.” he tapped his foot, “I want to hear your side of the story then I’m gonna talk to Jesse to see how much remains consistent, you understand?”

“Sure?”

Hadrian slid in front of Aiden and crouched down so they were at the same eye level. “Excellent. Now story, go!” he ordered.

“Wait, do you want the short version or the long version--”

“I want a STORY.”

Aiden threw his arms up, “Alright, okay! Radar told US that a guard told HIM that a weird, green light was coming from the shrine. Rose and I decided to check it out to see what’s up.”

He heard Hadrian grumble to himself, “That Radar fellow told ya, huh?”

Aiden rolled his eyes, “He’s just the messenger.” He continued “But that’s when we saw Jesse and Olivia. At first I thought it was only him there, not too big of a deal, right? Well I grabbed him, he called for Olivia, then everything got weird.”

“You think he’s the one that opened it up?”

“No, I--” Aiden leaned back and tried to salvage every event that’s happened tonight, every miniscule detail. “There weren’t any signs of a break in, the guards didn’t spot anything, and Jesse didn’t know where he was.”

The old man pushed his glasses up, “But did you ever SEE him near the portal?”

“Neither of us did.”

Hadrian didn’t have to say another word to show he wasn’t convinced.

“He still doesn’t like me, but he’s been much more cooperative than he usually is. He told me what he remembered, something about building a wool creature at some event--a Blaze? But he said we were rivals, I ruined his build, and he lived in some place called Beacon Town. I’m not saying it’s the truth, but it’s weird, isn’t it?”

“What about Olivia, does she rem--Wait, did you say Beacon Town?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s such a stupid name.”

“I know,” Aiden started, “but that’s the issue! That sounds like a minimum effort, made up name but when he told me about it, it felt like the truth.” While that was a vague explanation, that was the ONLY explanation he could come up with.

“Does that make sense?” he asked the old man, who didn’t look too pleased with what he’s being told.

“Sure it does,” Hadrian said with a cynical sort of happiness in his voice, “Jesse sounds like he’s tellin’ you the truth and that’s all dandy. But to me, it sounds like you’re tryna cover up for your friend.”

Aiden didn’t hide the offense he took, “Hadrian, why would I lie to you? Especially about this?!”

“Because this is Jesse we’re talkin’ bout.” Hadrian shot back with a still expression, not even bothering to lift his eyelids; looking at Aiden past the frame of his glasses.

“Right, right--Better question: When’s the last time I lied to you?”

That’s when Hadrian’s cold aurora faded and his comments came to a stop. He turned away and walked towards the door as if he were about to leave, and stopped. He stared intensely at it like it’d devalue Aiden’s point. He remained speechless and held his hands together, squeezing them tightly.

“You have to have noticed Jesse was off.” Aiden said to the back of Hadrian.

Hadrian massaged his temples and remained still. He didn’t want to respond to that. He started to tap his head, “What about Olivia?”

Aiden clenched the sheets of the bed, he wasn’t too delighted with old man’s reaction, but it may be best to move on. His eyes slowly made their way to the floor. He let out an empty chuckle, “I thought I was finally losing it when I saw her.”

He buried his face into his hands, “I hugged her, I wasn’t thinking, but I wanted to see if she was real and…” he muffled nonsense.

He lifted his head back up, “She remembers Jesse. They were working together in the shrine. That’s it.”

Hadrian ran his fingers through his hair and didn’t say a word. He knew Aiden explained what he could, but Hadrian knew the boy long enough to know not everything would be accurate.

“I should be happy that she’s back.” Aiden spoke up.

“Hm?”

“Olivia. I was happy to see her again, but it felt fake. Does that make sense? I should’ve been overjoyed, the happiest I’ve ever been--she’s alive! I would’ve done anything to bring her or Lukas back and now that she’s here, I don’t know how to feel. It’s like it’s someone who looks like Olivia with nothing that made her herself, you know?” Aiden breathed in and rested his head in his hands. He didn’t expect Hadrian to know the answer but it's been eating him up ever since they left the temple. Maybe he’s overthinking it.

“I feel awful for thinking that. We’re friends but why does it feel so… Empty?” even now, he knew there should be guilt to come with talking--let alone thinking--that he feels little connection towards Olivia. Granted, he still felt bad for speaking about her like this regardless. They’ve known each other for years and nothing should’ve changed that. So why is this happening?

“I’m uh… I don’t…” Hadrian cursed to himself and tried to continue the original conversation, “Blast it, this is where things get tricky.” He stood up and started pacing again. “None of us have ever built or interacted with a portal, except for you and your friends that one time you went to the underground city. So none of us know any of the side effects of reactivating one of those suckers. Who’s to say memory loss ISN’T one of them?”

The pieces of information he was given were big, but there were still parts of the puzzle that prevented the whole picture from coming together.

“Plus, Jesse still doesn’t like you.” he pointed out. “Even if his memories are all screwed up, there’s still a part of him that has that resentment.”

“And as much as I’d love to believe that Olivia was brought back,” he brought his head up to the painting, “Deep down, a part of me knows this is some nasty plot Jesse’s set up. Nothin’s clicking into place. Something IS wrong.”

And with that, there was nothing else to be said. Not from Aiden, anyways.

He got off the now crinkled bed and went to the door.

“Bring Jesse in.” he heard Hadrian order.

Aiden opened the door and was greeted with the sight of Jesse being held down on a seat by Gill, his fingers digging into Jesse’s arms, with Mevia holding one of her axes above Jesse’s head and the other in front of his neck. They didn’t seem to notice him right away; Jesse was too concerned about his life. Something left Aiden’s mouth, not a word, but definitely a sound. The three zipped their heads around.

Aiden stared.

They stared.

“We wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get any ideas!” Mevia said without prompt, stashing the weapons away. “Gill was just helping.” her tone became softer.

Gill’s large eyes were on Aiden as he let go of Jesse instantly.

“... Hadrian wants to see you, Jesse.” was all Aiden said.

“Really?” Both Mevia and Jesse asked. Jesse propped up from the chair and made his way to the door. The thought of escaping was starting to sound better by the second. Maybe when Hadrian isn’t watching, he could jump out of a window and make a run for it. Find Olivia. Get back home.

He could feel everyone looking at him. Especially Mevia, who’s stare was piercing the back of his skull and taunting him to turn around to catch it. Aiden loomed over him as he’d get closer to the room. Seeing Aiden made Jesse’s throat tighten, he wanted to say something but now would be an awful time. He could ask later. When there wasn’t an axe-crazy lady.

Jesse reached towards the knob and his throat managed to get tighter. The closer his hand got, the more it felt like he couldn’t breathe. Practically choking on his unspoken words until--

“Aiden, what are you planning?!’ he zipped his head to Aiden; Jesse asked so fast and so quietly he almost believed he hadn’t said anything.

Aiden flinched with Jesse’s question and waited for a second to see if he’d add onto it. When nothing came to join Jesse’s angry glare, Aiden finally answered with “... Nothing yet?”

Jesse sputtered, “What’s that supposed to mean?!” he struggled to keep his voice at a whisper.

Aiden was about to respond but Mevia spoke up with an intrigued tone, “What are you two talking about?”

Aiden flashed his eyes over to Jesse then to Mevia, “Nothing.” he walked to the seats and left the boy alone.

“Gill, I know you were trying to help out but--” was all Jesse heard Aiden say before he shut the door behind him. The first thing he saw was Hadrian himself, not even close to his warmer, welcoming attitude from when Jesse first stepped in. The second feature of the room--or lack of--was that there were no windows, so escaping was out of the picture.

Standing in the bedroom with Hadrian across from him, all the noises of the world, the talking, people coming and going from surrounding buildings, everything seemed to go mute. Like the room was detached from the rest of the world. There was only Jesse and Hadrian. Was that comforting?

Hadrian took a few steps back and sat down on the ruffled bed behind him.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions, son.”

Jesse held his hands together behind his back as the man went on. “You can answer them however you’d like, I won’t be jumpin’ to any conclusions. I’ve already heard Aiden’s story, things feel sketchy already, but I believe it’s fair to listen to both sides.”

“Wait, you’re listening to what AIDEN’S been telling you?” The boy blurted out.

Hadrian raised a brow, “I don’t see a reason why not to.”

As if being outnumbered by enemies wasn’t bad enough.

“Look, maybe he’s kept it a secret from you, but Aiden managed to manipulate an entire city into thinking he was a hero! Who’s to say he’s not doing it again?!”

Uneasiness, panic, perhaps, was beginning to build up as Hadrian’s lips remained sealed with a face that wasn’t reacting.

“Look, I know we haven’t had the cleanest history but you HAVE to believe me. I think Aiden’s convinced everyone that I’m something much worse than I actually am! I’ve saved the world TWICE! But they’re keeping me hidden from the public like they KNOW people will recognize me. If this isn’t a part of a bigger plan, then this HAS to be a mix up.” Jesse was throwing up whatever popped into his mind, not taking a spare second to stitch any two points together.

“And what’s all this talk about me escaping? Going in a cell? Why would I go to jail? This is a misunderstanding--the wrong person!”

Hadrian had yet to say anything, but the last words that left Jesse’s mouth triggered a reaction. A hollow laugh. The old man stood up and approached Jesse with an expressionless face.“I said it before ‘n I’ll say it again: I won’t jump to no conclusions yet.”

He placed his hand on Jesse’s chest, “But we don’t have the wrong person. I’m sure we all know that. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be treated the way you are right now. You can bother Aiden with all your little issues ‘n stories because if there’s one thing I do know: I ain’t as patient as he is.”

He ended his speech with a forceful shove and sitting back down on the bed.

Jesse licked his lips, “I know,” he paused trying to think up a coherent thought “I’m acting kind of crazy but after the wither storm and defeating ALL these people I hate, I have no idea what led to all of THIS happening!” Jesse wished he had his sword on him right now. Not even for attacking, he wanted something that’d make him feel protected. Safe.

“Wither st--People you hate?”

“Sorry, that’s a strong word!” he retracted, “But everyone I’ve seen, Cassie Rose, Aiden, Gill, EVERYONE, they’ve all wanted to... “ what’s a nice way of saying ‘Beat me to a bloody pulp and stomp on my remains’?

“... Hurt… Me at one point.” Yeah, that’s a good word.

“I didn’t want to say anything because I thought I’d get pounded, or maybe they forgave and forgot but that doesn’t explain the treatment I’ve been getting… And… And… The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve only learned that everyone here hates me and that this town has… Has two libraries!” Jesse hunched over and had to catch his breath.

He’d take in mouthfuls of air while his eyes were stuck on Hadrian’s concerned expression for Jesse’s mental state, creating an odd, bittersweet atmosphere. Outright admitting all of that to Hadrian of all people was probably the dumbest thing he’s done all night, not that there were better options, but to pour out a portion of the stream of endless problems was like a crater had been lifted off his shoulders. Even if he wouldn’t get direct answers, he was thankful for the opportunity to vent.

Hadrian leaned forward from the bed, “Did you get all that outta your system?” he asked. Jesse didn’t respond, he kept panting, so he took the end of the ramblings as a ‘Yes’.

The old man stood up to fix the sheets, “As… Exciting as that was, I wasn’t going to ask you bout any of that. I was curious about you and Olivia and how you got here.”

“Oh, that.” Jesse fixed his posture, his face reddened “I found a jungle temple, it was glowing green and wanted to bring Olivia along since there were going to be red stone traps and I thought she’d like that. Also to check out the weird green… Glowy thingy.”

“And I take it you aren’t too fond of Aiden?”

Hadrian was gifted with a look of exhaustion from Jesse.

“Could you tell me your history with the boy?” he asked in case another rant was about to surface.

“We were rivals for a short time,” He was still out of breath, “He ruined me and my friends’ build one year at the con. Sure, I was upset but I was too busy trying to stop an entire Wither Storm.”

Hadrian’s glasses slipped down his nose, his lips moved though nothing came out as he rested his head on his hand. Thinking.

Hadrian finally asked “Jesse, does your head hurt?”

Jesse thought about all the times his face was smashed into the ground on this night alone. “A little, sure. Why?”

“No reason, just curious is all.” Hadrian pushed up his glasses and stretched his arms high before a loud crack was let loose, followed by a satisfied sigh.

“I did get much more than I bargained for, I think I got enough to work with. Let’s go, I’m sure the both of us don’t like bein’ in the same room with each other for so long.” He hopped off the bed, reached for the doorknob and with a smile still on his face, he said “Don’t push your luck, son. If somethin’ happens to those boys, I ain’t gonna be merciful.”

He shoved Jesse ahead and out the door.

Back in the main area, Gill and Mevia sat by each other, though Mevia was miraculously balancing herself on the two hind legs of the chair, and Aiden was standing up with his arms crossed. Body facing towards the two while his head turned to Jesse.

“Everything okay? We heard a lot of shouting.” Aiden asked.

“Shoot, was there? Sorry, I hope--” Jesse ruffled his hair but froze, where was Olivia’s hat? His eyes darted around the room. Aiden must’ve known what he was searching for, as he lifted up a hand that held the green, aviator hat with the black goggles. Relief washed over Jesse.

“We didn’t really hear much.” Gill said.

“Gill’s lecture kept getting interrupted.” Mevia added with a smirk, glancing at the man shrinking next to her.

Aiden noticed Jesse’s eyes hadn't looked away from the hat, he squeezed it.

“I can give it back to Olivia.” he insisted before Jesse had the chance to ask for it back.

Jesse blinked, “But what about ‘laying low’?”

“You know to keep your head low. Besides, I haven’t seen too many people out.” he attempted to say with a reassuring tone with his stern face clashing against it.

“... Alright then.” Jesse wasn’t too thrilled with that, especially since Aiden was the one to say people would ‘freak out’ when they saw him. He didn’t want to risk getting caught all because Aiden wanted to be a saint and return Olivia’s hat. If he didn’t, maybe Jesse would snatch it back, or maybe Olivia has a spare back at home and she wouldn’t care too much about missing one.

Hadrian began sorting through a pile of books on one of the many small, cluttered tables, flipping through them rapidly before placing each one on the ground when they didn’t satisfy him. Mevia and Aiden began talking again, but Jesse blocked them out. He was blocking most of the world out. He had yet to move from the spot he stood, too consumed with his own frustration. He hated this stuffy place, he hated being bosses and pushed around, he hated the way he was being treated.

‘Does your head hurt?’ Hadrian’s stupid question rattled in Jesse’s head.

‘Yeah, it does. Your so called ‘friends’ kept pushing me around like a ragdoll all night!’ Jesse snapped back to the imaginative old man in the imaginative conversation. That would’ve been a much better answer.

“I think you’d like this,” Hadrian said to Aiden, holding a journal with a worn leather cover, “I used to be friends with some nutjob who tried t’ convince me to join The Hero’s Awakening.” he gave the journal a few pats. “He’d jot down whatever he learned into this sucker and I remember...” he began flipping through the pages, holding them with the tips of his fingers not wanting to tear the incredibly thin paper.

He stopped roughly in the middle of it and flicked up his glasses, “Yep, right here!” he shoved the journal in Aiden’s face.

“He’s got some pages bout portals here. Real fun read but also a whole bunch of gibberish.” he handed the book to Aiden, who slipped his finger in between the pages to not lose its place.  Hadrian began roaming around his little store, stroking his chin, “I hope that’ll do for now,” he said, “I’ll keep looking for anythin’ else, but that was the first thing that came to mind.”

“It’s much better than nothing.” Aiden reassured. He got up and tapped the inattentive Jesse, bringing him back to reality. “Thanks, Hadrian.”

~ ~ ~

Olivia had been wandering throughout the second floor of the library for some time now, she didn’t want to go to any of the other floors yet in case she’d get lost or they’d have to leave. She wasn’t sure when they were leaving, but she was hoping they would call out for her or announce it.

She heard the footsteps of the girls echoing throughout this place, which was sort of comforting in it’s own weird way, knowing that they hadn’t ditched her. But being quiet in this place proved to be a difficult task, every book she’d pull out, every step she took, heck, even the rustling of Aiden’s jacket she wore would practically boom throughout. Nothing could be done in peace.

‘I wonder if Stella and Maya heard our...’ she didn’t want to call it a fight, ‘... Argument several minutes ago.

As much as Olivia didn’t want to think about the feud from before--or this situation entirely--she had to. If she wanted to get a sliver of an idea of what’s going on, she’d have to work with the information she knows and can work with.

And luckily for her, the second floor was filled to the brim with books about this place.

Most of the shelves on the left side of the floor were dedicated to crafting recipes, from concepts, to failed creations, or creations still used to this day. And while those did pique her interest, she focused on the right side; the books containing the history. Good gracious, were there a lot of history books on this floor. Some spilled and mixed with the crafting ones, but an abundance was much preferred over a limited amount.

Olivia was unsure if all of these books described unique, important events of this world, or if they were retelling the same story with a slightly different lense. She couldn’t go through all of them, she wanted one that was straight to the point, so she looked for the thinnest one that caught her eye.

It was a dark blue, hardcover book that was about the size of her face. There wasn’t any noticeable damage done to it, and when she flipped through the pages, they all seemed to be in good condition. Small text that read “The Pocket Sized History of Our Land.” was printed onto the cover. The author of this book was kind enough to add a table of contents. There was a small, handwritten note scribbled onto the first page that read “For Rowan: Please study!!”

It was small but it made Olivia chuckle.

‘I haven’t had the chance to even read it yet. I know Jesse would like to hear anything about this place.’ Olivia thought to herself as she flipped open the book and skimmed the table of contents, walking slower so she wouldn’t run into any shelves or walls.

‘I hope he’s doing okay.’ Jesse could handle himself, she knew that, but worry would invade her mind no matter what she told herself.

“Hm... Impossibilities... The rise of shrines...” Olivia murmured the listed names to herself.

“‘Is the world ending’? That’s an odd one. ‘Tearing down the Ne-!” she suddenly collided with something--

“Oh, I’m sorry! Are you okay?” a man asked.

Someone.

She lost her balance but the stranger grabbed her hand and kept her standing.

“Sorry again.” the man spoke, his deep voice had familiarity.

“No, no, I should be the one apologizing, I wasn’t looking where I was go-” Olivia almost choked on her own spit when she saw who it was.

‘That’s Axel. That’s Axel. Oh my gosh--’ the same thick, black hair with his bushy unibrow to go with it. He wore the same green jacket she’d always see him in, the tan pants and sandals it match. The familiar friendly giant she’s known for so long but with the eyes of a stranger.

She gripped her book and adjusted her oversized jacket, “I should’ve been paying attention, I didn’t expect anyone else to be here... Sir.”

Olivia had no idea if he recognized her or not. It could be a similar situation with Stella and the others, but she didn’t want to risk making the interaction more awkward than it already was.

Axel let out an obvious forced chuckly, “Yeah, same. I thought I heard someone else come in, but sorta ignored it. Guess I was in the zone.”

He said and brought his head down at the array of open books splayed across the floor and circled around Axel. There was a notebook and a few pens--some broken--on the ground. Whatever he was studying for seemed more important than this encounter, not that Olivia wanted to keep this going on any longer. Cassie Rose and the others were probably waiting for her! They’re her only way back to the house; they might be looking for her at this very moment!

“Mm-hm! I totally understand. No worries.” she began backing away, hugging her small book to her chest. “I need to get going, my friends are probably pretty worried about me. Have a good evening!”

She scurried off, hearing Axel’s “You too!” as she started searching for Cassie Rose. She speed walked, giving her eyes mere seconds to scan one aisle of books before moving to the next; it shouldn’t be too hard to find Cassie, her vibrant, red hair stuck out like a sore thumb in this murky place. Each aisle she passed, a disgusting nervousness--the type that made you want to throw up--began to build up inside her, her hands getting sweaty as her stomach filled with butterflies. Or wasps. Her stomach was aching. Maybe it was that short interaction with Axel, maybe it was because she had yet to spot Cassie Rose, maybe it was this whole situation entirely--who knows!

“EXCUSE ME?!”

Olivia stopped dead in her tracks when she heard that loud, stuck up shout echo throughout the library’s halls. There were other voices but their volume didn’t compare to whoever yelled.

‘That has to be Stella!’ Olivia approached the nearest edge of the second floor and looked down, holding onto the stone railing. And there they were! Stella, Maya, and Cassie were all gathered at the center of the first floor, arms full of books, and--based on their gestures and the scream from before--arguing.

Not waiting for the situation to get any uglier, Olivia hurried to the stairs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“And you just LET her leave?!” Stella yelled but immediately slapped her hands over her mouth when she remembered where they were at.

She continued her bickering in a whisper-shout, “I cannot BELIEVE you. We just got her back and you allowed her to wander off to Hero knows where!”

Cassie Rose grinded her shoe into the floor with her arms crossed, looking away from the lecturer, “She said she needed space, so I gave it to her.”

Stella sputtered, almost dropping the few books she held, as if that was the most absurd concept she’s ever come across, “What if something happened to her?! We can’t lose her again, we haven’t had a proper reunion! I haven’t had the chance to let this whole situation sink in yet--she still doesn’t have her memory. What if she’s lost!? We have to go find her!” Stella was about to blast off when Maya grabbed the collar of her shirt and yanked her back.

“Stella.” Maya began, “I get that you’re worried, we all are, but memories or not, Olivia’s an adult. She can take care of herself.” her eyebrows creased slightly.

“Oh I know, but--” Stella didn’t finish her sentence, she threw her arms down and sighed with defeat.

“We’ll find her.” Cassie Rose tried to reassure her friend, she picked up her pile of books that stood beside her and held them close.

She pulled on her hair, “I sorta freaked out back there, I didn’t mean to. I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah, we heard it.” Maya said, not glancing down on her friend.

“No, no, don’t apologize!” Stella started, “I should be the one apologizing. This whole situation has been pretty crazy for all of us, it’s natural to be confused. But I do know getting upset at you won’t help any.”

“It’s weird having her back.” Maya commented.

Stella fixed the sleeves to her suit, “Oh, definitely. One hundred percent.”

The one off exchange sparked a reaction from Cassie Rose, a bulb lit up, “Speaking of which--and I know I’m going to sound like a terrible person--” she pushed up her glasses, “When I had that little… Outburst, something didn’t click.”

Cassie continued as her friends watched on, “I feel awful about snapping at her, I really do, but not awful like ‘I got upset at Olivia’, more like ‘Awful that I yelled at a stranger’. She didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t feel like Olivia was really there. Maybe she’s been gone for too long and my brain can’t handle having her back?”

There was a lack of connection with Olivia, when they walked together, Cassie had felt the discomfort of being with a total stranger. A stranger who happened to look like her old friend. How do you explain a feeling like that without getting any weird looks?

Maya let her mouth hang for a little bit before saying “It’s a weird gut feeling, but I get it.”

“Everything’s weird. I think this whole situation has thrown all of us off.” Stella said, trying to move past the subject. She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear, “So, I guess one of us can go look for her while the other two can take the books back to Aiden--”

“Sorry for the wait!” Olivia spoke out, hopping down the last few stairs. The three zipped their heads around and Stella sighed with relief. “Let’s go!”

They left the library, recreating the huddle they had on their way to the library. Maya up front, Cassie on the right and Stella on the left, and Olivia smack in the middle. Logan was nowhere to be seen, so they didn’t worry too much about keeping her under cover. This time, Olivia didn’t mind being stuck in between them, it gave her a chance to read that book she checked out. The three other girls were discussing what they’ve found, books about portal making, creations from the past, ancient relics, but Olivia was too caught up in her reading.

Several minutes passed, Olivia had been trying to skim the first section of the book to learn as much as she could, but the words were beginning to blur together and she kept rereading sentences over and over again. She let out a yawn, the realization of how tired she truly was was settling in. Everything began feeling like... Mush.

The girls were still energetic and blabbing away, but it was getting hard to make out any of their conversation. What time was it?

‘We had to have gone through that portal at... 11 PM? Maybe midnight?’ Olivia rubbed her eyes and closed the book, stashing it away in the jacket’s large pocket. ‘Time seems to be the same... Or at least close to the time back at our home.’

“Ugh, look at that.” Stella whispered loudly to Cassie, looking past the red head and at whatever caught her eye.

Cassie turned towards the direction Stella was staring and growled, cursing under her breath.

Cassie placed her books on the ground and walked off, “One second.”

The girls stopped in their tracks, Maya’s body was still facing forward but her head was facing Cassie who was going... Somewhere. Olivia tried to look back at whatever Cassie was heading towards, but all she was was a small, gray structure--that vaguely resembled a tiny house--with a banner. A painting? Who knows. The only other thing she could make out was a few flowers surrounding it.

Olivia, confused, wanted to know what the disapproving tones were for. But before she examine whatever Cassie walked to, Stella suddenly grabbed Olivia by the shoulder and spun her around,

“So, Olivia!” Stella began, “I saw you had a small book, what’s it about?”

“Oh jeez, uh, I wish I could tell you...” Olivia squinted, trying to force her eyes to focus on the girl. Was Stella forcing her to look away? Or was her drowsiness starting to mess with her? Maybe she was getting overwhelmed. “I’m just really, really tired.”

“What? It’s only, like, 3 AM.”

Olivia blinked and didn’t really know what to say, “You’re right, I’m not tired. I’m exhausted.”

“But it’s a history book.” Olivia said, answering Stella’s question.

She heard Cassie’s footsteps coming closer, and an odd crackling sound. Olivia saw she had a redstone torch in her hand, looking at it in a way you would to a rodent. The red flame of the torch was as vibrant as Cassie’s hair, probably more. But just seeing the fire had Olivia feeling even more drowsy, it’s warmth on her skin, and the snaps from the flame brought an odd sense of peace that contrasted the violent shade of red. She wanted to sleep. She really wanted to sleep.

Cassie blew out the fire and tossed the burnt wood to the ground; she smothered it under her shoe and grumbled before returning to her position and grabbing the books once again.

“Ugh, another redstone torch-- Un-be-liev-able!” Stella glared at the remains of the torch.

“Is it even that big of a deal now? Olivia’s right here.” Maya said.

“That may be so, but no matter where it’s placed, it’s still extremely tasteless.” Stella contended, sticking her nose high into the air. Maya rolled her eyes but understood.

Everything was progressively getting more and more confusing. Everyone understood each other, they all knew what one thing meant or the rules of this world, but Olivia felt that she was alone in a crowded world. Almost like a dream. Maybe this was a dream. Olivia would wake up, make breakfast, Jesse would run by and ask if she’d like to join them on another wacky adventure, they’d find treasure, and then they’d go back home. A home where everything made sense, where she was surrounded by people who liked her.

“What was that?” Olivia asked through a yawn, trying to get a better look at the structure again. “Can I see?”

“No, no, you don’t have to see it! Let’s go home!” Stella insisted and moved the group along.

‘But I want to see it.’ her mind was commanding her to march back to that build, but her body was in no . Everything felt far too heavy to control. So she tread on.

“We can show you tomorrow, how does that sound?” Cassie mumbled, leaning close to the girl.

That reminded Olivia of something.

“Are we still gonna talk about that... The thing we were talking about earlier?” Olivia asked.

Despite her vague question, Cassie seemed to understand what she was referring to. “Yep. After we talk with Aiden, we’ll answer any of your questions.”

Olivia bobbed her head then let it hang, watching her feet and the road that moved below them. She wasn’t out right exhausted, just tired, but she hated how sore her eyes would feel, how everything would go too fast or too slow, an overall sour experience. She found that concentrating on a specific topic helped push away that awful feeling, so why not do it now?

‘How about that book…’ the one she tried to read. Actually, she did read the table of contents. What could she remember… ‘It mentioned shrines.’ Plenty of questions and possibilities to brainstorm with that prompt alone. It was high up on the list, so when were they built and how long have they been there? What or who were they built for? The shrine that her and Jesse were at was abandoned, so were all shrines abandoned? But then it wouldn’t make sense for guards to surround the area--but then AGAIN they were keeping an eye out for anyone coming in or out without supervision because someone activated that portal.

Who would activate a portal to an abandoned place?

… Wait, there was also that one chapter name she didn’t read all the way because she ran into Axel, it was about the Nether. While she could only catch “Tearing down the ne…” it wouldn’t make any sense if it was anything BUT the Nether. She’d have to double check but it does make her wonder what happened to cause a whole dimension to be ‘torn down’? Was that even possible?

“Hey Olivia,” she heard Cassie begin. Olivia kept her head down but peeked at Cassie, showing she was paying attention.

“About that little freak out in the library…”

Olivia couldn’t help but frown at the mention of that incident. Not because of Cassie, she didn’t offend her nor hurt her in any way, but the situation itself left a bitter taste in Olivia’s mouth. It created this odd contradiction where she understood what Cassie felt but with so little context, it was devoid of any impact. But it still left her feeling... Unsettled. Cassie Rose was frustrated with Olivia but her words didn’t feel directed at her. More like she was talking to someone else. There was no connection with her words, no emotional impact. And why would there be? She was concerned about Cassie, she looked genuinely hurt but Olivia was genuinely lost.

‘Shoot, I’m not paying attention!’ Olivia had kept her eyes on Cassie but her mind completely tuned out the second the feud was mentioned. ‘She could be saying something important!”

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut then set all her focus on Cassie Rose.

“... And I shouldn’t be making excuses--What I need to say is: I’m sorry.”

Olivia blinked and immediately wished her mind didn’t wander. Completely ignoring Cassie’s build up for her apology, despite it being unintentional, made her feel like a moron put on the spotlight and forgot their lines. She kept staring at Cassie, afraid of looking away and creating a more awkward atmosphere.

Cassie Rose’s face reddened and she faced forward, “I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. It was uncalled for and… I’m sorry.”

Though Olivia couldn’t see her face, her words struck her differently than before. The words were for her, about their own past event.

Throughout previous conversations she had taken part in or overheard, she could only describe those moments as “uncomfortable”, a broken thumb on a hand that everyone else was trying to pass off as fine. But now, there was an understanding.

“It’s okay, really. I was more off guard than anything else,” Olivia said, “I appreciate it.” she ended with a smile. Cassie grinned back.

The rest of the walk home was quiet. And that was okay.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Aiden, we’re back!” Cassie announced as she swung open the door with her free hand, holding it open for the other girls to walk in.

“Hi guys!” Gill slid out of the kitchen to greet his friends and a yawning Olivia.

“Hey, Gill.” Cassie responded, a bit worn out, though she was glad to hear Gill’s voice again. “You think you could put these books on the small table, please?” she tilted her head towards the dim living room.

“You got it!” without question, he hoisted the stack from her arms and made his way into the room. Cassie stretched her arms behind her head and heard a loud pop come from them. It always stung a little afterwards but felt satisfying, especially after carrying a whole load of books.

Shaking off the mishmash of sensations, she went into the kitchen “So Gill, where’s Aiden--”

Cassie stopped when she saw the man in question sitting at the kitchen table, face buried into a small book. Jesse sat right across from him. She scowled but pushed any potential comments out of her mind, she walked towards Aiden with her arms folded.

Aiden saw a piece of her out of the corner of his eye and jumped up with a grin on his face. “Rose! What’d you find?”

“Oh, you know, books… More books. Mostly about portal stuff.” she shrugged. Aiden nodded along and set the journal, pages down, on the table to not lose his place.

“Hope things weren’t too chaotic with Jesse.” Cassie sat on the edge of the table. Jesse’s head jolted up with the mention of his name.

“No, he wasn’t too--”

“Hold on.” Cassie Rose interrupted and she turned the upper half of her body towards Jesse.

“Are you still wearing those extra pants I gave you?”

Jesse looked down at the oversized, navy blue pants and stumbled out of the chair, frantically trying to pull them off, “Look, I didn’t have the time to take them off--”

“Whatever, it’s okay, I’ll burn them later.” Cassie shifted back to Aiden, “You were saying?”

“Well, Gill and I went over to Hadrian’s and got this journal as you guys were away.” he patted the worn down item. Cassie looked at him, then the journal, then back to him.

“I thought we were going to Hadrian’s tomorrow?” Cassie blinked a few times as though she misheard.

“Yeah, but we felt bad that we weren’t helping so we wanted to do something.”

“Who watched over Jesse?” Cassie asked, wide eyed.

“He came with us--”

“You brought him WITH YOU?!” she raised her voice, flabbergasted by whatever Aiden’s mind must’ve went through to reach an idea like THAT.

Aiden shot out of his seat, “Nothing got out of hand, he’s still here isn’t here?! I don’t see--”

The two began bickering loudly--though not yelling--and everyone watched for a couple moments. Maya rolled her eyes and locked the door behind them; she leaned against it. Stella tuned the two out and joined Gill, organizing the books by who found what so there’d be no hassle reaching for them.

Jesse flipped back and forth from Cassie to Aiden, unable to comprehend one or the other, much less how they could understand each other with their words constantly colliding.

Jesse spoke up, “I know this is probably a bad time to ask this,” neither of them answered nor glanced at him. It could’ve been because of how invested they were in their argument or not caring for Jesse’s presence at the time being. “But Olivia came back with you, right?”

He was still ignored. Their raised voices might have prevented the others from hearing the question as well.

He was about to check around the house himself when he heard a familiar voice say “Jesse?”

He searched to the source and saw Olivia’s head pop up from behind Maya, who was glaring at him. Olivia’s smile, while small, managed to light up the once dark living room. Jesse forgot about the arguing, he brushed away the nasty looks and ran towards his friend. Olivia stepped up and knew what was coming, her arms already open; Jesse leapt into them and gave her a big squeeze, almost crushing her.

“You’re alive!” Jesse hugged harder.

“What, did you think I was a total goner?” Olivia asked through a struggling gasp for air.

He let go, “No, I--I know you can defend yourself but I let you run off with them and didn’t even--”

“Jesse,” Olivia said, making herself much quieter “I chose to go with them.” she reached into the pocket of the leather jacket and fumbled with the small book, “I thought it’d be a great opportunity to…”

As the two continued, Maya wasn’t sure if she was the only one listening in or not but she kept quiet. She kept her head up to look as though she was paying attention to Aiden and Cassie’s arguing instead.

“Okay, what’s with this?” The three heard Stella coming over, arms on hips with disgust on her face. “Jesse needs to be at least five feet away from Olivia.” she said impatiently to no one specifically. Despite her clear distaste over the situation, she took no action, almost like she was expecting her words to be enough to move Jesse.

“Hey, now wait just a second!” Jesse started, “I know you guys think I’m the worst person to ever walk on this planet but you can’t dictate my relationships with my friends!” He wasn’t planning on starting a fight or a second argument in this house, but he also wasn’t planning on taking every hit these people were swinging at him. Especially so late at night.

It’d be nice to put all of the stupid, seemingly never ending surge of mistreatment or threats on hold. Even for a minute.

“You’re right, I totally have ZERO reasons to be suspicious of you. Cut the act!” Stella paired her rolling eyes with gritted teeth.

Jesse wasn’t going to put up with her ‘I’m Better Than You In Every Aspect’ tone, “It doesn’t matter how ‘suspicious’ I seem to you! I don’t care what you think, I am going to be with my friend--”

“Olivia!” Aiden spoke up, unintentionally finishing Jesse’s sentence. The group’s attention was now on Aiden, who was approaching the woman in question, a frustrated Cassie following behind. “I need to talk to you.”

Olivia’s eyes darted around the room, catching glimpses of everybody watching her. Then she stopped at Jesse, who nodded reassuringly and gave her a thumbs up, not caring about the opposing people surrounding him.

“Right--Okay!” she said.

Stella stepped up, “While you two are chatting, we’ll start discussing what we’ve learned and keep a close eye on Jesse.” her enthusiasm at the start vanished completely at the end. Jesse frowned.

“Sounds good, We shouldn’t be too long.” Aiden began distancing himself away from the group as they all started taking their seats and nabbed a few books from the table in the living room. Olivia followed behind, thinking that they’d be discussing whatever matters in the kitchen, but Aiden led her up the stairs to the second floor. Away from everyone else.

Jesse was told to sit down at the armchair, alone, unlike the rest of the people in this room who all sat in groups at the couches. Except Maya, who was behind the couch her friends were on, leaning on it with one arm. Everyone else besides Jesse held a book, though no one had opened them. No one was paying attention to them. It was all on him.

“Look,” Stella stopped and quickly checked to see if Aiden and Olivia were out of earshot, “This little act of yours has been going on long enough, it’d be best to drop it now that Olivia’s not here and fess up to what you’re doing.”

They waited for Jesse to respond. He could’ve repeated what he told Hadrian, but with Stella, this was different. They went through multiple adventures together, even if they were bitter towards each other, there was more history between them. And while he didn’t know every detail about her, he still knew her.

“How many times are you gonna say that till you believe it?” he asked.

“What are you on about?” Stella lifted her brows.

“Stella I know you don’t like me, but I also know you’re not dumb. I’m being treated like a criminal with no idea as to what crime I’ve committed, you know I wouldn’t do anything malicious.”

Stella, like she had been accused of a crime herself, shot up defensively, “You would--You HAVE. I don’t see--”

“Stella.” Maya interrupted, catching the blonde’s attention, along with everybody else’s. Maya tapped her head a couple of times. The little motion reminded Stella of Cassie’s “amnesia” theory from earlier.

Settling back down, Stella asked “Jesse, could you... Tell me what happened last week?”

Cassie Rose caught on to what Stella was doing, leaving Gill clueless and Jesse hesitant. Stella going from irritated to a strange, invested voice was unnerving.

“I didn’t do much, I was mostly at home except…” he tried to recall any key moments, “I--Actually--Olivia and I were trying to teach Radar how to fight! We were in the middle of this thick jungle and there were monsters everywhere. At one point he--he uhm…” Jesse saw the offput faces of everyone in the room. Stella became more intrigued but was too baffled to ask another question, Cassie and Gill were rattled, and Maya was the most expressive of the bunch for once. Her eyes were wider with her mouth open. She went back to her straight face but was visibly more interested in the discussion than before.

“Radar isn’t a fighter!” Gill stated with a hint of uncertainty.

“Well, not yet, that’s why we’re training.” Jesse answered.

“That… Can’t be right.” Stella said, chin on hands.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Aiden had taken Olivia through a large hallway then to a room on the left side. It was a bedroom, but whether or not it was Aiden’s bedroom was unknown. In the room, there were two beds, one you’d see the second you stepped foot inside, which had covers undone and a dark green blanket sloppily tossed on top to hide the small pile of clothes underneath it with pillows bare. This bed completely contrasted the other, which was on the far left end. The pillows wore a black case that stood out on the neatly done, vibrant red blanket. Beside the bed was, what seemed to be, a white pumpkin. ‘Cassie Rose.’ Olivia thought.

Both beds were held together by sturdy, dark oak wood which popped against the birch walls and spruce floor.

There was another oak door a few feet away from the red bed, which led outside. To a balcony, most likely.

In front of the messy bed, a good distance away, was a writing desk covered in papers torn, crumpled, and terribly stacked. A cup filled with a variety of feathered pens and worn down pencils were beside a black ink bottle left open. A journal was in the center of this messy desk, wide open. Not that Olivia could go over to read it with Aiden here. Also, that’d be a breach of privacy.

By the desk, there was a nice, small bookshelf filled with, well, books, but also items like swords, ores, and empty ink bottles. It didn’t look like something a hoarder would have, more like someone disorganized.

Two large windows were on both sides of the center wall. Olivia could see the tops and fronts of the buildings she caught snippets of earlier, and, surprisingly, there were still people walking around this hour. You could get a wonderful view of the night sky, full moon and all. Olivia folded her arms but stopped when she heard the sound of the jacket’s leather squeak.

“Oh, hey uh, would you like your jacket back?” Olivia didn’t wait for his acceptance, she took the book out of the pocket and was already taking it off. She felt weird wearing it. She didn’t know if it was because of how oversized it was, or the mere fact that it was Aiden’s was what threw her off, but it didn’t matter anymore. The jacket was off.

“Right, thanks. I was feeling naked without it.” he chuckled. As he was slipping into it, Olivia saw an item sheen from the moon’s light. She peeked over Aiden and saw bulky, gray goggles with a thick brown strap which laid on top of the bookshelf. Right next to them was her hat! With her small, black goggles and all! What were they doing here? Would it be a bad time to ask for them back?

“This’ll be quick.” Aiden began.

Guess she’ll have to wait.

“I was talking with Jesse earlier, about past experiences and,” he paused, “Were we rivals?”

Aiden knew it probably looked ridiculous to drag Olivia all the way up here to ask something as basic as that, but with Jesse in the same area, there could be the risk of him stressing or pressuring her. Maybe he’s influenced her in some way. Though that idea seemed a bit shaky at this time.

Olivia herself wasn’t expecting the simple question but was relieved it was only that.

“Yeah, we were! That was so long ago, it was mostly you and Jesse being competitive at Endercon.” Well, there was also Sky City. Could that be considered “rivalry”? It was more “borderline murder”. Rivalry cranked up to 11?

He nodded, “One more question, did you know about the portal in the shrine?”

“No, I wish I did instead of Jesse getting all excited and hopping into it all willy nilly.” she sighed as she brushed the hair out of her eyes, “But I guess I should be thankful we ended up in this town instead of some bizarre world like always.”

“What?” Aiden said suddenly.

“What?”

He didn’t say anything, he stood still clenching and unclenching his hands. “‘Like always’?” Aiden repeated in a whisper, mystified by Olivia’s words.

“... Yes?” she confirmed.

“You shouldn’t… Should’ve never been in another world.”  he began scratching his head, getting more and more fidgety.

“And why’s that--”

“Cause it’s illegal, for starters! And you shouldn’t… I don’t think the portals lead to different... “ he mouthed the word ‘Damn!’ to himself and ran out of the room like his life depended on it, his heavy steps down would shake the floor and boom throughout the house.

Olivia, while thrown completely off guard by Aiden’s snippet of an explanation, rushed behind him.

Whatever discussion was happening downstairs stopped. It was hard to ignore an entry like THAT.

Aiden stepped in, and though his eyes were wide and horrified, his voice remained strong and unshaken “I have a question. I don’t care who answers it, I want it answered.”

Stella stood up, “What amazing timing, so do we!” she peered at Jesse. The others, even Jesse, stood up, alarmed by Aiden crashing in unexpectedly. Olivia was jumping down the stairs and would’ve crashed had she not held onto the railings with her dear life.

“Great, but I’m asking first. It’ll be quick and it might answer you-”

“Spit it out, then!” Cassie crossed her arms impatiently.

“Were the portals in the shrines made for accessing other worlds?” he asked them.

A few people relaxed hearing the question, glad knowing nothing too bad had happened. That didn’t make them any less puzzled, however.

“If we’re going by The Hero’s Banishment’s story--along with The Hero’s Awakening’s goals--no.” Stella answered.

Gill’s face lit up a little, “And any of them that can go to other worlds are technically failures. They weren’t made to do that.”

Aiden shook his fist, “I knew it!” he said to himself.

Jesse voiced his confusion, “Sorry for interrupting, but what’s going on?”

“Jesse!” Aiden pointed at the curly haired boy, everyone stepped out of the way, making a clear path between the two. Aiden began getting closer and closer to Jesse, a smile of disbelief on his face, unable to contain whatever idea he conjured up with any longer.

“You and Olivia! You didn’t enter a different world! You’ve entered a different universe!”

[mvdipetsch]

Outside of London; A Guide.

Hello, friends! I think there’s a semi-substantial amount of roleplays based around England, but honestly 90% of them are in London and while that’s great, England is made up of a lot of cities and I figured I’d show some #representation. 

In this guide we cover: Housing in England, location and travel! 

Disclaimer: This is based off of my experience and the experience of those around me. Most of my knowledge is concentrated around Birmingham, as that is where I grew up, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool and Liverpool so I feel that I have a semi-decent shot at helping out. 

If you found this guide helpful, please reblog this as it helps to show me that there is interest and I’m not just shouting into a void. If you have any suggestions or comments about things I could/should cover in these guides please let me know! Any specific questions? Shoot me an ask and I’ll do my best to help you out. 

Location, Location, Location. 

England is divided into counties. There many of them, and realistically they don’t affect anything. All it really means is that your resources (police, fire, ambulance, charities, etc.) are organised by that one area. For instance - the buses in my city are all organised by Network West Midlands. They deal with every bus service (if it’s an NXBus) in the West Midlands. Ultimately, it doesn’t really affect anything. 

From my city to my university, it’s a 3-ish hour drive. That is a long drive. I know some people regard that as nothing, but when everything is so close together, it’s a lot. It’s not really a drive that people would make a lot - this is why train transport (while not that big) tends to be used to get from city to city. 

Only really in the inner cities are things that expensive. When you move away from the main city, things can get pretty affordable, but the inner city is still often really accessible via bus, driving or even train. When I’m at my boyfriend’s I’ll get the bus into the city centre, but when I’m at my mom’s sometimes it’s quicker to just jump on a train. Train tickets are also pretty inexpensive if you’re moving within the city. It’s when you’re heading to smaller cities that the problems arise. For instance, I can get to London for under £10, and to Liverpool for not much more. However, for me to get from Birmingham (a major city) to my University (a not-so-major city of about 200k) it’s £60+ with a change. On coach, it’s £14 with a change + it takes 5-ish hours (there are direct coaches that cost £30~ which is still significantly cheaper than the train) University students will commonly take a coach to and from their university to their hometown if it’s ridiculously priced. 

The higher north you go, typically the cheaper it is. This is dependent upon where in that city you are, but the general consensus is that north = cheaper. Obviously if you’re in Manchester city centre then it’s going to be a bit more pricey, but the general cost of living / food / etc. is seen to be cheaper the more north you go. A good way to judge how expensive a place is, is by how much the bus fare is. Birmingham bus fare is £4.00 for a daysaver (one ticket, on the bus as much as you like) but when I was in Liverpool I paid something like £1.20 for an U18 ticket. That’s a big difference. (For reference - Birmingham is the smack-bang middle of England. Liverpool is about 2 hours north, near Manchester.) 

Typically, when it comes to travelling; 

Driving

Cars in the UK are predominantly manual (with a gear stick) but we can still get automatic cars. Manual cars are also cheaper than automatic and you can drive an automatic with a manual license but you cannot drive a manual with an automatic license. 

My mom lives seven minutes from her work (she timed it, she’s got no life) but there are people who live up to thirty minutes away and have to take the motorway. This means that if there’s a massive accident, you can sit there for six hours, bored out of your skull

It’s also worth saying that if you live in a/the city centre, you’re not taking your car to work. It’s ridiculously expensive and parking is so few and far between, it’s really not worth it. People can and do drive, but plenty of people will also opt for a train or bus.

Buses

If you don’t drive the bus is often a very viable option. Buses will commonly run from 6:30/7 until 11:30/12 (at least where I am) but you can get night buses or buses that run later, they’re just a bit rare. 

Students (in college or secondary school, typically) are VERY common on buses. As in public buses. Unless someone has an impairment and go to a special school suited to their needs, you make your own way. Which often means that you jump on that bus with every man and his dog. 

Sunday service is real and it’s a pain in the arse. Buses that run every 10-ish minutes during the week drop to 20 between 9 and 5 and then drop to every 30 minutes after that (sometimes even every hour.) This means that if you miss your bus... you can be waiting for a very long time. 

Trains

Train’s are far more common for longer commutes. Also trains aren’t really that common for secondary school students (they either get dropped off in a car, walk or take the bus) but college students can and do take the train. My best friend takes an hour’s train ride to and from her college every day, and a lot of my teachers will get the train to college (my college is in the city centre, so it’s pretty logical.) Regardless, trains aren’t as common. 

Housing

Houses in England are attached. It is rare that you will see detached (stand alone) houses. Most houses will share their walls with their neighbours, unless they’re the end house in which case they’re called “semi-detached” cause... only half of them is attached. That tends to mean that if your neighbours have a baby, you can hear them crying. You can hear when the tv is too loud and all that kind of stuff. 

When you move out, there tends to be a few options in terms of who actually owns where you live. The options normally are:

Council. 

You sign up on the website, the council give you a priority rating and a set amount of points. These points are determined by the people in your household and your needs. A single mother with two kids will get more points than a single person with no dependants.

There is also a ‘bedroom’ tax, which states that you have to pay a tax if you live in a council property and are seen as having more bedrooms than you need. If, for instance you have two children of opposite genders that are aged seven and three, you have to pay extra tax for that third bedroom because it’s deemed as unnecessary. However if you have two children and they’re of different genders and one of them is over the age of ten (10) then you do not have to pay the tax. If they are of the same gender, then it is until one of them is sixteen (16).

Council and Housing Associations are most beneficial to those who are receiving benefits or are not working enough to cover rent by themselves. 

Housing Association

The way a housing association works is effectively the same as a landlord and the council. You apply on the council website for the aforementioned points and begin to bid on properties. When this happens, you may bid on a property that happens to be owned by a HA. The HA then acts as your landlord. HAs are pretty okay, dependent upon the area + such. When you live in a HA, any housing benefit you receive will immediately be paid from the council to the HA. This can cause issues if your money gets fucked up (which is more common than not because the housing system in the UK is BROKEN.) 

Private Rent

Private is when you have a landlord. I mean, that’s pretty self-explanatory really. You have an issue? Call the landlord. I’ve never had a landlord so I can’t really comment much on this. I will say that most landlords likely won’t accept housing benefit as a form of payment.

Private own. 

This is just the whole mortgage, thing. You know how this goes. 

There are a few different types of housing options when it comes to England and I’d imagine that this is pretty true for up and down the city.

Blocks of flats.

Blocks of flats are huge high-rises. They’re not as common anymore but there are still quite a few knocking about. If you remember the tragedy of Grenfell Tower, that was a high-rise. 

Blocks of flats can be owned by the local council or be privately rented. I’ve never lived in a flat, so my knowledge isn’t the best. They all tend to have names and there’s normally at least two together. 

A ‘flat’ is basically an apartment. So it’s a bunch of different flats (which, in high rises, commonly have two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a bathroom) High rises have a lot of flats in them. Commonly there’s at least 13 floors, with between around four and six flats per floor. So you can get a lot of people in a high rise. 

Maisonette. 

A maisonette looks like a wide house. It’s normally one to two floors, with flats that have three (or more) bedrooms. Maisonettes are considerably bigger, in terms of the flats inside, and consist of maybe two flats per floor. Maisonettes can also be council, privately rented or housing association. 

Bungalow.

A bungalow is a home without any stairs. They can be council, privately rented or privately owned. Bungalows aren’t that common anymore, but they’re great for people who have difficulty with stairs and such. Also most bungalows are actually pretty decent sizes too. 

Houses.

Houses in the UK are broken down into one of three categories:

Detached

Semi-Detached

Attached

This is literally just based upon how many of your walls are shared with your neighbour. Detached houses are really uncommon in the UK and are usually found in richer areas. Semi-detached is mainly just the house at the end of your street, so semi-detached and attached are the main two. 

Also it’s pretty common that you only have windows of two of the four house walls. Even if you’re in a semi-detached house, you’ll only have front and back windows. 

Houses can be privately owned, privately rented, housing association or council.

Most houses follow a similar layout. Typically three bedrooms, with either one bathroom or a room just for the toilet + then the bathroom (with a bath + sink + such.) It’s also super common for one room to be a ‘box room’ which is normally pretty small. My room at my mom’s house is the ‘box room’ and it fits a 3/4 bed, a chest of draws, and a metal rack that I use as a bookshelf. There is not a lot of room in there. 

And there you have it! I think I covered most things regarding transport and housing in the UK, and I really hope that it was as informative as possible. Stay groovy, my dudes. 

[iceamericanoventi]

Love Will Find a Way, Well, Eventually : 2. In Between

“Where are you going?”

If it was inside Cartoon Network’s universe, everyone must be able to see the smoke fuming from both his nostrils and ears. Jinki looks beyond distressed when he’s lifting his ass from the chair. No one on the table was his partner, but Minho decided to throw some ridiculous question then played dumb as if he didn’t just ask one.

“Should I have number one here?”

He started getting irked, but that doesn’t stay long until Kibum casually munched his breadstick while spluttering his witty comments as usual, “Surely Taemin would be delightful.”

Taemin who didn’t do anything almost chocked himself with a piece of tomato and kicked Kibum’s shin under the table, eventually.

“Promise me you won’t run away?”

Dumbfounded, Jinki emptied his pocket and almost smashed the table with his belonging.

“Are you my husband? Here’s my wallet. And my phone!” and with that, he left the other three men finishing their meal.

“Is he always in this temper?”

Lee Taemin gave him another look, pleading him not to embarrass them further, but Kibum just shrugged and muttered ‘I’m just asking’ under his nose.

“He was mad with me since this afternoon. Plus, he has lots of stuffs to think about these days. But don’t worry, he never really got mad unless you disturb his nap.”

“What is he? A bear?”

“Yaa! Kim Kibum!”

Minho couldn’t help but laugh to the scene happened before his eyes. Taemin is famous for being friendly and very expressive only if you know him, even if he’s talkative. To penetrate his bubble is very hard at first, but this man sitting across him, he seems like he’s already inside that bubble since the very beginning. He really is someone closed to him. Kibum looks mesmerizing, even in his grumbling nature. The oversize sweater wrapped his lithe build perfectly.

A phone call arrived to Kibum's phone, he picked it up frantically and excused himself to take it outside.

"What do you think?"

“Eh?” Minho doesn’t even realized he got his eyes entailed Kibum’s silhouette until it disappear by the entrance door.

“You seemed in trance. I know Kibum is beautiful but I didn’t expect you’ll be this amazed with my friend,” Taemin’s sipping his wine, a smirk is very apparent in his devious face. 

“I guess it’s safe to say that you’re not a liar.”

Minho reopened his mouth few minutes after he’s assured that Kibum’s not going back any soon. Taemin is not ecstatic, sometimes he wondered if Minho has a decent sense of humor of a friend.

“For your information, I’m not and never been. I’m the most honest person you’ve ever encountered in your life.”

“Everyone in this room knows that’s not true.”

“Whatever. I might know my ways deceiving people, but I never lie to my friend.”

 “Did you just admit that you’re lying here and there, Lee Taemin?”

Taemin rolls his eyes, again, probably for the nth times already this evening. Without Jinki around, he can be more relaxed on throwing his tantrum on Minho.

“Choi Minho, people lies at some certain points of their life. Get over it.”

He gulped down the rest of his wine, Taemin then called a waiter near them to bring him another one.

“Kibum seems nice. He sounds smart.”

“Sounds? Did you even listen to yourself? No writer is not smart, Choi. Moreover, someone who’s been writing the past decade!”

“I only know him for one night. Who knows he’s just acting?”

“Dude, not everyone is an asshole like you.”

“An asshole wouldn’t agree to bring his best friend along in front of a psychopath like you.”

Taemin snorted and Minho’s smirk reappeared on his face.

“That is literally what a psycho would do, selling their friend for their own benefits.”

Minho wiped his mouth before washed down the dinner with cold water, “And that’s exactly what Jinki accused me for. You two shared a brain or what?”

“Any sane people would say the same, Honey,” this time Taemin’s smirk that made the other scoffed, “By the way, what’s the deal with Jinki? He looks like he’s been sitting on thorny cushion the whole dinner!”

Minho knows Taemin would ask such question eventually. However, he couldn’t say that Jinki hates the whole dinner date plan, it’s impossible. Besides that, knowing him for years, Jinki really is an angel in disguise, well, at least when he’s in the mood.

“People have different, what should I say, defense mechanism? And that’s how he is. What kind of person who talked nonstop during their first meeting, anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t know, me?”

“That’s why you’re a freak.”

“A freak who introduced you to your potentially next boyfriend.”

“Ha. Point taken,” Minho raised his hand to ask for the dessert, “Jinki is just not the type of person who will talk a lot and open up in a second. But I guarantee you, he’s a good person. Sometimes a little bit care too much for other at certain time so probably being brazen is his forte.”

“That reminds me of someone.”

Taemin and Kibum spent their high school days together. Separated for some years due to works and educations, their relationship’s all well maintained. They understand each other, including Kibum’s nature to always put others before him at any given situation.

“Appearance wise, though, what do you think about Jinki?”

“Choi Minho, I’m not a teenager anymore. Judging people around by its cover is no longer my habit.”

“But a designer like you must love a beautiful package, don’t they?”

“Well, to be honest, his lips and eyes itself could get me floored in one glance.”

“I knew it.”

“You’re a famous photographer for a reason.”

***

Cold wind slapped Kibum’s cheeks lightly when he pushed the door and parched to the corner near the valet post.

“Okay, now you can speak. Sorry, I don’t know why the reception wasn’t good enough inside.”

“Then I’ll be frankly here. There’s a possibility for making the special edition for the short story collection. But then, we’re still short of two stories at the moment.”

“Wait, wait, but we already have nine! I finished writing nine! Why should I add another two?”

“The publisher agreed to the preposition for at least twelve stories. You should be grateful I could pitch one less story!”

Kibum looks like he’s about to punch anyone passed within radius one meter around him, but nothing in reach besides a huge pot of short palm tree and concrete wall. And he needs his hand to finish his books still.

“But, Amber. Page wise, those are more than enough to make two new books. Are they out of their mind?”

There’s a loud groan banging on his ear drum came from the other line, “Dude, I almost flipped the table when I was at the meeting you have no idea. The board has new man and that guy is a pain in the ass.”

“Would it change the circumstance if I talked to them by myself?”

“Since when do they have time to talk to the writer directly? We’re head to head with bunch of snobs here, did you forget?”

“I should had not agree to let them touched my writings. Now we’re about to face dead end.”

It was a dream to work along this publisher. It was Kibum’s dream since he started writing when he took gap year after graduated high school. And as if it’s a fate, it was the only publisher agreed with his graphic novel concept five years he climbed his career professionally.

“Listen, Kibum. When I met you years ago, I promised I’ll work my ass hard to help you publishing your books. Not because I knew you, it’s because you’re good. You’re amazing writer and I’m not giving up easily. And neither you. Not when anybody can tell that you’re a gem.”

“I haven’t written any book since last year, Amber. I’m in a slump. Writer’s block is not even describing my bad luck at the moment.”

“Honey, you haven’t written any because you’re currently waiting two books released. And if I could do my magic, another one in, let’s say, six months.”

“If I could make up some words into another story within two weeks. If you could convince them to give me mercy.”

“Did you just know me yesterday?”

Kibum’s tired giving sane response, “What do you mean?”

“I’m waiting their secretary to call me in ten minutes. We’re going to discuss some new deals and I’ll make sure one of them is going to be your new nine stories book.”

“I actually have no idea if I don’t have you as my editor slash manager slash friend slash personal ranting partner slash whatever you want to be.”

“Rockstar. That would be cool.”

“You’re going to be a kick ass one to be honest.”

“I bet. Anyway, expect another call from me in the next couple hours. I’m sorry, but tonight we might need video call to resolve some issues.”

“I hate you for confiscating my time but you’re the best.”

“As always, ain’t I?”

The phone call ends already, but he still forlornly looking at his phone’s screen. With that, Kibum remembers all the works he needs to catch up for tonight. With that, he can put aside all the unnecessary anxiety and tension of tonight’s stupid match making session.

He took a glance of his watch and could only sighed, he better hurried inside to his dessert. The faster he finished, the sooner he can hit home and face the real deal. His deadlines.

Two steps away from the entrance however, he caught a familiar face sitting by themselves, staring to the busy street in front of the restaurant.

“Jinki?” he carefully calling the man, “Lee Jinki, right?”

The later tilted his head to the right and gave Kibum a simple smile, didn’t realize it dropped Kibum’s heart by the bottom of his gut.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Everyone would agree this winter is even harsher than last year’s. Jinki just lifted his left hand to make sure Kibum saw a cigarette slipped between his fingers, “Can I sit here?”

Jinki chuckles, “Aren’t you cold?”

Listening to the same question he threw a minute ago, he just rolled his eyes and took a place next to the other man.

“I’m waiting a phone call.”

“Important?”

“Kinda.”

Jinki blew some smoke out, “Hmm, I guess so. You sounded pretty upset over there.”

“Did I scream that loud?!”

“In my opinion? No. but a girl flinched and buzzed off rather hastily, so, you tell me.”

When he saw Kibum’s gaping like a fish in frantic expression, Jinki has no choices beside laughed again, surprising Kibum who’s quite convinced with his aloof personalities.

“I didn’t know you have so many jokes in store.”

“You learn something new every day.”

“Your face doesn’t show.”

“What about my face?”

“It’s handsome but with that attitude inside, seems like you’re the type who woke up at the wrong side of the bed every single morning and could kill someone annoys you at any time.”

“Well, to be fair, I did wake up in the wrong side of my bed this morning. But it’s because a certain dog occupied half of my blanket so I couldn’t disturb her.”

“You have a dog?!”

Kibum’s face lit up thousand times as if he just won some lottery. Strangely, it warms Jinki’s heart. No, scratch that, it would warm any heart, Jinki tried to generalize the situation.

“I don’t, unfortunately. She belongs to my friend. I’m taking care of her while he’s travelling abroad. Her father will pick her up this weekend.”

“Ah, too bad. We could have play date with my boys.”

“I’ll make sure to give you a call when I decided to adopt one later.”

“Do you think my invitation hasn’t expired yet by that time?”

“A man can only dream, can’t he?”

Kibum’s laughter is muffled by his own palm covering his mouth.

“Let’s go inside, you must be shivering.”

“But your cigarette?”

Kibum’s half stuttered caught red handed, Jinki already pressed the half-done cigarette on the sand bowl on his left, “I can always have another one at home. Besides, I doubt you would go inside without me dragging you along.”

Kibum thanked the universe that the place is not well lit, so he could hide the blush creeping his cheeks. Unfortunately, Jinki has a very good eye sight.

***

“Is my baby being a good girl when daddy’s away?”

Jinki scoffed when the man just entered his living room just literally threw his suitcase aside and scooped the little dachshund running toward his embrace. He gathered the suitcase and poor leather bag on the floor and placed it neatly near the saffron color couch.

The man later dropped himself next to Jinki who’s lounged himself there, checking his phone halfheartedly.

“Minho texted me the other day.”

“Why did he keep texting you?”

The man with dark grey hair didn’t catch the frown hanging on Jinki’s face and buried his face to the dog’s belly, making him groaned again. He lightly pushed the dog further and toppled his head on the other man’s laps.

The dog owner realized something’s happened when he’s not around. He put the dog on the ground and tapped her butt to send her back to her small bed near the pantry.

“Minho has my number and I have his name in my contact list. He can text me whenever he wants. Still jealous?”

Jinki closed his eyes when he started playing with his hair, “He’s still one of the reasons we broke up.”

“Baby, the only reason we broke up is because neither of us didn’t want to succumb into marriage. Minho was just a handsome face happened on the wrong time.”

“I have no idea why I still befriend him when it’s clear he wanted to shove his face to yours, all the damn time.”

“And I have no idea that you’re this type who holds the grudge for a long time. We were already out of relationship back then.”

“Still, a friend wouldn’t openly chase after their friend’s ex.”

“A friend wouldn’t, but a best friend would.”

“Whatever.”

He almost lost his control and slapped Jinki’s head of him, “Oh, come on. What’s bothering you this time?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. It’s written all over your face the second I saw you behind the door. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because my daughter misbehaved while I’m on my annual pediatric conference.”

Jinki sighed, nothing he could really hide it from the other man. Since they were in their almost five years relationship, since they became best friends around three years prior.

“Minho invited me for a dinner night.”

“Wow, fancy,” actually Minho already texted him about the dinner a bit, how he wanted to introduce Jinki to some acquaintance he has, “He gave up on me so he went for the only option?”

“For the record, your mom agreed that I’m way much sexier than you.”

“Three years ago, before your cheek bones buried under those mount of fluffy fat.”

“Said a man who came to me and straight ahead told me I looked cute after leaving a piece of paper with their number on my table.”

“I will put aside the fact that I love how romantic you’re for still remembering our first meeting but let’s back to the right path here because I don’t like the upset you. It’s fucking annoying.”

“He introduced me to someone, Jonghyun.”

He let out inaudible gasp and thanked the universe Jinki’s still closing his eyes. Otherwise, he would stop at once and avoided any discussion of the main reason which distressed his ex-boyfriend. Knowing the scenario before hands didn’t prevent him with the sheer pain graze him when it came from Jinki’s mouth himself.

“So? Isn’t that great? Do you think it’s about time?”

“I was about to argue that two years are still not enough to get over you but I guess you’re not in the same page with me so I’d say that I’m not interested into some relationship whatsoever at this point.”

Jonghyun wanted to cry listening to such words. His heart clenched, he inhaled – a very long one – before he continued caressing Jinki’s forehead.

“I am flattered, but I know you’re just teasing me.”

“Ha, you know me so well.”

“I’m not gonna fall on the same hole, Lee.”

“You won’t. You’re too smart to repeat the torture on the loop.”

“It wasn’t a torture, Jinki. I love you as much as you do. Or maybe just slightly more.”

“Not a chance. I love you more.”

“Stop it or I will kiss you.”

“I dare you.”

“I told you I’m not gonna fall on the same hole.”

“Smart, very smart,” Jinki opened his eyes only to find Jonghyun sticking his tongue out, “Okay, so at first, I don’t like the idea already. You know I hate any type of match making method. Even the online one. But being there, I realized that my current focus doesn’t involved other party besides me, my business, and—“

“And your grandfather?”

Jinki looks annoyed, “Remind me to add ‘always-cutting-people-sentence’ on the list of reasons why I broke up with you when I’m writing my journal tonight.”

“It’s true. I think he was also the cock blocker during our relationship back then.”

“Dude, we’re talking about my gramps. And to put him on the same category with Minho is beyond weird.”

“We already broke up when Minho made his move, for Pete’s sake!”

“Okay, okay! No need to raise your voice, you’re so scary when you’re angry.”

“Then don’t make me! Now, now, can you please be a normal human being so we can talk like adults for once?”

Jinki pulled himself from the couch to the pantry, snatching a pack of cigarette on the tea table before slipped one on the corner of his mouth.

“Can you not smoking inside?”

He snorted and padded to the direction of his balcony. It’s in the middle of winter but he doesn’t care a bit to the wind ready to slaughter his bones. If tomorrow the cold prevented him to leave the bed, then let it be. For once, he just wants to free his mind from the business.

“You need to remember that I can only treat patient on certain age,” Jonghyun followed few minutes after with a blanket he spread as wide as possible to cover both of them without feeling suffocated for standing too close.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people be under pediatric care up to the age of 21, though.”

“Did you just quote Wikipedia? And we’re not in fucking States! Above and beyond, shame on your wrinkles!”

“Rude.”

“You’re the rude one to your lungs!”

“Then tell me how to ease my mind without nicotine! Tell me how to forget all those troubled night and just sleep! Do you think it’s easy taking care of worrisome business and messy family without distraction?! Stop talking non sense if you do know how to save my days!”

Any word seems taboo once Jinki exploded. Both man just staring into the dark evening below Jinki’s unit. People paraded as quickly as possible on the street to fight the harsh weather. It’s not that late, but only few cars passed by. The dim light of the street lamp’s soothing the tense atmosphere in a way.

Jonghyun leaned closer to Jinki’s arm and rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with that.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” 

“You know that you can always talk to me right?”

“I’m tired bothering you. You already have a lot in your hands.”

“Besides my patients and Roo, there’s nothing really confiscated my time.”

Having someone like Jonghyun who would stand next to him, scold him then hug him right after, no matter how awful he behaved and treated the other man, Jinki every so often thinking what kind of good deeds he did in his previous life.

Jinki cocked his head, inhaling the trace of scent of Jonghyun’s favorite shampoo. Initially, he was about to kiss the top of his head, like he used to do when the other man leaned on him for whatever reason it was. He remember, though, the earlier period after their broke up – after settling their feelings for few months of course – the shorter man told him not to do that anymore because it was the doctor’s Achilles heel. So instead, he rubs his cheek over the thick hair, silently telling Jonghyun he’s sorry.

Some nights – especially right after that dinner date – he had thought, maybe one of the reason he reprimands Minho’s idea is just because he still has tiny hope that Jonghyun and him might had another chance in the future.

“From time to time, I was thinking that the more day passed, we’re closer to the image of friends with benefit.”

“Friends with benefit? Tsk,” Jonghyun slapped his forearm, “The only benefit I got from you is you’re the only perfect nanny for Roo when I’m away.”

“Those cups of coffee every single time you stopped by my shop?”

“Pfft. How stingy. I’m leaving.”

“Heartless.”

Jonghyun didn’t say anything more and returned inside to gather his things and called Roo. He desperately needs some hot shower. Somewhere inside him, he was expecting Jinki offering him to stay the night knowing how caring the man and the fact Jinki knows he bolted to the other’s apartment right away after landed.  

When Jinki handed him the leash, that hope vanished in second.

“What if later I really considered this person? Or any other person collided with me on the future?”

Jonghyun smiled, he looks tired, but very sincere, “Then good.”

“Because I’m not gonna bother you anymore?”

“No. Because you’ll have someone to share the happiness with.”

***

cross-posted in my AFF

[caddy-whump-us]

I got tagged by @the-wandering-whumper!

Name: Cat

How old were you when you first realized you liked guys getting hurt?: I'm not completely sure, but I can definitely remember really liking any kids' cartoon that had the characters getting captured or kidnapped for an episode or two--and I still have an inclination towards captivity whump. I know that by the time I was a teenager and getting into animanga, I got into Gundam Wing and X/1999 and I really did like seeing Quatre and Kamui getting thrown around (those two especially).

What was that very first scene you remember gave you those glorious butterfly feelings?: Probably the scene in Disney's Robin Hood where Robin Hood's disguise at the archery tournament is literally sliced off him and Prince John just says "Seize him" and the next thing you know he's pounced on by guards and he's all wrapped up in chains and ropes and looking helpless.

Or else it was a scene in a Wonderworks cartoon where a werewolf has captured a young human character in a forest, rendered them unconscious, and then the character wakes up tied sitting in wooden chair with tall sides (so the character's hands are tied above their head to each side) and they wake up pulling on the ropes and saying, "Please let me go!" but the werewolf is very precisely telling them that he is going to bite them at midnight so they'll turn into a werewolf too--I literally recreated this scene secretly in my room with my toys I liked it so much.

Bonus for the text-based choose-your-own-adventure RPG computer game I played in 5th grade where one of the paths ended with "you" being captured, tied up, and dumped off the back of a truck in the woods (and I always pictured a boy character for this).

And there's an episode of the original TMNT where April is held captive by Shredder for, like, the whole episode and it was my secret fave, but that centers around a female characters, so does that count?

When and how was it that you realized “Hey, I’m not so messed up in the head!” and that there’s a definition and community for this sort of thing?: I guess I never really thought I was all that "messed up" for liking this (after all, they put these scenes in kids' movies), but it seemed like it was just something that one wasn't supposed to talk about. It was a bit like liking scary movies: some people like it, but it's creepy to most people, so it's not polite to talk about it. (I was always afraid of getting in trouble if someone found some of my writings and drawings, but some of it was more vent art than whump stuff.)

I played out some whumpy scenes in my LJ and DW RP days without knowing the terminology for it at the time ("hurt/comfort" was a more common term then) and wrote whumpy stories with OCs for years and years. But it's only been in the last few months that I've realized there's a separate, identifiable community just for these kinds of scenes, even though I've been either imagining or writing them for ages. And y'all are the nicest bunch of sadists I've ever met, it's really true.

What’s your favorite whump trope?: The Helpless Look. You know the one. It's the face-down/eyes-up, soft mouth look when a whumpee is good and stuck and hurting or about to hurt. It's so good. (Weirdly young Hugh Grant makes this face a lot--albeit in non-whump scenes?)

Along with that or following after it is the Submissive Look Down, which is like, so yummy, with the whumpee both feeling helpless and afraid and accepting of the circumstances. Bonus points for a little heavy breathing here.

Helplessness seems to be a recurring theme for me and whump. It may be why I really like whumpees in bandages too--especially kind of trying to get on with things despite hurting. Patched-up and bandaged is a great look for whumpees.

But I'm also a fan of Tied Up and Tied to a Chair and Tied Down to a Bed. Chained to the Wall with a Collar is good, and so are cages, but I'm really more fond of just Tied Up.

I do like a good beatdown, sure, but I really seem to like a lot of "non-traditional" whump, like non-con body mods (ear piercing or tattoos or traumatic haircuts). Surprise, whumpee: you're now part of a human experimentation project, so hold still while we ink on your identification numbers with a needle. Or, oh, hey, the whumper just carved a magic sigil into the whumpee body, making the whumpee into an unwilling magical familiar and storage space for the whumper's spare magical energy.

What’s a whump trope that you hate?: Mindless or aimless physical beatings. It just gets boring to me? I really need some connection between the characters or something to make the situation more interesting. I'm also not a huge fan of whump by inanimate object--like a car accident, say--unless there's some good focus on the aftermath.

What’s your favorite whumped character?: I'm honestly not into all that many fandoms and I've found I really dig OC whump, strange as that sounds. But if I have to choose, I'll look to my past: Kamui Shiro from X/1999 is so pretty when he bleeds or when he's wearing all kinds of bandages.

Quatre from Gundam Wing takes a stab to the gut with a broken fencing foil late in the series and I loved that (and the dozens of doujinshi where Trowa comes to his rescue after) along with the Zero Wing mind-control stuff (again, rescue).

Now for the last several years, I've been hung up on Cain Hargreaves from Godchild/Cain Saga. He's got a painful childhood (which is another issue), but he takes a few hits now that he's grown. He's quite pretty when he's helpless. Now, his faithful servant Riff gets fully whumped on several occasions, which leads to some wonderful emotional whump for Cain, so that's a win-win.

And Setsuna Monou from Angel Sanctuary is great for blood and bandages and drama--he’s a bit spunkier than some, but he gets whumped quite a bit too, and he’s pretty, so it’s nice.

I really think Kamui and Quatre are the base elements for my favorite OC whumpee Julian.

What’s that whumped scene(s) that you’ve watched over and over again. (We know you do it and we understand): I actually don’t have an answer for this? I’m really not into a lot of fandoms (especially not television or movie fandoms), so I’m going to have to skip this one.

Bullet or stab wounds?: Stab wounds, for sure. They're somehow...slower? More intimate? Don't get me wrong: a good bullet wound is fine too (and I wrote a very long big bang fic about the Clint Eastwood character The Man With No Name that involves both bullet wounds and a no-holds-barred beatdown--it's on my ao3 if you want to see it, wink wink). But I love knives--for stabbing characters, slicing characters, holding to their throat, &c. Mmmm good stuff.

Fevers or Hypothermia?: Fevers! Hypothermia doesn't really do it for me, but I bet there's some good whumpy hypothermia that would. But, of the two, fevers: whumpees confined to bed, with caretakers (grumpy ones, kind ones, unwilling ones, resigned ones), labored and shuddering breathing, chills and sweats, delirium, bad dreams, glittery feverish eyes--I love it.

Emotional or physical?: Psychological, actually. That is, what the whumper is doing might or might not be all that painful physically, but the psychological toll might be higher than the physical. I think it’s somewhere between emotional whump and physical whump--or it unites the two.

If I have to choose between the two, though? Physical, but I really need some emotional involvement in it. It's not just about the physical, it's also the emotional (whether I know what the emotional whump is because I know the story or I'm picking up/projecting the story).

Injured and asks for help or tries to cover it up?: Both of these are so good! I think it depends on the character and what's going to make for more delicious whump, really. Because I've got some OCs who are delicious when they're hurt and asking for help and others who are amazing when they try to tough it out.

My fondness for helplessness really does mean I like both.

Lastly, does anyone know about this addiction of yours?: Not...that I know of? Now, someone might and they just haven't told me that they know. I was always down for a whumpy scene in my LJ/DW RP days, but that wasn't so unusual there--it was all for the sake of character angst (as we called it then). I've not confessed to my addition to anyone, though. So there you have it.

Pass this on!

[twentytwentynews-blog]

Passion That Can’t Be Denied

LaVerne Roxby, Contributor We sank to the floor and gave in to the passion that had been building between us for weeks.  Yes, we knew it was wrong! We had tried to deny it, but, NO!  we couldn’t – the sexual tension was too strong. We became one as we yielded to our basic animal sexual instincts, all the time saying, “this can’t be happening, but it is” and other stuff like that. After “it” was over, we went for hamburgers and cokes and never saw each other again . . . not for many years, and then we did. I looked up and said, “Ari?” at the same time he said, “Lola?” Damn, he looked good. Call it karma, call it fate, call it what you will, but there is no denying that when our eyes met once again, the fire that we had long ago extinguished had returned.  It was like a roiling boil on a hot stove.  My heart literally melted as I hit the go button on my scooter and raced across the dollar store to embrace him, flinging a great-grandchild off my lap as I went. He, wearing thick glasses and using two canes, ran to me, oblivious to the fact that he had knocked over a whole display of $1 a can peaches.  It was at that moment that I wished I wasn’t wearing a Depends, but I knew he would understand.  Love is like that;  never having to say you’re sorry. We met in the center of the dog food section, and it was there, on top of a 50-pound bag, that we took care of our long unfinished business as my granddaughter yelled at me for racing and for dropping HER child, and for not stopping to pick up HER child, and while the store manager called the police.  As we were being led away to separate police cars, I made the little sign with my finger that means “call me” and he blew me a kiss.  As the police car door was closing, I yelled to my granddaughter: “Don’t forget to get me that chocolate pudding that I like; you hear me now?” Hurricane Crazies The day of the “big” hurricane, the one we had always feared, was upon us. She was ‘a comin!! My in-laws, plus granny, descended on my house like a herd of migrant workers. The next thing I knew, granny was filling every bottle in the house with water; I’m not kidding – we had to clear a path to get from the kitchen to the living room. Next, she scrubbed the tub and filled it, too.  Oh, well – nobody was much interested in taking a bath anyway; plus, if this baby was as big as they said she was, we were all going to get plenty wet anyway. Suddenly, my mother-in-law started dragging blankets out of the linen closet – at first, I thought it was to pad the area where the sliding glass doors were (if you live in Florida, sliding glass doors are a must-have) but, no, she was settling in on the couch and my father-in-law was wrapping himself up and getting comfy on my loveseat. (Did I mention that we were in FLORIDA where blankets are only for show?  – you never take them out and actually use them.) About that time, my father-in-law yelled: “When are we going to eat?” Feeling the need to escape,  I ran into the dining room – that’s when  I heard a loud thumping noise against our  bay window – were we being bombarded by huge limbs from those high winds we were told were headed our way? NO, it was our stupid horse banging his head against the glass – even he wanted in!! I had a few words with him and then I shut the drapes. I yelled to my husband, “Who let the damn horse out – let me guess.” He said he had read in a book that that is exactly what you should do in a situation like this – let the animal run free.  I knew I was losing “it” so I took off for the family room (big mistake) where I came upon one of our two teenagers – the female one. She was walking around in short shorts and was barefooted (you can get away with that 24/7 in Florida, even when a hurricane is coming). She was pouting because we wouldn’t let her use the phone while it was lightning, and she said she was bored. I said, “Get me a gun so I can kill myself.” About then, I heard a loud thumping at the front door. I looked through the peep hole and, you guessed it – it was “the horse” only this time I was looking at his rear end (always a pleasant sight.) Upon closer inspection,  I realized that he was making a deposit, if you know what I mean. I yelled out, “Did you let the damn pig out so he could run free, too? I knew by the look on my husband’s face that, yes, he had. I was in a dad gum loony bin. I took off for my son’s room where I found him sprawled out on his king-sized waterbed (people are really into water down there) reading a surfing magazine, snacking and listening to a mellow Bob Marley song. Always Mr. Cool, he looked up and said, “What’s up, ma?” I said, “Move over and hand me the chips – there’s a bunch of crazies in the house.” The Virtues of Colon Cleansing Being a person who is into rituals, on a glorious Sunday morning, I brewed my coffee and picked up my low fat granola bar before leisurely seating myself at the computer to check my emails.  I immediately saw where two high school classmates had left me messages on Facebook. I excitedly clicked on the link only to discover that their messages were the same:  both  were extolling the virtues of colon cleansing. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have that on my to-do list, but only in about 100 years.  In fact, colon cleansing is sitting right up there next to begging my dentist for a root canal. I know that my classmates only care about what is best for me,  and they certainly didn’t know that I would check my messages while eating my breakfast, but having a discussion about colons, period, is just not what I do on a social networking site. I prefer to keep it light out there – I mean, I have participated in discussions  about minor health issues, and the repairs that go with them,  but colons are something that I think are best kept as discussions between patients and doctors,  if a discussion is even necessary. In fact, my primary doctor doesn’t even ask, “how’s your colon?” unless it’s time for the dreaded, un-fun, drink that nasty drink beforehand, colonoscopy.  We have, I think, an unwritten agreement that she will not bring it up again for 10 more years because I recently went after she talked me into it.  I remember very well our discussion when I first agreed to undergo the  polyp check. She brought out a giant  (like 4 x 6 foot) diagram showing the large intestine and the path  the “see all” tube with the giant camera would travel  during the colonoscopy process.  Whoa! I had no idea of all the  activity that goes on in that area -  It looked  like a bustling little city. After 5 minutes of watching the path she was tracing with her long stick, I covered my eyes and said “ I really don’t need to see this – can I have the drug now that takes me out of this nightmare? “ Anyway, I am happy to report that I got an “A” on the colonoscopy experience and I now pretty much ignore anything that has to do with colons, except the punctuation kind. Now, if my former classmates want to start a campaign to cleanse the English language of that type of colon, I will jump right in and offer my opinion.  However,  I prefer to pick on the semi-colon because there’s only half as much to clean - and less chance of polyps. Grudges Some people hold grudges, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. “Get over it!” is what I say. Here’s one example: Fifty years ago (yes, 50!!) I did one small thing wrong and got my whole Girl Scout troop (Troop 354) in trouble. Even now, after  all these years, I can’t go home to Florida without having one of them say: “Remember that time when LaVerne got us all in trouble at the Coca-Cola plant?” They also usually bring up the other little incident, which happened at the local Air Force base, but that is another story entirely (definitely). Anyway, here’s what happened at the Coke plant: All of us were loaded up in the back of the troop mother’s station wagon – back then, you could do that – just tell everybody to climb in; if a few heads got knocked around, like up against the window glass, that was okay, it toughened you up for what life had in store for you later on. Anyway, we were merrily cruising along, with all the windows open, when the troop mother spotted a woman in another car that she needed/wanted (whatever), to talk to. She pulled over to the curb in front of the Coke plant (a big mistake) and so did the other woman. She left our car and, of course, told us to “stay right there.” Well, that was fine for about 5 minutes, and then it got HOT IN THERE. I suggested, in a sweet way, that perhaps we should go in and tour the Coke plant while she was busy talking and ignoring us. After all, we WERE wearing our uniforms. All of us formed a nice straight line (me in front) and marched in. I calmly told the receptionist that we were here for our tour. She looked in her little appointment book and said she didn’t see a tour scheduled for us. I looked at her and said, “There MUST be some mistake; we are supposed to be here NOW.” She asked where our leader was and I told her that she would be inside in a few minutes and that we had been instructed to begin the tour immediately as time was an issue.  The next thing I knew, we were on our way. I, of course, was leading the group. About 7-8 minutes later, as we were watching the bottling process (for you younger ones, this was back when Cokes came in glass bottles), and I was really enjoying myself,  I heard a small commotion, and then the troop monster (at this point, from the look on her face, I didn’t think she should be called “mother” anymore), had me by the arm and was  pulling me away from all the fun. She marched me, and all the rest of the troop followed, straight to the car. She was quite upset, and so was I – I did not get the free coke that I had been promised!!! Neither did the other girls, and that’s why they are still carrying a grudge today, I think. One of my troop members is now a psychologist. The next time I’m back home, I’m going to ask if I can lie on her couch and talk things out. It would really help me and, maybe her. You never know. Hazel Brooks As I got up to leave, she said: “I wish we had known each other when we were younger. I think we would have been the best of friends.”  Her name is Hazel Brooks and she is 80 years old. We sat next to each other  on my recent flight from Grand Junction, Colorado to Dallas. I had been up since 2:00 am and had planned to sleep, but she and I ended up talking the whole 3 hours. She told me she lost her husband of 62 years this past April – she said they had a wonderful life. I love the story she told me of how they met. She was working in a restaurant in Texas and a lady came in and asked for a table. The lady said she was expecting her son who was home on leave from the war and asked Mrs. Brooks  to look for him – she said he was tall, dark and handsome and would be wearing a uniform.  Mrs. Brooks said he came in, she directed him to the table where his mother sat, and their romance began that day. They married 2 years later. They had three children – two daughters and one son. She also has 8 grandchildren and 10  great grandchildren.  While we were talking, she opened her wallet and showed me  photo after photo – the first one was of her handsome husband in his uniform. She knew the name of each person and age he or she was when each photo was taken.  She also told me where each one of them lives today.  She said she now lives with one of her daughters, who is blind, near Houston.  Her own home is up for sale – she and her husband lived there for  over  50 years.  She said it was hard to move out.   I told her I understood. As we talked, she told me about her life. When she was a young girl, and her father was ill with cancer, the family went in two covered wagons from Texas to Arkansas and back – a trip that took 3 months – so her father could soak in the hot mineral springs in the hope of a cure.  He died a few weeks after they returned home – he was in his early 40s. She also told me about her oldest brother, nicknamed “Son.”  She remembers him being in horrible pain for several days before he died at 16  – it turns out that his appendix had burst.  Her eyes misted over as she told me about her brother and her father, both dead all these years. I thought about my own father, who died at 52. There was no miracle cure for him, either. I listened as she told me about her crazy aunt – the one who had a daughter who couldn’t stand up straight so she put her on a table and ironed her back. She told me the hot iron caused horrible blisters and holes in her back and that her aunt then poured kerosene on the whole area, which also brought terrible pain.  I asked her what the family did when they found out – she said they tied the aunt up in the barn. We moved on to another topic so I found out little more except that her cousin grew up with a straight back. I wish we had known each other when we were younger. I think we would have been the best of friends. On Bass Tournaments I love to talk. Sometimes I say the wrong thing, at the wrong time, to the wrong people. My husband, Al’s, big bass tournament was no exception. Here’s what happened: We went to Charleston, SC for a MAJOR tournament – we’re talking big names in fishing. There were 12 fishermen on each team from seven southern states. Anyway, I was milling around with at least 80 other women as the men were coming in on the last day of the 3-day tournament to weigh their fish. I was “lookin’ for muh man” just like the other wives – I was there to support him because he was “muh man.” One of the big sponsors of the tournament, chewing tobacco producers, was handing out samples (as in whole boxes) of their product to all wives.  I politely declined when I was asked if I would like some “for muh man.” Anyway, the crowd was getting larger all the time – the anticipation was building – we were about to have ourselves “a champyon.” The next thing I knew, a microphone had been stuck in my face and I was asked: “Little missy - have you got a man out there on the water today?” I answered, “yes.” The man then said: “What’s his name and what team is he on?” I responded, “Al Krakatos – Alabama.” Next, he said, and I’m not making this up: “Why ain’t you got yourself a box of that ‘baca for yur man?” I said, “Because it causes cancer and there are lots of children here today who see these tobacco-chewing bass fishermen as their heroes.” Well, you could have heard a fishing rod drop – they had a very good loud speaker, and I have a very big mouth. The large crowd suddenly got really, really quiet. About that time, “muh man,” he done come in, and I reverted to being the quiet little wife I was supposed to be but, funny thing is, we were totally ignored at the hoedown that night, which was sponsored by the tobacco people - imagine that. When we got back to the motel later, Al  whined, “The least you could have done was get me one of those brass spittoons that they were giving away with the chewing tobacco.” Knowing now what I didn’t know then (about the future state of our relationship), I should have gotten him at least five boxes of that ‘baca, and encouraged him to chew it. Live and learn. No More Chubby Cheeks Like many others, as the last new year approached, I decided to make some major life changes. You know the ones: eat better, eat less, exercise more, drink more water, etc.  I decided to work on all four at once because that’s the kind of person that I am. I hopped out of bed on day 1,  ate three grapes, drank a gallon of water, and prepared for the exercise phase.  Step 1 is to dress for it. I found my exercise clothes in a large bag from the 1960s, dusted them off, and put on what still fit, which was basically the bag. (I have heard that simply putting on your exercise clothes will automatically cause you to lose 1 pound, and I believe it.) Once I was dressed, I headed to the gym.  Step 2 is to go into the gym and actually use a piece of equipment. I entered the gym trying to appear as if I had been in one before, and casually surveyed the equipment.  Some of it looked like it belonged on an X-rated website, not that I have ever visited one.  I finally found a machine that looked like a bicycle, except it had a special torture gear. The minute I started pedaling, my legs began to tingle. Because it was such an unusual, uncomfortable feeling, I decided not to overdo it and hurt myself. I only pedaled until I had burned 10 calories and then I stopped to rest. After 5 minutes, I decided to go again. I pedaled to burn 10 more calories and then I knew I needed a major rest. I decided to lie down on the carpet by the bicycle from hell until I felt well enough to walk. While I was down there, I rose up on one arm and looked around. What I saw was a sea of chubby cheeks (both kinds) and some hairy armpits (mostly on men).  The cheeks motivated me to get up and head to the weight room while the hairy armpits motivated me to get up and move, period.  Once in the weight room, I approached a piece of equipment that had a sign stating  that I needed to use enough weights to equal my actual body weight. Well, there was a good-looking guy standing nearby so there was NO way I was going to use the correct amount of weights. I fudged by 30 pounds as he looked on. However, after I grabbed the overhead bars and put my feet on the lower bar, the jig was up: my whole body slammed down and the weights hit the floor.  He was kind enough to turn his head the other way. Step 3 is to face reality. As I hurriedly left the weight room, I told myself that it was ridiculous to think I could look like a Hollywood starlet after only one gym visit – I needed to pace myself.  I therefore stopped in the lounge area and watched a little TV.  After a couple of shows, I felt re-energized and I completed my exercise regimen by watching other people work out while I drank a frappuccino.  All in all, it was a good first effort to get in better shape. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Fun at Grandma’s Sometimes, when I was a child, I was downright evil – not evil like Linda Blair in The Exorcist where her head was spinning around as she was spewing out green split pea soup, but evil nonetheless. Take the incident with my cousin, Samantha, for example, when we were both about 12 years old. It was summertime and we were at our grandparents’ home in North Florida. They had an outdoor shower located a good 20 feet from the back of the house. The shower sides were covered with tarpaper and it was open at the top. Samantha decided to take a shower in the middle of the day, and this is where the evil side of me took over. Knowing that she was deathly afraid of “rain frogs,” (small green frogs that sort of stick to your skin when they make contact), I decided to take full advantage of the situation. Once she was inside the shower, this is what I did when the bad LaVerne took over:            1.  Locked the back porch door            2.  Grabbed nine or 10 frogs and put them in a Mason jar 3.  Quietly removed her clothes and towel from the top of the shower where they      were hanging 4.  Climbed up on a ladder and poured the frogs on her. Approximately 5 seconds later, all hell broke loose. Samantha ran screaming out of the shower, buck naked, and headed for the back door which was, as I said earlier, locked. She then threw open the lid on the wringer washing machine on the porch and grabbed some dirty towels, which she used to cover herself. I, meanwhile, ran around the side of the house and hurriedly got up on the front porch and sat in a rocking chair. All the adults were busy running to the back porch to see what the screaming was about so I felt sure that I was in the clear. Little did I know that one of my other cousins, a little brat about 6, had seen what I had done and he ratted me out. My grandfather, a wiry little man, gave me a few good swats with a hickory switch, and then all the adults went back to doing whatever it was that they were doing before.  What did I do? I calmly went back outside and beat the crap out of that bratty little cousin. This time, I made darn sure there weren’t any witnesses. Read the full article

[mceproductions]

October 2018 Blurbs

10/1/18 31 Nights of Halloween, Freeforms inheritence from its previous incarnations, other than the mandated 700 Club. The month between seasons, otherwise known as candy city. Stockholm Syndrome from Willies departure may be setting in as we had a large truck and only 4 of us to do it. I shouldnt be missing his prescence but somehow i am. Remedy is needed soon. 10/2/18 Im A Christmas Guy, love giving gifts out and decorating. Have done so annually for 16 years and it always starts within the first few days of October as i unblock my Holiday themed movie and TV Shows on digital. Looking forward to the next few weeks especially. Brewers NLDS starts Thursday! 10/3/18 The old tutalige of when it rains it pours, reared its ugly head. Flat by Old El Rancho. That really screws things up for me. Hoping for Miracle. 10/4/18 Well, day minus the Brewers coming back, was a bust. Tire was flat. Hoping I can get it either possibly fixed or a cheap replacement. Wondering how ill get to the store tomorrow. 10/5/18 Apparently massive flu spreading around as Mom picked up whatever Dad was sick with. Ended up replacing tire, but with brand new one. Hopeful not mistake. Also affected things at WallyWorld as Linda and Tyler were feeling cruddy. Hopeful I dont get it. Brewers win and truck got fixed. Still undecided on Venom or Gaga for movie on Saturday. 10/6/18 Ended up going with Gaga and was pleasently stunned by both her and Bradley Cooper. Movie was wonderful and that ending was rough, picked up soundtrack to boot. Sort of took longer than I anticipated coming back from EC thanks to BlueGolds Homecoming. Boy colleges take that far more seriously than High School. Panera for dinner was a great alternative as well. 13th Doctor tomorrow before work! FLCL on the other hand...I'll never say the C word to anyone, but Pets was definetly the C Word to Kana. 10/7/18 Man that was emberassing to watch. Green Bay actually played so lousy I watched Doctor Who, and loved the female 13th looking forward to more of her. Final Season of Walking dead also premired. Wonder how Ricks going out. Gunner and his partner are really intolerable. Reporting that asap, the store is not a place for thier private spats. 10/8/18 Columbus getting squeezed out of his own day is the most PC thing that I can get on board with. Nobody gives a crap about the whole Sailed the ocean blue in 1492 thing anymore. Stuff to do including assignments that I have to go to the library to finish. Hoping internet will be back sooner rather than later. 10/9/18 Woke up to flashing lights by house and realized power line got taken down by tree that Dad had pointed out. A bit more broke than I anticipated. Stuff here i have to do anyway and thankfully work will limit my having to go anywhere. Really could use $300 to pay Patti. Brewers will take on Dodgers in NLCS starting Friday. Mad that Conan for all intent and purpose has been cancelled, adpating is one thing but this is a glorified cancellation. 10/10/18 Rain city continues...Puddles in Bravada. On top of it its getting colder. Winter isnt here yet, but the white ravens are taking flight. 10/11/18 Now comes the cold, and first snow of the year. We had it all today cold, wind, sun and snow. 10/12/18 Store gave me a first look at my future. Gaurantee work on Sunday Monday and Friday every week unless i say so. Which other than one day may be saying much. Could use more variety than that. Also stinks NLCS is on when im working. Pulling for Dodgers in at least 1 game so I can see game 5 on wednesday at least. 10/13/18 They have been hyping the crap out of inventory for the past 3 weeks. Now i see why, Clint made a rare Saturday appearance at the store. Hopeful for the next few days. Got my prediction right about game 5 on Wednesday so thats good. Kanye is nuts as usual, and Kana gave me the best reason yet to finally move forward on the FLCL finale. Cold week ahead. 10/14/18 Andrew and his little notes are getting out of hand. Got called in to do truck early as Inventory closes in on Tuesday. Clint on the other hand, i know ive got to not walk off for a few seconds but he really needs to chill for a bit especially cause we both used to be pushing carts in the first months of the store he should know my rhtyms by now. Stinks about Pete Davidson though, really hope he can recover cause i liked him and Ariana as a couple. Rather unfortunate that they split cause she couldnt deal with her ex commiting suicide. 10/15/18 A missing person is a big deal, when you happen to know someone who is related to said missing person, then you know its huge. Jayme Closs, the cousin of Brody being abducted after her parents were gunned down, sad for all. My only issue is brody reatcing to everyones sympathies, overkill a bit. The other issue i have is the amber alert system that can be sent out to phones. With Trumps ability to text everyone in the country I witnessed a bunch of people who got the alert yesterday complain about it, the others who thought she killed them and fled are the bigger morons. Hopefully shes found safe. Other than that, good night for Wisconsin Sports, Brewers are 2 Out from pennant and Rodgers did his thing once again. 10/16/18 Boring first part of shift as we did basically nothing due to the inventory. But at least the night managed to salvage itself. Dodgers really play dirty. 10/17/18 Nose began to stuff itself again. Bunch of classwork for 2 weeks as i get the inservice day. Milwaukee gave another one away. Hoping Game 6 on Friday will be a turnaround. 10/18/18 Rare thursday day, nose still stuffed. 10/19/18 Library day as i caught up on work, and finally watched A Chrsitmas Story to its ending. A classic, yes just don't feel that strongly about it. Big game from the Crew forcing Game 7. 10/20/18 This day was nuts, a quick 25 minute snowcase that gave way to sunny conditions by noon. Saw Venom, didn't get why it was hated. Quite enjoyable dyanmic and She-Venom was the highlight of it all. Dodgers unfortuantley took the pennant. Great season overall for Milwaukee just bummed my streak of picking the world series winner at the All Star game ended at 4. Also tide pods finally used them, no wonder people ate them they're great for clothes. 10/21/18 First day ever that i skipped NFL Games. Neat concept. 10/22/18 Very long strech of store coming up, especially given that Today we only had 3 total. 10/23/18 Held off on grabbing Mamma Mia 2 Blu Ray. Mainly due to gas situation that had Bravada dying near tracks. I got to figure cash situation out to pay off people. 10/24/18 Lone day off before Halloween. No class today so that made things better. Master Mode on Zelda getting easier to figure out. Did reset on iPhone and Kindle, should fix lone bugs. Really want to play RDR2 and Spiderman PS4. World Series from what I can tell is shaping up as a sweep. Also, whole reason I began watching Sunny aired tonight. First of 2 Part Super Bowl Episode. Charlie in a Bear Trap drinking pee, eww! 10/25/18 First of 6 in a row backwise. The Halloween episodes on TV Usually do wonders for me, not this time. I know this is the final season of Big Bang Theory but Sheldon not realizing how irritating he sounds to others after 12 years and so much maturing seems not the right way to do it. Especially seeing his wife irrate Bernadette. 10/26/18 2nd night, the wheels i dont think feel off, but the were more loose than usual. Hour to set up, hour work, break, 30 minutes to unload hvdc and then didn't finish til after 6. When your down numbers wise you can certainly feel it. FYI The crap with the MAGA Bomber made me mad enough to likely stay off social media until after the election, that made it my breaking point. RWBY Season Premire Tomorrow! 10/27/18 Rooster Teeth First free trial, worth it for watching a great primire that perfectly sets up what comes. My point who is that woman with the Maz Kanata eyewear? Wisconsin stinks. 10/28/18 My issue with the whole core hours thing involves me working on days i know theres something i should be doing. Such as watching the packers. Almost beating LA, hopeful they can actually do that against Brady. 10/29/18 That blue wave better close in next week cause, another shooting and another predictable Trump response occurred. Hate crimes abound in his america. 10/30/18 Last in the back, October really came and went this year. Only thing bad about not working Halloween is the dressup im missing out on. Adam in drag would have been a hoot. 10/31/18 Darkness Falls Across the Land...You Know the rest. Halloween. This day is one back 20 Years ago i would openly love. At least the Candy is still around, albiet smaller and more sugary. Nowadays this day has me DVR'ing all the major shows to see what costumes get put on. Spoiler Alert only episodes of ATH And PTI that I happily record all year. When it comes to applying for scholarships however thats where it blurrs. WITC is really biased against those in the outreach sites hoping i can get help tomorrow when i visit. November came too quickly but, I get to see my nephew in 2 Weeks!

[itsworn]

Mopars Steal The Show At Mecum’s Indy Auction! Huge Gallery!

With both record prices and bargains, Mopars were the highlight of the 30th Annual Spring Classic.

The challenge to making any event last is consistency. Weathering the storms of business cycles, giving people a positive experience, and generating the idea that this is the one will all play into its legacy. The Mecum auction company has proven they know their target audience and can meet those marks. For 30 years, Dana Mecum and his crew have hosted an event called the Spring Classic, the granddaddy of their yearly schedule. It now takes over a majority of the display buildings at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on the northeast side of the capitol city of Indianapolis, where for five straight days they work hard to make automotive dreams come true.

That is because there is so much variety here. Mecum does pride itself as being the leading purveyor of great for-sale muscle cars, and there was no lack of them here. The truth that Mopar examples in general are nowhere near as commonplace as the competing brands had made Mecum very adept at interspersing either single cars or groups throughout each day. Early in the week are the cars that would work for a lot of buyers, sometimes needing some TLC but never junk (unless there is a reason the car is offered unfinished). Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is the “show” part of the show, when thousands of onlookers watch the action as cars trade hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars. 2017 was no exception. Let’s take a look.

That Virginia Collection

One thing that Mecum often handles are both estate and collection selling, and the Indy event saw no less than 13 groupings of cars of this nature, a number of which were offered without reserves. Among these were several that featured quality Mopars, including the Clarence Arnoldussen collection from Canada, the Dallas and Aimee Hawkins collection, and the 2010 Spring Collection, but for the hitters in the Mopar world it was a number of unrestored, original-paint, low-mileage cars in the group called “From a Private Virginia Collection.” These included a ’70 Hemi ’Cuda, an AAR Challenger, an M-code 1969 Road Runner, a 340 Swinger, and an amazing 1970 Duster in FM3 Moulin Rouge (Panther Pink in Dodge nomenclature) among other brands. The Duster got a lot of attention, drawing a hammer price of $46,000, which may well have been a record for a stock A-body/LA-engine Mopar. The Hemi ’Cuda, had less than 7,000 miles and in Top Banana yellow, took a $295,000 bid to bring home. Perhaps a little less than expected, the owner accepted this but took home a few Yenko models that did not meet his expectations. The ’Cuda was followed by the Road Runner at $120,000 and the 4,800-mile AAR at $110,000. Again, for people who appreciate survivor cars, these were blessed by Frank Badelson and needed nothing at all.

Dallas and Ammie Hawkins were selling a selection of their vehicles at no reserve, and we feel there were some good deals on these. Their Gator-grain roof 1970 Charger R/T with a U-code 440 brought $42,500, which was a great bargain for somebody on this car (we featured it on the Mopar Muscle facebook page before the auction). From the 2010 Spring collection, which were a group of cars previously bought from Mecum events back at that time and being sold again, was a high-compression 426 Max Wedge 1963 Polara 500 convertible that was top dog, banging out the door at $110,000 before buyer’s premium. A ’66 Hemi Charger with the scarce four-speed got somebody a true 426H driver for $50,000 right behind that.

The Arnoldussen cars were also strong, with Clarence and his car curator Dallas Harty only taking home two of 18 cars they brought. Action was led by a 1969 Dodge Daytona. Built as a 440 and painted white from the factory, this car had turned up without a numbers-matching engine and now sported an OEM-appearing Hemi install and a red wing and accompanying red interior. For the buyer looking for a show car without the stress of having a half-million or more in a real Hemi Dodge wing, it was a stunning car in appearance and quality, and took home a solid $225,000 final price. Based on trends, this was possibly more than it might have brought as a 440ci restoration to perfect stock.

Market Correction Or Correct?

Clarence, who operates a Chrysler franchise in Canada, represents what could be considered the “practical seller.” Rather than take a bunch of cars back home, he had realistic expections, saw the money was there, and cashed out. For example, his 1970 Challenger convertible, a beautiful restoration on a vehicle that was presented to Bob Hope, whose 1970 TV show was sponsored by Chrysler. The R/T is red with matched red interior, great options including power windows, and a U-code 440 four-barrel that allowed Hope to get air-conditioning. This car was bought very nicely at $105,000, which included a pile of signed Hope memorabilia, and Arnoldussen was wise enough to take good money for it rather than wait for “that one guy” to pay more for a 440-4BBL model. Same with his M-code Super Bee ($72,500) and 1969 Hemi Road Runner ($80,000). Solid money in hand, Dallas told us they were very happy with how much the sale of the 16 vehicles that sold generated.

Are there changes in the market for Mopars? Truth be told, there is a lot of money flowing into the real economy right now, and some of the cash we were seeing in all forms of collectible items is being used that way. So as result, we did not see what could be called “breath-taking prices,” but we also did not see “giveaway losses.” My personal feeling is that there is a correctness to the present pricing, meaning that the real-world money being offered is the true market at this moment. The prices were not because the big spenders were not there or were not spending, but simply that these were practical values on these cars. Seller Joe Cheeks let his amazing one-of-one Mr. Norm’s-sold 1970 Six Pack Super Bee sell for $80,000 as the event wound down. He had hoped for more, but saw the money, and decided to sell it through the Bid Goes On.

The one exception to this rule, again in my opinion, was the survivor 1970 Hemi ’Cuda, which seemed a little soft at $295,000, but hey, $295,000 is not $195,000, so that doesn’t appear to a true “big correction,” just real money, and the Mecum crowd was buying. Sell-through percentages were probably in the 70 to 75 percent range, a great achievement considering that reserves are offered at the Mecum events. The patented cry of “the reserve if off!” resounded again and again each day.

That left us with that Hemi Superbird. A number of wing cars had been at Kissimmee and sold with varying degrees of success. This car, showing less than 10,000 miles and nicely documented, was expected to bring in excess of $300,000. As the price moved above $225,000 asking $250,000, the seller pulled the reserve and the hammer came down with a $230,000 final price. Since the car did not have any significant issues in equipment or provenance, this might have been a correction, but an accompanying issue may have. It frankly did not display any “patina” endemic to most unrestored vehicles. Couple that to the column-shift Torqueflite, and maybe $230,000 was not that far from real-world. Still, most people I talked with felt it was the deal of the weekend for someone with deeper pockets than us. Great car at a great price…

The Bid Goes On…

The top non-selling Mopar was the Lee Smith altered-wheelbase car, which was hoping for a little action close to Smith’s northern Illinois home. Alas, $400,000 was understandably not enough to generate sold!  Nevertheless, this one-of-two remaining Plymouth factory “funny cars” is such a unique car it just may not have had the right type of buyer yet. Behind this was a beautiful Hellcat-powered 1971 Challenger convertible that was kept with a top offer of $175,000. These two were followed by a number of cars that were perhaps bid lower than expected but not by huge margins. Still, many experienced owners recognized this was a great event to sell at. Indeed, the Bid Goes On list was short from Indy and contained only 15 Mopar vehicles in the higher $50,000-up range.

In terms of pricing trends, what is evident in some cases is that the story accompanying a car is a good part of its attraction. A case in point was a meticulously-finished 1970 Challenger R/T, blue with white longitudinal striping, white interior, power windows and four-barrel 440. Often looked down against the Six Pack version, this U-code car had been owned by a single family since day one and brought a solid hammer price of $110,000. It seems there is an upward trend on 440 four-barrel E-Body models right now, which for many years were hard to delineate from the 383 base models. There were no 340 four-barrel E-Body convertibles at this event, which is understandable as good 340 cars in general are not in big supply.

Originality remains an important part of today’s hobby. While the FM3 Duster was expected to do well, an incredible blue 1968 Belvedere with a 225 Six, one family, and 18,000 miles, hammered to $30,000, a very big price for a six-cylinder B-Body. Continuing along those lines, surprising was the number of second-generation Charger R/Ts, and where they fell pricewise. The only Daytona on hand was the aforementioned Hemi-transplant at $225K, followed by a pair of 1969 Hemi Charger 500s which did not meet reserve, but a number of both 383 and 440 models from the 1968-1970 era were purchased at nice prices. These remain cars with strong interest in the hobby, and there appears to be a little room right now if you are not trying to buy an original Hemi car and can spend between $35,000 and $50,000. That’s not chump change, but it’s not $100,000 either. The same is somewhat less true on Six Pack models in B-Body form, regardless of brand. Convertibles with multiple carburation will remain the trend setters, and the scarce Road Runner droptops regardless of engine are now steadily above $50,000.

And if your budget is under $20,000? There are still big-block C-Bodies, including convertibles, that can be found below that margin, as well as modified vehicles based on A- and B-Body platforms. As noted above, if you are serious about buying that sort of car at auction, the best time to come is during the earliest days of the event, when you can examine the cars personally and then give it your best shot. Mecum hosts events nationwide, but Indy and the January event in Kissimmee feature the largest variety. Go to mecum.com for both the schedule and lists for specific auctions.

Mecum Sold! List Of Top 50 Mopars

F130.1 1970 Plymouth Hemi ’Cuda $295,000 F174 1970 Plymouth Hemi Superbird $230,000 S163 1969 Dodge Daytona $225,000 S197 1970 Plymouth Superbird $181,500 S144 2017 Dodge Viper ACR Voodoo II $170,000 F158.1 1970 Plymouth Hemi ’Cuda $162,500 S211 1968 Dodge Hemi Dart LO23 Super Stock $155,000 F141 1970 Dodge Hemi Challenger R/T $145,000 F127 1969 Plymouth 6BBL Road Runner $120,000 F261 1970 Plymouth 440 ’Cuda Convertible $120,000 F125 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda $110,000 S94 1963 Dodge Polara 500 convertible $110,000 S144.1 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T $110,000 S164 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T convertible $105,000 F161 1969 Plymouth Road Runner $102,500 F100 1970 Plymouth ’Cuda $100,000 S133 1970 Dodge Charger R/T $90,000 S112 1968 Plymouth GTX convertible $87,500 S207 1951 Chrysler Imperial convertible $86,000 S135 1970 Dodge Super Bee $80,000 S167 1969 Plymouth Hemi Road Runner $80,000 F169 1960 Chrysler New Yorker convertible $77,000 S49.1 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda $76,000 S57 1969 Plymouth Road Runner convertible $75,000 S70.1 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda $75,000 S170 1969 Dodge Super Bee $75,000 F233 1966 Plymouth Hemi Belvedere II $73,000 S165 2013 Dodge Viper GTS $72,500 S168 1970 Dodge Charger R/T $70,000 S20 2015 Dodge Viper SRT-10 $69,000 F191 1969 Dodge Coronet R/T convertible $67,500 F171 1969 Dodge Charger R/T $66,000 T161 1962 Chrysler 300H convertible $65,000 F163 2016 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat $65,000 S83 1963 Dodge Polara Max Wedge $62,000 F234 1969 Dodge Super Bee $61,000 F75 1973 Plymouth’ Cuda $60,000 S179 1950 Chrysler T & Country Newport hardtop $58,000 F153 1973 Plymouth ’Cuda $57,000 S172 1934 DeSoto Airflow Coupe $56,000 F250.1 n/a Pedregon/Pat Foster dragster $55,000 S69.1 1969 Dodge Dart GTS 440 $55,000 S169 1970 Dodge Charger 500 $52,500 W179 1968 Dodge Charger R/T $51,000 F207 1936 Plymouth Coupe street rod $50,000 S93 1966 Dodge Hemi Charger $50,000 S166 1932 Plymouth Roadster street rod $50,000 W215 2006 Dodge Viper SRT-10 VOI.9 Edition $49,000 124.1 1970 Plymouth Duster FM3 $46,000 T104.1 1970 Dodge Charger 500 $45,000

  The Bid Goes On Top 10 Mopars

F146 1965 Plymouth funny car A/FX Haulin Hemi II $400,000 S210.1 1971 Dodge Challenger Hellcat convertible $175,000 F159 1968 Dodge Hemi Dart Super Stock $145,000 F164 1970 Dodge Hemi Challenger $145,000 S110.1 1969 Dodge Hemi Charger 500 $120,000 F187 1970 Plymouth Superbird 440 $110,000 S121 1969 Dodge Hemi Charger 500 $95,000 F83 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A $76,000 W113 2016 Ram 2500 SLT pick-up $75,000 F204 1970 Plymouth Road Runner movie car $75,000

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[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

NHL TV ratings, Ryan Kesler and Phil Kessel (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

7 – THE RATINGS!!!!!

One of the things that has been pervasive in hockey over the past few weeks has been the smug chortling from Canadians like, “Oh ho, the ratings for NBC will be really bad if it’s a Ducks/Senators final, haha,” as though: a) anyone outside of an NHL or NBC boardroom should give a rat’s ass, and b) the real loser wouldn’t be the hockey fans who have to sit through up to seven games of the stultifying, ugly hockey both teams are capable of playing.

Like honestly, this is one of those things I cared about when I was 14 and wrestling ratings were a thing. The Monday Night Wars. I was a WWF guy, myself (though I also watched Nitro!) and so to see my preferred brand of pro wrestling pull ahead was something of a personal vindication. In retrospect, it was dumb to feel this way.

Again, I was 14.

So why does Canada care? As though they have some sort of provenance over Hockey Caring, after the Senators didn’t sell out a home playoff game, and after ratings for Sportsnet’s coverage are repeatedly abysmal. (Apparently they’re just fine from these playoffs, but guess what: It’s because the Leafs and Oilers made it for the first time in a million years.)

Point being: Who cares however many million people? If you’re the only one in the United States watching a game, what’s the big deal?

Go back to worrying about whether the Senators are Hashtag Canada’s Team.

(They’re not, by the way.)

6 – Battle of the Ryans

Not that I’m choosing sides here because their names are both so so good, but Ryans Johansen and Kesler are in a bit of a feud.

It’s not hard to see who has the moral high ground, though. Kesler chicken-wing elbowed Johansen right in the chin — and shocker: he didn’t get a call from DOPS about it — and Johansen was steamed. Understandably so.

Of course, Johansen did a dumbass thing by complaining about it, because when you tell a goalie “cut it outttttt!” and there’s no discipline forthcoming from someone in a position of authority, the bully is only gonna turn up the heat on you. Perhaps Kesler will resort to the “I’m not touching you” trick in future meetings. I hope so.

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To be clear: Kesler should have been suspended for last night’s Game 3. Johansen is right that the stuff Kesler gets away with — and in fact, gets praised for on every broadcast and every article from a non-Nashville outlet about this series — is beyond the pale. There’s no way it should happen in today’s game.

But it’s the playoffs so it’s going to. Peter Laviolette would be wise to use last change to free Johansen from his tormentor as much as possible, not just because Kesler might try to pants him during the national anthem, but also because he’s very clearly leasing space in Johansen’s head at this point. Which is, of course, the plan.

Why play into it?

5 – The Stars goaltending situation

“Hmm,” thought Jim Nill as his team’s season prematurely smoldered, “I have two goalies who are very bad and over-30 and quite expensive. It’s a real problem. What to do, what to do?

“Ah, I know. As a GM who people used to think was very smart but who let two middle-pairing UFA defensemen walk for nothing in the offseason because of how expensive my two bad, old goalies are, I will sign a bad, old goalie for a lot of money. And a lot of years. And I will be sure to give up an asset to do it!

“And sure, I could wait until the playoffs are over and see if I can get, say, Marc-Andre Fleury, or maybe one of Detroit’s goalies. But what’s the fun in that?

“So who can I get who fits the bill? Has to be a UFA. And preferably he’d already be pretty close to 31. And he’d have to be coming off a career-worst season. And if possible, it would be ideal to get someone who was also plagued by lower-body injuries, which are particularly bad for goalies because they aren’t easy to recover from. Especially if they’re really tall!

“And what, if — and maybe I’m being crazy here — what if we also didn’t really have a good plan for how to deal with the two other old, bad goalies I still have on the roster?

“Jimmy, that just might work!”

Ben Bishop. Who will be 31 in November. Got six years and a little less than $5 million per. And all for the low, low price a fourth-round pick and a goaltending logjam that will be almost impossible to work out without dead cap space.

Beautiful.

4 – The Penguins goaltending situation

The good news for the Penguins, though, is that Marc-Andre Fleury continues to play some very good hockey in Matt Murray’s stead. That gives them approximately a million options for the next two seasons.

The question is whether teams will be willing to accommodate a team that has gone to two straight Conference Finals (and perhaps more before this postseason is all over) that might need some cap wiggle room. As I said in the mailbag yesterday, there really aren’t a lot of teams that need goaltending help, and a $5.75 million backup probably isn’t ideal as part of a going concern.

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But if Dallas is willing to give up all that to get Ben Bishop, imagine what a desperate team would give up for a goalie who only has two more years left and is coming off what will probably be, at worst, a .925 postseason save percentage.

Not ideal, but not terrible.

3 – Jason Botterill

First of all, you don’t get to all of a sudden decide to say, “My name is pronounced this other way,” after decades in hockey. This is Jason “It’s pronounced Kroag now” Krog and Brad “Marsh-AND” Marchand all over again. This isn’t on us, Jason!

But second of all, shoutout to a college hockey guy finally getting his shot to run a team. Of course, that team happens to be the Buffalo Sabres, at a time when their blue line is made up of a bunch of guys I wouldn’t trust to protect my computer at Starbucks while I went to the bathroom for a second. And also their owner is a huge fanboy who thinks he knows anything about hockey, when in fact he does not.

So congrats on the job and everything, but uhhh, good luck.

Phil Kessel of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

2 – Angry Phil Kessel

A million individual blessings to America’s most beautiful and kind hockey boy, Phil Kessel, who loves to shout at his teammates and score goals and be perfect in all ways.

Kessel’s goal on Monday night to win that horrid 1-0 game and even the series was his 29th in his playoff career. And despite playing in Toronto for a bunch of years, that puts him in fairly exclusive company.

Since Kessel’s career began, he’s one of only 20 guys to score at least 29 playoff goals. But again, because his teams were so bad, you have to keep in mind he’s only played 60 playoff games, compared to the 85-plus for literally everyone in front of or behind him.

So how’s this one for a stat: Out of the 231 players to appear in at least 50 playoff games since 2006-07, Phil Kessel — who plenty of people hated and called an out-of-shape loser right up until he won a Cup — is first in goals per game, at 0.48.

That’s ahead of playoff choker Alex Ovechkin, but also playoff Clutch Performer Daniel Briere.

So, y’know, stay angry, Phil. It’s working!

1 – Watching paint dry

Okay so an interesting lesson anyone on Twitter has learned in recent weeks is that you should not under any circumstances express your extremely correct opinion that the Ottawa Senators play boring-ass, defense-only-ass, Ambien-ass hockey.

They do. Everyone knows that it is boring and no one besides Senators fans should enjoy it. In general, you want to be scoring about one goal per period. Ottawa’s offense is well below that number, and it should come as no surprise that they’re last in the playoffs in goals for per 60.

This isn’t a value judgment, by the way. To say they are boring is not to say they don’t deserve to be in a conference final. When you have a minimally talented team and you’re trying to get wins, you use whatever tactics work. Obviously. Games 1 and 2 of the Eastern Conference Final are a great example: Ottawa scored three goals in six-plus periods and held the Penguins to two. Now, this is a badly banged-up Penguins team. And they’re still only 1-1 in the series.

But the best Ottawa can do is hope to make every game a coin flip, especially at this point of the postseason. The idea that you’re going to get reliable results in the form of really close games that go one way or the other is preferable to playing run-and-gun, because everyone on earth knows the Penguins would shred them playing run-and-gun.

Point is, of course Ottawa fans don’t think this is boring. Either playing to come back from a 2-1 deficit or protect a 1-0 lead is going to make you really goddamn nervous. That gets the adrenaline pumping, and if your heart is racing for the last 20 minutes of every game, you’re going to feel like, “Wow I just sweated my way through a really intense hockey game.”

But believe me when I say, if you don’t have skin in the game, you’re gonna find this hockey boring as hell. It’s by design and everything, but that doesn’t make it aesthetically pleasing. Try not to equate “unimaginably tense for you” with “enjoyable for everyone.”

(Not ranked this week: The Nashville anthem guy.

My man, this is like Harry Zolnierczyk complaining to the media that Filip Forsberg is getting the big minutes. Figure it out.)

 Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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