#but while some characters in what I write do engage in adult behaviors

[hazbin-but-good]

another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Hi, Pom, hope you’re doing okay. I wanted to know what are your thoughts on this ‘some people write Spencer so out of character and take out all his autistic traits and portray him as someone he’s not, especially during sex’ discourse.

Personally I think those people don’t understand his character very well and don’t see how much he changes through the seasons but I also know that everyone perceives characters differently so there isn’t a correct way to write him.

But I’m curious about your thoughts on it. I’ve seen some comments about the topics a writer prefers to write about (again, specially with smut) and I think they can be harmful for other writers (I’ve also noticed most come from adults that aren’t in their 20s yet so that says something too 😅)

I feel like I rambled too much but I hope I’ve made my point!

Much love❤️

Hi, friend! I’m doing alright, thank you for asking. As an autistic person, I obviously have quite a few personal feelings about any discourse regarding “appropriate” or “correct” behavior for an autistic person in any context. I’ll start my answer by saying that autistic people are not a monolith. We each have our own preferences, personalities, and experiences. I can only speak to my own.

I don’t actually think that anyone is reading Spencer’s character “wrong” because I don’t think the writers are entirely consistent within canon. I also don’t think anyone is obligated to acknowledge or appreciate all aspects of canon. So, I agree with you that everyone can write him however they’d like.

I also agree with you that any post disparaging other writers’ style or work is harmful and entirely unnecessary. It is mean-spirited and inappropriate. Perhaps it’s my age, but it has always been my understanding that, when you engage with a fandom, you are joined by people of all experience levels and backgrounds. There will be people with niche interests. There will be people who write things you hate. It’s inevitable.

The core of a fandom is how we handle those disagreements. I personally choose to live and let live. I see no point in hurting other people. It’s not required in order for me to enjoy my time here.

In a world where everyone is constantly tearing each other down, I would rather be a cheerleader. I would encourage others to try not to engage in these conversations and simply choose to lift up those writers you love and appreciate, instead. We’re here to have fun, after all!

P.S. It’s very silly to claim any portrayal of Spencer in a sexual situation is “out of character” because they do not ever show us his sexual behavior. Believe whatever you want to about how he would react. He’s not real. It doesn’t matter whether someone enjoys imagining him a different way. What does matter is that cruel criticisms over specific sexual preferences will hurt actual, real people. If you want to argue about sexual morality, do it somewhere else. Fandom is not the place. While I have replied to harmful sentiments before, I don’t encourage it. It will open you up to very unfortunate and often triggering interactions with strangers over a vulnerable topic. You deserve better than that. My best advice is disengage & block.

(Finally, because this is a contentious topic, I feel obligated to remind everyone of my philosophy on anonymous hate so we don’t waste each other’s time.)

[lyehub]

Lye | 25+ | he/she/they

This is the out of character hub for my roleplay blogs. Rules and blog roster are listed below the cut.

RULES

If I follow you, know that I've read your rules. Please afford me that same courtesy.

I don't intend on posting any explicit content, but I do deal with heavier themes. All my blogs should be considered 18+. I will not RP with you if you do not have some indication that you are an adult posted on your blog.

The hub blog is exclusively for OOC/metaposting. If you'd like to RP, please follow at least one of my in character sideblogs.

This isn't a deal breaker, but if you have replies/IMs turned off for non-mutuals and are interested in RPing, I'd appreciate it if you'd follow the hub as well. If you don't, it's extremely touch and go as to whether I'll be able to message you from any blog.

Mutuals only for threads, but my askbox is open to anyone. I do delete asks that I feel I can't answer or am uninterested in pursuing. Don't take it personally.

Out of consideration for my RP partners, I ask that personals do not reblog my actual RP threads. However, you are welcome to 'like' things freely, and OOC meta, asks, plot updates, and artwork are all OK to reblog.

From what I can tell, tumblr no longer lets you view the source post just by clicking on the original poster's URL, so you are welcome to reblog memes from me. Sending a few in as a courtesy is appreciated but not required.

General roleplay etiquette. No godmodding or powerplay. Metagaming I'm a little more flexible with, but please talk to me first.

I'm uninterested in shipping, and will delete most shipping related asks, bar one or two exceptions. While I don't mind if my RP partners are fans, Billford is NOT one of those exceptions.

I don't regularly use icons or heavy formatting, and I probably won't play ball with anyone whose formatting makes their blog difficult to read.

I can take a while to respond to a thread, and will be quite a bit slower during the work week. If you are expecting immediate replies, we probably won't be super compatible as writers. That said, the occasional reminder doesn't bother me.

Similarly, I tend to nudge people after a couple weeks of no response, just to ensure that it wasn't a case of tumblr eating the notification. Afterwards, I assume you've seen my reply and will get back to me at your convenience.

I don't enjoy pre-planning threads from start to finish, but for introductions, I feel as though there should be a bit of groundwork plotted out in advance to ensure that it makes sense. Past that, spontaneous RP and plotted threads are equally welcome.

Apart from the occasional crack thread, I tend to write mostly multi-paragraph or novella. While I don't expect people to match length, I do expect them to match thought and effort. If I'm getting single sentence responses to multiple paragraphs, I'm probably going to unfollow.

I have no tolerance for bigotry of any kind. Mistakes are one thing, but sustained patterns of behavior will result in a hard block.

I’m pretty live and let live when it comes to shipping discourse, but engaging in pedophilic or incestuous content in any form will also result in a hard block.

Unless it involves bullet 15, I don't care if someone was rude or standoffish to you. I don't engage with callouts or vague posts. Someone else's interpersonal drama is not my business or problem. I curate my own experience on this site; I strongly encourage everyone else do the same.

I will update my rules as needed.

BLOG LIST

The "genres" are not hard stops, but rather, guidelines for figuring out what characters your muses might be compatible with! That said, you're welcome to RP with anyone on this list, no matter the genre.

@amphioctopus (Original Character | Genre: Modern Fantasy, Paranormal, Magical Realism | RP | #payton)

@ethelstreep (Original Character | Genre: Historical, Fantasy, Mythical | RP | #adem)

@obeythefist (Original Character | Genre: Sci-fi, Superheroes/Villains, Cyberpunk | RP | #zoe)

@maymayandthehog (Canon Character | Gravity Falls | RP | #mabel)

@pythagoraswasahack (Canon Character | Gravity Falls | RP | #bill)

TAGS

#lye speaks

#lye's art

#self promo

#promo

#friend art

#meme

#roleplay

#writing

#meta

#fanart

---

My personal blog is @lyesander. Follow if you wish.

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

To everyone criticizing or complaining about this incredibly talented author addressing the comments on their work: please understand that you don't have to engage with content you don't wish to see.

It's unbelievable and childish that some of you are losing it over how an author reacts to criticism of their work. Consider this: you're going out of your way to attack someone who has dedicated time and effort to create something for your enjoyment, just because you can't recognize that the story is about a grown adult who doesn't need coddling and can handle some harsh words. Grow the fuck up.

Spencer is not a child. Has he gone through some pretty messed up stuff? Yes! But that doesn’t mean we need to baby him and shield him from all the terror out there. Many people in the fandom have gone out of their way to tear apart an incredible character, stripping away his autistic traits and infantilizing him.

Believe me when I say this: a few harsh words won’t destroy him to the point where he needs to be wrapped in a blanket and coddled because his feelings got hurt. Have any of you considered how absurd that is, especially given that he works in a field where he’s constantly exposed to corpses, crime scenes, and serial killers?

The point is, some of you need to start appreciating the effort writers put into creating something for your entertainment. A story doesn’t write itself; it has to be thought through, written, revised multiple times, and published before it reaches you. No writer, unless specifically requested, writes with one person in mind. Some stories might catch your attention, and some won’t. If you’re not interested in one, move on and find one that does interest you. If you liked a story but didn’t enjoy certain aspects, find another one. If you can’t find anything you like, write your own. Stop bothering authors just because they write for themselves and the fandom, and not specifically for you.

Lastly, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything. Your input is neither necessary nor asked for.

To the author: Thank you for providing us with multiple incredible stories, and I’m very sorry you have to deal with this stupidly childish behavior.

While I hate to see you go, I’m glad you’re doing what’s right for you. Sending lots of love!

I have been doing a lot of moving chores today so I am too tired to do a very in depth reply to this - but I just wanna say: yeah. You are very smart. Everything you said - applause. Good job.

People in the fandom have literally said that Jason Gideon is a "predator" for luring Spencer into the FBI and "forcing" him to do that job, when it's a job that Spencer clearly cares about a lot (and Spencer is a certified fucking genius with multiple doctorates and big big credentials - so he could get any job he wants and he CHOSE the FBI)

Also people have said that Derek leaving to raise his son (after he named his son after Spencer and called Spencer the best little brother ever) - was him "abandoning" Spencer. Derek Morgan making the right choices for his family was him ABANDONING SPENCER

Spencer is not a baby. He is a grown man

And people either approach fanfiction with the attitude that he's OOC - a completely allistic neurotypical Daddy (borderline sociopath) hard dom with 0 emotions who doesn't give a fuck about anybody else's emotions who is only there to have very rough sex and that is it. OR - he is a puddle of tears and trauma who is a big baby crying all the time and he needs to be wrapped in soft blankets and if anybody looks at him the wrong way or says one bad word to him, he will crumble, at that person is Evil. If anybody in the BAU (like JJ) says something bad to him - they are evil incarnate and they are as bad as every single UnSub that the team has ever taken down.

When my fics take a mid level approach - that Spencer is allowed to be emotional and be yelled at, and his intense emotions get out of control and also hurt other people - the fandom cannot handle that take at all.

Anyway - thank you for saying all that you have said even if I have only managed to respond to one part of it 😂

[msfbgraves]

Anon just discovered your blog, and I completely agree with you that Cobra Kai tears down everything the 1984 Karate Kid stood for.

But the problem is, to some extent, this is what fandom culture has always done. Fandom was created, in the first place, to tear down the values of older generations in hopes that newer and hopefully kinder values would replace them. Star Trek, the first fandom, was a potshot at older generations' values, promoting its own vision of a utopian society.

Even the original Karate Kid tore down the values of mainstream American society so that an "underdog" like Daniel LaRusso could win.

The problem is, now fandom is tearing down OUR values as we once tore down the values of older generations. Cobra Kai is doing the same thing to us that Karate Kid did to previous generations: it's tearing down everything we stand for, in hopes that their own values will replace us.

I love the original Karate Kid movie trilogy as much as you do, and I share your frustration with the Cobra Kai series. But unfortunately, while the "opinions" of fandom have changed, its basic nature has not.

That's why protesting against fandom never changes anything: because to some degree, fandom is acting the same as it always has. It's just that now we're on the other end of this behavior, when it used to be done in our favor.

Would that this were fandom, Nonnie. It would be easy to ignore, agree to disagree, move on. If I got myself in a twist over every fandom take I disagree with, I would welcome your cautioning me, really. But I feel that this situation is different for several reasons:

Trek, as far as I'm aware (not very), was an original work. To which I say, have at it. Whatever your beliefs, go write them down, I'm very free not to engage with it. And I don't mind if an original work is a very thinly veiled spinoff. If they'd have written The Kung Fu Kid with evil Miyagi and a character named Johnny Lawless who defeats insufferable Daniel Nero with the power of Real Manhood, good luck to them. This happens all the time. Doesn't stop my enjoyment in any way. Rick &Morty is Back to the Future fic, and indeed its point is that Back to the Future needs revision perhaps? Or not. Wasn't really for me. But it's not officially a continuation, so no harm done. I don't have to re-evaluate those films because Rick&Morty exists, it doesn't affect the franchise, not officially.

Cobra Kai on the other hand very strongly suggests that it's canon. And if you want to piggyback on a built-in audience, the message of the original, the events shown in the original, you're not free to ignore. Again, it's not even a remake! And then to presume you can retroactively change the message of a classic because you don't agree with it is audience betrayal. What inbuilt audience would agree to sit down to a series that said: you know that piece of media you love? Well you're wrong. It is SHIT. And I am going to show you why, if I have to change the original story to make that point. No, they've actively misled the audience. And that hurts people. Mark Hamill was pissed at how they've ruined Luke Skywalker in Star Wars VIII. Because that's not fandom, that's forcing your own reading on something that isn't yours. I agree that fandom does this, too, but that is by consent of those engaging with it. This series may be born of fandom, but it's a hijacking, a sactioning of a viewpoint that undermines a bond between film and audience. And now the viewpoint: you're all suckers and your comfort character is a criminal is officially part of the story. It's simply not right.

Thirdly, these values aren't new. They're conservative for the 1970's. This is backlash. True, history isn't linear, and backlash is part of life. But I disagree with the notion that there is anything innovative in the viewpoint that violence is a good idea, adult women only exist to support men,there has to be a strict gender binary in sports, only conventionally attractive women should be on the show and full body shots of young women lounging in the sun, with no narrative context, is somehow not exploitative. And before anyone asks, I don't mind watching Jacob Betrand and Tanner Buchanan with their shirts off, but that is as objectifying and cheap. "Look! We're exploiting boys, too", doesn't feel like progress.

And I know I'm simply yelling at clouds here, with no use other than that it makes me feel better. That's why I'm tagging most of this only with ck negativity, so that anyone who doesn't want to look at it can block the tag and continue life unbothered by my ranting. I don't want to spoil people's fandom fun in the cobra kai tag.

[trilies]

you act as if people drawing and posting porn involving minors is normal behavior. not every CSA or COCSA victim is going to be comforted by people fetishizing the thing that traumatized them, acting like people being uncomfortable with DRAWN CHILD PORN is somehow taking resources away from victims is disgusting. Not to mention I doubt a good chunk of the larger artists known for drawing ~risque~ shit involving kids are all somehow CSA survivors. Not everyone who draws children and adults getting it on is a victim, what excuse do they have for making our trauma wank material? Pitching a fit about how people having an opinion about and acting like they're some bogeyman because they said it's nasty to sexualize children is a bad look. you say bog's obsessed when you've filled the recent posts with his tag with you whining about them. grow the fuck up and learn that "block someone if they post shit you don't agree with" can go both ways.

oh hey, someone with their name attached to an ask, haven't got one of those in a while

Anyway

(1) "you act as if people drawing and posting porn involving minors is normal behavior."

I mean, if we're going to be honest, a lot of things about erotic fantasies aren't "normal", so I don't really care about that word usage? That means nothing.

What I care about is actual harm, and there is no actual hard proof that these stories/art/fantasies/whatever *on their own* lead to a greater increase in CSA or grooming.

We know people may use it, but that's because groomers use everything. But we learned that we aren't going to hold candy stores on lock down, but rather teach kids about "stranger danger".

(2) "not every CSA or COCSA victim is going to be comforted by people fetishizing the thing that traumatized them"

Cool, I never said that. But it is undeniable that many other victims have found sanctuary in engaging with this fiction in one way or another, or even RECOGNIZED they'd been abused because they saw a fic tagged 'abuse' and connected it to their own life experiences.

What they need to do, if it has an adverse affect on their emotions, is learn to manage tags and their internet bubble.

This may surprise you, but I also don't like lolisho stuff. However, I manage to keep myself safe with proper internet use, not interacting with lolisho accounts, etc.

This can be made difficult depending on the exact site (twitter has always been a trashfire and it's only gotten worse), but the answer is to work together to find a way so that both parties can exist.

(3) "acting like people being uncomfortable with DRAWN CHILD PORN is somehow taking resources away from victims"

.....Yeah, I never said that either. Did you go to the wrong blog?

(4) "Not to mention I doubt a good chunk of the larger artists known for drawing ~risque~ shit involving kids are all somehow CSA survivors"

The problem here is that no one has a magical radar for detecting who's "actually" a CSA survivor or not. You can only ask, and, frankly, a lot of you can't be trusted with that information.

I know this from experience, where I said "this anime lady having mid-boobs isn't a sign she's minor-coded" and someone decided that meant I was lying about being a CSA survivor, or else I'd have agreed with them.

(5) "what excuse do they have for making our trauma wank material?"

I mean, one, they're not making "your" trauma wank material. They're not thinking about you, or me, or anyone at all. They're thinking about an anime character or whatever.

If we restrict writing/etc on "did they experience this exact trauma themselves", then we'd have to cut out a LOT of media.

secondly, I know for a fact that one of the theories to why people have rape fantasies is because of the stress of being marginalized in some way, where their sexualities constantly judged and there's no "right" answer which doesn't immediately contradict itself.

(for example, women having to fight between the cultural expectations of "whore" or "prude", so their brain provides a fantasy where they get the great sex but none of the responsibility because the choice was taken from them)

I'm sure some equally fascinating answers could be given for stuff like lolisho... but that would require you approaching people in good faith, recognizing that they're human, and not deciding from the get that they're evil boogeyman who want to hurt YOU specifically.

(7) "Pitching a fit about how people having an opinion about"

That you frame it like this indicates, at least to me, that you don't know how this conversation started out. It wasn't just bogleech "having an opinion". It was bogleech making unsubstantiated judgment calls, and doing things like taking a trans person's words out of context so he could make them look like a pedophile and send his rabid fanbase their way.

Add in him not listening to actual scientific studies and pedojacketing any CSA survivor who doesn't listen to him...

And that is the problem.

(8) "you've filled the recent posts with his tag with you whining about them"

yeah, I got asks about him. Other people were also criticizing him. I tagged with his name so that people who were sick of him and had his name muted and on a blacklist etc could avoid seeing him.

I don't know why that's a struggle to understand. It's basic consideration.

That he's the kind of guy who looks up on his own name on Google search is far more embarrassing.

[nanjokei]

imma be honest it's almost impossible for me to talk about my feelings on here because last time i was earnest on here a bunch of weirdos on here took that and used those sentiments against me in some insane anon hate over what, nothing, it's very parasocial and strange that they did that. if you're so concerned about the two people i had a scuffle with on here (to which both i apologized to personally and buried the hatchet) and how "there are other people on the other side of the screen" have you once thought that before you wrote several paragraphs psychoanalyzing me based on posts i made about my personal insecurities?

i truly hope you screwed your head on right since november. and people wonder why people move to other sites. i'm busy with real life these days, but the fact that someone had the time to get all up in arms over niche subculture opinions and attack my character is honestly downright jobless. i've blocked the anons responsible, idk what good that does anyway, but the mental impact was crazy, i've only somewhat just recovered from it. whenever i wanna post here it's like "some weirdo is gonna use this against me" and i just close out of the tab lol.

i am not a public figure, i do not owe you or anyone perfect behavior, while i avoid conflict it's also human nature to accidentally bump heads. it happens. you taking that as an indictment of my character is incredibly strange. 6 months back on twitter and not once has anyone had any issue with me. if anything, people are much nicer and engage with me properly. people on there found my twitter after stumbling on my work elsewhere and sent me their well wishes. the world is actually a good place.

tumblr is also a good place full of nice people who mind their own business, but due to the site being desolate some people have a jobless mean girl attitude. deeply pathetic people.

i have very nice mutuals on here that i like to check up on every other day, but it's so hard to post anymore. the site is barren so i guess some of you guys who have no sense of boundaries are incredibly bored and choose to sate that boredom in the worst ways possible.

if i hate someone i wouldn't follow them. i hope you guys got the help you need because jesus. and i'm glad i didn't publish your weird ass asks like i was originally going to. i would have seriously done wrong on my own dignity if i had. it's probably hypocritical for me to say this after writing all this, but giving those kinds of people attention is cruel to not only myself but to them.

if you're gonna start yapping again please send that shit off anon, talk to me like an adult. can you not do that, talk with your identity attached?

anyway, i wanted to post this to get it off my chest, so i can clear the air and ease myself back into capital p Posting.

i have a lot of posting to do about horseracing history, so.

[planets-and-prose]

Writeblr Re (Re, re, re) Introduction!

Hi all, I'm Ten. Again. I've been on Writeblr since, like...2018? 2019? College. I was in college, I had lots of time, lots of energy, super active. Then, well, I graduated, had to adult, the absolute love of my life became disabled, and now I'm a social worker doing my goddamn best. So I've been dead on this account for like, at least 2 years. Maybe 3.

But I'm, like, basically a cockroach, and I'm never going to get away from the desire to write things, so I'm working hard to try again, engage, prioritize the things that bring me joy. So, blurb aside, some shit about me under the cut!

I'm 24, and I do specifically case management and behavioral health services, but I shorten it to social work. Basically, I help advocate for individuals with mental illnesses and act as a buddy while they learn, or relearn, how to function in the community and work on themselves.

All my writing is queer. Literally all of it. I am deeply allergic to not putting LGBT+ rep in my writing, even if there's no romance people are LGBT+. Personally I am asexual, panromantic, violently nonbinary, and a complete disaster. My pronouns are they/them.

I write mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and supernatural type stories. And I always do happy endings. I deal with some really low lows in my daily life, writing is my escape, so I like to live in my worlds where everything turns out okay in the end, no matter how much suffering happens first (read: i am a slut for hurt/comfort).

Right now, my energy is so low that I do not want to commit to betaing anything long form, but I'd love to read excerpts, shorter stuff, cheer you on, etc!

I am also down to be a reference for people wanting to portray mental illness. Personally I have the classic depression/anxiety/PTSD cocktail, but I also have ADHD and have lots of experience with what mental illness looks like on a daily basis. Also a decent reference for LGBTQ stuff, especially in rural areas, and stuff relating to my job.

Finally, I'm probably coming off as a bit cynical here, and I do often cuss/use sarcasm, but I genuinely want to hug all of your OC's and I want to do my best to support y'all with the few spoons I have!

About my WIP's:

You can tell I have ADHD by the WIP turnover rate in this blog. I have tags for them I believe, an organized post might happen later, but here's the two new shiny WIP's I anticipate working on the most over the next bit.

A supernatural...vaguely horror, vaguely satire, series of short stories about a group of people, all of whom met at a college, who meet up and protect their college town from monsters. I hate to call it Scooby-Doo meets Supernatural vibes, because it's not QUITE that? It's based on the RPG Monster of the Week, so hopefully that gives you an idea of the vibes.

I am also hoping to start a fantasy, dnd like WIP involving a character I absolutely adore that I made for another story with my partner that needs his own spinoff. More info to come? Hopefully?

I won't lie to y'all and promise consistency or activity, but I'm hoping sharing some of my stuff will help motivate me to get back into Writeblr. Sending love to y'all, and pls feel free to rant to me about your WIPs too!

[coldstoicism]

001. ⸻ Writing and artwork on this blog may contain mature and potentially triggering themes such as canon-typical gore and violence, body horror as well as mentions of abuse & depression. In most cases, posts will be tagged accordingly and nothing will be too graphic. However, as I have no triggers myself I'm often unsure of what warrants a tag and what does not. Please do reach out and let me know if I forgot to tag something you think should have been tagged. Mortal Kombat is not a game for the faint hearted so do proceed with caution if any of the above mentioned topics are triggering to you. Only follow & interact if you're 21+.

002. ⸻ I'm an adult with responsibilities and a job outside of writing, I might sometimes take a day or two to respond to you. Please be aware of that and don't assume I'm ignoring you. I'm doing my best to get back to everyone and I apologize if responses sometimes take longer. Lately, I've also been struggling with various health issues so it might even take me up to a week or more to get back to you. As long as you don't spam me, please feel free to sometimes send me reminders if I haven't responded to our thread in a while. I'm a human and I also tend to forget things sometimes.

003. ⸻ English is not my first language. While I'd like to think I have pretty decent grammar, I might make mistakes sometimes, especially when it comes to correct punctuation as it is vastly different from that of my native language. Please be patient with me, I'm trying my best.

004. ⸻ I use small text to write, but I don't mind switching to the regular text size for better accessibility. Just let me know ahead and I'll make sure to adjust the text size for my posts accordingly. I also use icons and graphics in my posts and occasionally colorful text for highlighting.

005. ⸻ This blog is crossover friendly and open to writing with original characters. With all the different timelines existing in the Mortal Kombat universe, the possibilites to craft unique stories are pretty much endless. Don't be afraid to reach out if you have a cool plot idea, I would love to hear it.

006. ⸻ I feel like this should be self-explanatory, but no godmodding, no taking control of my character or anything of the likes. It's very annoying and it will take away my enthusiasm to continue writing with you.

007. ⸻ I'm above engaging in petty drama with anyone on here, I made this blog to write for my favorite character and for no other reason. I can't stand negativity and toxicity. If I see you being rude to others, spreading hate or even bullying other people in the community, I will instantly block you. If you have a problem with me, feel free to reach out to me so we can have a civil conversation about it.

008. ⸻ Please be aware that my portrayal of MK1!Bi-Han is not 100% canon-accurate. While I tried to make as little changes to the character's personality and backstory as possible, some aspects of him will be based on my own headcanons. The writing for him in MK1 is annoyingly inconsistent, contradicts itself on multiple occasions and sometimes even makes no sense at all, so I won't be adopting much of it into my portrayal. Do not expect me to write Bi-Han as a one-dimensional joke villain just because ❛ it's canon ❜ in the current timeline. If that's the portrayal you're looking for, you might want to look for someone else to write with. That said, this blog will feature different versions of Bi-Han from different timelines, so please do specify the timeline you'd prefer for the plot to be set in. For now I only write Bi-Han as Sub-Zero and I haven't decided on whether or not Noob Saibot will become a secondary muse on this blog yet, but it's well within the realm of possibilities.

009. ⸻ I do not condone hate, homophobia, racism or anything of the sorts and if I see someone partaking in such problematic behavior that will warrant an instant block.

010. ⸻ Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of writing romance plots, I don't have any preferred ships for Bi-Han and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I just don't see Bi-Han as someone who's particularly interested in romance or relationships. Depending on how his character develops in the current timeline, that might change in the future. If I do feel like our characters have chemistry, I won't be opposed to shipping, but I will let you know ahead that I do not write smut.

011. ⸻ Feel free to drop random starters in my inbox, send me asks ic or ooc if you feel like interacting with me and keep in mind that inbox calls and starter calls as well as memes don't expire ! Even if the posts are old, you can still interact with them and I will get back to you.

012. ⸻ I don't have a preferred length for replies, I usually try to match the length of my responses to that of my writing partners, but please don't feel obligated to do the same.

013. ⸻ Where to find me: I'm mostly active on Tumblr, but if we're mutuals, you can ask for my discord as well. I can also be found on my secondary blog @shiraiflame.

014. ⸻ Lastly, if you have further questions, feel free to send me a message at any time.

[zeroducks-2]

To give a serious response to your last reblog, I think most people (maybe not the VOCAL majority) like to exclude tags they don't want to see, and then if something is tagged incorrectly you do just scroll past or stop reading the fic when something comes up. I know there are people who complain about it like it's the end of the world but yeah it is a common thing among most of my internet people to be like "aw man I didn't know [thing] was gonna be in this fic, I guess I'm gonna go read something else now" and I don't really see any problem with that. (As long as they aren't like harassing the author about it or anything obviously, which again I'm sure some people do and that's not cool)

Fair warning, this was supposed to be a quick response and it turned into a long ass ramble about purity culture and anti behavior, sorry about that. It is a long post so feel free to just skip to the TL:DR.

I agree with you, and as I mentioned I really really like the tagging system and the culture of putting content warnings and trigger warnings over content to help people avoid what they dislike and/or actively harms them. I like it in general, not just on AO3.

For what concerns AO3 I know that most people don't cause any kind of issue about it. I too had a situation where an anonymous guest commented to ask me to tag something in my fic. I hadn't thought about it because it was kind of just a vague mention but to them it seemed to be a big deal, so I apologized and added the tag (and they were really nice and polite about it anyway) and that was it. I don't mind people asking me to tag stuff. As an author I'm not omniscient and I don't have a team or even just an advisor to give a second opinion on my stuff, and tell me what I might have missed in the tags. So by all means do say it if you prefer this or that tag being added to my stories. I might have come off as someone who has issues with the tagging system and the culture around it, and I understand that it might be the case since my reblog was worded a bit harshly. I am sorry about that.

What I really was complaining about is people adopting anti or anti-ish behavior around fanfictions and fanfiction writers, acting like the fact that they come across content they dislike is the poster's fault when they're unable to curate their own online experience, and/or take responsibility as grown adults over the possibility of coming across something they dislike. At the same time holding fanfiction writers to absurd standards when it comes to laying out what their fics contain before someone engages with it, while it would be considered absurd to demand something like this from a novel, a movie, a videogame or anything non-transformative really. And not only there's the exclusion system on AO3 that helps people filter content they don't like, but also I want to highlight the fact that someone who is writing a fanfiction does not owe anyone anything in terms of tagging their stories. Tagging by itself is a form of courtesy that is not mandatory for most kind of content except the so called Archive Warnings, and even then you can avoid tagging anything by simply using "Creator chose not to use warnings" - which I'm sure you know means "this story contains potentially upsetting themes, proceed at your own risk". Most people will just politely ask to add tags, and most people will just tag their stories anyway. I very rarely ever came across a fic which was severely untagged to the point of making me wonder if the OP actually knew tags existed, and how they worked in the first place. I think it happened maybe twice and I've been reading fanfictions since AO3 didn't even exist. But there also are people who will harass the author if they didn't tag their fic "properly", and by properly it often times means that a character mentioned something the reader dislikes, or maybe a character they hate makes a very brief appearance, or there is a random OC created for a specific situation. Or anything that doesn't suit their tastes really, and that they demanded was laid out in front of them so they could avoid the gigantic effort of clicking on a story, read the first chapter and deciding by themselves if they liked it or not. These people are the ones who act like fanfiction writers and content in general should cater explicitly to them. Just check the comments of that post, you'll see an array of folks complaining that "authors do this on purpose!" and that who doesn't tag their fic properly is a terrible person.

There's this one saying that it's "so frustrating" and "really inconsiderate" on the author's part, referring to a fanfiction which has one of the characters genderswapped. Now I really, really dislike genderswap (nothing against it or against who likes it, but it really is not my cup of tea both in fics and in fanarts) and I generally stay away from it. But realistically, how long is it going to take me to realize that a fic has been written with one or more genderswapped characters? A couple of sentences? Maybe an entire paragraph? How "frustrating" is it gonna be to spend something like 3 minutes figuring that this story is not for me, and move on with my life?

It's not frustrating, and it's not inconsiderate on anyone's part. Sure I too would prefer it to be tagged, but it's a Me problem if I can't accept that I might end up seeing something I dislike on the internet, and it's not not a random fanfic author's responsibility to make sure I don't encounter something that makes me turn up my nose.

There is in general a lot of pressure on fanfic authors, in some fandoms more than others, and the whole "you have to absolutely nail the tags" conversation is another layer of said pressure. I know people that won't post longfics because they're unsure about the tags, especially of the fact that tags might change over time, and end up not posting at all. People deleting their entire fics over these kinds of demands because they can't meet them, because they don't know how their fic is going to change from here to the 15th chapter. People having to disable or moderate comments, take hiatuses, abandon fics - sure maybe the comment insinuating they were a bad person for not tagging "there's a random policeman OC in your detective AU" is not the main reason why they abandoned the fic, but it surely did not help.

This also leads to another phenomenon, which is that of over-tagging. Of people tagging rape/noncon "just to be safe", or tagging underage because "this character is 18 but there still is a big age gap", and the likes. That's not how tags work, that's actually how the tagging system gets bloated and becomes useless, because after the 4th fic which is tagged Rape and the rape doesn't happen, what often occurs is that the reader finds another fic tagged Rape and doesn't take it seriously. But in that one case the rape does happen and they get triggered, and it's an awful experience both for the reader and for the writer in case they get harassed over it (and this specific instance happened to me personally, because apparently the Rape warning on my story wasn't enough since the rape actually happened).

It's part of the reason why the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag exists and got so popular. If your story has some background/minor/past/mentioned/implied/referenced Thing happening, and you tag it as a Major Thing that happens, people who write stories which actually have Thing as a major topic don't know what to do, and end up using the Dead Dove tag which per se doesn't mean anything, it's just a way to say "MIND THE DAMN TAGS AND DON'T COME AT ME!". No one should feel forced to use the Dead Dove tag by the way. The Archive Warnings and the tagging system in general exist for a reason. If you're reading this and you've been harassed, just block the fuckers and ignore them.

So anyway, while I tend to be really irked by over-taggers especially when I'm looking for a specific kink, I don't really blame them. Purity culture kills artistic expression by making artists afraid of harassment if they post their work, among other things. I prefer an over-tagged fanfiction (or an under-tagged one) over no fanfiction at all.

TL;DR - I agree with you anon, I'm just mad at people who harass authors over tags. I don't think there's anything wrong with politely asking someone to tag their fanfiction, and if they repeatedly don't do it over major stuff that needs to be tagged, just block them and/or report them to the AO3 TOS.

[everybody-loves-purdy]

Been thinking a lot about why Dustpelt doesn’t bother me as much as characters like Stormtail, Tigerheartstar, and Sharpclaw. First, I think it’s partly because the whole Dustfern setup started in the first arc, and the writing kind of gives me the vibe that the exact guidelines for how romance should work in the story’s world and what was appropriate behavior wasn’t set in stone as it is with the current arcs. That’s not say that it wouldn’t still be problematic, but it would at least be more understandable in a way. Second, I think it’s also because the readers don’t see Dustpelt trying to be romantically involved with Ferncloud while she was an apprentice. With characters like Tigerheartstar and Stormtail, they are actively engaged in flirtations with apprentices in books that were written well after the first arc, and by then we see that apprentices don’t become romantically involved until they’re warriors.

Apologies for the impromptu analysis of Dustfern, I don’t really ship them, but I’ve been trying to figure out why it didn’t bother me as much. I think it comes down to the fact that the worldbuilding concerning romance wasn’t entirely set in stone like it is now during the first arc, and because Dustpelt isn’t seen acting like Stormtail (at least from what I remember). Apologies if this is a bit muddled, I just kind of needed to get my thoughts down.

Yeah you do make some good points.

On the other hand though Dustpelt does start giving Fernpaw extra attention (that he doesn’t give his own apprentice, Ashpaw) as little as 10 days into her apprenticeship. I think the reason we don’t see it as much as Tigerheart and Stormtail is because Fireheart is minimally involved in Dustpelt and Fernpaw’s lives. Fireheart is basically completely oblivious to his clanmates, he doesn’t even realise his own nephew is into Bright until she gets injured. For him to even notice Dustpelt giving special attention to Fernpaw must mean it’s pretty obvious and goodness knows what Fireheart isn’t seeing that goes on between the two.

But like you say at least, as far as we know, Dustpelt didn’t actually engage in relations with an apprentice, he just waited and (most likely) groomed Fernpaw in the meantime. Which is also an absolutely awful option.

But what you say about the first arc writing not being set in stone is a very good point. But now since that universe has rules that have changed and evolved to where it’s explicitly being called out as inappropriate, I just wish someone from the team would retroactively look at things like DustFern and TigerDove and go “yeah they were weird, don’t engage in relationships like these kids” rather than just ignore it, and even support it in TigerDove’s case. Despite them literally being behind the line in Shadow that explicitly says that a warrior and apprentice engaging in a relationship is inappropriate. Unlike DustFern, TigerDove is still here, there is still time to get that message out there. Maybe if Ivypool does ever get her own book she can be the vessel out of which this message is portrayed.

I think Sharpclaw can be counted out of this specific conversation and put in one with Onestar, since I feel that “dating someone you helped raise after they become an adult” is different than “expressing romantic interest in a minor”. Both suck, but the latter is worse.

Why are there so many unintentionally written creeps in this franchise?

[raerps]

📍REGULATIONS FOR @VERYSUBJECTIVE

one. my name is rae, i've gone by bugs, birdie, sunny and a few other aliases on this site. i’m 25, a black american (sorry) and use she / they pronouns.

two. i don’t have a personal/specific dni (beyond anyone 20 and younger avoiding this space) because if there are any personal issues, i prefer to simply softblock and go on about my day. however, the general dni criteria applies here so anyone attempting to glorify or fetishize content such as rape, incest, homophobia, genocide, racism, etc. … stay the hell away from me and educate yourself. i don’t tend to involve myself in ‘drama’ thought i have no issue speaking up on serious matters.

three. this space is primarily friend focused (though i’m always looking to make new friends!) and i only interact with those i’m in a mutual following with. non-mutuals that like starter / inbox calls and send ic asks will simply be ignored. plotting is a must to ensure we’re on the same page with our expectations and so that i can give you something worth replying to.

four. whenever employed, use of aesthetics will be minimal. expect some occasional formatting of my posts but nothing serious beyond that. aesthetics are not my priority, though i do enjoy them on occasion. i only ask that you do not use screenshot / photoshopped replies when writing with me.

five. source material varies and mature topics such as physical violence, weaponry, death, war, child neglect, human experimentation, abuse and others might arise. in choosing to engage with this blog, you need to be aware of those issues, thought it’s important to note that while i make reference or make mention to the topics listed, there will never be an instance in which i will actually write said content. don’t even try it. in terms of sexual content : i am an adult and rarely write children aged characters, so sexual tension, body images, and overly aesthetic photos & text relating to said tension might arise and will be tagged as usfw to avoid getting flagged. i enjoy using smut as an means of character exploration and introspection, but you’re not getting any porny writing from me. it should go without saying but sexual content will only be related to muses & muns 20 and up.

six. romantic shipping is open, but i typically tend to be selective simply because my brainrot is strong and i prefer the vibes to be returned. sexual dynamics can explored without heavy attachment depending on the character, but i do still expect to chat at least briefly on the topic. platonic, familial & antagonistic dynamics are always encouraged! i like building dynamics at a semi-gradual pace (sometimes the vibes are just right) and love creating pre established ones!

seven. i have had my discord stalked in the past and as such, i'm not comfortable handing it out freely. i do ask that we've built at least the grounds of some dynamic before asking for my discord. please respect this.

eight. this space is low effort and low activity. tumblr is not my priority. i have an insanely busy life beyond my laptop and cannot promise to give timely replies in regards to writing or chatting. i have a habit of removing or softblocking people on discord or tumblr if there seems to be no interest. i don't support or practice exclusivity because i feel it restricts potential creative endeavors. i don't feel i have to explain every choice i make in regards to who or what i'm writing or shipping. i believe in cordial communication if there's an active issue that can be fixed, but beyond that, i don't owe anyone on tumblr or otherwise my time or an explanation. if you feel any of the above behaviors or beliefs are problematic, this blog is not for you!

[yuomizuu]

01. to be young & in love in new york city

꒰ kazuha x fem! reader ᯓ ᡣ𐭩 ꒱

w.c: roughly 3.3k+

additional info: modern au, strangers to lovers, mention of character passing out from exhaustion, kazuha is a freelance writer and reader is a baker. just a couple of adults trying to understand and figure out well…life.

( 💌 ) yuomi’s note: aka my very self-indulgent zuha series that absolutely no one asked for, but here we are ladies and gentlemen. honestly, this first chapter ( and really the entire series as a whole ) is kind of just a shot in the dark at me rewriting what was originally intended as a smau to instead be a full on narrative. whether you join along for the ride or not, we’re happy to have you here ( me and kazuha ) and hope you enjoy! (๑>◡<๑)

A blend of crushed coffee beans and baked pastries wafts through the air. The rich aroma makes Kazuha exhale a pleasant sigh of relief, chin resting on the palm of his hand as he continues to mindlessly stir his cup of tea that has long since become lukewarm. His curious eyes wander from place to place: observing the baristas hard at work behind the counter, the occasional passerby from the window, and the cafe's patrons either tending to their own devices or engaging in light-hearted conversation.

Kazuha can’t exactly pinpoint when it was he began doing this particular pastime of his. It merely came about to him one day and hasn’t been able to leave since, sticking to him like coffee stains found on a newly ironed shirt. There’s just a strange sense of enjoyment he gets when watching others from afar simply live out their lives. Or as he often refers to it; people watching.

His innate attentiveness is often regarded as an extension of his caring nature and while that retains some truth, for Kazuha, it is a quality that reaches beyond simple character. The quizzical looks he’d sometimes receive from others each time he noted the brief subtleties of something seemed proof of that. He could share with you many things. Like how each time that one college student sitting in the more secluded area of the cafe begins to bounce his leg, he’ll take a sip of his drink. Or the way one of the baristas' eyes seem to linger on her coworker for longer than usual and each time she's caught, the tips of her ears turn red ever so slightly. All minor details that could easily go unnoticed to the average person.

An old acquaintance of Kazuha’s from university—a student who went by the name of Kunikuzushi—had once referred to this unique observational behavior of his as though he were nothing but a fly on the wall: watching everything unfold around him but yet having little to no involvement. Although a rather rude analogy at the time, it was one Kazuha couldn’t ultimately couldn't refute, lest his own actions claim otherwise.

Perhaps it was the aged poet within him, but Kazuha held no desire to make his presence known by all with each room he entered, nor did he want to. He was perfectly content remaining just as he was now. Preferring instead to submit his inner most thoughts and feelings on certain matters to the familiar black ink that stains his fingertips each time he writes. To live his life akin to that of a wallflower.

A call to his name pulls Kazuha out of his episode of habitual daydreaming, facing back forward as Beidou, the cafe's owner, slides him an iced tea beverage poured into a mason jar. "Hit a stump with your writing? Or do you simply just got your head up in the clouds again?"

"Ah, sorry," he sends her an apologetic smile, reaching out for the drink that he takes a modest sip of. "I was just thinking."

"Of course you are. when are you not thinking Kaedehara?" She’s got him there. "Although…call it a hunch, but you seem to be "thinking" a lot these past few days. More so than usual. Got something particular on your mind?"

"You could say that…"

"That landlord of yours still bugging ya?"

Kazuha tries to brush off her comment with a laugh, though the way he grimaces slightly tells Beidou more than enough to the truth behind his situation. "My offer from before still stands, you know." She reminds him, making sure the mug she's drying in her hands is free of any stains before putting it away in the cupboards below the counter. "If you need a place to stay, my doors are open. All it costs is you becoming a worker here."

He quickly shakes his head dismissively. "It’s alright. I’m sure i'll have things worked out by the end of this week." A blatant lie, one that Beidou can see clear as day. Yet despite that, she says nothing, much to the male’s relief.

"Well, we're having another open-mic tonight. It’s a bit last minute but if you want, I can squeeze you in somewhere on tonight's lineup."

At her words, Kazuha takes a small glance towards the small makeshift stage that lies not too far off from where he sits. He watches as a band starts to set up for their performance, tuning their instruments and testing the microphones to make sure they work. For a moment he's inclined to take Beidou’s offer. After all, reading his poetry aloud has always helped clear his mind and it wouldn't be the first time he's participated in the cafe's weekly open-mic nights. He’s even become a regular performer. Customers and audience members alike manage to recognize him and instantly look forward to listening to his poetry.

But instead, he lets out a sigh. "I appreciate the offer Beidou, but…not tonight."

"Don’t got any new poetry to share for your devoted listeners?" She jokes.

"I do. It’s just…" he pauses, glancing at his journal on the counter that has remained untouched ever since he arrived. A troubled look flashes across his face, one that he quickly replaces with a smile upon realization. "What I have now just doesn't seem suitable to present to an audience. If I went ahead and read what I wrote, it wouldn't feel as fulfilling and would be an insult to a writers like myself."

The older woman stares at him for a moment, almost as though she were waiting for that smile of his to crack and honestly, had she waited any longer, it probably would have. But eventually, she lets out a small laugh as she shakes her head. "Alright, alright, I hear ya loud and clear. We’ll save it for next time then, yea?” She gestures at the iced tea, tapping her hand twice on the counter. "It’s on the house."

Before Kazuha can open his mouth to deny anything, Beidou has already walked off, making her way over to the band to make sure all is working order with the equipment. He observes from afar for a couple of seconds before turning back, face down, as a defeated sigh escapes from him this time. even he finds his own false display of positiveness to be laughable.

Digging through his pockets, he manages to find some spare change, and after placing the currency on the table counter as a tip, he gathers his belongings and promptly exits the café just as the band's mellow rnb music begins to play. Outside, he’s greeted with the sight of peach colored skies and rolling clouds of lavender as the sun sets across the horizon. A comforting sight that quells a bit of his surging worries while also serving as a reminder of the time. It would appear his mundane activities of drinking tea and people watching lasted for longer than usual today.

Adjusting his bag, Kazuha proceeds to walk towards the nearby bus stop, opting to stand nearby upon arrival once he sees the several people gathered around already. This part of the city did tend to get more crowded compared to others, especially during evenings or weekends. Which was only natural, of course, due to the countless stores, restaurants, and bars that could be found.

Even though it makes his wallet empty, Kazuha frequently ventures out here—the liveliness of the place puts him in a more positive mood compared to where he lives. Stealing Beidou’s words, for lack of better terms, his part of the city was rather bleak and somber. In the beginning, he didn’t mind waking up to the sound of drunkards hollering throughout the streets late at night or the unpleasant view of a rundown alleyway from his only window in his apartment. When you’re strapped for money, you have to make the most of things.

But after about a month or so, Kazuha just couldn’t stand to handle such an environment for any longer. A strife that clearly showed in his writings as well. Therefore, in a desperate attempt to seek a change of scenery, even if just for a short while, he took a bus ride to a random part of the city. Fast forward to now, and here he was, visiting the more bustling parts of his city whenever possible or whenever he was in the mood for jotting down a line or two of poetry. It’s a shame, really—if money wasn’t an issue for him, he’d happily move to this place without a second thought. Maybe one day…soon.

His phone buzzes from within his pocket. A message? Could it be from Ayaka? Of perhaps it was Heizou asking for assistance on one of his projects…again. As Kazuha continues to ask himself similar questions, he pulls out his phone, but as the screen lights up, and his eyes land upon the name of the sender, he quickly becomes filled with dread.

No one likes receiving messages from their landlord, least of all if said message is in regard to their late pay on that month’s rent. Unfortunately for Kazuha, he just so happened to be in that exact predicament and his landlord was anything but pleased with his negligence.

But did he seriously have to go and tell him he was getting evicted in less than a day? How could he possibly find somewhere else to stay in such a short amount of time?

Not bothering to respond any further, much less reason with his landlord, Kazuha immediately shuts his phone off, his grip around it tightening.

Ayaka—though kind-hearted as she may be—was always busy preparing banquets and organizing numerous charity events. If Kazuha asked to stay over at her place for a while, he feels he'd only end up being a hindrance to her work. Heizou’s dorm at the university was far too small to fit two people, let alone offer room to someone who was no longer a student, so that was an instant no-go. And although Beidou had happily offered him a place to stay, Kazuha just got done rejecting her help not even ten minutes ago. He couldn’t just turn back and say he needed help now. Not after all that trouble he went through insisting he was fine. That would be embarrassing! As for family…well, there wasn’t even an option for discussion to begin with.

While the distressed male continues to silently curse at himself as the increasing lack of options become more and apparent, his eyes barely manage to catch sight of the departing bus, doors closing as it begins to drive off. “Shoot— no, wait!” He reaches a hand out as he hurriedly runs over, waving frantically in hopes of catching the attention of the driver or any passenger onboard kind enough to alert them.

But all that he gets in return is the sight of the back of the bus slowly driving off into the road. That was the last and only bus that stopped in his part of the city.

It’s taking everything in Kazuha to not throw his phone across the street right here and now. one thing after another. Archons, was the universe simply out for him today?

Left with no other options, he opts to simply walk his way back home. If only he didn’t live on the other side of town…

── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

The remaining hours of the day seemed to quickly pass by—the lingering traces of golden hour have long since faded into a veil of black skies, coated with shimmering with specs of stardust. Tucked away in the narrow streets of the city, lies your small yet quaint bakery. The golden lettering etched onto the glass door outside serving as the only indication that anything was there in the first place to the common passerby: Okashi Pastries.

You and your bakery are stationed next to a flower shop, the owner of which you know as Tighnari. Having your establishment set up next to his came with its perks. For starters, you always found it to be quite the delight to take in the smell of baked sweets mixing in with the delicate scent of roses, daisies, and tulips. Each morning you stepped out to set up the tables and 'open' sign, inhaling the lovely smell that permeated the air served as an energizing boost to start off your day.

Tighnari himself was also a pleasure to have as both your neighbor and fellow business owner. Aside from receiving the generous discount offers and exclusive access to newer arrivals, the florist was also a very considerate individual, occasionally giving you pointers on how to properly manage and promote your business. You’re almost certain that without his advice, your bakery would not have lasted for as long as it has.

“I mean, can you believe it?” Tighnari asked, allowing you to pour him another cup of herbal tea as he continued with venting out his frustrations of the day. “I had made it very clear to her that because she submitted her order to me at the last minute, that it wasn’t going to be ready on the day she needed it.”

You stifle a chuckle, carefully lifting your cup up to your lips. “Did you offer to give her a refund?”

“Of course I did! And not only that, but I even went as far as recommending other florist shops she could go to that would fulfill her order on the same day. But what did she decide to do instead? Complain to me over the phone for a whole hour about how my policies are ‘unethical’ apparently.”

Quickly swallowing the liquid down before you choked on it, you let out a laugh. “Well, no one said it would be easy running a self-owned business.”

“No they did not. Quite frankly, I would have very much appreciated the heads up about the amount of stupid customers I’d have to deal with before deciding to be a business owner.” Tighnari concluded in an exasperated tone, calming himself down by taking a long sip of his tea. After placing his cup down, he takes a look around at your bakery. “But you seem to be doing well at the very least. Have you been able to take care of the plants I gave you?"

You nod with a hum. “Mhm! They’re not as high maintenance as I originally expected them to be, so I’ve been managing them pretty nicely.” You follow his line of sight, observing the few potted plants you have scattered throughout the space. Their lush greenery and soft pastels of sprouting flowers add more life and color to the bakery. “The customers seem to like them too.”

“Hm, naturally.” The male comments, a subtle sense pride to his voice that you dismiss with a playful eye roll.

As the two of you continue discussing other topics, the chime of a bell suddenly echoes throughout the space. Pausing in your conversation, you and Tighnari simultaneously look towards the entrance. You catch sight of a white haired male almost stumbling in through the door, his hand gripping tightly on the handle as his entire body seemed to lean against it for support. You internally wince, thinking another drunkard has managed to find their way into your bakery uninvited—it’s happened before.

“Didn’t you have the sign switched to ‘closed’ already?” Tighnari questions in a hushed tone, sparing you a quick glance before fixating his eyes on the other with caution.

“I did…” you mutter back. Quickly masking a cordial demeanor, you walk out from behind the counter and carefully approach the male lingering by the entrance. “Um, excuse me…but can I help you with something?”

“Are you…open by any chance?” He speaks through labored breaths, his voice notably shaky and low.

“Uh, no sorry, I just closed up shop a while ago,” You start to explain, a hint of apprehension in your tone as you consider what to say next. You don’t catch any whiff of alcohol on him and other than his languid and unstable movements, he didn’t necessarily look completely intoxicated. Maybe he was just buzzed? “Did you perhaps want to place an order for something? If it’s small I’m sure I can still get it for you.”

He slowly shakes his head in response, attempting to push himself off the door. He attempts to speak again but all that comes out is a mixture of incoherent mutters and heavy breaths. You look over your shoulder back to Tighnari, who mirrors your equally puzzled look with on of his own.

“…Hey are you feeling okay? Hey…hey!” Letting your instincts take over, you immediately reach out and catch hold of the male suddenly falling forward. A slight panic courses through you as his body goes limp in your arms. Tighnari quickly appears at your side, leaning down a bit to observe the male’s condition whilst you glance between the two in concern. “Tighnari is he okay? Why did he just…?”

“He’s fine, just extreme exhaustion it seems.” He tells you, his voice calm as he gestures for you to follow his lead. “We need to lay him down somewhere, and also get him some water right away.”

With Tighnari’s instructions, you both carry the unconscious male up to your residence on the second floor. You manage to bring him inside and carefully lay him down on the nearby couch. You rush back in forth various different rooms, gathering all the things Tighnari requested of you while he tended further to the male’s condition.

Once everything settled down a little, you simply watched in silence from behind as Tighnari places a cool rag over the male’s forehead, adjusting his head against the pillow before standing up and taking a step back. He then looks to you. “If you want I can bring him over to my place instead.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I don’t have a problem with him being here.” You gaze down at the male sleeping now on your couch. “It’d be a whole hassle to carry him all the way there now…”

He’s passed out like a lightbulb. Chest rising and falling with each breath he takes, accompanied with the faint sound of light snores. You’ve tucked him into a fleece blanket you managed to find buried in the back of your closet where upon doing so, his body instantly relaxed, curling himself further beneath as his face became devoid of tension. the soft lines around his lips show that he must be dreaming blissfully. He looked almost akin to a slumbering child: innocent and carefree. You can’t help but soften your gaze at the sight as you feel a slight pang in your heart.

“Besides, he looks like he’s been through a lot. The least I can do is make sure he has an easy rest of the night. I know I’d want the same from someone else if I was in his position.”

And you did—back when you had just moved into the city with nothing but a few bags and some spare cash to your name.

It’s never been easy out here for you. Even after everything managed to fall into place and you succeeded in getting all the things you dreamt of wanting, It always felt like there had been something that was still missing from it all. 

Like when you’re modifying a new recipe for your batch of chocolate chip cookies. Sure, each batch you made was certainly sweet and had your tastebuds craving another bite, but it somehow still tasted just like your average cookie—something was missing to it, a key ingredient of sorts. Many of your customers, friends, and Tighnari brush it off as just your sense of perfectionism getting in the way, reassuring you that the taste was good just the way it was. But you were never satisfied.

To this day you have yet to find what that “something” is exactly. Both in your chocolate chip cookies and in life. Perhaps this summer, you’ll finally find what it is you’re looking for.

♡︎ series masterlist. | ✐ next.

[archive-of-fan-owned]

The Force Behind Fanfiction

As a hobby that I spend so much of my time on, I plan to investigate the psychology of fanfiction. Why do so many people like it so much? What makes it so entertaining for people? According to Cecilia Aragon, who presented a TED talk on "The Creativity and Community Behind Fanfiction," over the past 20 years there have 60 billion words of fanfiction published on fanfiction.net alone, a popular fanfiction hub, as opposed to only 80 billion words that have been traditionally published in English across all of human history. What is it about fanfiction that causes this incredible outpouring of creativity? From my research, I can answer these questions in two parts- the psychological fulfillment readers and writers get from fanfiction and the vast network behind fanfiction that uplifts and supports the people of this community.

The psychology of fanfiction has to do with the nature of fanfiction itself. Fanfiction is often called transformative works, this is because engaging with fanfiction not only transforms the stories we interact with but it also transforms ourselves. A quote from a reference article in Poetics, a journal on empirical research on culture, the media and the arts, titled "Fanfiction as imaginary play: What fan-written stories can tell us about the cognitive science of fiction" states, "While making their way through a book, some readers may continually brainstorm ways for the story to turn out to their liking (Polichak and Gerrig, 2002), while others may view the character and events through the emotional lens of the personal memories the story evokes. It seems reasonable to predict that fictional characters and worlds might figure prominently in our fantasy lives. Many adults develop strong emotional attachments to fictional characters (e.g. Cohen, 2004), and becoming absorbed in a fictional world can serve as a means of escape (e.g. Green et al., 2004, Radway, 1984). To the extent that we find these activities pleasurable, why wouldn’t we want to return to favorite fictional worlds again and again? While it's been suggested that the only way of interacting with fictional characters is by watching, reading, re-watching, or re-reading these narratives (Branch et al., 2013), daydreaming about these characters—imagining their further adventures or playing out our hypothetical interactions with them—seems to be a reasonable alternative." This article demonstrates how we as readers of the original source material we are writing about can form attachments to the characters in the original work by writing fanfiction about them, thus creating an emotional investment. This emotional attachment causes people to keep returning to fanfiction because of how emotionally fulfilling it can be to our psyche to have these parasocial relationships.

Psychology Today, "The Psychology of Fanfiction: Why Reading Transforms Us" writes, "The invitation to put aside our identities and enter a space where we can simulate different ways of being can already be transformational. Then, by exploring other minds, we are given the opportunity to practice experiencing different emotions, thoughts and behaviors than what we otherwise live. When you find yourself re-engaging with the story and characters after you have finished reading a book, that’s when growth happens.” This communicates an analysis of what happens in a reader's mind when they consume fiction, coupling this with reading/writing fanfiction and the emotional attachment formed with the characters in these stories, it really demonstrates how compelling fanfiction can be to our minds.

Another vein that shows why fanfiction is so popular is the community behind it. Since the advent of the internet, the channels of sharing fanfiction between fandoms have become more and more accessible and from these developments an online community of fans formed. In the TED talk that was referenced above, it talks about fanfiction communities and specifically the support system that comes from that. In these online communities, millions of authors and readers review each others work on multiple channels regardless of experience level. Cecilia Aragon refers to this as distributed mentoring, where many numerous people give comments and reviews to each other. Each piece of feedback is tiny on its own, but a combination of all of these little pieces of feedback, made possible by the online-based nature of modern fanfiction, is greater than the sum of its parts. Reviewers even build on each others comments, giving the author substantial feedback to improve their work. One of the authors that Cecilia Aragon interviewed shared that the comments that she got from her fanfiction made her realize that what she was doing was worthwhile which made her even more passionate about writing.

It is moments like these where I am incredibly proud to say that I am a part of the fanfiction community as a writer and reader. Fanfiction is popular because even though these writers earn no monetary gain, the internal rewards they get probably makes it worth it, I know it does for me.

[starryknightwrites]

I actually agree with you. If you'll notice, I said "Between Chloe defenders' unwillingness to give her any responsibility for her actions and the writers' determination to ruin her completely, I can't choose a side."

Disclaimer: I know not all Chloe fans are disillusioned to the point of blaming the class and Marinette for her actions or acting as if they are in some way culpable for not doing enough for her. But I've seen this opinion floating around in multiple places lately, thought it was ludicrous and it irked me so I wrote a post about it. Even with Marinette's advice, that does not even make up 1 percent of the blame for Chloe's behavior and trauma. The damage had already been done.

It is 99% down to the adults in her life AND Chloe to change. I know it's not easy to change. It often takes time, hard lessons and different experiences. I have negative personality traits due to the way I was raised as well, but when it came down to it, I had to take responsibility for them and work to better myself. I learned that through trial, error and epiphany. I could depend on no one else to do that for me. I learned that others should not be expected to pain themselves by accommodating poor treatment from me due to my trauma. That's not healing. It's a cycle of trauma and I don't blame them for not always having the best reactions either. They weren't my therapists. They were people too with their own hangups and issues just trying to figure things out. How could I expect angelic behavior from them with all of their intricacies while I'm acting like a bat out of hell? It would be narcissistic of me.

It was this idea that Chloe should be coddled by children her age or that they should be held accountable for her worsening in particular that I took issue with. I am not defending the writers' choices for Chloe from Season 4 on at all. In fact, I'm just as irked by them, but I'm keeping from writing about that in detail until I actually see the episodes (I haven't fully read the leaks, but it's pretty bad from what I've seen).

While I've never been a Chloe stan or even felt that the writers owed her a full redemption arc (I was alright with her being a Captain Jack Sparrow like character. Always teetering back and forth), I am completely aware that they have had a vendetta against her and her fans since Season 4. I wasn't even engaged in the fandom when I saw Queen Banana and it was still obvious to me that something went very awry in the writer's room. So I too don't have a lot of hope that Chloe's fall will actually mean anything. As I said in the original post, the leaks seem more vengeful than anything. And Andre's behavior is appalling. Unlike the class, he is an adult man who is responsible for Chloe as her father and someone who enabled her and demonstrated to her time and time again that abuse of power is okay.

The writing feels like a salt fic. I'm not on board with it. I'm just also not on board with the opposite side of spectrum and the blame game. If the writers are being vengeful- and they likely are- I really wish Chloe's issues had been dealt with properly with her learning through trial and error and having an epiphany (maybe through losing Sabrina or bonding with Zoe against Audrey). Or even just remaining mostly static with the odd realization here and there (which is probably most realistic). What it looks like they're doing is actually pretty vile.

It is not the victims' responsibility to save their bully.

(Miraculous Season 5 Spoilers be here)

I don't know who all needs to hear this, but I've been seeing some... takes... around the ml fandom. Between Chloe defenders' unwillingness to give her any responsibility for her actions and the writers' determination to ruin her completely, I can't choose a side.

It's not Chloe's 14-year-old classmates' duty to save and bend over backwards for her anymore than it's Audrey's 14-year-old daughter's duty to save and bend over backwards for her. Her classmates are kids with no experience dealing with abusive parents or who can barely sort out their own home problems. Not trained therapists who must know exactly what to do to make it through to Chloe. They're also kids who suffer from Chloe's cruelty all the time and are understandably hesitant to get in her face constantly touting self improvement methods. How counterintuitive to human behavior would that be? Twice bitten (or in this case 100+ times bitten), twice shy.

I'm sure Audrey has some trauma/valid reasons for being a jerk too, but no one is suggesting that Chloe spread herself super thin in the face of her assholery so that she can just CHANGE her.

Chloe's classmates have been nice and open to her, given her chances, gone to her party and tried to include her in group events. They often only lash out at Chloe when she lashes out at them (if that), which is constantly. Marinette went out of her way to get her back in school and made an attempt to get her mother to open up to her. A misguided attempt, but AGAIN, Marinette is a child. She is not a therapist and she was meeting Chloe where she was. She knew Audrey would laugh in her face if she tried to use the "she's your daughter and you should treat her better" route.

Anyone who says the class didn't try hard enough with Chloe/ didn't give Chloe a chance hasn't met a middle school class. Those kids could be horrific to Chloe with all she has said and done. But they're generally nice. And they demonstrated kindness to one another ALL THE TIME so it's not as though Chloe doesn't know how to be kind.

Chloe is 14. Not 4. She knows what kindness looks like. She's not an alien, scouring the dictionary and hoping someone will PLEASE teach her how to kind. She, at this point in time, does not want to be kind. Funny thing about recovery. You have to want it. YOU have to want it. Any professional will tell you that. It takes more than people continuously bending over backwards in the face of your cruelty. All that will result in is doormats. Sabrina has been "kind" and bending over backwards for Chloe for years. Well, a lot of good that's done. No. In order to heal and to improve, you must be at a point of accepting responsibility for you and DESIRING change.

Chloe isn't there yet. Nothing her classmates do will change it. Maybe it'll take time and reflection. Maybe it'll take a new setting. Maybe it'll take a harder fall. But she's not ready and that's no one's fault but her crappy parents and hers.

I don't mind Chloe having to suffer an incredible low to rise, though I'm not sure if that's what the writers are doing. The leaks for future episodes seem a tad too... vengeful- especially where Andre is concerned.

But let's not lean all the way to the other end of the spectrum and eliminate Chloe's personal responsibility from the matter. The primary factor in her turnaround will be CHLOE.

[apparitionism]

Helicobacter 14

The bering and wells tag got a little sleepy after Christmas, didn’t it? I can’t say this chapter is any sort of wake-up call, but ideally it’ll give you a laugh or two. Previously on Helicobacter, Myka was working on an idea. She told Helena about it in the wee small hours of the morning... sadly, over the phone. But they’ll be in the same physical space in this part, so who can say what will happen? Well, one thing that definitely will is that you’ll notice I haven’t cut and woven this part into a fully cohesive set piece. Everything was taking too long, so I decided to hone the little bits I had, take the hit, and move on. Also, in a break from previous practice, I’m not going to link to the other parts of this story here, because I’m having a problem with some posts not showing up in searches/tags. Probably due to all of that racy content I post. (Tumblr flagged me. Oh, the hilarity.) But there are thirteen parts previous to this one, and they should be easily findable on my tumblr. Which is not, for the record, home to content that is sensitive.

Helicobacter 14

That morning in her office, wishing she had not begun the day’s coffee consumption in the middle of the night, Helena found herself once again fatigued—yet the lack of sleep also rendered her energized, strung out on anticipation. She also found herself once again staring at those model trees, so valiant despite their small size. So valiant they had been, since the very beginning, and Helena envied them their ability to remain oblivious to the disaster that had befallen the model neighborhood they for so short a time called home.

Of course, the “plan” did not necessarily have to be the full catastrophe she was envisioning, for in the end, she and Myka could always swear that the (fictional) email-driven misunderstanding would remain that. No one in a position of power knew what had really happened. No one knew that anyone had said anything like “I love you” on the telephone in the middle of the night.

When she worked up her nerve, she asked Steve, “Do you and Liam have plans for Saturday night?” If he said yes, she could at least keep this... quiet. Somewhat quiet. A bit quiet.

Unfortunately, Steve said no.

“Would you like to participate in a disaster?” Helena asked next. “A theatrical disaster.”

“Is that supposed to make me want to say yes or no?”

“I have no idea. However, it might be better for me to have allies, simply as a check on my worst impulses where a certain someone is concerned. I find myself agreeing to things... so perhaps you can pull me back from that ledge.”

“The fact that we’re talking about plans for Saturday night that involve a certain someone suggests to me that you’ve already agreed to something,” he said, but he was smiling rather than observably attempting to control his breathing.

“That, I regret to admit, is true.”

“Have you jumped off a ledge?”

“Not literally.”

“But only because she hasn’t asked you to.” Still smiling.

“I regret to admit as well that that is the only reason. It might solve some problems if she did ask and I did do it. In the literal sense.”

He said, with a beleaguered air, “I guess we’d better come, if only to tie a rope around your middle.”

“You are the best assistant the world will ever know.”

“I try. Then again, so do you.”

“Not enough.” She looked at the model-piece. “We need to build more libraries.”

“That sounds like a ledge, or stepping off of one.”

“What does Liam like most?” she countered.

“Other than me? You’ll laugh.” In response to this, Helena again heard herself make the question-noise, which now would always remind her of Myka having recognized it. How that woman wormed her way into everything... Steve answered the now-Myka-reminiscent noise by saying, “Gardening.”

And Helena did laugh, as predicted. She’d expected the answer to be professional, such as “the law,” or perhaps something fitting Liam’s extraordinarily handsome looks, such as “Armani suits.” Then again, Myka was every bit as beautiful as Liam was handsome, and Myka loved books... Helena said, “Wouldn’t you build many, many greenhouses if you could? Because you could?”

“They’re pretty objectively good, right? Like libraries. Maybe we do need to build more of them.”

“I am not opposed. Find a project, or projects, and we’ll bid.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” she told him, with feeling.

“You’re not just saying that because I’m bringing rope on Saturday?”

“Everything is connected, my darling Steve.”

He chuckled. “With rope?”

“If necessary.”

“What is this really about?” he asked.

“I’ll let Myka tell you—it will please her enormously to go into detail.” Saying “Myka” aloud pleased Helena herself enormously. So rare a pleasure, lately. “Also I don’t understand any of the duplicitous particulars well enough to explain them to you. Sadly, I don’t have Greek, so I can’t read the epic poem in the original... plus, I haven’t slept.”

“I can tell... please don’t tell me why not.”

“Would that it were that.” She sighed. “My darling Steve. Am I ever going to feel in control again?”

“Have you ever? Really?”

“Comparatively.” She had certainly at some point not experienced this career-off-a-cliff need to agree with every objectively ridiculous proposal of an irresistible, book-loving city planner...

“Do you want to? Feel that way again, I mean?”

“Yes?” Because she ought to want to.

“So cancel the Saturday plans.”

“I can’t.”

“Then no. You won’t ever.”

“Hence the need for the rope,” Helena agreed.

“I think I’m going to have to learn how to actually do roping. Maybe not the tricks with the spinning, but enough to throw the loop around you.”

“I suspect your doing that would be met with great enthusiasm from a particular spectator.” So easy to picture the enthusiasm—the delight—on Myka’s face if she witnessed such a performance, but Helena tried to return to pessimism. “Not that I expect any of this to work out.”

“You know the real reason Liam and I’ll both be into this Saturday thing?” Helena shook her head, and Steve went on, “What always happens is that we’re at his place or my place, and we don’t have the energy to come up with any ideas about what to do, so we stay in. And then he complains that we never go anywhere.”

“So it’s because this comes prepackaged as an idea of what to do?”

“For him, that’s my bet. But for me, it’s because after he complains, he smiles at me. And I give thanks that I get to witness it. Myka’s got a pretty decent smile... I think you should have the opportunity to give that kind of thanks.”

From anyone else, such words might have cloyed. From Steve, they calmed. “The best person the world will ever know,” Helena said, with certainty.

To which Steve replied an impish, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

“I will concede that you may have peers. Six-fifteen.”

“I have six hundred and fifteen peers?”

“Myka wants you there at six-fifteen.” Her name, out loud, again...

“Do you really think this is going to be a disaster?”

“That question is, at this point, moot. I tried, but I have met my match.”

“In more ways than one, I guess,” Steve said, but he continued to smile.

That gave Helena leave to answer, “You guess correctly.”

****

At six in the evening on Saturday, Helena stood in her customary spot outside Myka’s door, her customary flowers in hand, second-guessing her decision to bring one extra-large bouquet rather than two this time. But then her thinking and deciding didn’t matter at all, for Myka opened the door and was there, a physical presence not in a City Hall elevator.

Myka didn’t let Helena hand her the flowers, didn’t even get them out of the way; she pulled Helena close and kissed her as if they were alone. A fussy part of Helena wanted to protect the poor bouquet, but that part was outvoted by every other part, bodily and otherwise, all of which were celebrating standing once again in this space, enveloped once again in these arms, being kissed—she kissed soft, Myka did. Belying the body-crush, her mouth was careful, solicitous.

Helena eventually regarded the no-longer-impressive bouquet with a bit of disappointment. “Much as I enjoyed that, you might have let me set these down first.”

“You’re going to have so many more chances to give me flowers, and I’ll give them to you all the time too, and floriculture will flourish around the world thanks to us.”

“‘Floriculture will flourish’? Are you drunk?”

“Not yet, you beautiful... hm. I was going to call you a cheapskate again, but those flowers look like they might have been expensive before somebody made a mess of them.” She raised her voice. “Mom! Helena brought you some pricey smashed flowers!”

Helena said to Jeannie, who wore an extremely smug (and, Helena had to admit, extremely justified) smirk as she approached, “In the interest of accuracy, Helena brought you and your daughter some flowers, which your daughter caused to be smashed. Cost notwithstanding.”

“I saw you participating,” Jeannie said. Helena supposed she could hardly have missed it.

Then came another familiar voice—from the hallway, for Myka had neglected to close the door, Helena heard Abigail say, “That is an interesting euphemism for what they were doing.”

Myka shook a fist at her. “You weren’t supposed to get here before six-fifteen!”

Abigail, unmoved, said, “Like I didn’t know the reason for that.”

Apparently everyone had known the reason for that, and they had all wanted to see the six o’clock show: Rick and Varsha appeared behind Abigail, and Steve and Liam did too, making for a traffic jam not only of bodies but of introductions. Abigail enthused to Steve, of Liam, “He doesn’t disappoint!”

Liam said, “I’m... pleased?”

“I thought he was overselling your looks,” Abigail told Liam. “What with being in swoony love,” she added, and Steve blushed.

Myka said, into Helena’s ear, “Speaking of swoony love, it isn’t possible to oversell you. There aren’t enough words,” and when Helena tried to shush her, Myka kissed the ear she’d just whispered into.

Varsha, upon being introduced to Abigail, said, “Overjoyed to meet you. I was honestly beginning to think none of them knew any actual people.”

Abigail nodded. “It’s just me. Let’s do lunch or something. But only if you aren’t planning to, one, bid on a city contract, and two, fall in love with me, because there’s only so much of this kind of drama I feel like I can handle.”

“I can promise the first one,” Varsha said. “The second, that’s up to fate.”

Rick said, “Wait, what? Are you joking?”

“No,” Varsha said, in such a way as to make Helena wonder whether she ever joked.

To Rick, Abigail said, “You might need to class up your personal plating, Myka’s ex. I’m pretty charming.”

“Also not wallpaper,” Varsha added.

Myka said, “Confirm. She is not wallpaper. Can additionally confirm the charming point.”

“Should I be the one who’s concerned?” Helena asked. “You two are together most all day every day.”

Myka kissed her.

“Thank you for the reassurance,” Helena said.

“I didn’t do it to reassure you,” said Myka, and after smiling at Helena’s raised “then why” eyebrow, she said, “because I can,” and that was even better than reassurance.

Rick said to Myka, “You and I never got this far.”

“This far,” Myka repeated. “This far?”

“Rehearsal dinner.”

Myka squinted at him. “I really like that we can joke about this,” she said.

“Still too soon?”

Now Myka swatted him, her palm against his head. “In perpetuity, you ding-dong.”

Ding-dong? Helena began laughing at how ridiculous such an utterance sounded, certainly from Myka’s mouth, and when Myka looked at her quizzically, she could offer only, “I’ve never heard anyone say that.”

Rick said, “You should’ve hung out with us in—what was it, fourth grade? Some entire school year, it was everybody calling everybody a ding-dong.”

This made Varsha bark a laugh as well. She said, “Oh my god, it’s worse yet also better when you say it.”

To Helena, Myka said, ‘I want to hear you laugh like that in perpetuity. And you are not a ding-dong”—which set Helena off again, and Myka said, “Well, maybe you are,” but she softened it with a sweet nuzzle into Helena’s hair.

In fact throughout the entire evening, Helena found Myka to be physically demonstrative to an extent that was... new. Every time Myka neared Helena, her right arm extended toward Helena’s waist, her hips, eventually settling onto the concavity just where fixed ribs gave way to floating, there on the right side—there, or resting, higher but just as happy, in the middle of Helena’s back. These placements of her hand: Helena found them correct. Feeling the fit, the lock into place. Like sides of the bed.

All this prompted Helena to ask Myka, at a later point when, for a moment, they did not seem to be the center of anyone’s attention, “How much had you been holding back?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before. In contrast with all this contact now, tonight,” Helena said.

“I told you I was going to kiss you and kiss you and kiss you.” And Myka proceeded to do that.

“I did think that was hyperbole. I’m not complaining, but you didn’t do this before.”

“Well, before. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. You were doing me a favor with the engagement. Several favors.”

“I thought I was.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable now? I can stop.”

“Can you?” But Helena was teasing. “I haven’t seen you stop yourself from doing much of anything you want to do. Certainly not anything related to this evening.”

Myka shrugged. “I’m really committed to working toward certain goals.”

Helena regarded the relaxation of Myka’s posture, the playful smile on her lips, the glow of her gaze... and she was struck by, but couldn’t bear, the possibility of Myka being deprived of all this, of having to once again become the pale picture of irritated overwork she had been before. And this was no pretense of happiness, as Myka had said she’d been putting on as part of her project; rather, this was the real thing: Myka happy, not holding back. Yet had they spent enough time together for Helena to be sure that that was so? “Is this how you are, with me?” Helena asked. “Is this how we are?”

“I wouldn’t be bothering otherwise.”

Helena didn’t doubt it. “I’m sorry I haven’t worked as hard as you have. Toward those goals.”

“You can make it up to me later. Long game, you beautiful cheapskate.”

“The bill will come due?” Helena asked, pretend-rueful.

“I certainly hope so.”

“I do too. But can you promise me that we will never have to engage in a performance this ridiculous again?”

Myka put on a show of considering, then said a simple “No.”

****

Scenes from a Rehearsal Dinner

*

Helena pulls Abigail aside to say, because she has not had a chance to say it, “I thought we weren’t doing this. I thought we were actively keeping her safe. No possibility of public shaming. I did try very hard to—”

“Except for the glasses incident.”

“That was a mistake, one that I, if no one else, made a sincere attempt not to compound. Why are you helping her in this? Why are you not physically preventing me from helping her?”

“Didn’t she tell you her theory?” Abigail asks.

“Oh god, what now.”

“They’d never public-shame her over this, if they find out what she’s really been doing—and if she somehow gets in trouble for any part of it, they will definitely find out, because she’s planning to tell them the entire story, her idea being that it’s too insane.”

“That’s...” Helena begins, but she realizes she has nowhere sensical to go. “Well, that’s....”

Abigail nods. “Right? Because who’s going to call the org chart into a room and say ‘Here’s what you can’t ever do: put on a play about having your cancer recur so as to persuade your boss that you’ve fallen back in love with your ex-fiancé who it turns out is really a contractor who, if you can’t have her, you’ll waste away and die, but you would still like to keep your job, please and thank you.’”

“When you put it that way, I have no idea how anyone could follow it.”

“Exactly. In Myka’s own extremely special way, she’s brilliant... and as far as I can tell, the cancer—and you—really made her drill down on that.”

“Rick does say this isn’t how she behaved in the past,” Helena concedes. “But I’m beginning to think her newly revealed talents are being wasted in her chosen field.”

���Someday she’ll rule the world. And then, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I bet we’ll all be buckling our seat belts and hanging on for dear life. And enjoying it. I mean, look at you: you’re enjoying it right now.”

“‘Enjoying’ may be a shade too positive. In any case, you seem to have a part in the play too.”

“Point taken.” Abigail snickers. “I told her to buy grapefruit, and she asked me why. Never got around to breakfast after that glasses incident?”

“I did not punch her in the face.”

“You’ve said.”

“But I may yet punch you.”

Abigail waves off this concern. “I’m helping. Also, I’m not wearing glasses. So punching me wouldn’t get you going at all.”

*

Several pizzas arrive. Myka asks Helena, “Did you know there’s such a thing as lobster pizza?”

Before Helena can answer, Rick says, “Why wouldn’t there be? Can’t you slap anything on a pizza crust?”

Abigail says, thoughtfully, “Then again, Myka’s ex, you may be my kind of chef.”

Varsha warns, “Mind yourself, not-wallpaper. I don’t want to have to cancel lunch.” She eyes the pizza boxes. “I also don’t want to have to engage in any avoidance behaviors.”

“No allergens,” Myka tells her. To Helena, she says, “Which means your dreams are safe, too.” Myka then busies herself handing out what she calls “the scenario”—several stapled-together pages of which Helena is as terrified as she ever has been of creatures that are large and have claws. She reads the first line: “First, there was a fountain.” She wishes she weren’t driving; she needs several stiff drinks.

Myka says, “Okay, nobody’s got lines as such because I didn’t have time to learn all the medical terminology, and also I’m not sold on anybody’s ability to get it down by Monday.”

“I love improv,” Liam says as he receives his pages.

“So do I!” Jeannie tells him, and they make exclamatory faces at each other.

Liam continues, “Ooh, can I be one of the doctors?”

Jeannie, for her part, sighs. “I suppose I’m relegated to being the mother.”

“Relegated?” Myka demands. “Mom!”

Helena mutters, “How could this go wrong.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” Myka says.

“Why does that make you smile?”

Jeannie, for the moment embracing her relegation to the role of mother, says to Helena an indulgent, “Everything about you makes her smile.”

*

\Myka beckons to Helena. “Come with me,” she says, leading her down the hallway, in the direction of the bedroom... raising Helena’s hopes for a brief, scandalized moment... but their destination is instead a different room, this one an office (with air a bit chilly at the moment but not stale; Myka must in fact spend time here) featuring a computer with a large monitor. “Dad’s actually really going to call in this time,” Myka says, “and if I’m trying to hold my phone screen steady he gets seasick. So this works better.”

And indeed, after not much time, there appears a slightly choppy video image of a some-days-bewhiskered older man sitting in the stern of a rowboat. He wears a fishing hat of an incongruous bright red. Whatever technology is enabling the call seems to be his only companion in the boat, yet he regards it as if it has appropriated the entire armrest between them on an airplane.

Myka begins, “Hi, Dad. Any luck?”

“Fishing is not a matter of luck,” her father says; this must be a customary exchange. “It’s skill.”

“Any skill?”

He answers a solemn, “Only on the part of the fish.”

Myka pulls Helena into view of the computer’s camera. She keeps her arm around Helena’s waist as she says, “Dad, this is Helena. Helena, this is my dad, Warren Bering.”

“Helena.” He nods. “Myka’s explained.”

“Has she?” Helena asks. “Fully?”

“How should I know?” he asks in turn, and Helena has to concede that this is a reasonable question.

“I’ll go grab Mom,” Myka announces.

“Wait—” Helena calls, but she is gone. And there Helena still is, expected to speak cogently to Myka’s father. Having recently thought about the time she spent in his daughter’s bedroom. She coughs and says, “I’m pleased to... semi-meet you.”

Myka’s father, who does not seem, based on this first semi-meeting, to be someone given to sentiment, nevertheless offers Helena a kind, if gruff, lifeline. “Semi-same. You want to go fishing?” he asks.

“Do you mean right now?”

He shrugs. “Get on a plane.”

“You have no idea how appealing that sounds.”

“Oh, I have some idea,” he says.

“And yet your wife and daughter would, I suspect, exact revenge on me if I failed to participate.”

“Get used to the feeling. Or leave the family.”

“These are my choices?”

“From where I sit.”

“You’re in a boat,” Helena observes.

“Well, or spend a lot of time fishing.”

“I don’t know how to fish.”

“Guess you’d better participate, then.”

“Or leave the family?”

“Myka hates how red her face gets when she cries,” he says. Factually. As he might state Myka’s age, or her eye color.

“You’re saying that the ‘leave the family’ option is off the table,” Helena tries.

“I’m saying that Myka hates how red her face gets when she cries.”

“You are a member of an overall very strange family.”

He leans against the back of the boat; the change in posture makes him far less forbidding. “I heard your brother married some lady because she wrecked his car,” he says, with a little conjurer’s wave of his right hand.

“Touché,” Helena says.

*

Helena finds herself standing next to Rick. They are both watching and listening to Myka, who with great animation is detailing for Steve and Liam—and Abigail, but Helena knows that she already knows—the motivations of the characters in “the scenario”: “This is preposterous,” Helena says. “Does anyone honestly expect me to believe that this inclination—this readiness—to deceive is a new development in Myka’s character? It seems far too well-honed.”

Rick says, “She was always really really smart—especially in a get-things-done way—but I swear to you, if I’d known she was likely to turn into somebody like this, I probably wouldn’t have gone out with her in the first place.” He pauses to scratch his blond head. “Or maybe I wouldn’t ever have let her get away? I’m really not sure.”

“Well. Too late,” she tells him, and he bows that blond head in recognition.

He then says, “I need more food,” and wanders off, presumably to find some, mumbling words that sound like “lobster” and “pizza” and “I wish.”

*

Steve is telling Abigail, “I like your idea about not rerunning what happened before too exactly.” Myka has given her credit, in the written scenario, for this innovation. “I bet Helena likes it too—no blood on her this time.”

Abigail says, “We’re getting fake stuff that doesn’t stain. But also, history doesn’t literally repeat. Or it shouldn’t.”

“It can’t,” Myka says. “Same river twice.”

Abigail comes back with, “Or, better, first time as tragedy, second time as farce.”

“Whatever you say, Marx,” Myka tells her.

Helena mutters, “More like the Marx Brothers in this case.”

“In this case,” Abigail says, “which time is tragedy and which is farce? Genuine question for Myka. I mean the blood situation seems to support Marx’s version, but...”

“No times as tragedy,” Myka says firmly. “First time as TV hospital drama, second time as romantic comedy.”

“Not farce? Really?” Helena asks.

“Not unless the pies start flying,” Myka assures her.

Liam says, “I think that’s technically slapstick.”

Steve laughs and gives Liam a peck on the cheek. “I love you.”

“None of it oversold,” pronounces Abigail.

“You know, you’re right,” Helena says, for Myka chooses that moment to catch her eye and smile. And Helena gives thanks.

*

“I’m so happy,” Myka says to Helena, as if she’s been trying not to say it but can’t hold it in. Helena welcomes the words both as themselves, and as confirmation that her impression about pretense—or rather, its lack—had been correct.

“Are you?” She doesn’t need to ask the question, but Myka seems to be multiplying her joy by speaking it aloud.

“I am. About all of it. This”—a kiss—“and also that everybody knows everything now.”

Helena feels compelled to state, “Not everybody. Not yet.”

“I just said I’m happy. Quit raining on my parade.”

“It is quite a parade. And yet Rick seems to be sleeping through it.” She points at Rick, who is on the sofa, head back, eyes closed, mouth open.

“Hey, mister!” Myka says at him, and his eyes snap open. “Nap on your own time.”

“This is my own time,” Rick objects. But he says to Abigail, who happens to be beside him at that moment. “I think I did fall asleep during part of the briefing. Are they engaged in this version?”

“Not yet. The email proxy, remember?”

“Right. Sorry. I’m just tired. Long shifts. I’ll read the cheat sheet later.” He pulls a decorative pillow to him, clasps his arms around it, and closes his eyes again. Embroidered on the pillow is a fine-featured monkey, attired to assist an organ-grinder. If Rick were wearing a fez, their kinship would be unmistakable. As it is, Helena is left to wonder why Myka has a decorative pillow that depicts a fez-wearing monkey, why she herself has never noticed that fact before, and how Myka manages not only to say things Helena does not expect but also to decorate in that way too.

*

Helena feels a tap on her shoulder; she turns to see Jeannie. “Mm?” Helena asks. (She imagines both Charles and Myka laughing at her for it.)

Jeannie sighs, with great ostentation. Then she points at Helena and says, “Words about destiny.”

“Mm,” Helena now says. “Myka told you. That much of it?” Everybody knows a far greater portion of everything than I was aware, she thinks.

“My daughter is a lovely person.”

“I... know?”

“But she is a talker.”

“Also known,” Helena says.

“And yet not with everyone. In fact with very few. It’s a sign.”

“Suspected, yet not entirely known. Very much appreciated, however.”

“Destiny,” Jeannie maintains.

“I don’t disagree. Also very much appreciated.”

Myka, carrying two full wine glasses, clearly in transit, bends her head to kiss Helena’s cheek. She says, “Told you it sounded more upbeat than fate,” kisses her once more, then moves on.

“Thank you,” Helena says to Jeannie.

“For?”

The entirety of this gift. “The unanticipated.”

*

Rick and Varsha are the last to leave, save Helena herself. She suspects Abigail and Steve and Liam, who departed together, are staging some sort of private afterparty of their own.

Jeannie hugs Rick. “Didn’t I tell you that you’d find a nice young lady?” she says.

“I don’t prefer to be thought of as nice,” Varsha informs her. She evades a hug, as if to prove her point.

“You’ve been perfectly nice to me,” Jeannie says, though with a tinge of thwarted-hug disappointment. “I asked if you’d mind if I ate the last piece of the pizza that had the artichoke hearts, and you said ‘not at all,’ even though we both liked that one best.”

“I did say that,” Varsha allows, but with a hostile witness’s displeasure that this overzealous prosecutor is using her past statements against her.

“So you’re nice under certain circumstances,” the prosecutor continues, and Myka nudges Helena and murmurs what’s a circumstance. “Are you nice to Rick?”

Rick hurries to say, “It’s all good, Mrs. B.”

Jeannie crosses her arms. “I didn’t ask you, mister.”

Helena doesn’t bother to hold back a laugh. “And just like that, you turn into Myka.”

“I’m her mother.”

Myka, for her part, doesn’t bother to hold back a snort: “Don’t even try acting like you’re proud of that, Mom. Somebody named you was complaining about being relegated.”

“In the play.”

“Also, you’re the one who got upset about not being called in to get all relegated the first time.”

“That was real.”

“Would you be happier if this were too? I could always knock back a shot or two of H. pylori.”

Helena says, “Do. Not. Tempt. Fate.” Myka gives her a comical stare, and Helena sighs and amends, “Destiny.” To Jeannie, she notes, “But I am not saying words about it.”

Varsha says, “Fate or no, I would be very interested in the case if she did knock back those shots.”

“I’m not sure what reading that gets on the ‘nice’ meter,” Jeannie says.

“Throws its calibration off completely,” Rick says. “It never works again.”

“I do like you,” Varsha tells him.

*

Jeannie says she will busy herself “collecting pizza boxes,” a euphemism for “ignoring the two infatuated women saying goodnight in the magic foyer.”

Myka’s conspiratorial whisper to Helena: “I’d ask you to stay, but my mother’s here.”

“Sneak out,” Helena whispers back.

“Who sneaks out of their own apartment?” Myka says this as part of a smile against Helena’s neck.

“You make me so strangely happy.”

A chuckle. “I’ll leave her a note. Still think it should say ‘be right back’? How fast are you feeling?”

“Happy,” Helena reaffirms. “But strangely so,” she adds, as well as, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t find a part for Charles in the play? Otherwise he’d be at my house, and what would we do then?”

“It’s like you never heard of this amazing invention called a hotel room. They’re incredibly romantic, plus you get clean towels every day if you don’t care about the environment.”

“You make it sound like a very judgmental place.”

“Or you can hang up the ‘do not disturb’ sign and save the environment.”

“I don’t think that’s technically what that sign is for.”

“You’re not very into mixed-use design, are you? Which is weird for an urban architect. But I’m not worried; I’ll meet Charles eventually. And in the meantime, he’s not here.”

“He is not.” And in any case Helena would throw him out into the street if it meant she could be alone with Myka...

“Don’t tell him I said this—because I want him to like me—but: good.”

****

When Helena opened her door to Myka this time, she did not need to ask “why are you here,” and she did not need to wish that Myka would push her way in: after only a breath of standing and looking, Helena pulled her, because she wanted to get Myka to the bedroom as fast as she could, not because either of them needed to be fast, but to make sure that she was there, where Helena had feared she would never be, before anything happened to prevent it.

“If this doesn’t work,” Helena said, as Myka smiled at her haste, “and I don’t see how it could, so I should say when this doesn’t work...”

“Then it’s your turn to dream something up. I know you can.” Myka stopped moving, which drew Helena to a halt too. “You will, won’t you?”

Myka’s voice held not doubt, not exactly, but somewhere within that light won’t you Helena felt a vibration, a reed disturbed by a breath of unease. “We’ll move to Maine and refuse to fish for lobsters,” she said, because she would dream something up. Something, anything—because nothing was more important than this. How could she have thought otherwise?

“From a fountain that doesn’t exist. Don’t forget that part.”

She would dream something up. She took Myka’s hand, kissed it, and began to lead her once again. “I will never, ever forget that part.”

TBC