#i also learned when hex went through this years ago they had to state that there was essentially a minor in the classroom. so you could not

[pharaohbean]

update: it works. i now have full access to BOTH my calc and physics class (the latter which they accidentally paid for with my calc its great) and textbooks

felt the need to announce that i just got two emails from college announcing that they have FINALLY paid for my textbooks. halle-fricking-lujah.

[theeslytherinslut]

12 Grimmauld Place (5/?)

Pairings: Sirius Black (post Azkaban) x reader, Remus Lupin x reader’s brother, Sirius Black x Slytherin!reader 

Word Count: 2,909

Warnings: lil angsty

A/N: The longest chapter yet and it’s entirely in Sirius’ perspective! Hope I wasn’t too far off from his inner monologue. Also lots of spicy Tonks cause I love her. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 6

Sirius’ POV

Feeling intrusive, I caught Tonks’ eyes as Remus and Y/N hugged each other, her sobbing into his shoulder. With a quick twitch, I signaled to her that we let them have a moment. She nodded and followed me into the living room. 

“Still haven’t gotten around to cleaning anything, have you?” she teased, gesturing to the layer of dirt and dust that seemed to cover every inch of the house. 

“Whenever you feel up to joining in...” I teased back. 

“Well, it looks like you’ll have Y/N to help you with that,” she responded, raising her eyebrows at me in a funny way. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Y/N,” she looked at me meaningfully. But not knowing what she meant, I stared blankly back. “You men--it’s a wonder you make it up in the morning by yourselves...Obviously, her flat is no longer safe. She’ll have to stay out of sight for a while too. What better place to both be safe and stay out of sight than here?” 

“Stay here?” I asked dumbly. Sure, I figured she’d stay the night, but it never occurred to me that this would be the best place for her. But now that Tonks pointed it out, it did make sense. Not like she could go back to her blown flat; besides, she was vulnerable there. Vulnerable and alone. 

“Yes, cousin. Are you alright?” she laughed at my bewildered state, but I didn’t find it so funny. It was difficult to ignore my feelings for her when I wasn’t seeing her every day. How was I supposed to manage now? 

At school, it was easier to manage. In the hallways, I’d look at anyone but her, smirking at any girl I caught looking at me, any sort of distraction. But when Moony wanted to go have a chat with her, well, I’d have to plainly look away, instead contenting myself with glaring at passing male members of her house, daring any of them to speak up or look at her. 

Remus had made his views very clear in the year of her arrival. He’d been gushing about since first year, always saying how she’d enjoy something or another. I still remember her terrified face during Sorting dissolving into a bright smile when her eyes found us seated at the Gryffindor table. Remus waved excitedly at her from his seat, the rest of us doing the same--all hoping she’d soon join us. However, upon seeing the rest of us with him, her face turned bright red, and her eyes went terrified once more. Before I could even shoot her a reassuring smile, she’d turned back to McGonagall. Unfortunately, she’d been placed in Slytherin, something we never let poor Moony forget. That night in the common rooms after everyone else had long gone to bed, he’d made us all swear to never lay a finger on her--to essentially be another three big brothers--never to look at her in any sort of way. Of course we all made the promise, but I couldn’t honor it. 

I still found myself scouring the Great Hall for her face at mealtimes, ducking around shelves in the library in between classes looking for her. I always made sure to be on my best behavior in front of Remus, but behind his back, my eyes couldn’t wait to hungrily devour his sister. Her witty remarks as some Gryffindor teased her, her filthy mouth when a fellow Slytherin made the wrong comment--and just when I thought I couldn’t fall for her any more deeply, I’d caught her hexing a Gryffindor in the corridor. The poor bloke came out a few seconds later, clutching his jaw and nose, both of which were expanding at an alarming rate. She came skipping round the next moment, smiling broadly at her achievement. It was all I could do not to kiss her right then. 

“Sirius?” Tonks asked, pulling me from my memories. 

“Sorry, yes?” I asked, trying not to appear as anxious about it all as I was. 

“What’s your problem?” she asked. Looking at her, I weighed my options. On the one hand, the only living soul who knew about how I felt about Y/N was now no longer, in fact, living. On the other, keeping it such a secret allowed me to continue in my friendship with Moony. Lovely as she was, I couldn’t have anything come between us. Not when we were the only ones left. 

“I--” I started to begin the story, but upon remembering James, I stopped. “Nothing.” 

“Sirius,” Tonks started, an offended look on her face. “I am your cousin. You tell me right now, or I’ll go get Remus, and he will.” 

“You would, wouldn’t you,” I said, a fond smile coming on my face as I looked at her. 

“I most certainly would.” she threatened. With her hands on her hips, I was suddenly reminded strongly of Mrs. Weasley, which only made my smile bigger. “Now, go on and tell me, you grinning git!”

“Alright, lower your voice. Can you keep a secret?” I asked, looking at my hands. 

“Course I can,” she indignantly responded. 

“Well, there’s a, a slight--er, problem, with Y/N staying,” I said quietly, keeping an ear out for her sniffles. 

“Problem? What problem? Not like you don’t have enough rooms. Or is it you fancy her or something?” she said, laughing. I kept quiet, and after a moment or two, realization began dawning on her face. 

“Oh, but Sirius, she’s Remus’ sister!” Tonks said, looking at me scoldingly. 

“Don’t you think I know that, Nymphadora?” I barked, angry that she responded the way I feared.

At the sound of her birth name, her hair began burning bright red, and I retreated. 

“Sorry, it’s just--I know, okay? I’m very much well aware of the fact she is Remus’ sister. Why do you think I’ve kept my distance all these years?” I said. 

“Likely cause you were in Azkaban,” she pointed out. I gave her a nasty look, and she smiled softly. “Next time, don’t use my full name.”

I rolled my eyes and began anxiously pacing the floors. This was wrong; this was all wrong. The one girl Remus said was off-limits. All he let me get away with all those years at Hogwarts. With a fresh pang of guilt, I recalled a put-out looking Remus looking at me while I talked to a tall, blonde Ravenclaw during Charms. It was only years after I learned he’d had a thing for her--but to my defense, I’d have backed off without a complaint if he’d only told me. 

“All these years?” Tonks said, liking working things out in her head. “Surely that doesn’t mean...since Hogwarts?” 

“Yes,” I admitted miserably. “Since her first year.” 

“First year?” she shouted. 

“Keep down your voice.” I hissed at her, pausing to hear Remus speaking softly to Y/N. 

“Sorry,” she winced. “But really, since first year and you’ve never said anything?” 

“Well, I couldn’t. Remus made us all swear to leave her alone--and bloody hell, was that a job. After school, it was easier, once I was able to keep my distance. Out of sight, out of mind, as the Muggles say. Sorry, you know how Arthur loves his Muggles.” I laughed as she gave me a funny look. “And then--as you so astutely pointed out--I was in Azkaban. So it really hasn’t been a problem these last few years.” 

“But now she’s living in your house,” she pointed out. 

“Precisely,” I responded, running a hand over the scruff on my face. She remained quiet, looking thoughtful for a few minutes before responding. 

“Well, this is just bloody ridiculous. You’ve got to do something,” she said. 

“Do something? Do what? How could I betray Remus like that? He’s the only one left, Tonks. How am I supposed to betray him this way, especially after James, and then all the time apart, and then managing to let Peter slip through our fingers? I can’t do this to him.” I reasoned, beginning to harden my resolve. 

“Oh, you are bloody ridiculous, you know that?” she sighed, running her fingers through her now bubblegum-pink hair. 

“Excuse me?” I said, stopping my pacing to glare at her. 

“Bloody ridiculous!” she repeated, “Sirius, that was years ago. That was a feeble promise forced to be made by an older brother before his friends got horny and couldn’t think straight.” 

“What?” I said, pulling a face as I considered her words. 

“Remus made you all promise that so young so she wouldn’t become a plaything of yours, especially when the both of you turned out to be such whores.” Tonks laughed. 

“Whores? I was not a whore! And certainly not James, why after fifth year I don’t think I ever heard so much as a comment about any girl besides Lily.” I defended the both of us, vaguely aware of how I’d ridiculously brought my hands to my hips in indignation. 

“Sirius, you’re family, you know I love you--but Merlin, you were the biggest sodding slut the whole of Gryffindor has ever seen! I’d bet there isn’t a room in the castle you haven’t done something naughty in.” she laughed once more. I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t come up with a room fast enough--only proving her point. 

“Now, you two are not schoolchildren anymore. You are a grown man, Sirius. There’s no need to honor such a trivial and unnecessary pact.” She took a step towards me and put her hand on my cheek, dropping her voice. “Think of how much you’ve suffered, Sirius. Think of what you’ve lost; think of who you have lost. Remus has suffered the same loss. He lost James just as you did, but he also lost you. He thought you’d gone bad, thought Peter dead--James and Lily were dead. And then, years later, you return--innocent. You came back to him, and he, you. Things like that change a man. I’m sure there’s no one on this planet he trusts more with his sister than you. Don’t sacrifice your happiness for one more minute, cousin. Especially not when things look so similar to how they looked before, back when it all went wrong. Don’t waste another minute; I’m not going to either.” 

Shaken at her words, I remained quiet for a few moments. So much had changed since that night in Gryffindor tower. Maybe he wouldn’t mind the idea so much anymore. Besides, he trusted me enough to keep her safe.

My happiness...I’d never given the idea much thought, never considered it much of a possibility after being imprisoned. Never had reason to since. But now, my brain was swimming with possibilities. 

“Hang on,” I said, remembering the end of her monologue. “You aren’t going to either?”

She cursed under her breath before looking at me.

“Noticed that, did you?” she grimaced. I merely looked at her expectantly. “Alright, fine. Can you keep a secret?” 

“I mean, if I outed you, you could just out me,” I pointed out.

“True, alright. Well, it’s Remus,” she whispered, avoiding my eyes. 

“You and Remus?” I asked, frowning in thought. 

“And what about it?” she said, looking at me testily. 

“Well, nothing really. It’s just I never thought about it...are you sure?” I asked after a moment. I loved them both, but the thought had never even crossed my mind once. Surely if there was something between my cousin and my best friend, I’d have suspected something by now. 

“Of course I’m sure, you git,” she hissed at me. 

“So then why aren’t you together?” I asked. I couldn’t think of any reason they shouldn’t be if they both felt that way. Not like I had a sit down with the lot of them about not dating her. 

“Because he too is being ridiculous. Refuses to even look at me most of the time. Says I’m too young, says I deserve better than him.” 

“Better than Moony? Good luck with that one, cousin.” I laughed, shaking my head at the thought. 

“That’s what I keep saying, but he’ll hear none of it. Says I deserve better than a shabby, poor old werewolf.” she rolled her eyes. 

“Is that really what he thinks of himself as? A shabby old werewolf?” I asked, sad for my friend. If anybody deserved happiness, it was Remus. Before she could answer, we heard him calling. 

“Pads?” I suddenly heard. He entered the room alone, smiling softly at the two of us. 

“Hey, mate.” I smiled at him, opening my arms once more. Remus had always grudgingly accepted my affection, which only made me more inclined to give it knowing it bothered him. And as I knew he would, he rolled his eyes and smiled as he accepted. 

“Perhaps we should stay...” Remus said, looking to Tonks and then back to the kitchen. 

“Ooh no, you don’t. We’ve got to go, cut up sister or not. Besides, who better to take care of her than Sirius? Isn’t as if he’s got anything better to do. Perhaps she could persuade him in actually cleaning something in this wretched house.” Tonks added, gesturing to filth. I glared at her but remained silent; she was right. The house was filthy, but it was painful enough to be here, let alone restore the bloody thing.

“Suppose you’re right...” Remus said after a moment, “Take good care of her, Pads.” 

“Course I will, Moony. Always took good care of you, didn’t I?” I jeered.

“Not bloody likely! And don’t you go taking credit for that, that was all Madam Pomfrey,” he scolded, wagging his finger at me like he used to as a Prefect. “The group of you could hardly stand to sit still in the hospital wing for half an hour, let alone get me through a transformation!” As Remus told his story, Tonks looked at him with a funny look, and with an alarming pang, I realized Y/N often shot me the very same look. Did that mean she felt for me as Tonks felt for Remus? 

“That is bang out of order, mate! I worked hard at becoming an Animagi! Took years, it did. Don’t remember seeing Madam Pomfrey out trotting about with a teenage werewolf. Besides, kept your arse out of trouble!” I bantered back, smiling jovially. 

“Oh, it just as easily could’ve gotten me in trouble,” Remus shook his head at the memories.

“But it didn’t, did it?” I teased, “You know you loved it just as much as we did, Moony. Try as you might to remain all high and mighty. Ickle Prefect Moony,” I jeered, poking at him as he laughed. 

“Alright, alright. C’mon, let’s go before the two of you really start down memory lane. We’ve got to meet Dumbledore.” Tonks said, gently steering Remus towards the door. 

“Hang on, you’re going to Hogwarts?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be jealous. 

“Briefly. That wretch woman gets nosy when we’re there for more than a quick pop in.” Remus said; the disgusted look on his face told me he meant Umbridge. 

“Ah, well, say hello to Harry for me if you see him. I hear the little scamp likes roaming round nearly as much as we did.” I smiled after them. 

“That he does; I still remember catching him with that map...I don’t even know how he got ahold of it. James would’ve been so proud, out in the dark corridors taunting Snape. Like father, like son.” Remus smiled fondly at the memory before hanging his head slightly and ambling off to join Tonks. My chest hurt at the mention of James and Harry, and I was once more painfully reminded of my solitude. What I wouldn’t give to see James again...

I followed them to the door, waving goodbye as the two of them popped out of sight. I stared longingly at the spot where they’d disapparted. 

Standing in place, I gave myself a moment to gather my thoughts before returning to the kitchen. 

Tonks had made many good points, but were they just good because I was looking for any kind of reason to be with her? Did they actually make sense, or was I just looking for an out?

Remus had only made us promise once in the wee hours of the morning in the Gryffindor common room. Besides, if family was off-limits, well, that made him a right hypocrite, didn’t it? He did leave her here with me though, with the promise I’d take good care of her. That meant, to some degree, Remus trusted me with her. Would I be breaking that trust by going with my gut with Y/N? 

Good and evil continued to argue on my shoulders, but if I waited for a decision, I might be here for years. 

What’s more, was she even interested in me? I mean, sure, I’d caught her staring in school--but that was years ago; a lot had changed since then. But then there was the blush that always colored her cheeks every time I said something cheeky, the relief on her face when I’d met her in the port key room. Surely she wouldn’t let someone she detested bathe her, right? 

I resolved to simply flirt. If that went well, then she felt something too. And if she felt something too...well, let me not get ahead of myself. 

*******************************

Taglist: @geeksareunique @fredweasleysbitchh  @green-intervention​ @stopbeingcurious

[cassieschaosdimension]

Full Detox

Dear Tumblr,

Thank you for the almost year we've had together. It'll be a year in October, but I've realized throughout the past year a few things about myself....

The first thing is that I've lost myself sometime during the start of quarantine. Actually... it started two years ago. I had a rough time in my life. I was just getting started with social media and some of my friends at the time weren't truly my friends.

I went to camp the summer of 2019 and I came back completely changed. It was two weeks of not talking to anyone through a screen except my best friend and I only called him. We didn't talk through a screen. I need time to find myself. This detox might be for the month of September, or it could be for longer. I don't know at this point.

My second and final point is: I need time to find out who I truly am. Thank you so much for the opportunity to know people online aren't as creepy as I've heard. There are some people I must admit, but overall, this experience has been one of the best of my life.

But I'm about to go on one of the best adventures of my life and I want to fully experience it fully present and in person without a phone as a crutch.

This is going to be the hardest thing I will ever have to do in my life, but I'm ready for whatever life throws at me. I'm going to try journaling my month-long adventure as it starts in about half an hour.

It's all over the place, I'm an emotional mess as I write this. I just wanted to tell you if you need to reach me, I will be going off of Instagram and Discord as well for this month. I'm even getting rid of Pinterest and Google Hangouts. I'm completely immersing myself in the new culture I've thrown myself into.

I also just need time for myself. I'm tired of not having anyone who truly knows me in a different state than I'm in. I love my irl best friends to death, but I'm tired of just bursting into tears at random times at home. I'm just so tired of what my life has turned into right now. I'm tired of just not feeling like I can have people who don't understand me at all. I just want someone in my life who can just understand what I've gone through and it's been traumatizing for me. I need time to heal. I also need time to myself because I feel like some people on here just forget I'm a person and I really just want to be seen as a person and not just a blog. Take the time to really think about whether you've been thinking about the blogs as the people they are behind the screen or just a blog. Also, just be mindful of what you are doing when replying or reblogging a post and want to add words. People may not like what you're doing and you really need to respect that.

But you also need to remember people have feelings and tumblr is a site where we can just express ourselves. When people don't respect that, it's not a fun environment to be in anymore. This is also why I'm taking the detox. People need to learn how to respect that people have feelings that don't need to be explicitly said everywhere. This needs to be figured out on this site or I will keep on having these detoxes and maybe even stop my main blog and just have my poetry blog. I'm really tired of keeping up my "reputation" of being sweet, kind, and a freaking sweetheart who wouldn't hurt a fly. I'm really tired of keeping up my "reputation" of being the person to turn to for advice, but with no one else to turn to. I'm really tired of keeping up my "reputation" as someone who always has to be sunny, happy, and doesn't know about the dark in life. I know about the dark in life; I'm an adult now and people need to understand that online and also irl, but this is more about online.

Yes, I know I sound salty, and that's because while this almost year has been one of the best almost years of my life, it's also been the most draining because literally everyone on here calls me a sweetheart and a cinnamon roll. I just wish I felt safe enough to be myself. But right now, I can't be truly myself. I'm hoping the detox will help me figure out who the heck I am. I implore you though please think of me as the adult I am and not some teenager who doesn't know what to do with their life. I have life goals and uni is going to help me with that. Please stop treating me like a smole bean who needs to be protected at all costs. Please.

I am also just like you all. I'm not a ball of sunshine all of the time (in fact when I'm talking to people who know me best they know I'm only a sunshine 20% of the time, the other 80% I'm so done with life). I want to be able to taken seriously. I don't want to just be known as the Hufflepuff who is so nice and knows everything about life advice. That's not true. I'm just a uni girl trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to spend four years away from my family. I'm trying to be nice online, but I also want to be salty and sarcastic and myself because irl is bad enough, but online it's just why. Why do I come off as a cute, smol little kitten who wouldn't hurt a flea? Don't you guys know f you get me mad at you you'll be the one crying at the end of the day? I'm heartless when I've had enough. I need you all to treat me like the person I am and not like an object. That's kind of how I feel this has gotten. There are some who are amazing and I adore them to pieces. But then there are other people who aren't considerate I just can't. So I need a break from just all of this. I can't be on here when people don't take me seriously. Like I said it's bad enough this happens irl. I don't want it to happen online too.

I'm starting with two months, but as I do more of these in the future, it might get longer.

This might be my only two month long detox or it could be longer. If it's longer, I will let you all know! I promise, but for now, I'll miss you, I love you, keep being the you I know you can be, drink your freaking water!, remember people on here are people and have freaking feelings and emotions and lives and experiences, and I will see you all November 1st!

@procrastinationonvacation @clarys-heosphoros @reyna-herondale @ghafa-dale @captainwaffles @cory-was-hexed @nebulanike @im-someone-i-guess @writing-with-tea @simpingforwillsolace @simpingforpjo @writingsbypb @cloudygreywolf @crzyprsn42 @seven-halfbloods @nyxx-chaos @avakrahn @annlillyjose @kiriti-savyasachin @shaonharryandpannisim @chaoticchefherepleasesaveme @captainorthred @carrie-haha @justmemyselfandthefridge @daughter-of-sunshine @da-nerdy-turtle @stars-a-n-d-scars @ambidextrousarcher @ace-loves-cake @devereaux-fan @clarys-heosphoros @willsolacekinnie @valdezey @whatrambles @spoopycrowe @hyacjnthus @ileaurel @thatrandomfangirlll @purple-magic-2002 @the-young-and-forgotten

[fictionfromgames]

2019 (Buffy/Angel Eden studios)

Lawrence Myers (January)

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The cameras never stopped, but years at the firm led to an impeccable public persona. It was a large part of how a two term representative got picked out as VP, but then again, a little help from the Senior Partners goes a long way. He gave a picture perfect smile to the judge, bigger than the tight control he normally displayed, but still just as false.

It would be a while before he got to a place of privacy, something that made him begin to clench his jaw after a while. The American people were desperately pathetic, constantly delaying anything worthwhile, and he needed to get out.

Lawrence smoothed his salt and pepper hair, the only gesture he allowed himself, and largely as a joke for the press. His assistant was hovering in the periphery, and there was nothing he’d rather be doing than delegating long-awaited tasks.

He gestured to Mallory; an hour in and it was far past time to get the hell out of there. No more shmoozing, no more firing up the very amenable base. It was time.

“Sir, we’ve got a meet-and-greet in Virginia next--” Mallory began.

“Stop and listen,” President Myers said, his genial mask slipping into the authoritative annoyance he’d honed so well, “Call my guys at Homeland Security and ICE. I want all funding to IDRS halted and deferred to them.”

“Of course,” his assistant knew better than to respond with hesitation or confusion, “We’ll work up a press release too.”

“America solves its own problems, we don’t need INTERPOL junior here doing whatever the fuck they want,” he declared, “I don’t care who it needs to go through, we’ll start with an executive order if I have to.” “Absolutely,” Mallory complied, writing everything down, “And about the rally--”

“Fucking rallies,” his brow creased, conjuring up the lines in his brow that should have been deeper at 50, “That horseshit needs to be cut in half if we’re gonna get anything done this year.”

“Of course.”

A New, Confused Hope (March)

The tones of the aggravating electric chime rang again. Probably some lookie-loo or new witch seeking locally grown sage. Luckily, it does well enough in pots, so Logan always had a supply for the newly witchy.

He sniffed. Among the incenses and minty goodness of the growing sage, he caught a distinct eau de troll, and... “Hey, Aszea, try not to get vamp dust everywhere,” he called out without looking to the front of the shop.

“Logan, is Janis in? We have a kind of a situation,” the giant woman responded.

The way Aszea said situation made his ears perk, and probably would have without extra sensitive hearing. He placed his book down and made his way to the front, and was a little surprised that there were two people, and that the young woman with the troll was actually the one who smelled of dead vampires.

“Wwwwwwwhat?” Logan looked confused.

“So this is Emily.” Aszea put a hand softly on the girl’s shoulders, “She’s a sophomore at the catholic school, and she just killed like, three vampires.”

“Wait, really?” Logan moved around the counter, “That sounds like Slayer stuff, but--” “Right, she had a little assistance,” Aszea looked indignant, “But I told her about the Augury, and that we may be able to help her learn about what’s going on, and that, while it’s weird to have adult friends...”

“Having adult employers would be a good cover for a new Potential,” Logan knew immediately. He realized he’d carried a crystal ball out from stock, and set it down on an empty stand. “Twenty hours a week of magical supervision, little to no suspicion.”

“Twenty paid hours,” Aszea pointed out.

“Can you help me?” the girl’s eyes finally flickered up from her thousand yard stare. She was still in shock over what had happened, and Logan felt all the deeply bittersweet memories of watching someone learn some truth about the world lean a little more bitter when they locked eyes.

“Of course,” he said as softly as he could, “Just let me text the boss lady.”

Bad Actors (September)

“Well, shit!” Janis cursed, double-checking her phone.

“More amateur mages mucking up the mojo?” Logan asked, leaning over the counter.

“No, this was a test,” Janis held a finger in the air, “Someone is doing this on purpose, poisoning the well, and Iiiiiiiiii...”

Her face fell as she knew she’d have to admit something.

“Don’t know what to do about it?” Logan cut into her thought break.

“Yes, thanks, I was going to say that,” Janis twisted her mouth up, “Did you find the sleep daught?”

“Yeah, but I gotta skip it, Asz said there’s an inordinate amount of undead lately so I’ll be off the leash,” he said without looking at her.

“Any better at it? Can’t have you biting our only Slayer ally,” Janis crossed her arms, partly to glower and mostly to stop staring into her phone.

“I’ll tell you when you figure out what’s going on with the Tumblr coven.”

It was often tempting to throw annoying hexes at Logan, but ever since Myers ascended to the presidency, everything had been looking worse for the magical community, and she couldn’t afford to piss off any allies, even her werewolf store clerk.

“Who’d have thought I’d be curious as to where Phil went since January, huh?” she brushed a lock of hair out of her face, a small act of control in her increasingly chaotic life.

All Saints’ Order (November)

Brian raised his hands in victory. The molotov had crashed through the heathen storefront, and a small fire began taking hold inside. The Augury would be cleansed from his city.

Around him, his brothers cheered, hoisting their various weapons into the air, yells of “Hail Myers!” amongst the more enthusiastic wordlessness. They’d save their country, he knew, they’d start the next crusade, they’d burn--

Janis ended the spell.

“What’s happening?” Emily spoke up.

“We’re minus one shop and plus one openly fascistic anti-magic movement,” Janis responded flatly.

“Fuck,” was Aszea’s whole contribution the conversation.

*****************

So the last post was a couple years ago, and I’ve been watching a lot of Buffy, so here’s some setting update.

Lawrence Myers, 46th president of the United States, was a lawyer at a little firm known as Wolfram & Hart, and spent two terms as a representative for the state of Nevada before being courted, seemingly at random, as VP. When a very unexpected death opened up a vacancy in the White House, his administration fed on the zeitgeist of right wing American concerns and interests: a desire for law and order, fed by a covert program that produced chaos in the form of systematically sired mobs of vampires; fear and revulsion at the statistics of religion, that “witch” was now outpacing the growth of more “traditional” religious tendencies (see: christian denominations); and retaliation, essentially encouraged by the White House with its failure to criticize vigilante actions against apparently “satanic” sorts, such as middle class store owners or their working class superpowered/strange employees. Meanwhile, already prestigious or successful warlocks and demonic allies remained untouched by the ignorant sycophants.

Janis Morad, witch, demonologist, former entrepreneur. “Technopagan” is a term of the past, largely discarded in favor just plain ole witch, and Janis made her first sales online when Certain Social Websites started making witchcraft aesthetic. Using mundane practitioners to fund her own actual magickal ventures, she was largely able to fly under the radar until the All Saints’ executive order, which was supposed to fund governmental policing of Weird Stuff, but also just kind of invigorated an irate and clueless portion of the populace.

Logan Benson, werewolf. He was bit shortly before going to work with Janis, and has been pacified in his wolf phases by Janis’ alchemical experimentations. He’s been more and more eager to help out Aszea on nights as she seems immune to lycanthropy and is both tough and regenerative enough to survive the more mundane mauling that happened when he and the troll first met.

Emily Szymanski, Slayer. She’s mostly around because I had an idea that I liked-- that the Slayer Potential awakening spell was for extant Slayer Potentials when it was cast, not every one of them since. That being the case (how generous of me to myself), beginning in 2018 or later is the perfect time-- as Potentials come into age fifteen years later, we could be seeing one brand new Slayer for every one that has died since s7 of Buffy. This opens things up to a classic high school Slayer experience that we’re familiar with, while also still seeing a few “grizzled” vets in their mid to late twenties. I tend to assume “The life of a Slayer is brutally short,” but you don’t have to.

Generally speaking, she’s timid, I envisioned her as a nerdy Slayer, which will be fleshed out and statted when I get to it.

Aszea, troll. She was transformed from her assigned gender at birth through a wish-- one that she did not word carefully enough despite assuming she’d been quite particular. She wished to be a woman, but not specifically a human woman, and whoops. Now she mostly patrols and is the big muscle of the group.

Beyond this post, it’ll be set concurrent to whenever I’m writing, which is why I wanted to jump past all the time I didn’t include since the first two posts. Characters will have character sheets whenever they get their own story.

[mason-mem]

I Never Ast No Favors C. M. Kornbluth I Never Ast No Favors Dear Mr. Marino: I hesitate to take pen in hand and write you because I guess you do not remember me except maybe as a punk kid you did a good turn, and I know you must be a busy man running your undertaking parlor as well as the Third Ward and your barber shop. I never ast no favors of nobody but this is a special case which I hope you will agree when I explain. To refresh your memory as the mouthpiece says in court, my name is Anthony Cornaro only maybe you remember me better as Tough Tony, which is what they call me back home in the Ward. I am not the Tough Tony from Water Street who is about 55 and doing a sixer up the river, I am the Tough Tony who is going on seventeen from Brecker Street and who you got probation for last week after I slash that nosy cop that comes flatfooting into the grocery store where some friends and I are just looking around not knowing it is after hours and that the groceryman has went home. That is the Tough Tony that I am. I guess you remember me now so I can go ahead. With the probation, not that I am complaining, the trouble starts. The mouthpiece says he has known this lad for years and he comes from a very fine churchgoing family and he has been led astray by bad companions. So all right, the judge says three years' probation, but he goes on to say if. If this, if that, environment, bad influences, congested city streets, our vital dairy industry denuded —such a word from a judge!—of labor . . . Before I know what has happened, I am signing a paper, my Mama is putting her mark on it and I am on my way toChiungaCountyto milk cows. I figure the judge does not know I am a personal friend of yours and I do not want to embarrass you by mentioning your name in open court, I figure I will get a chance later to straighten things out. Also, to tell you the truth, I am too struck with horror to talk. Oq the ride upstate I am handcuffed to the juvenile court officer so I cannot make a break for it, but at last I get time to think and I realise that it is not as bad as it looks. I am supposed to work for a dame named Mrs. Parry and get chow, clothes and Prevailering Wages. I figure it takes maybe a month for her to break me in on the cow racket or even longer if I play dumb. During the month I get a few bucks, a set of threads and take it easy and by then I figure you will have everything straightened out and I can get back to my regular occupation, only more careful this time. Experience is the best teacher, Mr. Marino, as I am sure you know. Well, we arrive at this town Chiunga Forks and I swear to God I never saw such a creepy place. You wouldn't believe it. The main drag is all of four blocks long and the stores and houses are from wood. I expect to see Gary Cooper stalking down the street with a scowl on his puss and his hands on his guns looking for the bad guys. Four hours from the Third Ward in a beat-up '48 police department Buick—you wouldn't believe it. We park in front of a hash house, characters in rubber boots gawk at us, the court officer takes off the cuffs and gabs with the driver but does not lose sight of me. While we are waiting for this Mrs. Parry to keep the date I study the bank building across the street and develop some ideas which will interest you, Mr. Marino, but which I will not go into right now. All of a sudden there is a hassle on the sidewalk. A big woman with grey hair and a built like Tony Galento is kicking a little guy who looks like T.B. Louis the Book, who I guess you know, but not so muscular and wearing overalls. She is kicking him right in the keister, five-six times. Each time I shudder, and so maybe does the bank building across the street. "Shoot my, dawg, will you!" she yells at the character. "I said I'd kick your butt from here toScranton when I caught up with you, Dud Wingle!" "Leave me be!" he squawks, trying to pry her hands off his shoulders. "He was chasin' deer! He was chasin' deer!" Thud—thud—thud. "I don't keer if he was chasin' deer, panthers or butterflies." Thud. "He was my dawg and you shot him!" Thud. She was drawing quite a crowd. The characters in rubber boots are forgetting all about us to stare at her and him. Up comes a flatfoot who I later learn is the entire manpower of Chiunga Forks' lousiest; he says to the big woman: "Now, Ella" a few times, and she finally stops booting the little character and lets him go. "What do you want, Henry?" she growls at the flatfoot and he asks weakly: "Silver Bell dropped her calf yet?" The little character is limping away rubbing himself. The big broad watches him regretfully and says to the flatfoot: "Yesterday, Henry. Now if you'll excuse me I have to look for my new hired boy from the city. I guess that's him over there." She strolls over to us and yanks open the Buick's door, almost taking it off the hinges. "I'm Mrs. Ella Parry," she says to me, sticking out her hand. "You must be the Cornaro boy the Probation Association people wired me about." I shake hands and say, "Yes, ma'am." The officer turns me over grinning like a skunk eating beans. I figure Mrs. Parry lives in one of the wood houses in Chiunga Forks, but no. We climb into a this-year Willys truck and take off for the hills. I do not have much to say to this lady wrestler but wish I had somebody smuggle me a rod to kind of even things a little between her and me. With that built she could break me in half by accident. I try to get in good with her by offering to customize her truck. "I could strip off the bumpers and put on a couple of foglights, maybe new fenders with a little trim to them," I say, "and it wouldn't cost you a dime. Even out here there has got to be some parts place where a person can heist what he needs." "Quiet, Bub," she says all of a sudden, and shields her eyes peering down a side road where a car is standing in front of a shack. "I swear," she says, "that looks like Dud Wingle's Ford in front of Mi/' Sigafoos' place." She keeps her neck twisting around to study it until it is out of sight. And she looks worried. I figure it is not a good time to talk and anyway maybe she has notions about customizing and does not approve of it. "What," she says, "would Dud Wingle want with Miz' Sigafoos?" "I don't know, ma'am," I say. "Wasn't he the gentleman you was kicking from here toScranton?" "Shucks, Bub, that was just a figger of speech. If I'd of wanted to kick him from here toScrantonI'd of done it. Dud and Jim and Ab and Sime think they got a right to shoot your dog if he chases the deer. I'm a peaceable woman or I'd have the law on them for shootin' Grip. But maybe I did kind of lose my temper." She looked worrieder yet. "Is something wrong, ma'am?" I ask. You never can tell, but a lot of old dames talk to me like I was their uncle; to tell you the truth this is my biggest problem in a cathouse. It must be because I am a kind of thoughtful guy and it shows. Mrs. Parry is no exception. She says to me: "You don't know the folks up here yet, Bub, so you don't know about Miz' Sigafoos. I'm old English stock so I don't hold with their foolishness, but——" And here she looked real worried. "Miz' Sigafoos is what they call a hex doctor." "What's that, ma'am?" "Just a lot of foolishness. Don't you pay any attention," she says, and then she has to concentrate on the driving. We are turning off the two-lane state highway and going up, up, up into the hills, off a blacktop road, off a gravel road, off a dirt road. No people. No houses. Fences and cows or maybe horses, I can't tell for sure. Finally we are at her place, which is from wood and in two buildings. I start automatically for the building that is clean, new-painted, big and expensive. "Hold on, Bub," she says. "No need to head for the barn first thing. Let's get you settled in the house first and then there'll be a plenty of work for you." I do a double take and see that the big, clean, expensive building is the barn. The little, cheap, rundown place is the house. I say to myself: "Tough Tony, you're gonna pray tonight that Mr. Marino don't forget to tell the judge you're a personal friend of his and get you out of this," But that night I do not pray. I am too tired. After throwing sacks of scratch feed and laying mash around, I run the baling machine and I turn the oats in the loft and I pump water until my back is aching jello and then I go hiking out to the woodlot and chop down trees and cut them up with a chain saw. It is surprising how fast I learn and how willing I am when I remember what Mrs. Parry did to Dud Wingle. I barely get to sleep it seems like when Mrs. Parry is yanking the covers off me laughing and I see through the window that the sky is getting a little light. "Time to rise, Bub," she bawls. "Breakfast on the table." She strides to the window and flexes her muscles, breathing deep. "It's going to be a fine day. I can tell when an animal's sick to death, and I can tell when it's going to be fine all day. Rise and shine, Bub. We have a lot of work ahead. I was kind of easy on you yesterday seeing you was new here, so we got a bit behindhand." I eye the bulging muscles and say "Yes, ma'am." She serves a good breakfast, I have to admit. Usually I just have some coffee around eleven when I wake up and maybe a meatball sandwich around four, but the country air gives you an appetite like I always heard. Maybe I didn't tell you there was just the two of us. Her husband kicked off a couple years ago. She gave one of her boys half the farm because she says she don't believe in letting them hang around without a chance to make some money and get married until you die. The other boy, nineteen, got drafted two months ago and since then she is running the place on her own hook because for some reason or other it is hard to get people to work on a farm. She says she does not understand this and I do not enlighten her. First thing after breakfast she tells me to make four crates from lumber in the toolshed, go to the duckpond and put the fourMuscovyducks in the crates so she can take them to town and sell them. She has been meaning to sell theMuscovyducks for some time since the word has been getting around that she was pro-communist for having such a breed of ducks when there were plenty of good American ducks she could of raised. "Though," she says, "in my opinion the Walterses ought to sell off theirPeking ducks too because the Chinese are just as bad as the Roossians." I make the crates which is easy and I go to the duck-pool. There are four ducks there but they are not swimming; they have sunk. I go and tell Mrs. Parry and she looks at me like I was crazy. "Yeah," I tell her. "Sunk. Down at the bottom of the pond, drownded. I guess maybe during the night they forgot to keep treading water or something." She didn't say a word. She just strides down the path to the duckpond and looks into it and sees the four ducks. They are big, horrible things with kind of red Jimmy Valentine masks over their eyes, and they are lying at the bottom of the pond. She wades in, still without a word, I and fishes them out. She gets a big shiv out of her apron pocket, slits the ducks open, yanks out their lungs and slits them open. Water dribbles out. "Drownded," she mutters. "If there was snapping turtles to drag them under . . . but there ain't." I do not understand what the fuss is about and ast her if she can't sell them anyway. She says no, it wouldn't be honest, and I should get a shovel and bury them. Then there is an awful bellering from the cowbarn. "Agnes of Lincolnshire!" Mrs. Parry squawks and dashes for the barn. "She's dropping her calf ahead of time!" I run along beside her. "Should I call the cops?" I pant. "They always get to the place before the ambulance and you don't have to pay them nothing. My married sister had three kids delivered by the cops—" But it seems it's different with cows and anyway they have a different kind of flatfoot out here that didn't go to Police Academy. Mrs. Parry finally looks up from the calf and says "I think I saved it. I know I saved it. I can tell when an animal's dying. Bub, go to the phone and call Miz' Croley and ask her if she can possibly spare Brenda to come over and do the milkin' tonight and tomorrow morning. I dassn't leave Agnes and the calf; they need nursing." I stagger out of the cowbarn, throw up two-three times and go to the phone in the house. I seen them phones with flywheels in the movies so I know how to work it. Mrs. Croley cusses and moans and then says all right she'll send Brenda over in the Ford and please to tell Mrs. Parry not to keep her no longer than she has to because she has a herd of her own that needs milking. I tell Mrs. Parry in the barn and Mrs. Parry snaps that Mrs. Croley has a living husband and a draft-proof farmhand and she swore she didn't know what things were coming to when a neighbor wouldn't help another neighbor out. I ast casually: "Who is this Brenda, ma'am?" "Miz' Croley's daughter. Good for nothing." I don't ast no more questions but I sure begin to wait with interest for a Ford to round the bend of the road. It does while I am bucking up logs with the chainsaw. Brenda is a blondie about my age, a little too big for her dress—an effect which I always go for, whether in the Third Ward or Chiunga County. I don't have a chance to talk to her until lunch, and then all she does is giggle. But who wants conversation? Then a truck comes snorting up the driveway. Something inside the truck is snorting louder than the truck. Mrs. Parry throws up her hands. "Land, I forgot! Belshazzar the Magnificent for Princess Leilani!" She gulps coffee and dashes out. "Brenda," I said, "what was that all about?" She giggles and this time blushes. I throw down my napkin and go to the window. The truck is being backed to a field with a big board fence around it. Mrs. Parry is going into the barn and is leading a cow into the field. The cow is mighty nervous and I begin to understand why. The truckdriver opens the tailgate and out comes a snorting bull. I think: well, I been to a few stag shows but this I never seen before. Maybe a person can learn something in the country after all. Belshazzar the Magnificent sees Princess Leilani. He snorts like Charles Boyer. Princess Leilani cowers away from him like Bette Davis. Belshazzar the Magnificent paws the ground. Princess Leilani trembles. And then Belshazzar the Magnificent yawns and starts eating grass. Princess Leilani looks up, startled and says: "Huh?" No, on second thought it is not Princess Leilani who says "Huh?" It is Brenda, at the other kitchen window. She sees me watching her, giggles, blushes and goes to the shik and starts doing dishes. I guess this is a good sign, but I don't press my luck. I go outside, where Mrs. Parry is cussing out the truck-driver. "Some bull!" she yells at him. "What am I supposed to do now? How long is Leilani going to stay in season? What if I can't line up another stud for her? Do you realise what it's going to cost me in veal and milk checks—" Yatata, yatata, yatata, while the truckdriver keeps trying to butt hi with excuses and Belshazzar the Magnificent eats grass and sometimes gives Princess Lei-lani a brotherly lick on the nose, for by that time Princess Leilani has dropped the nervous act and edged over mooing plaintively. Mrs. Parry yells: "See that? I don't hold with artificial insemination but you dang stockbreeders are driving us dairy farmers to it! Get your—your steer off my property before I throw him off! I got work to do even if he hasn't! Belshazzar the Magnificent—hah\" She turns on me. "Don't just stand around gawking, Bub. When you get the stovewood split you can stack it in the woodshed." I scurry off and resume Operation Woodlot, but I take it a little easy which I can do because Mrs. Parry is in the cowbarn nursing Agnes of Lincolnshire and the preemie calf. The next morning at breakfast I am in a bad temper, Brenda has got the giggles and Mrs. Parry is stiff and tired from sleeping hi the barn. We are a gruesome threesome, and then a car drives up and a kid of maybe thirty comes bursting into the kitchen. He has been crying. His eyes are red and there are clean places on his face where the tears ran down. "Ma!" he whimpers at Mrs. Parry. "I got to talk to you! You got to talk to Bonita, she says I don't love her no more and she's going to leave me!" "Hush up^ George," she snaps at him. "Come into the parlor." They go into the parlor and Brenda whistles: "Whoo-ee! Wait'111 tell Maw about this!" "Who is he?" "Miz' Parry's boy George. She gave him the south half of the farm and built him a house on it. Bonita's his wife. She's a stuck-up girl from Ware County and she wears falsies and dyes her hair and—" Brenda looks around, lowers her voice and whispers "—and she sends her worshing to the laundry in town." "God in Heaven," I say. "Have the cops heard about this?" "Oh, it's legal, but you just shouldn't do it." "I see. I misunderstood, I guess. Back in the Third Ward it's a worse rap than mopery with intent to gawk. The judges are ruthless with it." Her eyes go round. "Is that a fact?" "Sure. Tell your mother about it." Mrs. Parry came back hi with her son and said to us: "Clear out, you kids. I want to make a phone call." "I'll start the milkin'," Brenda said. "And I'll framble the portistan while it's still cool and barkney," I say. "Sure," Mrs. Parry says, cranking the phone. "Go and do that, Bub." She is preoccupied. I go through the kitchen door, take one sidestep, flatten against the house and listen. Reception is pretty good. "Bonita?" Mrs. Parry says into the phone. "Is that you, Bonita? Listen, Bonita, George is here and he asked me to call you and tell you he's sorry. I ain't exactly going to say that. I'm going to say that you're acting like a blame fool . . ." She chuckles away from the phone and says: "She wants to talk to you, George/Don't be too eager, boy." I slink away from the kitchen door, thinking: "Ah-hah!" I am thinking so hard that Mrs. Parry bungles into me when she walks out of the kitchen sooner than I expect. She grabs me with one of those pipe-vise hands and snaps: "You young devil, were you listening to me on the phone?" Usually, it is the smart thing to deny everything and ast for your mouthpiece, but up here they got no mouthpieces. For once I tell the truth and cop a plea. "Yes, Mrs. Parry. I'm so ashamed of myself you can't imagine. I always been like that. It's a psy-cho-logical twist I got for listening. I can't seem to control it. Maybe I read too many bad comic books. But honest, I won't breathe a word." Here I have the sense to shut up. She shakes her head. "What about the ducks that sank and Agnes dropping her calf before her time? What about Belshazzar?" She begins to breathe through her nostrils. "It's hexin', that's what it is!" "What's hexin', ma'am?" "Heathen doings by that old Miz' Sigafoos. She's been warned and warned plenty to stick to her doctoring. I hold nothing against her for curing the croup or maybe selling a young man love potion if he's goin' down to Scranton to sell his crop and play around a little. But she's not satisfied with that, I guess. Dud Wingle must of gone to her with a twenty-dollar bill to witch my farm!" I do not know what to make of this. My mama, of course, has told me about la vecchia religione, but I never know they believe in stuff like that over here. "Can you go to the cops, ma'am?" I ast. She snorts like Belshazzar the Magnificent. "Cops! A fat lot old Henry Bricker would know about witchin'. No, Bub, I guess I'll handle this myself. I ain't the five-times-great-granddaughter of Pru Posthlewaite for nothin'!" "Who was Pru— what you said?" "Hanged in Salem, Massachusettes, in 1680 for witchcraft. Her coven name was Little Gadfly, but I guess she wasn't so little. The first two ropes broke—but we got no time to stand around talkin'. I got to find my Ma's truck in the attic. You go get the black rooster from the chicken run. I wonder where there's some chalk?" And she walks off to the house, mumbling. I walk to the chicken run thinking she has flipped. The black rooster is a tricky character, very fast on his feet and also I am new at the chicken racket. It takes me half an hour to stalk him down, during which time incidentally the Ford leaves with Brenda in it and George drives away in his car. See you later, Brenda, I think to myself. I go to the kitchen door with the rooster screaming in my arms and Mrs. Parry says: "Come on in with him and set him anywhere." I do, Mrs. Parry scatters some cornflakes on the floor and the rooster calms down right away and stalks around picking it up. Mrs. Parry is sweaty and dust-covered and there are some dirty old papers rolled up on the kitchen table. She starts fooling around on the floor with one of the papers and a hunk of carpenter's chalk, and just to be doing something I look at the rest of them. Honest to God, you never saw such lousy spelling and handwriting. Tayke the Duste off one Olde Ymmage Quhich Ye Myn-gel—like that. I shake my head and think: it's the cow racket. No normal human being can take this life. She has flipped and I don't blame her, but it will be a horrible thing if it becomes homicidal. I look around for a poker or something and start to edge away. I am thinking of a dash from the door to the Willys and then scorching into town to come back with the men in the little white coats. She looks up at me and says: "Don't go away, Bub. This is woman's work, but I need somebody to hold the sword and palm and you're the onliest one around." She grins. "I guess you never saw anything like this in the city, hey?" "No, ma'am," I say, and notice that my voice is very faint. "Well, don't let it skeer you. There's some people it'd skeer, but the Probation Association people say they call you Tough Tony, so I guess you won't take fright." "No, ma'am." "Now what do we do for a sword? I guess this bread knife'U—no; the ham slicer. It looks more like a sword. Hold it in your left hand and get a couple of them gilded bulrushes from the vase in the parlor. Mind you wipe your feet before you tread on the carpet! And then come back. Make it fast." She starts to copy some stuff that looks like Yiddish writing onto the floor and I go into the parlor. I am about to tiptoe to the front door when she yells: "Bub! That you?" Maybe I could beat her in a race for the car, maybe not. I shrug. At least I have a knife—and know how to use it. I bring her the gilded things from the vase. Ugh! While I am out she has cut the head off the rooster and is sprinkling its blood over a big chalk star and the writing on the floor. But the knife makes me feel more confident even though I begin to worry about how it will look if I have to do anything with it. I am figuring that maybe I can hamstring her if she takes off after me, and meanwhile I should humor her because maybe she will snap out of it. "Bub," she says, "hold the sword and palms in front of you pointing up and don't step inside the chalk lines. Now, will you promise me not to tell anybody about the words I speak? The rest of this stuff don't matter; it's down in all the books and people have their minds made up that it don't work. But about the words, do you promise?" "Yes, ma'am. Anything you say, ma'am." So she starts talking and the promise was not necessary because it's in some foreign language and I don't talk foreign languages except sometimes a little Italian to my mama. I am beginning to yawn when I notice that we have company. He is eight feet tall, he is green, he has teeth like Red Riding Hood's grandma. I dive through the window, screaming. When Mrs. Parry comes out she finds me in a pile of broken glass, on my knees, praying. She clamps two fingers on my ear and hoists me to my feet. "Stop that praying," she says. "He's complaining about it. Says it makes him itch. And you said you wouldn't be skeered! Now come inside where I can keep an eye on you and behave yourself. The idea! The very idea!" To tell you the truth, I don't remember what happens after this so good. There is some talk between the green character and Mrs. Parry about her five-times-great-grandmother who, it seems, is doing nicely in a warm climate. There is an argument in which the green character gets shifty and says he doesn't know who is working for Miz' Sigafoos these days. Miz' Parry threatens to let me pray again and the green character gets sulky and says all right he'll send for him and rassle with him but he is sure he can lick him. The next thing I recall is a grunt-and-groan exhibition between the green character and a smaller purple character who must of arrived when I was blacked out or something. This at least I know something about because I am a television fan. It is a very slow match, because when one of the characters, for instance, bends the other character's arm it just bends and does not break. But a good big character can lick a good little character every time and finally greenface has got his opponent tied into a bow-knot. "Be gone," Mrs. Parry says to the purple character, "and never more molest me or mine. Be gone, be gone, be gone." He is gone, and I never do find out if he gets unknotted. "Now fetch me Miz' Sigafoos." Blip! An ugly little old woman is sharing the ring with the winner and new champeen. She spits at Mrs. Parry: "So you it was dot mine Teufel haff ge-schtolen!" Her English is terrible. A greenhorn. "This ain't a social call, Miz' Sigafoos," Mrs. Parry says coldly. "I just want you to unwitch my farm and kinfolks. And if you're an honest woman you'll return his money to that sneakin', dog-murderin' shiftless squirt, Dud Wingle." "Yah," the old woman mumbles. She reaches up and feels the biceps of the green character. "Yah, I guess maybe dot I besser do. Who der Yunger iss?" She is looking at me. "For why the teeth on his mouth go clop-clop-clop? Und so white the face on his head iss! You besser should feed him, Ella." "Missus Parry to you, Miz' Sigafoos, if you don't mind. Now the both of you be gone, be gone, be gone." At last we are alone. "Now," Mrs. Parry grunts, "maybe we can get back to farmin'. Such foolishness and me a busy woman." She looks at me closely and says: "I do believe the old fool was right. You're as white as a sheet." She feels my fore- head. "Oh, shoot! You have a temperature. You better get to bed. If you ain't better in the morning I'll call Doc Mines." So I am in the bedroom writing this letter, Mr. Marino, and I hope you will help me out. Like I said, I never ast no favors but this is special. Mr. Marino, will you please go to the judge and tell him I have a change of heart and don't want no probation? Tell him I want to pay my debt to society. Tell him I want to go to jail for three years, and for them to come and get me right away. Sincerely, ANTHONY (Tough Tony) CORNARO. P.S.—On my way to get a stamp for this I notice that I have some grey hairs, which is very unusual for a person going on seventeen. Please tell the judge I wouldn't mind if they give me solitary confinement and that maybe it would help me pay my debt to society. In haste, T.T.

[acciotomriddle]

if it's dark Harry prompts, he falls in love (or puppy love) when he's 12 with the memory of Tom Riddle? probably Ginny dies :/

This got a little bit out of hand and I don’t know if this if what you had in mind but hopefully you enjoy this anyway

On Ao3, or under the cut (but please read the warnings)

TW: Non-con, slight underage (Harry is 15/16), Dark!Harry, Character Death (not Harry or Tom), unabashedly evil Voldemort

A lot of people said Harry wasn’t quite right after he came out of the Chamber of Secrets. People who pretended to care about him said it was to be expected; he’d been trapped down there with the body of a dead girl, a dead Basilisk, and a slashed apart diary that had been to blame for the whole thing. Trauma, they said.

Harry wasn’t traumatised. He just missed Tom.

Tom Riddle had been even more handsome in person than he had been in the memory he’d drawn Harry into, and Harry had become immediately smitten with him. Tom had been upset when he’d appeared, swearing that he tried to help Ginny but he just couldn’t, and he never wanted her dead.

Harry had felt sad and Tom had comforted him, told him he would be able to hug him properly if Harry allowed Tom to burrow just a little bit of his magic...Harry had been prepared to let him until Fawkes had swooped in, slashing at the diary lying forgotten in the water and making Tom disappear in a golden glow.

Harry hadn’t been able to get Tom out of his mind since. Tom had been so lovely, handsome and elegant, understanding and intelligent. It wasn’t fair that his memory had been destroyed.

Harry began neglecting Hermione, who didn’t nearly appeal to Harry as much as Tom had. Ron was already gone, taking a year off school after the death of his sister, and while Harry felt sad for Ginny he felt sadder for Tom.

Towards the end of third year, Harry fell into a trap set by Sirius Black, only to learn that it wasn’t really a trap. Sirius told Harry the truth about his parent’s deaths, and how they’d been betrayed by a man named Peter Pettigrew. Sirius had brought Peter with him, captured by Sirius only recently. Sirius wanted Peter to look in Harry’s eyes one last time so that he could remember what he’d done before Sirius killed him.

“I want to watch you,” Harry had said, seething with rage towards Peter. “Let me see.”

Sirius didn’t use his wand and instead beat Peter into a bloody pulp until his battered body could take no more. It was glorious to see.

Harry had thought of Tom afterward, and how his death had gone unavenged. Fawkes was a Phoenix and couldn’t die, but Dumbledore had no doubt been the one to give the order to Fawkes in the first place.

Later, when Dumbledore didn’t fight hard enough for Harry when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, his resentment towards him grew. Harry threw himself into training for the tournament, knowing if he could be almost as half as smart as Tom had been then he could win the whole damn thing.

Harry did win, every single task, right up until the third one when the trophy whizzed him away to a graveyard and Harry found himself tied to a gravestone that read Thomas Riddle.

Thomas Riddle...it was too much of a coincidence for it to be anyone other than a relative of Tom’s; his father, perhaps, given the dates.

Then the Death Eater who’d bound Harry began a ritual, the words bone of the father sticking out firmly in Harry’s head.

Voldemort rose from the cauldron when it was finished, tall and pale and powerful, and Harry knew he should be terrified but he couldn’t be until he had the truth..

“Thomas Riddle was your father,” Harry stated, drawing Voldemort’s curious gaze to him. “Does that make you Tom Riddle? Please tell me.”

Voldemort loomed over Harry. “Never speak that name again,” he hissed.

“But is it true?” Harry urged. “I have to know.”

“I was him,” Voldemort snarled. “Until I became someone far more powerful.”

And powerful Voldemort was, his strength and aura almost overbearing. It was hard to believe that Harry’s lovely Tom could turn into someone so monstrous, but if Tom was Voldemort, then Voldemort was Tom.

“I want to join you,” Harry begged. “I met you before—the younger you—and I need you. The diary...Dumbledore destroyed it and made Tom disappear. I want Dumbledore dead and I know you want that toe. Please, let me join you.”

Voldemort laughed coldly, running his skeletal hand through Harry’s hair like he was a pet. “An interesting proposition...I can hardly refuse such a sweet request. Let me train you in the way of Dark magic, Harry, and in return I request only your loyalty.”

It was a good job that Dumbledore became reclusive and distant in Harry’s fifth year, because nobody else noticed Harry disappearing night after night. He’d driven away all his friends long ago, and the other teachers were easy to fool.

Voldemort may have once been Tom, but he was truly nothing like him. Voldemort was a good teacher and had taught Harry Dark spells that left him feeling almost high on the power of casting them, but Voldemort was also cruel and arrogant, and sometimes leered at Harry in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. One day Voldemort’s hand slid onto Harry’s thigh, and Harry hexed him with one of the spells he’d been taught just days before. Voldemort had just laughed afterwards, and continued laughing as he Crucio-ed Harry and told him to think twice before denying him next time.

Harry took greater care to keep physical distance between himself and Voldemort after that.

By sixth year, Dumbledore had told Harry about Voldemort’s Horcruxes and how the diary had been one. Harry realised that if he found at least one of them then he could bring his own Tom back to him. Then he could kill Dumbledore and Voldemort, and be free of both of them.

Dumbledore showed Harry memories of Tom which only furthered Harry’s affection towards him. Tom’s cold and neglectful upbringing had been so similar to Harry’s, but then Tom had proven to everyone at Hogwarts that he was the smartest and most gifted student the castle had seen, and gathered powerful friends who all but worshipped Tom...he was almost like a god with his charisma and thrall.

Harry was all too disappointed when the locket he and Dumbledore went to retrieve turned out not to be a Horcrux, but a fake one replaced by one R.A.B. He was even more disappointed when Snape murdered Dumbledore the same night, taking away Harry’s chance of doing it.

“Why would you tell Snape to kill him?” Harry roared at Voldemort later. “You said I would be the one to do it.”

“I told Draco to kill him, believing he would fail and ensure his own death instead,” Voldemort answered lazily. “He and Snape both violated my wishes.”

“Then kill them both,” Harry hissed. “And make them suffer.”

“You do not get to make commands without offering me something in return,” Voldemort snarled. “Give me your body tonight and they’ll both be dead by morning. If you refuse, I’ll send them away so you can’t kill them, and I’ll fuck you anyway.”

Harry had little choice to do anything but agree, and he grunted when Voldemort pushed inside him, trying not to ignore the pain but to take it in, because he wanted to remember this when it came to killing Voldemort.

And now, at least, he knew what he wouldn’t have with Tom. Tom would prepare Harry and work him open, be rough but not violent, would make Harry see stars, and would kiss him tenderly.

“I hate you,” Harry spat when Voldemort finally pulled out of him, leaving Harry’s thighs wet and sticky. “Kill Snape and Draco by the morning or I’ll make you regret tonight.”

The next morning Harry woke to two familiar-faced corpses hanging outside his bedroom window.

Harry ran away after that.

He spent weeks in the wild countryside, avoiding Snatchers who Voldemort had sent out to bring Harry back to him. Harry managed to stay out of their grasp, and even killed one or two of them just because he could.

He eventually found and slaughtered a Dementor, using a spell Voldemort had taught him, and stole the Dementor’s heart. He’d read of a potion that could be used with the heart as an ingredient, and the soul of whoever’s skin the potion touched would be pulled out of their body and given to the maker of the potion. It would not be true death that Harry wished for Voldemort, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to kill any of the Horcruxes. And at least this way Harry would be able to trap Voldemort’s soul and bury it in a concrete prison ten feet underground where he’d never be able to flee and return again, which to Voldemort would feel far worse than death.

Harry finally found a Horcrux in the most unexpected of places. He’d been hiding out with his godfather in Grimmauld Place when he’d shown Sirius the letter to see if he might know who R.A.B was. Sirius had known.

“That was my brother,�� Sirius croaked. “Regulus.”

They both searched the house high and low before finally discovering the golden locket with a serpentine, emerald s engraved on the front. It pulsed with magic and energy, and Harry knew he’d found Tom again.

The locket opened willingly under Harry’s touch, and a memory of Tom much like from the diary appeared, slightly older than the Tom that Harry remembered but just as beautiful.

“I’m going to free you,” Harry said. “Just tell me how.”

The ritual required fresh blood, and Harry had never particularly liked Rufus Scrimgeour anyway. It only took three days to find a way to break into Scrimgeour’s home and abduct him. Harry slit Scrimgeour’s throat without a second thought and used the blood to bring Tom back to life.

To see his Tom fully alive, solid and warm and heart beating, was a glorious thing to behold, and the first thing Harry did was kiss Tom soundly.

Tom wasted no time in taking Harry to bed, far more gentle than Voldemort had been though still domineering, using his power not to intimidate and force but to take Harry apart piece by piece and then make him whole again. When he pushed himself into Harry it actually felt good, and Harry was all but sobbing in pleasure by the end of it.

Afterwards Harry explained the whole story to Tom, and his plans, and when he’d finished Tom smiled darkly.

“Voldemort will pay for hurting you,” Tom drawled. “And then you and I are going to rule the world.”

Voldemort’s obsession with Harry ultimately became his downfall.

Harry allowed himself to be captured by the Snatchers, who dragged him to a very pleased Voldemort. Harry grimaced when the first of several Cruciatus Curses hit him, but he didn’t scream out, knowing that he would soon have sweet, sweet revenge.

Harry gritted his teeth as Voldemort tore Harry’s robes apart, and as Voldemort went to open his own robes Harry grasped the potion vial around his neck, uncorking it and tossing the contents right at Voldemort.

Voldemort hissed loudly, reaching for his wand but collapsing before he could make it. His whole body trembled, shaking violently, his mouth opening in a silent scream as a grey wisp of smoke passed his lips, flying towards Harry and landing right in the now empty potion vial. The smoke in the bottle shook angrily, but Voldemort’s body was entirely lifeless, and the spell that Harry struck it with obliterated it to almost nothing.

The tiny underground prison he and Tom trapped Voldemort in was completely impenetrable and unplottable. Nobody but them knew it existed, and even they wouldn’t be able to find it again once they left the area. It was entirely satisfying knowing that Voldemort had a whole eternity to suffer through, trapped underground with nothing but his thoughts.

“You’ve done magnificent work, darling” Tom purred, wrapping an arm around Harry’s waist as he pulled him close and placed a kiss over Harry’s scar. “There’s such beauty in your power, Harry. I will worship you, and have you at my side forever when we claim the Wizarding World for our own.”

“Worship me, Tom, and I will worship you,” Harry murmured softly. “I love you.”

Tom smiled, dazzling and bright. “Tell me again.”

I love you. I love you.

[fountainpenguin]

Once Act 2 of Origin of the Pixies is over, I can finally delete the Google Docs file for it. For kicks and giggles, here are some deleted scenes that have been sitting at the end of the Acts 1 and 2 document all this time-

H.P. talking biology with Mr. Thimble:

Four and a half centuries after that, just before I was to begin my real work as an employee in the family business of Wish Fixers rather than Ambrosine’s unpaid little tagalong, I returned to Spellementary School to seek something from Mr. Thimble that I had never wanted in the months following my nymphhood: His advice.

My timing was perfect, as it tended to be. I arrived as his latest batch of students was filtering out for recess. He crouched on the floor with a dustpan full of pottery chunks and crumpled flowers (someone, it seemed, had finally put that twisted orange and brown monstrosity on the bookshelf out of its misery).

"Someone broke your vase?" I asked as he stood.

He shrugged and started for the waste bin. "One of the will o' the wisps brushed it with her wing. It doesn't matter- they were just daisies." Then he glanced over at me for the first time. “Ah. Fergus Whimsifinado. You look more like your father every day.”

_

Mr. Thimble considered this. “If you want to say you’re a pixie, then I see no reason why you can’t. The early will o’ the wisps and brownies began in a similar way. Here. You remember this old collection of tablets, perhaps. I would suggest you find some blank ones and create a copy for pixies, containing information such as wing design, particular magical abilities, sexual tendencies, and aggressive behaviors that outsiders ought to be aware of.”

I stared at the heap of tablets with my stomach curling in and out of knots. I wanted to be called something, but I didn’t want it that badly. I thanked him for the tablets and even began my work, but I lacked the attention and drive for it. The project was shelved.

This scene was originally going to appear after the lunch conversation with Ambrosine in “Love Struck Out”. In this early draft of the story, H.P. wasn’t so bogged down by feelings of “not being a real fairy” and “my mutation makes me ugly”, and he was actually going to call himself a pixie from the get-go. He approached his old school teacher, requesting to fill out the tablets to get his species placed in the school textbooks. Because of course he can do that.

I felt like this concept took a LOT out of the story, though, which is one reason why the scene was tossed and I went back to the drawing board (other reason being, it disrupted Chapter 3′s flow). I did really want to make a joke about him hating paperwork in his youth, but after ditching this scene I never really had the chance.

Also, you may notice that the mention of the vase was moved to “The Art of Starting Fires” instead. I was pretty proud of how it was written, and designed the Wish Fixers scene around it (after tweaking the scene as necessary to fit Karowel’s personality, of course). Fun Fact: In Act 4, H.P. owns a vase that looks exactly like this one even though he called it ugly in his youth.

Academy Party:

Sparkle wiggled his brows. “Are you sure you don’t want a sip? It’s orange.”

I studied the drink, then brought it to my lips. “Maybe just one.”

It runs in the family, the sugar addiction. I was at the top of my game one moment, leaning back in my comfortable seat and surveying my kingdom with fingertips pressed together. Shortly thereafter, Polly was leading Sparkle and I down the hall by our ears, both of us with our words bumping together like raindrops. I find it necessary to state, however, that soda is no longer a weakness of mine and should not be expected to work against me again. 

Although this snippet has some merit, I removed it from “School’s In - Not Much of a Musical” because I realized I didn’t want to timeskip the entire party (I played with the idea of having two parties at first). After this, I wrote the second “party” as something rather boring. H.P. was just playing snapjik with Sparkle and Polly in the basement somewhere. Brown walls and quiet people in the study area, yep. There was... no excitement whatsoever until Ambrosine showed up. It just seemed like the kind of place H.P. would hang out.

Then I remembered he’s canonically a rave-lover and grinned a wicked grin.

H.P. meets Pip

1)

I jolted upright, wings flared. “What the- Ow!”

A blue and black shape hovered above me with a horrified stare etched across her entire face. “Of all the places to spill my hot spaghetti sauce, it had to be on a fairy in diapause.”

“What?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “I wasn’t… what?”

She bore no crown, and her bat-like wings were feathered along the edges. An anti-cherub, then. She stared at me, stiff, with a bowl of pasta in her hands.

2)

I took a few steps, but swayed heavily and began to sag. “Take it slow, big fella,” she said, tailing me. “That’s it. Keep walking forward. Forward.”

“I know you’re trying to walk me off a cliff. This is where I live. I know this valley.” I rubbed my entire face with my palm. “Was I seriously in diapause? The last season I remember was the Winter of the Scarred Caribou. What year is it now?”

“Autumn of the Flightless Bird. That would be about…” She tipped her head. “Twenty thousand years, I think?”

I blinked several times. “You remember that?”

She coughed into her fist. “Years are kind of my thing. It’s in the job description. You learn to pick them up. Anywho, no one wants to hear about my boring life.”

3)

“Hey, I’d be more grateful in your position. You would have been eaten by predators if I hadn’t waited around until some angels found you and decided to give you a proper burial.”

“They buried me alive?”

“It wasn’t their fault. You still had dust on you and you looked pretty dead.”

“And that was twenty-thousand years ago.”

“Yep.”

“You’ve been stalking me for twenty thousand years, and you’re only just now waking me up.”

“Yep.”

“Why are you like this?”

“I dunno? I come around this area every century or so to listen to that fluttery sound of your core deep underground, and I finally got curious and just decided to do it.”

4)

I checked myself over through bleary eyes, but all my clothes were still in place, well-worn by the elements and damp with ice.

“Identify yourself, or I shoot you with a seven-day blindness hex.”

“Easy, easy!” she protested, flapping her wings.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

These diapause ideas were scrapped because of the conflict with Baby, You’re a Rich Man, when H.P. tells Sanderson he met Pip about five hundred years before he was born. I used Mortikor to wake H.P. from diapause instead.

The first one was definitely supposed to show Pip’s quirkiness. In that version, H.P. fell into diapause in his little cave, and she snuck in to rob him. Hot spaghetti sauce is, evidently, warm enough to wake someone from diapause. The other three all take place outside in the snow.

H.P. trying to communicate with humans

1)

“You want me to paint?” I tried to infer. I dipped my fingertips in the red powder, then stared at the wall. What to draw? I had never painted anything before, or if I had, it was when I was very young and the memories had been shuffled beneath millennia of more important work.

I looked at Tall, and then I knew exactly what to create. First, I drew two crude angels, to symbolize the concept of ‘more than one’. Then, more carefully, I drew a third figure floating over their heads, with wings spread. After setting my paints on the floor, I faced the pack again. Shiny had her head to the left, but no one really seemed to get it.

“Pack kills animal,” I said pointing to the picture that Tall had drawn. Moving my finger to the next, I pressed, “Pack gives food to the fairy and cares for them.” The third image, “Fairy lives happy life.”

They weren’t getting it. How were they not getting it?

Oh, well.

2)

I stared around the cave. Then I took up the feathers that had been plucked from the meat, and tucked them into my hair. I took up a large bone like a wand. I brushed clumps of purple dust from my left shoulder down to my hand, and clenched my fingers before they could begin to wriggle back up.

One chance. One chance.

I threw my handful of dust to the floor and silently pleaded for them to shoot up white sparks (It was only a small amount of dust, after all). With a sound like a ping, they did. I leapt into the air as I flared my wings, and held.

3)

I clung to my wand. They seemed to understand. They respected me like I was the greatest. I was a king. 

“Okay. For my first order of business, I require an escort to Great Sidhe.” I pointed out the cave and started to leave it, but after a minute of hovering outside the entrance, I came back. “Escort? Why is no one moving?”

The first and third are okay, but I’m not fond of the second. Anyway, like the scenes with Pip, these take place in “The Wanderings of the First and Alone”. I timeskipped them all instead because they weren’t necessary for the chapter, and I was having trouble making them all flow together anyway. 

Additionally, I wanted the first time H.P. is seen naming something to be when he names Sanderson (Hence why the story points out he never named his pet fish or the living cardboard boxes). I also played with the concept of H.P. sticking with this group of humans for decades, observing their mortality, but that idea was quickly discarded when I realized it would give him parental experience, and I wanted Sanderson to be the first child who truly looked after.

Social services are trash

The word- it was the wrong word. That word didn’t belong in conversation.

“Dead!” she exploded, visibly resisting the urge to sink her thumbs into my windpipe and strangle me. “The Fairy Elder’s orders! They’ll kill him to prevent the continuing spread of-”

I flashed for the door before she finished, tying the ribbons of China’s coat with all the wrong loops only to tear them apart and redo them correctly. I barreled through two streets, swerving around more than one magic carpet and knocking half a dozen Fairies to the cloudstones.

Originally, H.P. went out to lunch after dumping Sanderson on social services in “Grand Father”. However, he shouldn’t have friends at this time, so I couldn’t figure out how he ended up talking with this lady. Or how “I just illegally abandoned my son and I feel great” could come up in conversation. 

In the final version, he goes to the post office instead, and finds out from the Keepers that Sanderson was on the chopping block. The final version works well because it’s a good way to remind the audience that the Refracted exist, and it shows that despite everything, H.P. feels guilty about dropping off Sanderson with little fanfare, and so brings him the scarf.

The draft version was a little too panicked and emotional considering that technically, Origin IS supposed to be written for the pixies and H.P. wouldn’t normally let something QUITE like that slip in. I mean, for the sake of storytelling, I haven’t been writing the way I imagine he truly would, but that’s why he has an editor whom he hates.

I’ve been waiting for the right time to bring the magic carpets up again, but I think I missed my chance, so that might just end up a Frayed Knots thing.

Anti-Sanderson meets Sherri

The door opened, and a slim figure headed across the grass for the showers with a bucket in one hand and rag in the other. A damsel. A cherub damsel. Anti-Sanderson looked at me. “Watch this.”

He went bouncing and sliding down the tree, ricocheting off a tangle of branches, and at the bottom ran over to the cherub. "Can I help you carry that, twizzlerbit?" he asked, and she let him with a smile.  

The pair had nearly reached the showers when the cherub made the mistake of holding her eyelids shut, or perhaps darting her gaze away, and Anti-Sanderson lunged for her face. She screamed against his lips and slapped at him with her hands and snapping wings, but with his arms wrapped around her, even the yoo-doo doll struggled to tear him away. As the cherub scrambled off, we all dropped to our knees. We knelt there, hands behind our backs, glowering at one another, until finally Venus stormed in and grabbed the offender by the elbow.

"That's it. I have hit the roof with you. You can spend the next five hundred years in solitary confinement."

I REALLY like the phrasing of jumping down the tree, but had to toss it due to the scene change to the ballroom in “Snowflake”. Shame.

(By the way, Sanderson was mentally nine in “Bells and Whistles”, and is mentally eleven by this point in the story. Once he hits twelve, he’ll be mentally twelve for a looong time until his lines catch up with his mental age. After that, he’ll start aging with his line count. So I guess aging with lines is like a puberty thing? That makes sense to me. Let’s do that. Pair it with a wing moult and other features like an adam’s apple or something, yeah.)

H.P. meets Wanda

“Wanda Fairywinkle.”

“You’re the damsel who traveled back in time to kill the dinosaurs.”

She took the folds of an imaginary skirt and curtsied.

That’s it. That’s the scene. That’s as far as I got before I realized I would MUCH prefer to write “Rain Dance” instead, and I didn’t want to accidentally write myself into a corner.

This scene, and the next one, would take place during the war.

Chatting with Schnozmo

Robin leaned across the table. “They say some lunatic called Doubletake snuck a cú sith into the camp.”

I sipped my coffee. “That in itself was against the Fairy Elder’s orders, isn’t it? Poor sucker didn’t stand a chance, I suppose.”

“I dunno about that. Maybe.” He shrugged. “All I know is, people are sayin’ how Doubletake got himself sugar-drunk and killed Shiverwand. Just stabbed him right in the back, no warning or nothin’. His own bunkmate, while he was sleeping! Got the dust everywhere. How’s that for juicy?”

I rotated my mug between my fingers. “And the cú sith took him on the grounds of dishonorable killing?”

“Sure did! The mangy yellow thing snapped his soul up before you could steal a peach cobbler off a windowsill.” Robin slapped his knee and leaned back, both hands wrapped around the edge of the bench between his knees. “Wish I coulda seen it. Two words: Night patrol reeks. Anyway, they say Doubletake’s body’s new driver is a charming fellow. So, if you wondered.”

“Thank you.”

He flashed his jagged teeth. “Hey, that’s what the Hooded Robin’s here for.”

“And Doubletake in the cú sith’s body?”

“Got away into the trees. They’re trying to round him up. I dunno if they’ll try to get him back in his own body, though. I mean, he was a loopy fellow. A couple years in hot fur might cool him down.”

Mmhm. Originally, H.P. didn’t take Sparkle with him when he left the Academy at the end of “The Fallen Angel”. The rebellion in “A Grain of Truth” didn’t even exist. I’m still trying to decide WHAT H.P. and Schnozmo are going to talk about during this scene, or if the entire scene needs to be removed.

Additionally, the soul-swapping scene worked well for Chapter 6, because it drives home exactly what fairy dogs can do, and justifies H.P.’s reactions in “School’s In” and “Bells and Whistles” sooner rather than later.

Anyhow, those are the deleted scenes, and they’ll be deleted for real when I finish the Act 2 finale and discard this document!

[coffeestainedprint]

Double Trouble 2

Summary: Cam died. Her twin shows up looking for answers and the Winchesters have to provide.

Warning: Angst, sadness, some affection

She rubbed her wrists as she sat at the table. She watched them as they huddled together. “She mentioned a sister,” Sam said, his hands on his hips. “So what is she doing here? HOW did she get here?” Dean said, his brow furrowed. “Her sister did just die.”

“She JUST found out. You can’t tell me that’s suspicious,” Dean said. Sam sighed and gave his brother a look. The two of them had been to heaven and hell (literally) for each other; it was unrealistic to think other siblings wouldn’t do the same. They broke and went back to the table. “So...you two are the infamous Winchesters. Let me guess, you’re Dean, so that makes you Sam,” Callie said, her eyes shifted between the two. They didn’t speak but Sam flashed his dimples in an attempt to comfort her. “She told me that the two of you would keep her safe. Since she’s not around, I assume that wasn’t the case,” 

“How much do you know?” Sam said, his hands clasped on the table. “My sister took nearly a year ago, looking for....I don’t know. She was convinced something happened to my father and she was determined to find out. When she disappeared, I came looking.”

Sam and Dean glanced at each other before Sam cleared his throat. “Things got slightly out of hand.”

Sam gave Callie the rundown of the supernatural world on the outskirts of their own. Demons, angels, ghosts, werewolves, vampires and the like all existed and people, like himself, his brother and his entire family before them hunt these things. Cameron went out looking for help with what she had seen, even though she knew no one, even her own sister, believed her and she came upon the Winchesters. “She was...one of the bravest people I ever knew,” SAm concluded. Dean never spoke, his fist balled tightly and his jaw clenched. He tried to bury his feelings for Cam but here he sat, across from someone who looked exactly like her. Except it wasn’t her. It wasn’t the girl he had come to care for. Callie swiped her hand across her face, determined to not drop tears in front of them. Dean stood from the table and marched away, slamming a door between them and himself. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam finally said. 

“Where is her body?”

“We...gave her a hunter’s funeral. There is no body,” Sam said. Callie nodded, unsure of what he meant or if she wanted to know. “Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

“Got anything stronger?”

The whiskey burned from her lips until it settled in her belly. She signaled the bartender for another and she drank it just as quickly. “I guess....I knew something was....off about how my father died. I just thought it was grief,” she said as she spun the glass between her fingers. 

“I know the feeling. I lost both my parents,” Sam said as he sipped his beer. 

“She sent me postcards. Once a month. That’s how I found you,” Callie admitted, which urged a laugh from Sam. “That’s...kind of brilliant.” He could recall Cam stopping at mailboxes while they were on the road. “She was smart. She knew I was a bounty hunter, knew that’d I’d track the postage. Guess we weren’t so different after all,” Callie said, sipping the fresh drink in front of her. Sam found himself watching Callie, from the mirror behind the bar and quick glances to his right. She looked like Cam on the outside- same eyes, nose and mouth, the same tawny skin- but he could see the differences. Her eyes weren’t hopeful like her sister’s; she had the eyes who had seen too much too soon. She had a hardened appearance, as if she had to be tough before she learned what it meant to be soft. Sam wondered if Dean watched through the same eyes, pondering about the small things, the things that lay under the beautiful surface. 

“So...about this...demon,” Callie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Why him? Why kill him?”

“Demons generally create chaos. Death, destruction, souls. It’s also possible your dad...” Sam said, before stopping himself. Callie felt his hesitation and turned to face him. “My dad what?”

“It’s possible your dad made a deal.”

“A deal?”

“A Faustian deal. It’s a deal made with...”

“I know what a Faustian deal is,” Callie snapped. She could feel her heart racing at the idea. They were never rich, but they were well off. Neither of the girls ever wanted for much more than they had. “Cam thought our dad sold his soul?”

“We had no evidence. He didn’t keep a journal or anything?” Callie shook her head. “She couldn’t recall anything of significance happening 10 years before his death,” Sam said. Callie’s mind was racing a mile a minute. Of course, Cam wouldn’t recall anything, because she wasn’t there. 

Callie remembered waking up in the middle of the night. A storm was brewing and the wind beat on the house noisily. She rose from her bed and made her way down the stairs for a juice box when she saw the kitchen door was ajar. She tipped out into the night to find her father, crying in the cross streets where they lived, his hand wrapped around a bottle of tequila. It was the anniversary of their mother’s death and he wasn’t handling it well. She remembered seeing a woman appear in the road, it seemed, from nowhere. “Dad?” Callie called out into the wind. He turned and saw her and ushered her back into the house. 

“What...does it take? To make a deal?”

“A crossroad. Usually a hex with some personal information. However, crossroad demons tend to hear the pleas made without it. The person makes their deal and they seal it with a kiss.”

Callie sipped her drink, lost in her thoughts. They were silent for a moment. “Well...I can’t wait to give who or whatever it was a piece of my mind,” Callie said. “I...I don’t think that’s a good idea. Dean...he...” Sam started, his words escaping him. 

“He loved her,” Callie said plainly. Sam turned to her again. “She told you?”

“No. But I know my sister. Plus, he hasn’t been able to look at me since I arrived.” Smart and intuitive. Sam found himself more intrigued. 

Sam offered her a place to stay. “Where’d she sleep?” Callie asked, jamming her hands in her back pockets. 

They’d left her room in its original state, too upset to pack or move anything. the bed was still unmade, as if she had just stepped away from the room. Callie fought the tears as she sat on the bed, the sheets cold under her hands. “Still a slob,” Callie said, chuckling as she looked around. Sam resisted the urge to pull her close to him and console her. He’d been instantly attracted to strangers before, but he’d never experienced this. She felt familiar, even though it was because she looked exactly like a good friend and the girl Dean loved. It was a confusing sensation for him. “I’ll just...good night,” Sam said, pulling the door closed behind him. He lingered long enough to hear her sobs fill the room. 

[ciathyzareposts]

New Tricks for an Old Z-Machine, Part 2: Hacking Deeper (or, Follies of Graham Nelson’s Youth)

Earlier this year, I reached out to Graham Nelson, the most important single technical architect of interactive fiction’s last three decades, to open a dialog about his early life and work. I was rewarded with a rich and enjoyable correspondence. But when the time came to write this article based on it, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. The problem was not, as it too often is, that I lacked for material to flesh out his personal story. It was rather that Graham had told his own story so well that I didn’t know what I could possibly add to it. I saw little point in paraphrasing what Graham wrote in my own words, trampling all over his spry English irony with my clumsy Americanisms. In the end, I decided not to try.

So, today I present to you Graham Nelson’s story, told as only he can tell it. It’s a rare treat given that Graham is, like so many people of real accomplishment, usually reluctant to speak at any length about himself. I’ll just offer a couple of contextual notes before he begins. The “Inform” to which Graham eventually refers is a specialized text-adventure programming language by that name targeting the Z-Machine (and much later a newer virtual machine known as Glulx which has finally come to supersede Infocom’s venerable creation); Inform has been the most popular tool of its type through the last quarter-century. And Curses is the first full-fledged game ever written with Inform, a puzzly yet eminently literary time-traveling epic which took the huddled, beleaguered text-adventure diehards by storm upon its release in 1993, giving them new hope for their beloved form’s future and inspiring many of them to think of making their own games — using Inform more often than not. In the third and final article of this series on the roots of the Interactive Fiction Rennaissance, I’ll examine both of these seminal artifacts in depth with the detachment of a third party, trying to place them in their proper historical context for you. For today, though, I give you Graham Nelson unfiltered to tell you his story of how they — and he — came to be…

Great Baddow, the quiet Essex village where Graham Nelson grew up.

I was born in 1968, so I’m coeval with The White Album and Apollo 8. I was born in Chelmsford, in Essex, and grew up mainly in Great Baddow, a quiet suburban village. There were arable farms on one side, where in those days the stubble of the wheat would still be burned off once a year. (In fact, I see that the Wikipedia page for “stubble burning” features a photo from the flat countryside of Essex, taken in 1986. The practice is banned now.) My street, Hollywood Close, had been built in the early 1960s on what used to be Rothman’s Farm. The last trees were still being cut down when I was young, though that was mainly because of Dutch Elm Disease. The houses having been sold all at once, to young families of a similar age, my street was full of seven-year olds when I was seven, and full of fifteen-year olds when I was fifteen. I went to local schools, never more than walking distance away. My primary school, Rothman’s Junior, was built on another field of the same farm, in fact.

My father Peter was an electronics engineer at English Electric Valve. My mother Christine — always “Chris” — was a clerical civil servant before she had me, at the National Assistance Board, which we would call social security today. In those days, women left work when they had a child, which is exactly what she did when she had me and my brother. But later on she trained as a personal assistant, learning Pitman shorthand, which I never picked up, and also typing, which I sort of did: I am a two-fingered typist to this day, but unusually fast at it. I did try the proper technique, but on our home typewriter, my little finger just wasn’t strong enough to strike an “A”. Or perhaps I saw no reason to learn how other people did things.

My parents had met in school in Gosport, a naval village opposite Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. As a result, both sides of my family were in the same town; indeed, we were the eccentric ones, having moved away to Essex. My many aunts, uncles, second cousins, and so on were almost all still in Portsmouth, and we would stay there for every holiday or school break. In effect, it was a second home. Though I didn’t know him for long, a formative influence was my mother’s father Albert, a navy regular who became a postman in civilian life. He was ship’s cook on HMS Belfast during the Second World War; my one successful poem (in the sense of being reprinted, which is the acid test for poems) is in his memory.

None of these people had any higher education at all. I would be the first to go to a university, though my father did the correspondence-course Open University degree in the 1970s, and my mother went to any number of evening classes. (She ended up with a ridiculous number of O-levels, rather the way that some Scouts go on collecting badges until their arms are completely covered.) They both came from genuinely poor backgrounds, where you grew a lot of your own food, and had to make and mend. You didn’t buy books, you borrowed them from the library — though my grandmother did have the Pears Cyclopaedia for 1938 and a dictionary for crosswords. But I didn’t grow up in any way that could be called deprived. My father made a solid middle-class income at a time when that could keep a family of four in a house of their own and run a car. He wasn’t a top-bracket professional, able to sign passport applications as a character reference, like a doctor or a lawyer, but he was definitely white-collar staff, not blue-collar. Yes, he worked in a factory, but in the R&D lab at one end. This is not a Bruce Springsteen song. He would not have known what to do with a six pack of beer.

My brother Toby, who later became a professional computer programmer working at Electronic Arts and other places, was two years younger than me, which meant he passed through school with teachers expecting him to be like me, which he both is and isn’t. He’s my only sibling, though I now also have a brother-in-law and sister-in-law. “Graham” and “Toby” are both definitely unusual names in England in our generation, which is the sort of thing that annoys you as a child, but is then usefully distinctive in later life. At least “Graham” is unabbreviable, for which I have always been grateful.

The local education authority would have expected me to pass the eleven-plus exam, and move up the social ladder to King Edward VI Grammar School, the best in the area by far. But my parents, who believed in universal education, chose not to enter me. So at eleven and a half, I began at Great Baddow Comprehensive School. I didn’t regret this then, and don’t now. I had some fine teachers, and though I was an oddity there, I would have been an oddity anywhere. Besides, I had plenty of friends; it wasn’t the social snake-pit which American high schools always seem to be on television.

Until around 1980, there were no commercial home computers in the UK, which was consistently a couple of years behind the United States in that respect. But my father Peter was also an electronics hobbyist. Practical Electronics magazine tended to be around the house, and even American magazines like Byte, on occasion; I had a copy of the legendary Smalltalk number of Byte, with its famous hot-air-balloon cover. But the gap between these magazines — and the book in my school library about Unix — and reality was enormous. All we had in the house was a breadboard and some TTL chips. Remarkably, my father nevertheless built a computer the size of a typewriter. It had no persistent storage; you had to key in opcodes in hex with a numeric keypad. But it worked. It was a mechanism with no moving parts. It’s hard to explain now how almost alchemical that seemed. He would give a little my-team-has-won-again cheer from his armchair whenever the BBC show Tomorrow’s World used the words “integrated circuits”. (I think this was a little before the term “microchips” came into common usage, or possibly the BBC simply thought it a vulgar colloquialism. They were more old-school back then.)

Until I was twelve years old, then, computing was something done on mainframes – or at any rate “minis” like the DEC VAX, running payroll for medium-sized companies. Schools never had these, or anything else for that matter. In the ordinary way of things, I would never have seen or touched a real computer. But I did, on just a few tantalising occasions.

Great Baddow was not really a tech town, but it was where Marconi had set up, and so there were avionics businesses, such as the one my father worked for, English Electric Valve. Because of that, a rising industry figure named Ian Young lived in our street. His two boys were just about the same age as me and my brother, and he and his wife Gill were good friends of my parents — I caught up with them at my parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary only a few weeks ago. Ian soon relocated to Reading as an executive climbing the ranks of Digital Equipment Corporation, then the world’s number two computer company after IBM, but our families kept in touch. A couple of times each year my brother and I would go off to spend a week with the Youngs during the school holidays. This is beginning to sound like a Narnia book, and in a way it was a little like that. Ian would sportingly take us four boys to DEC’s headquarters — in particular, to the darkened rooms where the programmers worked, in an industrial space shared with a biscuit factory. (Another fun thing about the Youngs was that they always had plenty of chocolate-coated Club biscuits from factory surplus.) We would sit at a VT-220 terminal with a fluorescent green screen and play the DECUS user group’s collection of games for the VAX. These were entirely textual, though a few, like chess or Star Trek, rendered a board using ASCII art. Most of these games were flimsy nothings: a boxing simulator, I remember, a Towers of Hanoi demo, and so on. But the exception was Crowther and Woods’s Adventure, which I played less than a year after Don Woods’s canonical first version was circulated by DECUS. Adventure was like nothing else, and had a depth and an ability to entrance which is hard to overstate. There was no such thing as saving the game — or if there was, we didn’t know about it. We simply remembered that you had to unlock the grating, and that the rusty iron rod would… and so on. Our sessions almost invariably ended in one of the two unforgiving mazes. But that was somehow not an unsatisfying thing. It seemed like something you were exploring, not something you were trying to win.

It was, of course, maddening to be hooked on a game you could play perhaps once every six months. I got my first actual computer in 1980, for my twelfth birthday: an Acorn Atom. I had the circuit diagram on my wall; it was the first and last computer I’ve ever owned which I understood the physical workings of. My father assembled it from the kit form. This was £50 cheaper — not a trivial sum in those days — and was also rather satisfying for him, both because it was a lovely bit of craftsmanship to put together (involving two weekends of non-stop soldering), and also because he was never such a hero to his son as when we finally plugged it in and it worked flawlessly. Curious how much of this story appears to be about fathers and sons…

At any rate, I began thinking about implementing “adventures” very early on. This was close to impossible on a computer with 12 K of RAM (and even that only after I slowly expanded it, buying 0.5 K memory chips one at a time from a local hardware store). And yet… I can still remember the epiphany when I realised that you could model the location of an object by storing this in a byte which was either a room number or a special value to mean “being carried”. I think the most feasible creation I came up with was a procedurally-generated game on a squared grid, ten rooms wide by infinity rooms long, where certain rooms were overridden with names and puzzles. It had no title, but was known in my family as “the adventure of Igneous the Dwarf”, after its only real character. My first published game was an imitation of the arcade game Frogger for the Acorn Atom. I made something like £70 in royalties from it, but it really had no interactive-fiction content of any kind.

My first experience of commercial interactive fiction came for the BBC Micro, the big brother of the Acorn Atom; my father being my big brother in this instance, since he bought one in 1981. The Scott Adams line made it onto the BBC Micro, and so did ports of the Cambridge mainframe games, marketed first by Acornsoft and then by Topologika. I thus played some of the canonical Cambridge games quite a while before going to Cambridge. (Cambridge was then the lodestone of the UK computing industry; things like the BBC Micro and the ARM chip are easily overlooked in Cambridge’s history, given the university’s work with gravity, evolution, the electron, etc., but this was not a small deal at the time.) In particular, the most ambitious of the Cambridge games, Acheton, came out from Acornsoft on a disk release, and I played it. This was an extraordinary thing; in the United Kingdom, few computer owners had disk drives, and no more than a handful of BBC Micro games were ever released in that format.

I made something fractionally like a graphical adventure, called Crystal Castle, for the BBC Micro. (In 2000, Toby helpfully, if that’s the word, found the last existing cassette tape of this, digitised it to a WAV file, signal-processed the result, and ended up with about 22 K of program and data. To our astonishment, it ran.) It was written in binary machine code, which thus had no source code. Crystal Castle was nearly published, but the deal ultimately fell through. Superior Software, then the best marque for BBC Micro stuff, exchanged friendly letters with me, and for a while it really did look like it would happen. But I really needed an artist, and a bit more design skill. So, they passed. I imagine they had quite a large slush pile of games on cassette sent in by aspiring coders back then. You should not think of me as a teenage entrepreneur; I was mostly unsuccessful.

I did get two BBC Micro games published in 1984 by a cottage-industry sort of software house somewhere in Essex, run by a local teacher. Anybody who could arrange to duplicate cassette tapes and print inlay cards could be a “software house” in those days, and quite a lot of firms with improvised names (“Aardvark Software”, etc.) were actually people running a mail-order business out of their front rooms. They sold my two games as one, in that they were side A and side B of the same cassette. The games had the somewhat Asimovian names Galaxy’s Edge and Escape from Solaris. I honestly remember little about them, except that Escape from Solaris was a two-handed game. To play, you had to connect two BBC Micros back-to-back with an RS-232 cable, and then you had to type alternate commands. One program would stall while the other was active, but the thing worked. I cannot imagine that these games were any good, but the milieu was that of alien science being indistinguishable from magic. The role-playing game Traveller may have been an influence, I suppose, but my local library had also stocked a great deal of golden-age science fiction, and I had read every last dreg of it. (I hadn’t, at that time, played Starcross, though I’d probably seen Level 9’s Snowball.) I do not still have copies, and I am therefore spared the moral dilemma of whether I should make them publicly available. I did get a piece of fan mail, I remember, by someone who asked if I was a chemist. From this memory, I infer that there were some science-based puzzles.

The Quill-written games weren’t any influence on me, nor really the Magnetic Scrolls ones. The Quill was a ZX Spectrum phenomenon — and the Spectrum came from Acorn’s arch-enemy Sinclair. I think my father regarded it as unsound. It certainly did not have a keyboard designed to the requirement that it survive having a cup of coffee poured through it, as the BBC Micro did. But it did have an enormous amount of RAM — or rather, it didn’t consume all of that precious RAM on screen memory. The way that it avoided this was a distasteful hack, but also a stroke of genius, making the Spectrum a perfect games machine. As a result, those of my friends whose fathers knew anything about computers had BBC Micros, and the rest had Spectrums. It is somehow very English of us to have invented a new class distinction in the 1980s, but I rather think we did. Magnetic Scrolls were a different case, since they were adopting an Infocom-like strategy of releasing for multiple platforms, but they came along later, and always seemed to me to be more style than substance. The Pawn was heavily promoted, but I didn’t care for it.

I really must mention Level 9, though. They wrote 200-room cave adventures – albeit sometimes the cave was a starship – and by dint of some ingenious compression were able to get them out on tape. In particular, I played through to completion all three of the original Level 9 fantasy trilogy: the first being an extended version of the Crowther and Woods Adventure, the second and third being new but in the same style. I still think these good, in some relative sense. Level 9’s version of the Crowther and Woods Adventure, Colossal Adventure, was the first version which I fully explored, so that it still half seems to me like the definitive version. Ironically, none of Level 9’s games had levels in the normal gaming sense.

I didn’t play any of Infocom’s games until, I think, 1987. I bought a handful, one at a time, from Harrod’s in Knightsbridge — a department store for the rich and, it would like to imagine, the socially elite. I was neither of those things, but I knew what I wanted. Infocom’s wares were luxury goods, and luxury goods tend to stay on the shelves until they sell. Harrod’s had a modest stock, which almost nobody else in the UK did, though you could find a handful of early Infocom titles such as Suspended for the Commodore 64 if you trawled the more plebeian electronics shops of Tottenham Court Road. The ones I bought were CP/M editions of some of the classic titles of 1983 to 1985: Enchanter, I remember, being the first. These we were able to run on my brother’s computer, which was an Amstrad, a British machine built for word processing, but which — thanks to the cheapness of Alan Sugar, Amstrad’s proprietor, a sort of British version of Commodore’s Jack Tramiel — ran CP/M rather than MS-DOS.

That was just after I had begun as an undergraduate at Cambridge and joined the mainframe there, Phoenix, as a user. Each user had an allocation of “shares”, which governed how much computing time you could have. As the newest kid to arrive, I had ten shares. There were legends of a man in computational chemistry, modelling the Schrödinger equation for polythene, who had something like 10,000. At any rate, ten shares was only just enough to read your email in daytime. To run anything like Dungeon, the IBM port of Zork, you had to sit up at night — which we did, a little. I think Dungeon was the only externally-written game playable on Phoenix; the others were all homegrown, using TSAL, the game assembler written by David Seal and Jonathan Thackray. As I wrote long ago, to me and others who played them them those games “are as redolent of late nights in the User Area as the soapy taste of Nestlé’s vending-machine chocolate or floppy, rapidly-yellowing line printer paper.” As I noted earlier, most of them ultimately migrated to Acornsoft and Topologika releases.

But there were other social aspects to Phoenix as well. There was a rudimentary bulletin board called GROGGS (the “General Reverse-Ordered Gossip-Gathering System”) and it was tacitly encouraged by the Phoenix administrators because it stopped people abusing the Suggest program as a noticeboard. (We did not then have access to Usenet.) GROGGS was unusually egalitarian — students and faculty somewhat mingled, which was not typical of Cambridge then. Its undoubted king was Jonathan Partington (JRP1), a young professor who had a generous, playful wit. The Phoenix administrators dreaded his parodies of their official announcements. In his presence, GROGGS was a little like the salon in which the hangers-on of Oscar Wilde would attempt to keep up. Numerous people had a schtick; mine was to mutate my user-name to some version of the Prufrockian “I am not Prince Hamlet”. Commenting on the new Dire Straits album, I would post as “I am not Mark Knopfler”. That sort of thing. Jonathan wrote some of the Cambridge mainframe games. He taught me for a few second-year options.

There was also a form of direct messaging, the “notify” command, and you had the ability to link your filespace to somebody else’s, in effect giving them shared access. At some point Mark Owen and Matthew Richards, inseparable friends at Trinity College, observed that these links turned the users of Phoenix into a directed graph — what we would now call a social network. Mark and Matthew converted the whole mainframe into a sort of adventure game on this basis, in which user filespaces were the rooms, and links were map connections between them. You could store a little text file in your filespace as your own room description. Mark and Matthew’s system was called MEGA, a name chosen as an anagram of GAME. Mark went on to take a PhD in neural networks, back in the days when they didn’t work and were considered a dead end; he eventually wrote a book on signal processing. Matthew, a gifted algebraist and one of the nicest people I have ever known, died of Hodgkin’s disease only a couple of years into his own PhD — the first shock of death close up that most of us had known. The doctors tried everything to keep him alive. There’s no length they won’t go to with a young, strong patient, however cruel.

At any rate, back in the days of MEGA, it occurred to me that more could be done. Rather than storing just a single room description, each user could store a larger blob of content, and we would then have a form of MUD. This system, jointly coded by myself and a CS student called John Croft, was called TERA (I forget why we didn’t go up from MEGA to GIGA — perhaps there already was one?) and its compiler was “teraform”. This is the origin of the “-form” suffix in Inform’s name.

Cambridge mathematics degrees were in four parts: IA, IB, II, and III. Part III was an optional fourth year, which now earns you a master’s, but which for arcane funding reasons didn’t in my day. The Part III people were the aspiring professionals, hoping for a PhD grant at the end of it. Only seven or eight were available, which lent a competitive edge to a social group which was all too competitive already. I was thoroughly settled in Cambridge, living in an old Victorian house off Trumpington Street with four close friends, down by the river meadows. It was a very happy time in my life, and I had absolutely no intention of giving it up. As a geometer, I was hoping to be a research student of Frank Adams, a legendary topologist but a man with an awkward, stand-offish character. I’m now rather glad that this didn’t happen, though I’m sorry about the reason, which was that he died in a car crash. The only possible alternative, the affable Ray Lickorish, was just going on sabbatical. And so I found myself obliged to apply to Oxford instead. I was very fortunate to become the student of Simon Donaldson, only the fifth British mathematician to win the Fields Medal. (He is warmly remembered at St Anne’s College, where I now am, not for the Fields, or the Crafoord Prize, or for being knighted, or winning a $3 million award — not for any of that, but for having been a good Nursery Fellow, looking after the college crèche.) Having opened up a new and, almost at once, a rapidly-moving field of study, Simon was over-extended with collaborators, and I wasn’t often a good use of his time. Picture me as one of those plodding Viennese students Beethoven was obliged to give piano lessons to. But it was a privilege even to be present at an important moment in the history of modern geometry, and in his quietly kind way, Simon was an inspirational leader.

So, although I did find myself a doctoral perch, I had time on my hands — not work time, as I had plenty to do on that front, but social time, since everyone I knew was back in Cambridge. I read a great many books, buying up remaindered Faber literary paperbacks from the Henry Pordes bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London, whenever I was passing through. The plays of Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett, David Hare; the poems of Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, Auden, Eliot, and so forth. I wrote a novel, which had to do with two people who worked in a research lab doing unethical things attempting to control chimpanzees. He took the work at face value, she didn’t, or perhaps it was the other way around. By the time I finished, I knew enough to know that it wasn’t any good, but in so far as you become a writer simply by writing, I had become a writer. I then wrote four short stories, and a one-act play called A Church by Daylight (a title which is a tag borrowed from Much Ado About Nothing). This play was thin on plot but had to do with loss. I wasn’t much good at dialogue, and in some way I boiled the play down to its essence, which was eventually published as a twelve-line poem called “Requiem”.

It was during my second year as a DPhil student that The Lost Treasures of Infocom came out. At this time my computer was an Acorn Archimedes with a 20 MB hard drive. I bought the MS-DOS box because I could read the story files from the MS-DOS disks, even if I couldn’t run the MS-DOS interpreter. I had no modem or network access from my house, and could only get files on or off by taking a floppy disk to the computing-service building right across town. I used the InfoTaskforce interpreter to actually play the games on my Archimedes.

So, I would say that the existence of a community-written interpreter was an essential precondition for Inform. In the period from 1990 to 1992, there were two significant Infocom-archaeology projects going on independently, though they were certainly aware of each other: the InfoTaskforce interpreter, and a disassembler called “txd” by Mark Howell. The InfoTaskforce people were based in Australia, and I had no contact with them, but I saw their code. Mark, however, I did exchange emails with. I remember emailing him to ask if anyone had written an assembler to make new games for the Z-Machine, and he replied with some wording close to: “Many people have had many dreams”. I set myself the task of faking a story file just well enough to allow it to execute on the InfoTaskforce interpreter.

I recall that my first self-made story file computed a prime factorisation and then printed the result. Except that it didn’t. I would double-click on the story file, and nothing would happen. I would assume that this was because there was some further table in the story file which I needed to fake: that the interpreter was refusing my file because it lacked this table, let’s say. As a result, I got into a cycle of making more and more elaborate fakes, always with negative results. Eventually I found that these faux story files had been correct all along; it was just that the user interface for the Acorn Archimedes port of the InfoTaskforce interpreter displayed nothing onscreen until the first moment when a game’s output hit the bottom of its virtual display and caused a scroll event. My story files, uniquely in the history of the Z-Machine, simply printed a few lines and then quit. They didn’t produce enough output to scroll, so nothing ever showed up onscreen. (This is why, for several years, the first thing that an Inform-written game did was to print a run of newlines.) So, when I finally managed to make a story file which factorised the numbers 2 to 100, and found that it worked correctly, I had a fairly elaborate assembler. This was called “zass”, and eventually became Inform 1.

The project might have gone no further except for the arrival of Usenet and the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup. Suddenly my email address was one which people could contact, and my posts were replied to. I was no longer on GROGGS, talking to a handful of people I knew in real life; I was on Usenet, talking to those I would likely never meet. People didn’t really use Inform much until around Inform 3, but still, there was feedback. An appetite seemed to exist.

A curious echo of the fascination the Z-machine held is that a couple of tiny story files produced by me in the course of these experiments — I remember one with two rooms in it and a few sample objects, one of them a football — themselves started to be collected by people. Of course there were soon to be lots of story files, an unending supply of them. But for just a brief period, even the output of Inform had a sort of second-hand glory reflected onto it.

Inform 1 was the result of my experiments to synthesise a story file, so it preceded Curses; it’s not that I set out to create both. Still, I did once write that Inform and Curses were Siamese twins, though the expression makes me flinch now. It’s not a comedic thing to be born conjoined. That aside, was it true, or did it simply sound clever? It’s true in part. I steadily improved Inform as I was building up Curses in size, and Curses undeniably played a role as a proof of concept. Numerous half-finished interactive-fiction systems had been abandoned with no notable games to their credit, but TADS, especially, shone by having been used for full-scale works. Yet this linkage is only part of the story.

In retrospect, the decision to write Curses fits with the pattern of imitation which you tend to find in the juvenilia of writers. I had read some novels, I wrote a novel; I had read some plays, I wrote a play; and so on. Lost Treasures may have played the same role for me, in computer-game terms, that those 1980s Faber & Faber paperbacks played in literary terms. But I also wrote Curses as an entertainment for my friends back in Cambridge, who attacked it without mercy. A very early version caused hilarity not so much for its intrinsic qualities as because the command “unlock fish” crashed it right out.

The title alludes to the recurring ancestral curses of the Meldrew family, each generation doomed never quite to achieve anything. (Read into that what you will, but it caused my father to raise an amused eyebrow.) The name was actually a hindrance for a while. In the days of Archie and Veronica and other pre-Web systems for searching FTP sites, “curses” was a name already taken by the software library for text windows on Unix.

What is Curses about? A few years ago Emily Short and I were interviewed, one after another, at the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture. Emily described Curses as being about the richness of culture and the excitement of discovering it. This may be an overly generous verdict, but I see what she means. Curses has a kind of exuberance to it. The ferment of what I was reading infuses the game, and although most people saw it as a faithful homage to Infocom, it was also a work of Modernism, assembled from the juxtaposed fragments of other texts. At Meldrew Hall, I could connect everything with everything.

There were four main strands here. Most apparent is the many-volume Oxford History of England, an old-school reference work, which lined up on my shelf in pale blue dust jackets. I had collected them by scouring second-hand book shops with the same assiduity as a kid completing an album of football stickers. Something of each went into Curses, from Roman England (Vol. I) through to society paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and so on. The second strand was Eliot and The Waste Land, not solely for its content but also for its permissive style, as if it had authorised me to throw everything together. The third strand was classics: I was reading a lot of those “Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Philosophy” type of books, and I liked to grab the picturesque parts. Lastly, of course, the fourth strand is Infocom. Some of the puzzle design is lovingly imitative of Lebling, especially. The hieroglyphics from Infidel make a direct appearance. I also took affectionate swipes at the conventions, as with the infamous “You have missed the point entirely” death incurred simply by going down from the opening room, or the part where the narrator awards some points and then, a few turns later, takes them back again. Or the devil, who gives hints, all of which are lies. People actually filed bug reports over that. But really, I don’t think I did anything so transgressive that Infocom might not have done the same itself.

Those four strands are the main ingredients, but I should also acknowledge the indirect influence of the 1980s turn towards magical realism in fantasy novels, where it became possible to marry the fantastical with the merely historical. I had certainly read John Crowley’s Little, Big, for example. You could, at a stretch, say that Curses lies in the same genre.

The art of the Modernist collage is to somehow provide some cement which will hold the whole thing together. In the case of Curses, that cement is provided by the continuity of the Meldrew family and of the house – to which, and this is crucial, the player is always returning, and which ramifies with endless secret rooms. Moreover, you always experience the house through its behind-the-scenes places, joined in a skeletal way around the public areas which you never get to visit. The game is at its best when this cement is strongest, with the puzzles directly related to family members or to the house’s nooks and crannies. It loses coherence when it goes further afield, and this is why a final proposed addition, to do with the subway systems of various world cities all being joined up, was dropped. It didn’t feel like Curses any more. The weakest parts of Curses are the last parts added, and I suspect that the penultimate release is probably a better experience than the final one.

I am sometimes asked if Curses was autobiographical. As the above makes clear, in one sense yes, in that it’s a logbook of my reading. And in another obvious sense, no: I never actually teleported to ancient Alexandria. Nor have I ever lived in a grand house. My family home was built around 1960. It had seven rooms, none of them secret, and its map was an acyclic graph. There were early players who imagined that I might really be from some cadet branch of the landed gentry, with spacious grounds out of my window. This was not the case. Our estate consisted of one apple tree and two gooseberry bushes. All the same, England is not like America in this respect. Because of the Second World War, and because of inheritance tax, the great stately homes of England had essentially all become public places by the time I was a child. A routine way to entertain visiting grandparents was to take them around, say, the Jacobean manor house at Hatfield, where the Cecils had lived since the reign of James I. You didn’t have to be at all rich to do this.

The Attic area of Curses, where the game begins, does also contain just a little of my real family. The most intriguing place in my childhood home was, for sure, the attic, because it was so seldom accessible to me: a windowless but large space, properly floored, but never converted into a living area. My father would develop photographs up there, pouring chemicals into a tray, under a red lamp with a pull-cord switch. He would allow me to pull this cord. The house also had an airing cupboard — that is, a space around the hot-water boiler where towels could be dried. In this cupboard, my mother at one time made home-brew wine, in a sort of slow chemistry experiment with evil-looking demijohns. My brother doesn’t really make an appearance in Curses, which I’m sad about now, but it’s essential that the protagonist has ancestors rather than contemporaries. Though the protagonist has a spouse and children, mentioned right up front, they never appear, which I think is worth noting in a game where almost everything else that is foreshadowed eventually comes to pass.

Curses is by any reasonable standard too hard. In its first releases, I would update it with new material each time I made bug fixes, so that the game evolved and grew. Some players would play each version as it came out, and this enabled them to get further in, because they had prior experience from earlier builds. A dedicated fan base sent in bug reports, my favourite being that the brass key could not be picked up by the robot mouse, because brass is non-magnetic. The reward for any bug reported was that the reporter could nominate a new song to be added to the radio’s playlist, provided that it was both catchy and objectively dreadful. It would be interesting to extract that playlist now and put it on Spotify.

Feedback from players gave Curses a certain polish, but it wasn’t the only thing. I think it’s noteworthy that, just as Infocom had an editor as well as play-testers, so too I had an editor for at least part of the process: Gareth Rees, a Cambridge friend, author of the very wonderful Christminster. Richard Tucker also weighed in. I have the impression that before 1992 works of interactive fiction didn’t have much quality control, not so much because people didn’t want it, but because networking conditions didn’t allow for it.

To my great regret, the source code for Curses is now lost. It was for a while on a disk promisingly labelled “Curses source code”, but that disk is unreadable, and not for want of trying. Somewhere in my many changes of address and computer, I lost the necessary tech, or damaged it. (And Jigsaw too, alas.) It wouldn’t be hard to resurrect something, by working from a disassembly of the story file: there’s actually a tool to turn story files into Inform 6 out there somewhere. I occasionally think of asking if anyone would like to do that, and perhaps produce a faithful Inform 7 implementation.

Today, people play Curses with a walkthrough by their sides. But the game never quite goes away. Mike Spivey told me recently that he introduced himself to modern interactive fiction – “modern” interactive fiction – by playing Curses in 2017. A few people, at least, still tread Meldrew Hall. I remain fond of the place, as you can probably gather from the length of this reminiscence. Once in a blue moon I am tempted to write a sequel, Curses Foiled. But no. Sometimes you really can’t go back.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/new-tricks-for-an-old-z-machine-part-2-hacking-deeper-or-follies-of-graham-nelsons-youth/

[miraclejunewrites]

HERO’S SOUP

Chapter 3

The Creepy Mansion

Jaemy’s vision suddenly turned dark for a second, just a while ago he was just waiting impatiently for Chris and the rest of the pack to walk out from the building, hopefully, unharmed and safe. But now he was being carried like a sack by a big man. “Yang Jaemy!” he could hear the faint shouts of Samuel, his vision became blurry and his hearing shifted from full volume to complete silence, vice versa. Jaemy wanted to wiggle his way out of the situation but he couldn’t, no matter how many times his brain tells his body to fucking move, it doesn’t comply.

He tried fighting the urge to sleep, wanting to know where he was being taken to. The man carrying him started talking, Jaemy came up with the hypothesis that he was on the phone. His mouth gaped and closed, but no words came out of them.

Not long until his body slumped onto the grass with a loud thud, it hurt, but it also made him more alert. Jaemy shut his eyes tightly, wanting nothing more than to see clearly. His spinning vision made out not one, but three figures lurking in front of him. One of them approached him, touching his face. Before he could make out the face of that person, the guy spoke up “I told you, we’re gonna protect you” a few tears came to soften his seared vision, slowly but surely, he leaned into the touch before passing out.

-

Sam adjusted the boy on his back before trailing behind Wisdom who stopped and gazed back at them. “Sam, I can walk. Really.” there was a hint of embarrassment behind his voice as his face reddened with each word. He can feel the vibrations from Sam’s back when the wolf chuckled. “Sweetie~ it’s okay. I also want to carry you.” if it was possible, his face would grow redder by the wolf’s sudden endearment. Knowing he won’t be put down any time soon, he just nuzzled his face on the wolf’s neck earning a soft giggle from him.

“Jaemy, just let Sam do what he wants. He’s always like this.” Wisdom said, slowing his pace to walk beside the two. Jaemy lifted his gaze and faced the alpha. His soft features beamed at him; he had these loving eyes that pierced through his heart making him break into a big toothy smile. He gingerly rested his cheek on Sam’s back, never leaving his eyes on Wisdom who was now facing the road ahead.

Jaemy fell into his thoughts, too many questions arise from the circumstances in just one day. How did he get here? Why did he even go in the Chris’s Antique Shop? Ah, he unconsciously smiled, a constant stream of rhythmic memories came to him.

He was walking home from school, immersed on the song he was listening to. The music stopped and he waited for the next song to play, but it didn’t. Jaemy stopped on his tracks, fishing out his phone from his uniform’s pocket. His gaze fell on to a unfamiliar establishment on his left. His eyes wandered around the place, he murmured under his breath. “Huh, I haven’t seen this shop before??” eyes drifting at a bigger area, he checked if he was on the right road. And upon seeing his usual go-to bakery shop across the street, Jaemy’s eyes fell back to the Antique Shop.

He swore he haven’t seen that shop at all. And he was born and grew up in this area. Taking the same route for 17 years. But this particular shop never caught his attention at all, and he’s the type of person to scan thoroughly through places he has or hasn’t been to.

Unconsciously his feet led him towards the wooden door prepped with thick glasses. ‘We’re Open’ he mouthed the sign that was swinging back and forth. It was just flipped over by someone. Not really wanting to go home yet, Jaemy looked both ways before opening the door. The bell chimed as he walked towards the first thing that caught his eyes. Propped on the table were small pocket watches, each had their own distinct features. Some were ticking and working, but some aren’t.

“What can I do for you?”

He set his imagination adrift when Sam came to a halt. Jaemy lifted his head, eyes trailing to everyone’s figures. He had this weird habit of counting stuff and sometimes people, checking if they are all there. Before fixing his eyes on the big mansion in front of them. “THIS is your house?” he can hear Samuel almost gasp at the sight, he can’t blame him. It was a huge house. No, it wasn’t just a house, it was a fucking mansion. Though it looked a bit creepy and old on the outside, you can feel the warmth of “home” emanating around it, as if someone really lived there.

Chris snickered at Samuel’s remark. The man was still bothered by the fact that Samuel brought the boy with him, and put both his and Jaemy’s life in danger (even though he didn’t want to admit it). Samuel turned to Chris; his eyes literally blazed with savage fire. “Really? Giving me the fucking attitude, now?” the situation grew heavy as the two scowled at each other. Chris ran his hand through his curly locks, sighing in the process. “Who wouldn’t give you a ‘fucking attitude’, wasn’t it clear that we’re not supposed to drag that thing into this?” a great pang gripped Jaemy’s heart upon hearing Chris addressing him as ‘a thing’. Samuel side eyed Jaemy, he knew the boy was sensitive.

“First, don’t call him as an “IT”, he’s a human being. And second, I had no choice, Chris!! You run off with Wisdom, to heaven only knows and left me behind with Yang Jeongin who saw you transform and whom you almost killed even though know you know you can’t kill anymore! And you know I can’t erase memories!! Only you can do that you asshat bloodsucker!!”

“Then I’m gonna do it now!” Chris stomped towards Sam who was carrying the boy, Jaemy covered his eyes. He had decided not to let his memories be erased because he wanted to help the vampire, in a short span of time he learned to love the guy with all his heart. Chris was his only friend, and for him losing Chris would crush his soul, to make things worse he will never even remember who the vampire was. Their friendship will just go down the drain. And he hated the idea.

“No! I don’t want my memories to be erased, I don’t want it!” he knew he sounded like a kid throwing a tantrum, but those were the words he could come up with now. Jaemy was still shaken by the circumstances that happened earlier and what was happening now. Samuel who was aware of the boy’s intention pulled Chris back into their argument. They continued for about 5 minutes. All of them gawked at the two throwing hurtful words towards each other as if it’s their second nature. The petty squabble escalated quickly. Samuel’s hair turned white as his eye color was replaced by a bright violet shade. Chris on the other hand, bared his claws and teeth. Both ready to settle things once and for all.

While the rest of them were absorbed by the sudden outburst, Wisdom lowered his head, clenching his fists. He was growing impatient with the two. Even on their way to the house, the two would give each other an evil eye, probably hexing inside their heads. With a low sounding growl coming from the depths of the alpha’s anger, Samuel and Chris cowered changing back to their normal state while slowly but surely lowering their gaze towards the ground. Jaemy could feel Sam adjusting his position once more. Calvin who was carrying Han on his back almost lost his balance. This made Jaemy engrave the words “Do not make Wisdom mad” inside his head.

The alpha spoke in a low and authoritative tone, “Settle this when we all get some rest and food. Now, quit it before you really get in my nerves.” the both nodded and moved aside as Wisdom trailed pass them. Wisdom walked towards the door, pulling out a key before ushering the rest to go in.

Sam trailed behind everyone, Jaemy who was still terrified by Wisdom, wiggled himself off Sam’s back. Before the wolf could retaliate, he raised a silencing hand. “Sam, I’m okay. Plus, we’re here now, I can walk.” Sam cannot argue anymore after seeing the boy’s toothy grin. He nodded in defeat and held out his hand, telling the boy to go ahead. Jaemy turned to his heel and walked towards the door.

Chris fidgeted in front of the door, Jaemy tilted his head curiously. “Come in, Chris.” on cue, Chris sticks his foot and continues to go in when it went through with ease. Samuel gazed back at him, Wisdom answered his unasked question “The house is in my name, so Chris can’t really come in even though he lives here.” Samuel was surprised by the sudden mood change of the alpha, nonetheless he pushed aside his astonishment and nodded before ambling behind Chris.

Jaemy nonchalantly headed towards the door frame but was surprised when he stumbled back, he ignored the weird feeling, telling himself he just lost his balance. But for the second time around, he forced himself to go in and was expelled back, Sam catching him on his arms. He composed himself and tried again.

Sam watched Jaemy in awe. Wisdom came back to the door, asking for the reason of their delay. His eyes found Sam who was behind Jaemy, pointing at the boy, his face had every sign of surprise in it. “What?” the boy continued to barge through the door frame. Jaemy looked at Wisdom, eyes full of wondering frustration. “Wisdom, I-I can’t come in. There’s some sort of barrier.” 

“I’ll stay out here. You guys can go in without me. Tell Samuel and Channie---I mean Chris, I’m sorry and that I left early.” knowing the two wouldn’t leave him without being forced. He pushed both back in, halting as his hand made contact with the invisible barrier. Sam gave him an apologetic smile, “I’ll get Samuel! Stay. Here.” the boy moved towards the porch, sitting on the swing. He really didn’t want to leave also and Sam’s words put him into some sort of spell.

Questions rested in the air around him, tapping his hands in a soothing rhythm against his thighs. Samuel emerged beside him, filling in the empty space as he sat down. “Wisdom said you can’t come in. Is that true, Yang Jeongin?” the boy scratched his head, turning to Samuel. “Please just call me Jaemy, Samuel.” the witch nodded, staring at the boy with undefeated eyes. He clearly wanted his last question to be answered.

Jaemy stood up, Samuel’s gaze followed his back as he and pushed his hand through the door frame, Jaemy was met with a familiar sensation before withdrawing his hand back and sitting beside the confused witch.

Before he could speak up, Jaemy gave him a grin. “It’s okay, Samuel. I don’t want to bother them anyway. Oh--” Jaemy turned his head towards the fountain. “I just wanted to thank you for saving me back there, and I’m also sorry for all the trouble I caused.” gazing towards Samuel, his face not leaving its current position giving the witch a small sincere smile. The witch couldn’t hide his embarrassment. This was the first time anyone has ever thanked him with sincerity. The boy chuckled and patted the elder’s shoulder. Jaemy made sure not to make him uncomfortable, he tried making the witch open slowly by talking about school. Samuel didn’t even realize he was ranting about how hard his duty was to the boy. Jaemy didn’t mind at all, he looked at the older with curious eyes. Saying small comments here and there.

Midway through their clubs talk, a snow-white fox emerged from the bushes, running towards the porch. And behind it was a black cat, heading the same direction. Jaemy looked in awe. The fox had small specs on its face, making it look like it had freckles! The boy heard Samuel’s exasperated smile, he turned to him and asked what was wrong. The witch explained to Jaemy how he knows the two, the boy was more surprised upon discovering that the fox was a 9 tailed fox and that the simple looking cat was a Bakeneko (Samuel told him it was a Japanese Cat that had powers of some sorts, he was making snarky remarks, so Jaemy could tell they weren’t really in good terms)

Recognizing the voice, the freckled fox turned to the two presences near him. His eyes glowed and suddenly he transformed into his real form, startling Jaemy. The cat also converted to his real form, towering beside the magnificent 9 tailed fox with his shiny black fur and two feet long tails with a blue flame on each end. The cat thought the boy was trouble.

But, the fox let out a slight whine. The cat whipped his head towards the fox, recognizing the sound it made. Chris popped out of nowhere, his eyes danced between the 4 figures. Samuel was very confused as the fox looked at Chris in a meaningful way.

“Come with me.” the vampire pulled Jaemy towards the door, Samuel who was a step late rushed behind the two. The fox and the cat transformed into their human forms, blocking the witch’s path. “Felix! Marco! Move! Jaemy is in danger, Chris will---” but Felix shook his head and told him off with his baritone voice, “Chill, he won’t do that. Ever.”

Chris pushed the boy towards the door, an unsettling feeling twisted inside Jaemy’s stomach as he neared the door frame. “Chris! Stop! I can’t get in there--” the same force propelled him back. The vampire’s gaze seemed full on unconquerable doubts. Chris called out to Wisdom, the alpha rushed outside thinking something bad had happened but was welcomed by a stern looking Chris and Jaemy who was looking at him through his lashes. “Chris, what’s going on?”

“Invite me in” Wisdom fell a step back but did as the vampire told him. “Come in, Chris.” and he did. Eyes never leaving the boy’s face. Wisdom was bewildered. What the hell was happening? He asked himself. “Now, invite the boy in.” the alpha grew more confused with Chris’s remarks. Nonetheless, he did it. “Come in, Jaemy.”

Chris nodded at the boy, eyes burning holes on his face. Jaemy swallowed the lump on his throat, closing his eyes as he braced for impact. His toes caught up and he tripped, falling into the vampire’s arms. Chris’s senses went haywire as he held the boy close to him. Jaemy stood there frozen while the vampire clings to him for dear life. The rest of the pack who was now crowding behind the alpha watched in wonder, Han trailed behind them asking Calvin what was happening with a small voice, but the rest of them was immersed with the situation, no one batted an eye to Han. Samuel’s gaze falling onto Felix’s freckled face, his expression was torn with conflict and bewilderment. The fox sighed, nudging Marco with his elbow. The cat turned to all of them, speaking in a soft manner.

“That kid is Chris’s bond mate.”