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solomonish · 4 years ago

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Solomon Headcanons

I didn’t like my old headcanons for him and I think I have a slightly better feel for him so I’m posting these bad boys. Maybe at this rate I’ll just post Solomon HCs every month

Also this turned into more of a “I’m going to talk about Solomon in depth and maybe throw in one headcanon about kissing him” and is no longer “lol what kind of dates do you go on? <3″ so uh. do with that what you will. It’s also SUPER LONG (or feels that way) so make sure you have a hot second to read them

you can find my for real headcanons for him here but I don’t necessarily stand by them anymore? They’re just there for fun now lol

Solomon’s Relationship With Relationships

Solomon has been alive for...a long time, and with that naturally comes a lot of experiences, negative and positive. It’s also natural that it would also have him break out of traditional structures regarding...everything, but especially things regarding relationships and specific other people.

(Not to get sociological or philosophical about society or whatever, but the way we view everything is accented heavily by the end. With exceptions, and this certainly varies from culture to culture, but as a general idea, we view things expecting them to take place over the span of 70-100 years. Certain positions in politics or business or something try to look at things generationally, but how capable of that are we and how far ahead can we truly see?)

(What I mean to say is that immortality naturally shifts the entire context in which you would view things that were expected to be “lifelong.” What once existed to enrich a life is now a tether to a system that doesn’t necessarily suit his existence.)

Psychologically, however.....I don’t think Solomon has tried to (or even can) rewire himself entirely to the point where he doesn’t feel love. He’s already got a fondness for Simeon and Luke (always crying about him calling them “dear friends” in the circus event i don’t know if he says anything in the lessons because i’m only on like 21 LOL) so he’s clearly capable of fondness and affection.

Not that those should equate exactly to romantic feelings (because they shouldn’t), but there’s undeniable similarities between platonic and romantic affection and, for the purposes of speculating about an immortal’s capability to still feel both, I think they can be equated in this regard.

There are a lot of assumptions I’m making about him to make this post, namely the following: that there is still reconciling to be done internally between his immortality and humanity, that Solomon’s composed and confident nature is a bit of a front (only a bit - I’ll explain more later), and, related to these two, that he even cares about humanity and that he still wants to preserve his humanity.

While this might be my perspective as a regular human, I really don’t believe that the desire to be human and fully encompass what that means has left. If anything, I think his intrinsic desire for knowledge and power stems from it, and he’s just suppressed the “mushier” emotional parts of that as a sort of....defense mechanism, if you will.

SO the tl;dr of this is that you know how alloromantic people just like feel in love and they get their romantic crushes and it’s natural and they can’t control it? Solomon gets that! He just isn’t the type to swoon over someone or really make it known.

He also as a person is big on being manipulative shady and in control, so if he were to just be super obvious about having a crush on someone and not being able to do anything about it, that would sort of tarnish his whole image.

So yeah, I think Solomon just has his emotions on a tight leash when they probe to be out of control. Clearly, he doesn’t have every part of him under this sort of watchful eye (whether that’s because he still wants to feel genuine happiness or he knows if he came across as emotionless and calculated people would trust him even less, I haven’t decided), but those that cause trouble stay behind locked doors.

Additionally, I don’t think Solomon is opposed to falling in love. I’d bet he’s had lots of different partners over the years and remembers them fondly (you know, assuming they ended well)

I also think his immortal status makes dating different? I feel like doesn’t really date to find a life partner because. well. (gestures).

That’s not to say that he doesn’t date casually sometimes or something. In the terms of a serious romantic partnership, though, it’s rare that it happens because he knows that it’ll die with them (and stay within him for probably forever, even if/when there comes a day he can no longer remember their name or their face).

Another assumption I’m making that I forgot to mention: I think it’s rare that Solomon’s serious, long-term partners know the true extent of the magic he dabbles in. Maybe he lets them know it’s real magic, or he pretends it’s all show magic and parlor tricks. Sometimes he pretends his pact marks are tattoos, sometimes he tells the truth. If ever these confessions are laughed off, he laughs them off too and creates a cover story.

He doesn’t intend to lie, but it’s very difficult to meet someone and explain........all of THAT. On which date to you mention that you can control 72 demons? Do you send a card explaining how you’ve been alive since Biblical times and you’re not even sure if you birthday is your real birthday anymore, let alone how old you are? And should that card be store bought or homemade?

So while it’s rare for Solomon to have a serious romantic partnership, it’s even more rare for him to be entirely understood or accepted for EVERYTHING that he is because he can’t get into it. Arguably, that hasn’t happened since his “death” in his original timeline.

A crush for Solomon isn’t a hopeless affair, either. Should you choose someone else, he’ll allow himself the disappointment and move on.

With Solomon, romantic love sparks naturally, but genuine true love isn’t some all-powerful, unstoppable force. He falls more in line with the people who believe it’s a choice and a decision, somewhere between “it’s purely a biological impulse we just gave a fancy name” and “it’s the magic that makes life more enjoyable”

With MC

In the case of MC, however, I think he might initially see it as bothersome or a hinderance to whatever his plan is with being down there for the exchange program. Maybe he convinces himself he’s just naturally attracted to you because you’re human like him. Once he comes to terms with his feelings and gets to know MC a bit more, he might even see it as a lost cause seeing as you already have several of the brothers vying for your affections.

For Solomon to act on a crush that he’s already decided is hopeless, it’ll be up to the MC to show that THEY are interested in HIM

He finds no particular pleasure in being someone who is chased after or “playing hard to get,” but he already has a complicated relationship with complicated relationships. He’s gonna need a down payment of affection a sign that there’s anything even there to pursue

Traditional flirting, while he’ll have his fun with it (and probably enjoy it at least a little - who doesn’t like feeling desirable?), doesn’t really work for him. Lots of people and creatures have used it to try and charm him, plus he has a pact with Asmo, so at this point he really sees it as more casual fun then an indication of true interest.

Honestly, to get him to realize “oh shit I actually have a chance,” you’re going to have to do two main things: 1) make him feel chosen over the others, and 2) respond to his displays of affection

Making Him Feel Chosen

This isn’t really a competition thing, or some selfish hoarding of your time. The thing is, Solomon knows he isn’t the only one in the running and he knows that anything he has to offer, somebody else could give you a portion of it.

(You won’t get the same experience or combination of traits with somebody else obvi, but with 11 suitors and an added chihuahua, there tends to be a little bit of overlap with everyone)

A crush for Solomon is a romantic interest, but if he intends on pursuing a serious relationship (which, I feel, is what he intends to be the final goal of his crushes as opposed to more casual affairs), he needs to see SOME reciprocation

Being with him is an ordeal, maybe a lifelong one for you, so he needs that assurance that it’ll be worth it and there aren’t better avenues

Basically, this means that ✨ quality time ✨ is of the utmost importance

At first, it doesn’t have to be anything big. Sit with him at lunch when you see him in the cafeteria, meet him in the library while you wait for your demon escort to be finished with their extracurriculars, chat him up in the one class you have together (and then ask him to help you study what you missed in class by talking. it’s a required transfer class but you already know everything about it, right, Solomon? 🥺)

As your relationship progresses, that’s when things start to get harder. Invite him out to things that you think he’ll enjoy, and say yes to as many excursions with him as you can. Bonus points for making it clear that you want to go when you’re unable to attend.

(He finds himself a little embarrassed how happy it makes him when instead of just a “no” or a “sorry, not today” he gets something like “I’m on dinner duty so I have to spend that time preparing :( but we should definitely make a date so you can tell me about it later!” It makes him feel like a priority.)

It isn’t until you find yourself comfortable enough to ask him to accompany you to something you want to do that he starts to realize you’re hanging out with him for him and not because he’s just offering up a bunch of fun new experiences for you to try.

You don’t even have to say “hey, i’m pretty sure you know all about the birds in the Devildom aviary but I haven’t had a chance to go and would really like to spend the day with you. Wanna come with?” If it’s something that he knows you know isn’t in his wheelhouse, he’ll be able to figure out that OH.....you’re inviting him for HIM.....oh

Make him feel like a priority, like he’s the one that you want, even out of all your choices. You can be as enthralled by the birds in that aviary as you want, just as long as you make it clear that your enthusiasm to be with him is on the same level and he’ll finally kick himself into gear.

Responding to His Affections

Now, you don’t have to do anything you don’t like. I hear in his dame card devilgram he’s a consent king, and he stands by that every day of the week

He also isn’t the type to need an exact equal to everything he does. Yes a relationship is a two way street, but this isn’t saying that if he gets you a gift you need to present him something with equal or greater value within the next 24 hours. he’s not mammon haha i’m so FUNNY

Just...let him know that he’s doing things right. His serious relationships are few and far between and people change as often as the times do, so make sure that he knows what he’s doing is landing. He’s not insecure per se, but he would like to know that he isn’t making a fool of himself entirely, you know?

Don’t brush him off in front of the brothers or he’ll think he’s read the situation all wrong and you’re back to square one. If you do it because you don’t like touching and he put an arm around your shoulder or something, that’s fine, but if he thinks you’re uncomfortable being with him in front of the brothers he’ll wonder if you even liked him at all.

To him, a secret relationship isn’t really feasible. First of all, those brothers are ALWAYS in your business so bold of you to think you’ll have ANY secrets by the time the exchange program is done, and secondly, don’t you both have enough on your plate that you shouldn’t make something that makes you happy needlessly complicated?

He is an odd case and knows there’s a lot that comes with him, so if you’re uncomfortable simply showing that you’re in a relationship and reciprocating, he’ll think you aren’t equipped to handle.....All That.

In case you haven’t noticed, he’s weird. He’s a weirdo. He doesn’t fit in. And he doesn’t want to fit in. Have you ever seen him without that stupid cape on? That's weird.

If you respond to his affections in a similar way, such as putting you arm around his waist or a hand on his back when he puts an arm around your shoulder or reaching up to fix his hair when he reaches to mess with yours, it’ll make him happy for sure. He doesn’t have any specific expectations for you but he’ll like to feel like you’re on the same wavelength.

A lot of his affections are morphed into specific and targeted teasing (but not like *gently bullies u* teasing). It’s a lot of inside jokes at your expense (and the more inside jokes he has, the more he probably likes you)

It’s also a lot of messing up your hair, sharp pokes and frustrating games like “guess what?” “i don’t know, what?” “i told you to guess, MC.” “ugh...you won the lottery” “guess better” “please don’t do this to me Solomon”

He probably responds best to Acts of Service and Quality Time (though at any stage in the relationship he’s a flexible man). While he’s trying to woo you to solidify his spot in first place against everyone else, if you continue to make the effort to be around him or like. recognize he’s taking time out of his day to romance you and do something for him in return he’ll cement the fact that oh yeah, this is happening between the two of you

(not to say that romancing you is a chore, because it’s not, but man if it doesn’t make him happy that you’re wanting to make his life easier on him so he can pursue the other things he enjoys, too.)

What a Relationship with Solomon is Like

He isn’t the biggest person on PDA, or at least not on purpose. He won’t see you and immediately be like ‘oh there they are i need to kiss them kiss kiss kiss’ or whatever, but he’s not averse to it?

He doesn’t want physical affection to be a big deal, or at least not in public. unless that’s what you’re into ;) If the two of you are out and about and you kiss his hand, or you’re a generally physically affectionate person he’ll smile and respond and be generally unbothered by it, but don’t expect him to ever really have the desire to like make out in public or something. Really, you probably won’t get much more than a quick kiss because he DOES always have other things on his mind.

You will NOT be able to get out of him messing with you. If you need him to tone it down that’s fine, but the more you let him get away with, the less energy he’ll have to redirect into other troublemaking activities

Has a weird thing with licking too probably? like he’s not gross about it and it’s not like a NSFW fixation but he’ll do that mom thing where he licks his thumb because “you’ve got something on your cheek” and then reveal that he’s a LIAR

or he’ll put his face really close to yours and stick his tongue out when you turn your head so it hits your cheek

it just gets such a DRAMATIC reaction out of you so that’s why he does it? if you ask him genuinely to stop he will but if you comment on it he’ll just give you a small smile and not say anything then continue to do it

when he messes with you, it’s ok if you say he’s doing something weird but don’t make him feel childish. setting boundaries (and making regular observations - he is kinda weird) is more than alright but admonishing him just feels......off and will turn him sour for a bit

VERY appreciative of someone who supports his adventurous side. Also fond of someone who’s happy to tag along but knows that some things he has to do on his own.

Even if you don’t want to go, he’ll appreciate the support or the interest you show in what he does. Ask him where he’s going and what he’s doing there, but ask him because you’re interested and not because you’re overly worried.

Please be there for him when he gets back to talk about it. He really likes feeling important or cool when he tells his tales, even if all he did was go and catch a few magic salamanders or something.

PLEASE be a soundboard for all of his ideas. He knows that sometimes he’ll talk about things that are way over your head that he hasn’t learned yet, but he really does want your undivided attention. It doesn’t matter if you’re encouraging him, debating with him, telling him the idea is stupid (though don’t pull this one too often unless you intend to ask to be let in to the fun) or just watching in confusion. It’s important to him that you value what he has to say, and he hopes one day that he’ll be able to tell you anything and you’ll have a response to it all. (Even if you don’t learn magic to the degree he knows it, he hopes you’ll get to a point where you understand what he wants, even if you don’t know what magical elements he’s talking about or something.)

A relationship with Solomon is one where you’re both independent, but also can’t imagine not going to the other at the end of the day. It’s startling how quickly you become constant in the other’s life despite being in COMPLETELY different stages of magical development and learning about the demon world.

The relationship will be lots of fun, but there will be many serious moments, too.

They’ll happen randomly. Maybe something from a class or a spell reminds him of something from his past, or maybe he’s reminded that he can’t remember so many things that he knows were important to him.

Sometimes, his Tuesday night blues will feel like a life-changing existential crises for you, but please, do what you can to be there for him in these moments. It worries him how much love and happiness he’s lost, especially when he knows he promised to remember it.

Once you get him to think aloud, he’ll say super heavy stuff life “What if I’ve forgotten who I really am and now I’m just something other people and magic have morphed me into?” or “When will the human race evolve or go extinct and leave me behind?” and it fucks you up, really. It fucks him up too

But please be patient with him, because there’s something important he has to get off his chest eventually. He’s worried already that he’ll forget you the way he’s probably forgotten so many others, but he doesn’t want to offend you and know that saying it would come off as uncaring.

You won’t have an answer for these moments, and he knows it. It’ll be best if you just hold him tight, stroke his hair if you’re laying down, and reassure him that you don’t care.

With how long he’s been alive, you’ll have to get past caring if you’re his “one true love” because he doesn’t have that. He gave up the right to having a one true love in exchange for never-ending life. But he still loves and he does love deeply, it just has a lot to cut through to properly be articulated.

So tell him. Tell him you know he’s had other loves, that you know you might not even be the best partner suited to him that he’s had. Tell him that you know when your time has come, he’ll find someone else eventually.

Tell him that what matters to you is that he loves you now, that he’s making things work with you now, and that he isn’t secretly yearning for some lover that’s come to pass or yet to come when he’s with you.

You can’t control what happened in the past or what happens in the future, but right now he’s yours and you’re his and he needs to learn to take things one lifetime at a time. Right now is YOUR Solomon time, and what happens after is just a consequence of time and you’ve already forgiven him for it.

instead of “mom says it’s my turn on the xbox” it’s “god says it’s MY turn on the Solomon”

send that to him for real and he’ll probably never forget you lol

How to Make a Relationship with Solomon Work

With all this in mind, the key to a good relationship with Solomon is keeping his head on his shoulders.

He’s ambitious, powerful, scary smart, and capable of so much more than you can even guess and he knows it. It’ll be good for him to have somebody to keep him on the ground.

Now, don’t be overbearing. If you try to stop him from going places or try to hinder his pursuit of knowledge out of fear for his safety, that’ll cause unbelievable strain on him. You will have to learn to let him work his things out the way he wants to, and it won’t always be the safest or most responsible way either.

He doesn’t mind a gentle scolding if he gets hurt. He won’t say it, but he kinda likes to be reminded how important he is to you.

Also be down to have fun and be a little reckless. Your safety will always be a priority to him, but nobody ever got anywhere without a little struggle, right? Sometimes adventuring with him and following him into the darkest magical corners of the world will require multiple (sometime literal) leaps of faith, but he’ll always be there to catch you.

Let Solomon work for you and the relationship, and you work to keep him sane and remind him that he can belong somewhere, even when he’s been himself for who knows how long and nowhere ever really stays the same.

You’ll always have to remind Solomon that not everything revolves around magic and power. He’s not been mortal for some time, so he gets caught up in the heady and lofty topics and ideas.

Remind him about the simple joys of just having fun and goofing off, that not every moment not spent on homework has to be spent on potions. Remind him (in the human world) how cool a sunset is, or convince him to go through a museum and pretend he’s seeing everything for the first time.

As much as he lives for understanding the grand topics most people can only dream of beginning to grasp, remind him of the little things. Remind him of human indulgences that he’s abandoned. Get him back in touch with that part of himself.

Solomon as a character feels like he’d be really aloof, but he’s honestly extremely devoted to what he invests his time in. He shows this devotion in small ways that feel more like riddles sometimes, in the way he always comes back after a rather dangerous magical excursion, in the way he shortens his time away so he can get back to you, in the way he learns to quiet his mind so he can properly take care of you and what you need and strengthen your relationship.

One thing that I think is a hallmark of a relationship with him is that Solomon loves things that can teach him more about what he doesn’t know. You don’t need to be the smartest person on the planet, or have a specialized and thorough education in some bizarre topic, or come from somewhere entirely different than what he knows to keep his interest.

You are uniquely human, and you help teach him about himself, the one thing that he can never seem to properly grasp and understand the way he wants to.

More importantly, you are you, the one who made pacts with all seven demon lords, the one captured his heart and promised to take care of it when you could throw it away for anybody else.

And you are the only one who could say those words that he believes. Hopefully, you’ll believe him when he says them, too.

#i feel like i was toeing a line that might have like. disrespected aromanticism and if i did i am so sorry #i just think that like. personally as someone who is alloromantic but not necessarily super OBVIOUS about feeling romantic attraction #there is a line between just being casually romantic or something and aromantic like #yeah i wanna marry my best friend but i still wanna MARRY them you know #marriage being taken here in a romantic context and not just a social institution #i don't know. maybe i just want him to be romantic so i can be romantically involved with him and i'm digging too deep with it #tldr aromantic rights!!!#obey me #obey me shall we date #swd obey me #obey me swd #solomon #obey me solomon #solomon hcs #mine #solomon fluff #?#long post

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annabethy · 4 years ago

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Not quite a role swap but like artistic Annabeth and STEM Percy AU? Just fluff and that couple dynamic but not in the way it’s normally done I think would be immaculate

in which Percy’s good with numbers, but Annabeth teaches him the importance of art,, percabeth

Percy’s good with numbers. He sees the world from a logical point of view, and he always has. Math is something that makes sense to him — he prefers it over everything else because he finds that with numbers, there’s always an answer. He isn’t fond of the unknown. He prefers a set process that has a definitive answer. It’s the life of engineering that’s followed him into his personal life. But with Annabeth, he finds he prefers the unknown.

There’s something artistic about Annabeth, Percy can’t help but think. It’s the way she focuses on each piece she creates, entirely consumed in the beauty of it. It’s the way she bites on her tongue that just pokes through her lips with every brush stroke. It’s her paint-splattered clothes and messy ponytail that make her seem like a masterpiece, handcrafted from the heavens above.

He finds beauty in her and the things that she creates. There are no logistics in art. It’s open-ended, with infinite possibilities, and he quickly learns to appreciate the perfection of all things that have no definitive answer. He wants to venture into the unknown and see what it creates when he gives it the opportunity to.

Annabeth, just like the art she creates, is unpredictable. No amount of math or science can ever do things in the way that she does, one paint stroke at a time, and he doesn’t want it to.

From where Percy’s seated in the art studio, he can see the way sunlight pours over Annabeth’s body. They’re high up in the New York City skyline, and it’s only appropriate that the background is as breathtaking as Annabeth is in this moment.

She’s covered in paint, as usual, but it just makes him see her as a work of art. There’s a smudge of grey on her cheek from where she’d attempted to scratch an itch, though he doesn’t tell her that. Her hair glows golden, flyaways visible against the illuminated skyline.

He shifts in his seat on a table clattered with art supplies, and Annabeth shoots him a scolding look.

“Don’t move,” she warns him, but there’s a playful tone to her voice.

“It’s not my fault you refuse to put a couch in here,” he says, pointedly shifting again. “I’m going to break my tailbone against this table. And really, is it that bad of an idea to have some furniture in here? I spend almost all my time in this place.”

“You’re welcome to go to the library with all your other engineers,” she sneers, lifting a wet paintbrush at him menacingly. “Maybe you should have chosen a better major.”

“I like numbers,” he defends. “With numbers, you can be sure. With numbers, there’s always a correct answer. You just have to be smart enough to find it.”

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone who like calculus.”

“All I’m saying is that I like being sure.”

Annabeth lifts the corner of her lips as she resumes painting against the canvas. He cranes his neck to see what she’s working on, but it’s no use. She’s turned too far away from him to properly see anything besides a blur.

“I like art,” Annabeth says softly. “Are you sure about me?”

She says it with a calm voice. It’s a light comment, and he thinks that she’s just messing with him, but it still kills him to think she may feel he’s unsure about her when she’s the one thing he knows he needs.

He stands up from the table, clearing a spot for his computer that had been on his lap. He has to step over various canvases and piles of things he couldn’t even begin to name before he makes his way to her side. He immediately pulls her against him, lips pressing against her paint-covered cheek with a featherlight touch.

“You’re the one thing I am sure about,” he whispers into her ear, pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear. He can practically feel the shiver that races its way up her spine, and it makes him smile. “You, Annabeth Chase, are a work of art. You make me see the world in a way I never did before. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that you’re it for me.”

Annabeth turns her face so that she can look him in the eyes. She looks so cute from close up that he can’t help but kiss the tip of her nose.

“You’re it for me too,” she tells him. “Even if you like doing math for a living.”

Percy laughs into the crook of her neck, nuzzling the soft skin there. He breathes her in, cherishing the smell of her and a mix of paints and primers.

He stays there for a moment, hugging her by the waist with his face pressed into her neck while she begins to finish what she’s painting. He likes being with her like this, against her warm body that smells so much like his home – like the home he wants to come back to every night and wake up to every morning.

When he does lift his head, he sees her entirely devoured in finishing what she’s created. Up close, he can better see the way her eyebrows scrunch slightly, and the reflection of the canvas popping with color. Her eyelashes are curved to perfection, framing the gray irises he’s fallen in love with.

And he remembers why he fell in love with those eyes now; it was the first painting she’d gifted to him after he told her about his fondness for the ocean. He’d told her about his days spent at Montauk, watching the waves crash against the shore, feeling the sunlight burn his skin. And he remembers that she’d told him how she prefers the rainy days where thunder can be felt shaking the ground, where it pours so hard the power goes out. It wasn’t until weeks later that she showed him what she’d been working on, and it was an image of a storm along the coast of Montauk. A symbol of the two of them coming together — the storm in the sea. Annabeth had come clean and mentioned spending a few weekends at the beach he grew up along, how she had spent hours trying to get it right. The dark clouds above the sea she’d painted had matched her eyes – the violent waves crashing against the rocky shore symbolized the fierce emotion he sees every time he looks into her eyes.

It was that second that he fell in love with her, pulling her in for a kiss because it was the only way he knew how to show her just what he was feeling. It was something he couldn’t put into words. It was something that only her painting could encapsulate. It was wonderful and perfect and them and—

It was art.

“That’s beautiful,” Percy tells her now, watching as she paints before his eyes. It’s an image of the two of them, and one that he recognizes all too well. It’s the picture he knows is sitting in his wallet right this second.

The canvas is filled with whites and grays and blacks and everything in between as the two of them are standing beneath the rain on the beach, tangled in each other’s arms. Their hair is soaked, and rain is pouring around them hard, but they’re standing amidst it all, lips locked, to prolong the moment.

“Do you remember that day?” she asks. “I couldn’t possibly forget.”

“I miss it,” she says. “I know it started raining, and we couldn’t really do much, but it was just…”

It was perfect.

Percy kisses her forehead. “I know.”

He isn’t sure how long he stands there with her, watching her finish the painting in silence, but he doesn’t care. He is intrigued by the way she perfectly portrays the emotion behind it. All he can think about is how amazing it is, watching a scene unravel before his eyes.

Percy will always have a love for math. It’s what makes him comfortable. Numbers and equations do not fail so long as you know what to do. A part of him will always prefer the mathematics behind life.

The other part of him finds he needs the beautiful creation that comes with not knowing.

Annabeth is his polar opposite and his other half.

She is the art to his science. She taught him what it means to really sit back and let life create something beautiful. And he supposes it really did create something amazing. It brought her into his life, let them grow a love so strong no math can ever begin to explain it.

Percy used to think that letting go of control was the end of everything. He’s just now learning that it was truly the beginning.

#percabeth #percy jackson #pjo #annabeth chase #percy jackson and the olympians #my writing

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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Pluralistic: 05 Mar 2020 (New Pinkwater, RIP Jim Tyre, Right to Repair and covid, Radicalized is a bestseller, African Whatsapp modders)

Today's links

Daniel Pinkwater wrote a new novel! Yippee for "ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL!"

Warner Chappel discoved a new form of copyright fuckery so dense it blew a wormhole into another dimension: From the people who fraudulently claimed to own "Happy Birthday" for decades.

RIP, Jim Tyre: The free internet just lost one of its most dedicated defenders.

Decentralizing the web is a human problem: The web needs stewards, not owners.

Right to Repair is the right to resilience: Independent repair is how we keep things going during emergencies.

Keyless car fobs can be defeated with a cheap RFID cloner: Car manufacturers wontfix a showstopper bug. Again.

Bookstores, libraries, human thriving and mental health: Books are great, even if the science behind their greatness is thin.

Copyright experts' panel on fair use removed from Youtube: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

Radicalized is out in paperback: Just hit every one of Canada's national bestseller lists, too!

African Whatsapp modders are outcompeting Facebook: Adversarial Interoperability is how you beat digital colonialism.

This day in history: 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

I'm coming to Kelowna, BC today! I'll be at the library from 6-8PM with my book Radicalized for the CBC's Canada Reads. It's free, but you need to RSVP (and most of the seats are gone, so act quick).

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Daniel Pinkwater wrote a new novel! (permalink)

Well, this is amazing news. Daniel Pinkwater has a new middle grades novel coming out in September: ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL!

https://tachyonpublications.com/bestselling-author-daniel-pinkwater-returns-in-classic-form-with-the-illustrated-middle-grade-adventures-of-a-dwergish-girl/

Molly O'Malley is a clever, adventurous girl. She is also a Dwerg. Dwergs are strange folks who live very quietly in the Catskill mountains, have lots of gold, and are kind of like dwarves (but also not!).

Molly isn't interested in cooking and weaving, as she is expected to be. So, she sets off to see the world for herself. Which means a new job, a trip to New York City, prowling gangsters, an adorable king, a city witch, and many historical ghosts. More importantly, it means excellent pizza, new friends, and very quick thinking.

Now someone is pursuing the Dwergs for their gold. Can Molly O'Malley save the day?

IOW: this is a book with every single thing I love about Pinkwater novels. Reading Daniel Pinkwater – as a kid and as an adult – was hugely important to my development as a writer and a human being. Meeting another Pinkwater fan is always a sign that you are among good people.

Warner Chappel discoved a new form of copyright fuckery so dense it blew a wormhole into another dimension (permalink)

I've seen some next-level copyfraud fuckery in my day, believe me, but Adam Neely's tale of Warner Chappell's copyfraud reaches a new height of absurdity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8

This is sleazy even by Warner Chappell standards, and they're the crooks who fraudulently claimed ownership over Happy Birthday for decades.

https://vimeo.com/172715640

Buckle up for this one, as it is an onion of bizarre, bad-faith corporate behavior, with each layer peeling back to reveal another, even weirder and more terrible one. It starts with a garbage lawsuit against Katy Perry for including a piece of background music in her song Dark Horse that was similar to another very generic lick in an obscure Christian rap song called "A Joyful Noise."

No one claimed that Katy Perry lifted the brief snatch of music from Joyful Noise. Rather, the case turned on the precedent set when Martin Gaye's heirs sued Robin Thicke over "Blurred Lines," arguing that the song had a similar vibe to Gaye's. Gaye's heirs should not have won that suit. But they did. And it opened the floodgates to nuisance suits targeting the likes of Perry and her publisher, Warner-Chappell. They lost the suit and got hit for $2.8m.

This isn't even the fuckery part, by the way.

Enter Adam Neely, who created a massively successful viral video defending Warner Chappell and Katy Perry, arguing that the suit was garbage. The video was so successful he went on national media to discuss the case and was even asked to sign onto an amicus brief.

Let the fuckery begin:

Warner Chappell has claimed copyright over Neely's video, claiming that a few seconds of music that he used was the "melody" of Katy Perry's song.

Further fuckery:

In the case, Warner Chappell argued that this specific musical phrase was not the melody, and was rather some incidental background sound.

Fuckery extreme:

The Warner Chappell claim was not automated. A human manually claimed this phrase of music as Warner-Chappell's, despite:

a) Them having disclaimed ownership of it in a lawsuit,

b) Losing that suit and being told by a court that it wasn't theirs.

Fuckery to the max!

But the musical phrase they claimed ownership over was from "A Joyful Noise," the song they lost two point eight million dollars over, having claimed that their song was not confusingly similar to it.

The two musical phrases – the one from "Dark Horse" and the one from "Joyful Noise" – were so similar that Warner-Chappell's own copyright enforcers mistakenly claimed copyright over the wrong one!

2020 folks. Don't forget to tip your servers, they work hard.

RIP, Jim Tyre (permalink)

My old EFF comrade Jim Tyre just died.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/rip-eff-special-counsel-jim-tyre

Jim was a tireless civil liberties litigator, a titan of First Amendment law whose entree to tech law was defending people who criticized censorware companies who wildly overblocked what schoolkids could see. He was also incredibly garrulous, funny, a born raconteur whose encylopedic memory served him well both as a storyteller and a litigator.

Jim worked on the 2600 DMCA case, he defended Ed Felten when he was threatened by the RIAA, he fought ICANN, and he was key to our longrunning suit against NSA over mass surveillance.

Jim always worked offsite. He lived in LA and had eye problems that rendered him nearly completely blind. But he kept a stash of cash at the EFF offices so he could contribute to every whip-round for a baby gift or a wedding present.

He was a true mensch.

Decentralizing the web is a human problem (permalink)

My old EFF colleague Mai Sutton just published a smashing primer on competition, interoperability, and stewardship and the world of tech:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200228/22053744006/defeating-tech-giants-with-open-protocols-interoperability-shared-stewardship.shtm

After delivering a good backgrounder on the history of the wars between shared protocols and proprietary technologies, Mai delves into the thicket of laws that have cropped up to prevent technologists from adding interoperability to existing technologies.

This has led to a new online enclosure, with "Google" becoming synonymous with "search" and "Facebook" synonymous with "social media." These businesses once competed, but today, they preside alone, over protected territory.

But some of that is changing. Between legislative proposals, new standardization efforts, the Decentralized Web movement and its protocols, and a reinvigorated threat of antitrust enforcement, there's some hope that the web will reopen and redecentralize.

Ultimately, Mai writes, this has more to do with how we view the web than how we use it. If we think of the online world as a shared space for humanity then the technologists who keep it running are stewards, not owners.

(Image: Dietrich Ayala (https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/07/introducing-the-d-web/) and Open Clip Art (https://openclipart.org/)

Right to Repair is the right to resilience (permalink)

Writing in Wired, Kyle Wiens makes the crucial link between the Right To Repair and resilience, especially during moments of disruption to global supply chains.

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-right-to-repair-will-help-us-endure-outbreaks/

It's no coincidence that farms and farmers have been leaders in Right to Repair: when you're isolated and you're not allowed to fix your stuff, it means that you can neither nip down to the shops for a replacement, nor easily have an authorized repair tech come to your place.

Covid can put everyone – even entire nations – into the position of that isolated farmer. As Long Beach port is denuded of shipping containers, as air- and rail-links are broken between parts of the country, the stream of parts, replacement units and technicians stops.

A key principle of resilience is to put resources at the edge, replacing hub-and-spoke models with point-to-point, peer-to-peer ones that infuse the system with redundancy. Neoliberalism hates redundancy and equates it with wastefulness.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1228326004508151808

But redundancy is the key to graceful failure-modes. Limiting repairs to authorized service centers works well (reliable, and certainly great for shareholders), but it fails very, very badly. Right to Repair is how our hospitals, schools, infrastructure maintenance, first responder and other vital services will keep the lights on if things go horribly wrong. Resiliency may be bad for shareholder value, but it's vital to human survival.

Keyless car fobs can be defeated with a cheap RFID cloner (permalink)

Toyota, Hyundai and Kia keyless ignition fobs can be cloned by attackers who get within a few inches of your pocket (say, at a conference), thanks to implementation errors that the auto-makers made with their Texas Instruments DST80 security systems.

https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-can-clone-millions-of-toyota-hyundai-kia-keys/

All you need is a Proxmark RFID scanner, which retails for about $300. That's more than the range-extenders used to steal cars from out front of targets' homes, but unlike those attackers, fob-cloners can start and stop the car as often as they like.

https://hackerwarehouse.com/product/proxmark3-rdv4-kit/

The researchers who did this work come from KU Leuven and the University of Birmingham. Their paper is great:

https://tches.iacr.org/index.php/TCHES/article/view/8546/8111

The attack on its own does not let you start the cars. All it does is disable the immobilizer that stopped people from hot-wiring the ignition system with a screwdriver.

"You're downgrading the security to what it was in the '80s." -Flavio Garcia, University of Birmingham.

The implementation mistakes by the car companies are embarrassingly basic. Kia and Hyundai's implementation only has 24 bits of randomness ("a couple milliseconds with a laptop"). Toyota uses a serial number as a seed, then transmits that serial number in the clear. The companies, naturally, are saying it's no biggie. Toyota claims the attack requires "a highly specialized device that is not commonly available on the market." This just isn't true. I found it with literally one search.

None of the vendors have offered to fix the problem for drivers who bring their cars to garages.

It's depressing, but at least now you know whether you can trust your car's security.

"It's better to be in a place where we know what kind of security we're getting from our security devices. Otherwise, only the criminals know." -Flavio Garcia.

Bookstores, libraries, human thriving and mental health (permalink)

I love Lydia Smith's hymn to the mental health benefits of books, libraries and reading (even if I think the science is less than convincing)

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/how-books-and-bookshops-improve-our-mental-health-and-why-we-must-protect-them/

Reading fiction definitely stretches your empathy. For a novel to work, you have to be invested in the lives of people who don't even exist. The death of the yogurt you digested with breakfast this morning is technically more tragic than the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The yogurt was really alive and now it's really dead. Romeo and Juliet neither lived nor died. Fiction reading is varsity-level empathy!

I agree that the traditional fiction arc – adversity met and overcome – can lighten a dark day. I turn to Kim Stanley Robinson's "Pacific Edge" whenever I'm blue for that reason. I even played a small role in getting adapted for DRM-free audio.

https://boingboing.net/2015/01/15/audio-edition-of-pacific-edge.html

(Pacific Edge was just reissued as a "Tor Essential" in an omnibus with the other two "Californias" novels, sporting a fabulous intro by Francis Spufford. Run, don't walk!)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250307569

It's also utterly true that books are a path to resilience and self-reliance, filled as they can be with how-tos, analysis and technical knowledge. As the Whole Earth Catalogues used to have it, "Access to tools and ideas."

(It must be said that the net is infinitely better at this than print books, provided you can get online. The use of a time-transported town library to jumpstart post-industrial civilization during the 30 Years War in Eric Flint's 1632 is delightful)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1632_(novel)

Libraries, of course, are the last place in our civilization where you are welcomed because you are a human being, not because you are an ambulatory wallet. Librarians, resist the urge to call people "customers." They're "patrons." That's far more dignified (and accurate).

And working in a bookstore is certainly therapeutic, for certain values of therapy. It can be a grind, but OMG is it ever great connecting people with books that you love and watching them fall in love, too. Generally I'm in accord with the essay. I just don't think the studies cited are of very high quality and/or recency.

It's OK to say, "I love bookstores and libraries because they're fabulous" without having to provide evidence for that fabulousness.

NYU law school's Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy held a symposium on copyright and the net with a panel on "when one song infringes the copyright of another and to prove if the accused song is 'substantially similar' enough to be illegal."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQTz65Bq70

The video of the panel was taken down from Youtube after multiple copyright complaints from rightsholders who claimed that the brief clips, chosen by America's leading copyright experts as being fair use, were infringing.

https://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/engelberg/news/2020-03-04-youtube-takedown

These clips weren't just fair use; they'd been chosen by top legal scholars to illustrate what fair use was.

The rightsholder reps who issued the takedown claims for these videos did so manually – that is, these complaints were not automatically generated.

In the grand tradition of copyfraud fuckery, when the law professors appealed, the rights enforcement dimbulbs (trained on xeroxed procedures in three-ring binders) reasserted their claims, putting the law school at risk of losing its Youtube account.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/05/warner-chappell-copyfraud#warnerchappell

The law profs knew they had the law on their side, but they weren't ready to appeal, because if they lost their appeal, they'd get a Youtube "copystrike," which could also cost them their accounts. And since there were multiple claims, they weren't sure if they'd get multiple strikes by appealing. Youtube's docs don't make this clear, and going through Youtube channels yielded nothing but radio silence.

Now, these are eminent law professors at a top university, so they were able to make some insider calls to Youtube, who lifted the complaints altogether and reinstated the video. But no one ever clarified the multiple-claims/multiple copystrike procedure.

Moral: When it comes to Youtube, it doesn't matter if you're a nationally recognized copyright expert. You can't argue with anonymous, hamfisted rights-enforcer assholes to assert your speech rights. The only way to guarantee those rights is to know someone on the inside.

Radicalized is out in paperback (permalink)

My book Radicalized, a collection of four science fiction novellas, just came out in paperback!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250229250

It's quite a week for the book! It's a finalist for Canada Reads, one of Canada's national book prizes, and the paperback immediately hit all of Canada's national bestseller lists!

I'm especially delighted to make the indie stores' bestseller list:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-bestselling-canadian-books-for-the-week-of-feb-23-29-2020-1.5484366

It's headlining the Toronto Star's list:

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2020/03/04/toronto-star-bestsellers-for-the-week-ending-march-4-2020.html

And there's one more national bestseller list that it's hit, but I can't name it until later this week, when it's published. But yeah, it's a hell of a week!

African Whatsapp modders are outcompeting Facebook (permalink)

Whatsapp is more popular than Facebook in Africa – but unauthorized, souped-up, third-party mods of Whatsapp are more popular still.

https://qz.com/africa/1804859/fake-whatsapp-app-more-popular-than-facebook-instagram-in-africa/

African software developers have modified the Whatsapp app to make it suitable to local users. The mods are transmitted from person to person, and sideloaded onto mobile devices.

The king of mods is GB Whatsapp, which allows for multiple accounts on a single device, ups file-transmissions from 16MB to 50MB, and includes privacy features like masking when you're online. GB Whatapp alone has more African users than the Facebook app.

All these mods communicate with users of the stock Whatapp system and with each other. They're tremendous examples of #AdversarialInteroperability, where hackers give users better, situation-appropriate tools without asking an incumbent's permission.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

They really cleanly illustrate how Adversarial Interop defeats network effects by using it against incumbents. The fact that Whatsapp is the most popular app in Africa is an ADVANTAGE for Whatapp modders: they get to treat every Whatsapp user as a potential customer. These mods also show how Adversarial Interop is key to technological self-determination. Rather than meekly submitting to digital colonialism, modders ignore the choices and preferences of a massive US firm and its shareholders and deliver local solutions for local people.

Facebook's response is predictable. Mods violate our terms of service. Modders are crooks. Users caught using mods face bans.

Modders just tell their users to sign up with secondary phone numbers to avoid bans.

Colonial American industry enjoyed a huge advantage over UK rivals because it disregarded UK patents and copyrights, allowing American firms to leapfrog the former colonial masters. Now that it is a net exporter of tech, it expects foreign countries to respect its rules.

This day in history (permalink)

#5yrsago Justice Department issues "scorching" report on Ferguson's Police Department https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/ferguson-cops-routinely-block-public-from-filming-them-doj-says/

#5yrsago Matt Haughey retires from Metafilter https://metatalk.metafilter.com/23626/Sixteen-Years

#1yrago The NSA has reportedly stopped data-mining Americans' phone and SMS records https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html

#1yrago Jibo the social robot announces that its VC overlords have remote-killswitched it, makes pathetic farewell address and dances a final step https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/3/4/18250104/jibo-social-robot-server-shutdown-offline-dead

#1yrago BATHDOOM: A Doom level based on a terrible bathroom remodel https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/eveknn/the-hot-new-doom-mod-is-a-nightmare-diy-bathroom-renovation-bathdoom

#1yrago The People's Republic of Walmart: how late-stage capitalism gives way to early-stage fully automated luxury communism https://boingboing.net/2019/03/05/walmart-without-capitalism.html

#1yrago History is made: petition opposing the EU's #Article13 internet censorship plan draws more signatures than any petition in EU history https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet

#1yrago London councils plan to slash benefit payments with an "anti-fraud" system known to have a 20% failure rate https://news.sky.com/story/thousands-face-incorrect-benefit-cuts-from-automated-fraud-detector-11651031

#1yrago America is not "polarized": it's a land where a small minority tyrannize the supermajority https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/opinion/oppression-majority.html

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Carl Sondrol (https://twitter.com/sondrol), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/), JWZ (https://www.jwz.org/blog/), Danny O'Brien (oblomovka.com/)

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC's Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I've been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world's prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopias: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/01/disasters-dont-have-to-end-in-dystopias/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

#pluralistic

9 notes · View notes

silverquillsideas · 6 years ago

Note

Hi:) May I ask what your personal interpretation of the Bf ending is? Did Ash chose to die or not? If he did, what do you think was the reason for his decision? And did he believe Eiji's letter? Sorry if this has been asked before and I bother you with these questions...

Hello Anons! It’s not a bother at all! Thanks for asking! I’ll club these two together since there’s going to be a lot of overlapping parts.

I feel like the more I try to delve deeper into why and how the ending was written the way it was, the more number of interpretations open up. I’ve talked about my views on the ending in the above posts, and as for whether he believed Eiji’s letter, my answer is yes, definitely. I’ll elaborate why below.

First off, when I read the manga and later, GoL, it always occurred to me that Ash’s death wasn’t immediate, that he had time to drag himself back to the library and collapse slowly from blood loss, and the same is repeated by Sing in his musings in GoL “in the long long hours before death, as blood slowly drained out of your body”….so, I believe that the stab wasn’t lethal, and that Ash’s death was, ultimately, by his choice.

Now coming to why he chose what he did. These interpretations are entirely my own, and they are called ‘interpretations’ for a reason, there will be other equally valid points held by the fandom, and that’s completely okay. This is just how I see it. I re-read the manga recently, and this time, I tried to look closer at all the subtle hints at how the ending was kind of… foreshadowed in a way?

I’ll begin with the way Ash was constructed as a character : he was multifaceted, complex, a genius with superhuman reflexes and intellect, he rejected all kinds of authority and the law, since he never had reason to trust them all his life. Ash conditioned himself to be ruthless and put on a hard front at all times, since that was the only way he could have survived in the world he was thrown into from the tender age of seven or eight. He used his physical beauty as a weapon, a shield to disarm opponents, so that they never got any hint of his lethal side until it was too late; it was simply another tool in his fight for survival. Eiji is probably one of the first and only ones to get a measure of what Ash really is like, by the time we get to the arc of Shorter’s death. He comments on this :

Curiously enough, we, as readers get to know this along with Eiji, that Ash has this duality to him : on one hand, he is the cold and ruthless killer and gang-boss, the wild, untamable Ash Lynx. on the other hand, only with Eiji, he can be the carefree 17 year old Aslan, the little boy Griff loved, who’s scared of pumpkins and gets flustered when teased, and loves to bicker with Eiji over silly things.

Its this humane side of Ash we all latch onto. The facade of a killer that Ash has to put on for the rest of the world, falls apart when he’s with Eiji, and we can see that : we realise that it’s a shield he has to hold up for his survival so that the truly compassionate, softer side of him can survive. Eiji sees through it, we see through it. But does Ash? His self image is exceedingly negative.

This becomes a recurring point of arguments between Eiji and Ash throughout the manga. A constant pull and push of opinions on who Ash truly is, who he can be. Eiji tries so hard to pull out the humane side of Ash, the one who is Aslan, back to the surface, so that Ash Lynx may not forget who he really once was. Eiji lets Ash be vulnerable, he makes him laugh, allows him to be silly, he tells him that it’s okay to be scared, to be hurt, because Ash is deeply hurt, only he has trained himself to never acknowledge that even to himself.

Does Ash consider himself entirely worthless? I beg to differ. He relies on his intelligence, his skills and capabilities, and he had confidence in them. He has his gang members to protect and lead, even before Eiji shows up. He has his pride as a boss, and his constant refusal to be controlled by Dino or other characters who hold authority (and consequently, abuse their powers to further their own greed).

But was that enough to hold out till the end? More than the battles with Dino or Mannerheim or Foxx, I think Ash had to fight bigger battles with himself, about his own perception of what it means to be accepting of who you are as a person, and what you choose to believe in within yourself. Throughout the manga, we see this constant warring : we have literally everyone telling him that keeping Eiji by his side, is him being selfish, that Eiji isn’t there to salvage Ash’s guilt, that letting him go would be better for both of them. And Ash is conflicted, he wants to have this connection, this friendship with Eiji above all else, it becomes his single motivator in the entire second half of the manga : to protect and keep Eiji safe

By the time Yut Lung manipulates Ash into giving up Banana Fish and go into Dino’s captivity for Eiji’s safety, Ash is already too far gone on his bond with Eiji. he pulls the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. If it meant keeping a loved one safe at the cost of his own death, Ash was ready to make that choice, perhaps for a very long time.

Ash was someone whose actions always did the talking. The fact that he had allowed himself to care, to demand or crave for himself the comfort of a selfless friendship, or even love, is more of an indicator of him slowly growing to value himself as a person, to try and love himself a little more. He acknowledges this openly to Blanca : that there is nothing that made him happier than being with Eiji, of knowing that at least one person in the world had tried to see himself for who he really was, had tried to make Ash see that too.

The conversation between Ash and Eiji about the leopard in the mountaintop, about Ash’s views on death and what it means to live, is one of my favourite moments in the manga. Ash had never feared death, but he had never wanted to die himself. Even though, at numerous points in his life, death had seemed like a peaceful, enticing alternative, compared to the hell he was going through. Ash states that he views himself as the leopard, trudging on and on upwards to the summit, until it collapsed. His conflict was on whether the leopard was facing downwards or up? Was he trying to came back home, or simply go on until he could no longer carry on?

The journey of the leopard paralleled Ash’s own. All his life, he had been forced to go on a steep, uphill climb, against whatever harsh trials his life threw at him. In the end, would he be too tired to carry on? Too tired that he would want to give up? Or Would he still have the strength to try and find his way back down?

Eiji pulls him back once more : he reminds Ash of his own humanity, that people were not obligated to remain as the leopard in the story forever. In the end, we are all human beings who can have a choice, to find our way back home. And Ash, after a thoughtful pause, agrees with him.

But agreeing with an idea on principle is a far cry from putting that into practice.

As the arcs progress, Eiji gets shot, and Blanca again harshly reminds him of what his reality was, that Ash and Eiji’s worlds were, as he saw, too far apart for them to exist together. And Ash is torn by guilt. His one objective, of keeping Eiji safe, had somehow started backfiring. He pleads with God, to take him instead, in exchange for Eiji’s safety. And that was when I personally got the foreshadowing, that maybe the ending could only be either one way or the other.

It’s interesting that Eiji voices almost identical words, that he’d take Ash’s place any day if he could, that he wished Ash would never have to hold a gun anymore, before he takes a bullet for Ash without a minute’s hesitation

There was always a residual sense of guilt with both Ash and Eiji about Shorter’s death. Eiji breaks down crying in front of Sing, and he wasn’t even an instigator in all the events that happened. I can’t imagine how much more Ash would’ve been carrying around with the knowledge that he was the one to pull the trigger, under extreme duress or otherwise.

That brings me to the involvement of Lao. Shorter’s death had triggered a mistrust between the Chinese gang and Ash. Even though Sing, because of knowing the truth, had ceased blaming Ash altogether, Lao didn’t go anywhere near. His only goal was to protect his brother, and his hatred for Ash magnified when Ash pointed a trigger on Sing in the mad rampage immediately after Eiji was shot. Sing understood Ash’s rage, and he apologized and desperately attempted to make up for what he saw as a ‘betrayal’ from the Chinese side. But Lao, stubbornly refused to acknowledge Ash, even though Sing tried multiple times to reason with him. Had Yut Lung’s childish grudge against Eiji not prompted him to abuse Lao’s familial ties with Sing, had Lao been more reasonable, had Sing communicated with him better after the end of all the fighting…. The list of ‘what ifs’ go on.

In the end, Ash’s decision was prompted by all these moments adding up together. He had vowed just the day before to Blanca, that this time, he’d never see Eiji again, in order to keep him from harm’s way. Did that mean that ultimately he never learnt to love himself? That’s difficult to answer.

I believe that to some extent, he did realise how much he was valued as a person : by his friends, his gang, Max, Blanca, Cain, Shorter, and most of all Eiji. He never admitted out loud how much Eiji meant to him and vice versa, but it was always proven by their actions and confirmed by the words of those who were close to them.

Ash knew how much it hurt him to see Eiji wounded because of him, and I get the inkling that he could at least guess that Eiji would be equally devastated if their places were reversed. But he ultimately chose to eliminate himself from the equation : the solution, according to him, that would keep all the danger away from everyone he wanted to keep safe. That is the dark side of love, of how far you’re willing to go to protect those you hold dear.

Just as Eiji took the bullet for him, just as Ash himself had no hesitation in pulling the trigger back then, I see this last choice also as a final act of sorts, keeping good on his prayer to God : Eiji’s safety in exchange for his own. It wasn’t a perfect decision by any means, there were n number of ways a different choice could’ve been as good, but I feel than in his final moments, Ash was really too weary to keep on pushing forward.

It brings me to your question, anon, in the end, was love enough to save him from himself? Did Eiji’s constant attempts to bring out Aslan, win out against the shackles Ash Lynx put on himself?

In those few moments immediately after reading Eiji’s letter, we see the way Ash reacts : his eyes fill with hope, disbelief, love, and a hundred other emotions as all thoughts other than Eiji’s words flee his mind. Eiji’s reference to the leopard was especially important : he gave Ash a reminder, once more, that even lost souls have a way of coming back home, and that one’s humaneness was something we discover throughout our whole lives, it’s not just expressed by a handful of actions. Eiji reminded Ash once more, that it was okay to hope, to dream, and to live for himself. And that was what prompted Ash to take off running. In those few moments, it really looked as if Ash had finally broken free of all that was holding him back.

But at the end of it all, I feel that Ash Lynx won out. The question of saving us from ourselves, of realising our self worth, is a complex one. Ash was happy in the simple knowledge that Eiji had loved him back unconditionally. All his life, it was the one thing he had never received, and in his final moments, that mere confirmation was like a closure of sorts for him. It wasn’t fair to either of them, but it was how things finally ended.

In an ideal world, we’d have no doubt seen Ash and Eiji having their happy forever after, given everything that happened, but sadly, the author chose to write in Lao, as if to prove a point : that more often than not, dreams and reality are separated by just one moment of carelessness, one second of letting your guard down, and for Ash, that moment was fatal.

#banana fish #ash lynx #eiji okumura #asks #anon #textposts #analysis #I'll try to answer the other asks soon #real life has been crazy this past month or so #please bear with my snail's pace for now :')

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volumes2lo-gan · 7 years ago

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Logicality high school au where Logan has to tutor patton who pretends not to understand the lessons so he can spend time with Logan. Poor Logan has no clue patton has this huge crush on him so imagine his surprise when Patton is giving him math, and science pick up lines and if that wasn't strange he finds out that patton actually know these lessons so he goes to confront patton

Do the Math

Fandom: Sanders SidesPairing: LogicalityWarnings: None

Logan wasn’t sure how he’d gotten stuck tutoring Patton, but one thing was certain: his patience as an educator was definitely better than he’d thought. He’d been tutoring him after school on Wednesdays for a couple weeks now, and with each lesson, Logan found himself repeating things over and over again because of Patton’s short attention span. He didn’t know why the other student would constantly zone out while he was staring at the board, but Logan had had to snap him out of it twice during this session alone.

Patton was currently sitting on a desk, facing a relatively exasperated Logan and a hectic whiteboard. “So… you’re saying that if the person is five feet tall…” he started, swinging his feet.

“Yes, go on…” Logan urged, hoping this lesson was finally sinking in.

“So they’re five feet tall… and look to the tippy top of a tree in front of them….”

“Yes?” The student tutor leaned forward in his chair expectantly.

“Then… the hypotenuse is 80!” Patton beamed and Logan suppressed a groan.

“N-no, not quite. Not at all, actually. Patton, can you tell me the units in which you were giving your solution?” he prompted, already knowing the answer he’d receive.

“80… d… degrees?” Patton said sheepishly, slowing his kicking as he gave Logan his patented doe eyes. Honestly, he’d think he’d know by now that that look did not make all of his answers correct. In fact, that look statistically never increased his odds of being correct. He was always wrong regardless of whether or not he gave Logan those eyes, so why did he keep trying? Logan shook his head to clear his thoughts before steepling his hands and directing their point at the other student.

“Feet, Patton. You were solving for the distance between the person and the tree in feet. The individual is five feet tall, the tree is twelve feet tall, and I gave you the angle of 70 degrees from eye-level to the top of the tree– which is a fact that you seemed to have forgotten. This is all sufficient enough data to solve for the distance from the tree. So if you were to plug in all of these data points,” he turned to the whiteboard and started drawing a very simplistic image of a stick figure near a pine tree, “then you’d be able to find that by looking up to the top of the tree at a 70 degree angle, the individual is roughly two and a half feet away from the tree.” When Logan turned around from the board, capping his pen, he was met with Patton’s glazed-over expression for what felt like the dozenth time this session. “Patton, are you even listening?” Patton sat there happily swaying his feet back and forth for a little while longer before realizing that Logan had stopped talking.

“Oh! Sorry, Logan,” he said, a deep blush burning across his cheeks and hiding his freckles, “I must’ve fazed out again a little.” Logan sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“That’s alright, Patton, it’s been a long session, let’s call it a wrap and try again some more tomorrow.” Logan started packing up his bag and Patton hopped off the desk and gathered up his things as well.

“Sorry about that problem, I guess that angle and I were both pretty obtuse,” Patton chuckled as he stuffed his folders away. “Wish I could’ve seen that other one twice though. Then I’d have had 20/20 vision to find the answer!” He slung his bag over his shoulder as Logan shook his head.

“I’ll never understand how you come up with those so fast,” he said, honestly impressed by the use of wordplay. Patton beamed.

“I’m good at what I like! I’ll see you tomorrow, Logan.” He waved before heading out the door and down the hall. Logan stood in the room for a little while longer, organizing his bag as he went over his last encounter again.

Obtuse… clever use of double meaning… the other angle, 20, twice… 20/20 vision, Logan chuckled to himself and then froze. Wait. He turned to the board and looked over the sketch he’d drawn. 5-foot person, 12-foot tree, 70 degree angle, and 2.55-foot distance. He hadn’t marked the other angle and he wouldn’t have been so suspicious had Patton not insisted he use a calculator two days ago to calculate 12 plus 8 when he noticed he didn’t have enough fingers. He turned back from the board and saw a piece of scrap paper on the floor near where Patton had been sitting. Curious.

Logan walked over and picked it up. Patton’s name was scrawled across the top along with a bunch of tiny hearts and heart-eyed smiley faces and animals. Logan laughed a little at the doodles, but the small laugh died down as his eyes scanned down the rest of the page. There were small graphs, all labeled with the curly script from the top of the page, sketching out lessons Logan had mentioned in passing at the start of the session. Patton had apparently not only taken note of all of his hypothetical equations, he’d actually solved them, seemingly before they moved on to the main problems no less. There was no reason, Logan thought, for Patton to be in these tutoring sessions. In fact, he could probably apply to be a tutor himself if this paper was adequate proof of his abilities.

He stuffed the paper in his backpack and leaned out into the hallway, hoping to find Patton still by the lockers, but the few students waiting for the late bus were heading out and Patton was nowhere in sight. Well, he’d have to confront him tomorrow, he supposed. Logan hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and exited the room, turning out the lights behind him.

The next day, Logan stood at his locker for ten minutes before finally spotting Patton through the waves of students. He waited for Patton to get to his own locker before making his way across the hall.

“Hello, Patton,” Logan greeted, startling the other student.

“Oh! Logan, hi! I– sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He smiled, but was seemingly having a hard time catching his breath. Logan made a mental note to announce himself a bit more subtly in the future.

“That’s quite alright, I just wanted to talk to you about something I found slightly peculiar,” he held up the paper he’d found the day prior. “I believe this is yours?”

Patton squinted at the paper before giving a small nod. “Y-yeah, that’s my note sheet.”

“Okay, so now that we’ve cleared that up, maybe you’d be able to clear up why someone as smart as you is requiring tutoring sessions?” Logan asked matter-of-factly, handing Patton back his sheet of paper. Patton’s blush deepened and he turned back to close his locker.

“I- uh, well…” he stammered. “I guess I just… wanted to hang out with you?” Logan quirked an eyebrow and Patton nervously continued. “I, um, oh wow I didn’t think I’d be doing this this morning, but, uh… I… I really like you? Like, like like you, you know? I didn’t know how to tell you, so I just figured ‘hey, Logan does tutoring, maybe I could hang out with him there!’ which, now that I say it, it sounds kinda weird, but I didn’t know how else to go about it and I–” Patton’s words had started to tumble out in a single train of thought, but he manage to stop himself before he completely derailed. He looked at Logan and saw that he was still trying to process everything. “Basically, I really like you, Logan.” He summarized with a sheepish smile.

Now it was Logan’s turn to blush. Patton’s words sank in and suddenly everything made sense: Patton requesting tutoring out of the blue, him always giving those big doe eyes and getting that glossed look whenever Logan started explaining things. Patton was utterly infatuated with him. And Logan couldn’t deny that there were definitely some kind of feelings in return.

“I– um,” Logan paused, weighing his words, “I think that I feel something for you as well.” Patton beamed and Logan felt a warmth spread in his chest. “I’m not… entirely sure of what the feeling is, but I think… I think I’d like to find out. With you, of course.”

“Aww, Logan!” Patton pulled him into a big hug and Logan felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment. “That’d be perfect! How about a movie or something next weekend?” Logan thought for a moment.

“I would like that… as long as you stop pretending to be bad at math.”

Patton chuckled. “Yeah, that wasn’t really the best plan, I’ll admit, but you get so excited about math!” Logan crossed his arms with a smile. “Okay okay, but next week, movies. It’s a date!” Patton beamed as the first warning bell rang. “I’ll see you after school, let’s meet in the library this time!” He darted down the hall with a wave and Logan started walking to first period.

He smiled to himself. It’s a date.

Tagged: @prison4murdoc @here-to-vent @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @novagalaxy4real @thomas-must-get-to-sleep @depressed-alone @blocksavage1776 @lollingtothemax @all-the-fand0mz @justanotherpurplebutterfly @emphoenixcat @hetaliagurl5 @kittyboof8 @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @princeyssash @virgilient @dontmesswithmygentleself @lilbeanblr @burningpeachdelusionofchaos @lindesensate @kanejandkruge @just-fic-me-up @pinkeasteregg @ravenclawicecream @sander-sideblog @patton-of-love-for-my-friends @pastel-patton123

#logan writes #sanders sides #sidescontentweek #logicality #logan sanders #patton sanders #high school au #human au #fluff #tutor!logan #my fics #fics #prompts #prompt fic #my hc here is actually that Logan's got a squish and just hasn't worked out exactly what that is yet #but Patton helps him figure it out later and then they start a QPP!

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blogging-time · 7 years ago

Text

“Honey, Honey.”

My Fic Masterlist

Summary: Logan never really was one for dancing, but when a dashing prince starts spinning you around the room against your will, serenading you with every step… well... you can’t exactly say no…

Based on this beautiful artwork by @artistwave, while also making reference to these two stunning works as well!

Warnings: N/A

Pairings: Logince

Word Count: 4,400

~ ~ ~

Logan never really was one for singing. He was perceived to be a man of the upmost refinement; a man who indulged almost the entirety of his alone-time secluded with the written word. Within the confines of his own mind serenades were nothing more than idiotic clichés intended to deceive a wider, lonelier audience into believing that a re-hashed version of some hit pop-song equated to true-love at long last. Newsflash, Hollywood: “Can’t Help Falling in Love” lost all authentic meaning when Zayn Malik decided to make an official cover of it too.

Logan never really was one for dancing. He simply preferred to let his eyes gently wander across the page as the newly absorbed words danced and fluttered around in his head, elegantly eloping with all prior knowledge, and forging one complete tale of excitement and adventure behind his patient eyes. Big musical dance numbers were surely far too unrealistic for him. Too many limbs. Too many opportunities to fall and fracture a femur. All semblance of elegance was lost when the activity became far too literal for Logan’s acquired taste.

Logan never really was one for musicals. The very premise of building an entire world around pre-written songs seemed positively ludicrous to him, or “Pattonly-absurd” as the Dad-Side would often joke. “Mamma Mia” was one of his least favourite musicals for that very reason. Failing to create an interesting environment was one thing, but to steal already overdone songs from another in order to accomplish such a lacklustre thing? Oh please. Logan preferred a far more structured and scientifically sound world. One with proper meaning and purpose. A world that revolved as much around the known and unknown as our own reality does on a daily basis.

Logan was a man of literature. Arthur Conan Doyle. Agatha Christie. Toni Morrison. Novels. Poetry. Riddles. He adored the lot. To Logan, his library was like an entire universe, and inside it were the books – the planets – all just waiting to be explored.

Of course, this led to a number of disputes with his partner, Roman.

“Roman, songs are not the written word “vocalized”; they are the written word internationally marketed and sold off for an ill-deserved profit.”

Logan once refused to look Roman in the eye for a day after the prince dared to suggest literature was much the same.

“Oh yeah? Tell me then, Edgar Allan Foe, why books are not simply given out for free? Why should they be sold out in shops if any profit they turn in is so ill-deserved?”

“Novels are different.”

“Why? Because less people are interested in them?”

That had proven to be one of their more heated debates.

Of course, Roman was also the sort to think “Twilight” classified as “Classical Literature,” on the sole basis that it was over a decade old, so Logan couldn’t stay mad at him for too long. Roman’s cluelessness was not only a weakness for the prince himself, but for Logan too. It was almost endearing… in an odd way… Besides, it allowed for Logan to rant about the things he loved and was captivated by, meanwhile Roman would be captivated by the one he loved speaking so passionately. They balanced each other out in this way.

Still, there was one… perhaps unconventional… piece of literature that Logan could not help but enjoy.

Magazines.

Fashion magazines to be more specific.

He hadn’t intended to grow addicted, but alas Virgil had left a single copy of “Kirameki” on the kitchen counter one day and before he could even think to stop himself from reading it he was on the last page. It seems highly improbable to most that some article containing such simplistic language, an abundance of images, and absolutely no plotline could captivate the interest of one as astute as Logan himself… but the style… it was just so… different!

From magazine to magazine his interest leapt… “Fashion,” “Cosmopolitan,” “Vogue,” etc… and if he just so happened to conjure up a few of the outfits he saw across the various articles, then he would soon reassure himself with the belief that it was for entirely scientific and experimental purposes, and most certainly not because more vibrant colours made him feel… cute… That was just an added bonus.

~ ~ ~

On a day such as this, Logan found himself cycling through a few new potential outfit combinations. The first was composed of primarily pinks and blues. The large pink sweater combined with the denim blue short-shorts and the knee-high baseball socks gave off a very “youthful” vibe. Although it was a style he’d grown relatively fond of, the logical Side thought it best reserved for game nights. Distracting Roman with the matching bow necklace was the only way he could beat the prince at “Kirby” after all.

The second outfit was far classier and mimicked the logical Side’s natural style better, matching a halter neckline, tight-fit purple top with a dark pencil skirt. It was not that Logan had any outright objections to the outfit, but rather that one simply does not indulge Patton in a game of “Patton-cake” then wear a pair of four-inch high-heels the very next day. Unfortunately for him, those were the only shoes that could match such an outfit.

The final outfit Logan tried and eventually settled on was perhaps the most vibrant of the lot. The trousers were nothing to marvel at as they were nothing more than a standard full-length denim pair with a simple brown leather belt holding them up at the waist. The top and shoes, however? Now those were something to marvel at.

The top Logan chose was a bright, yellow crop-top with the word “Honey” written on it in bold, red letters. Reaching only half-way down his chest, the crop-top didn’t leave much to the imagination when it came to the logical Side’s toned physique. The shoes Logan selected to match such a spectacle of a top were no less eye-catching. On his feet the logical Side wore a pair of floral high-tops with a simple black sole and lace. The flowers themselves were all various complimentary shades of creams, yellows and pinks, and should the light catch the well-maintained surface at just the right angle, then the shoes would shine as if demanding further attention.

Logan cast one final look at himself in his bedroom mirror before deciding the look was complete, stepping out of his room, and setting his sights on Roman’s.

~ ~ ~

If there was one thing Logan had come to realize about Roman, it was that he was often heard long before he could be seen. Today was no exception.

From the moment he dared to set foot inside the creative Side’s domain, Logan could clearly hear the sound of music pouring out from somewhere within the bedroom, yet upon looking around he saw no one. He scratched the back of his head in contemplation as his eyes did another quick scan around the room, only to notice that the door of Roman’s walk-in wardrobe had been left slightly ajar.

“Princey?” Logan called out.

There was no response. It seemed as though his partner hadn’t heard him over the sound of “Dancing Queen.” Great. Mentally, Logan added the word “distracting” to the list of reasons as to why he disliked musicals.

He called out to his partner again as he took another few steps towards the walk-in wardrobe, this time gaining enough attention to make Roman stop singing, and to turn the music on his speaker down significantly.

“Is somebody there?”

Just before Logan could reach out and open the door completely, Roman stepped out into his bedroom. Each man looked startled for just a moment before their pride forced them into maintaining a straight face.

“Princey.”

“Teach.”

The pair smiled fondly at each other before Roman raised his hands up to rest them gently on Logan’s bare forearms.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” the prince inquired.

“Can’t one boyfriend simply wish to visit another?”

“Under normal circumstances perhaps, but the boyfriend in question is you, and you typically avoid me when I’m in a musical mood?”

“My sincerest apologies for not hearing your music from my room.”

“My sincerest apologies for not playing my music loud enough.”

At that, Logan couldn’t help but roll his eyes, causing the prince to let out a small chuckle. It was not long ago that the royal Side had hated seeing the logical Side’s eyes roll like that. He had always feared Logan was silently calling his intelligence into question when he rolled his eyes so nonchalantly, but now, having come to understand his “darling” on a deeper level, Roman knew that that was never the case. He and Logan were equals. The eye-rolling was now just another form of playful banter to them.

“If I ever hear your music all the way from my room, I assure you you’ll hear me coming.”

“Dutifully noted,” Roman replied as his hands gently glided down Logan’s arms, eventually clasping their hands together.

For a moment, Logan was able to just silently relax and appreciate the man stood there before him… and then Roman kept talking…

“Care to dance?”

“In your dreams.”

“With you, every day’s a dream,” he attempted.

“Cute, but you can dream on. I’m not dancing.”

With that, Logan pulled his hands gently out of Roman’s grasp and took a few steps backwards, offering his partner a playfully scolding look as he did so.

“You know I don’t dance.”

“It was worth a try.”

The pair smiled at each other again. From this distance they could finally get a good look at each other.

It seemed the prince was also trying on a new outfit today, as casual-wear wasn’t typically his style. Roman was dressed very similarly to Logan. He too wore long denim jeans, albeit in a darker shade. The yellow shirt was also a similar item, however, Roman’s was plain and longer, meeting his jeans at the waist. Not only that, but he had elected to wear an open dark blue shirt over the top, which just about reached down to the bottom of his posterior. Finally, he wore a simple black pair of converse on his feet, both the soles and laces of which were a pristine white colour.

The more Logan looked at Roman, the more he couldn’t help but smile wider. According to Newton’s first law of motion an object in motion will stay in motion unless some other force acts to change said motion. To Logan’s heart, Roman was always that adequate force that made it skip a beat.

The more Roman looked at Logan, the more difficult it was to hold back the oncoming blush. Logan usually appeared to dress so formally and reserved, so seeing him like that was always a pleasant surprise. This impossible man was just full of surprises… If only it weren’t impossible to see him dance.

It was then that Roman’s eyes finally caught sight of the phrase on Logan’s shirt.

“Honey.” One simple word printed there in bold, red letters.

One simple word placed directly in front of him.

One simple word was all he needed.

~ ~ ~

The only warning Logan received came in the form of a playful smirk from Roman before the aforementioned prince spun around and re-directed his attention back towards his speaker.

At this point Logan was confused. He knew how his partner adored their music, but it was highly unlike Roman to ignore him in favour of it.

“Roman?” he questioned, only vaguely masking the annoyance creeping into his tone of voice.

“Just a moment, love,” he responded, sounding far too chipper for Logan’s comfort.

Logan responded with only a faint frown, but listened as Roman skipped through various songs time and time again. Sometimes he only caught a chord or the beginning of a word. One time all he heard was Meryl Streep exhale. This routine continued until eventually…

“Perfect,” Roman muttered to himself, finally turning away from his speaker and all but waltzing up to Logan with a benevolent smirk on his face.

“What are you up to?” Logan asked, knowing far better than to blindly accept any one of Roman’s schemes.

“You’ll see.”

Somehow Logan didn’t find any reassurance in that sentiment, but before he could even try to get another word in… he heard it…

‘Honey, honey, how he thrills me, a-ha, honey, honey!’

Logan’s eyes widened in horror.

‘Honey, honey, nearly kills me, a-ha, honey, honey!’

Logan opens his mouth to protest, but Roman won’t allow it. In what is almost a blur of movement, Roman takes Logan’s hands in his own again, and this time there is no easy escape.

“Roman!” Logan yells, but it’s no use. Roman is too pre-occupied with singing along to respond to Logan’s pleas.

“I've heard about him before,

I wanted to know some more,

And now I know what they mean, he's a love machine,

Oh, he makes me dizzy!”

Logan lets out a not-so-dignified yelp as Roman suddenly decides to twirl them around together. The world around him becomes an indistinguishable blur as he quickly finds the only thing his eyes can concentrate on anymore is Roman.

Goodness, this moment had the potential to be so much more romantic if only the logical Side wasn’t being tossed around against his will.

“Roman!” Logan yelled again, this time harshly pulling his hands away.

Fortunately for him, his attempt at an escape had proven to be quite successful.

Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t exactly formulated a plan regarding what should be done if he were to escape mid-twirl.

The world continued to spin as the logical Side stumbled backwards, barely managing to keep himself balanced until the prince himself managed to catch him in a dip.

Yet another potentially beautiful romantic moment tragically tainted by circumstance.

“What will it take to make you stop?” Logan asked, sounding both out of breath and exasperated.

Roman seemed to ponder over his words for a moment.

“One dance,” the prince eventually answered, then upon noticing Logan’s quizzical look he continued, “One dance, and if you don’t enjoy it then I promise you I will never ask you to dance again.”

“Or force me?”

“Or force you.”

Logan started weighing out his options in his head. True, dancing didn’t sound particularly enjoyable, but if it meant escaping his partner’s constant invitations then wouldn’t that make the trade-off worth it? Besides, Roman certainly seemed amused by all of this if his smile was anything to go by. Of course he’d still have to discuss boundaries with the prince later as forcing him into situations like these certainly violated them, but for now… for now he believed he could tolerate the prince’s wishes…

As the music played on, the prince continued to look at him expectantly.

“I know I’m not going to enjoy this,” Logan began, “But if I have your word that you’ll never ask me to dance again-”

“You do,” Roman interrupted.

“-Then I suppose I can endure this one dance with you.”

Roman smiled gently as he guided Logan back into a standing position.

“You won’t regret this.”

Each man certainly hoped so. After all, Roman had bet everything on this one opportunity.

~ ~ ~

By the time the deal was made, “Honey, Honey” was already half-way through the second verse. To make matters fair, Logan allowed Roman to rewind the song back to the beginning, just this once.

Rushing back over to Logan’s side with an arrogant smirk on his face, the royal instructed Logan to just, “Follow my lead.”

“And how do you suppose someone could possibly lead their dance partner to the song, ‘Honey, Honey’ if I may be so skeptical as to ask?” Logan chided.

“Just keep your eyes locked on mine, and let the music be your guide.”

Logan elected to ignore that “High School Musical Three” reference in favour of not wanting to punch Roman right in his perfect teeth. With all the rhythm of a startled elephant, he attempted to follow Roman’s instructions.

“Well that’s certainly… something…”

“That’s nerves. This dancing business gets on every last one of them.”

“That’s not the way dancing should be.”

“Well your instructions didn’t exactly teach me much, now did they?”

With a slight sigh, Roman stopped dancing himself.

“First of all you need to relax. You’ll never find your rhythm with your muscles so tensed up like that.”

“You’re making the dangerous assumption that there’s actually any rhythm to find which, in my honest opinion, sounds like an utterly ludicrous hypothesis.”

“Then allow me to prove you wrong. Come here,” the prince instructed, gesturing to the space directly in front of him.

Logan hesitantly obliged.

“Perfect, now turn around so that your back is lightly pressed against my chest.”

“Like this?” Logan asked, slowly moving into position.

“That’s perfect, darling. Just like that.”

As gently as he could manage, Roman slipped his arm around the waist of the man in front of him, causing the pair to blush slightly. His other hand rested lightly on Logan’s forearm.

“Now I want you to just listen to the music. Find your rhythm, and sway your hips in time to it. I’ll be here to help keep you right, okay?”

Listen to the music. Find your rhythm. Sway your hips.

Logan could try that.

“Okay,” he answered, before turning his attention back towards the speaker.

‘Honey, honey, let me feel it, ah-ha, honey, honey!’

He started with two subtle sways to the words “Honey, honey,” each time he heard the phrase. Just behind him he could feel Roman mimicking his movements with only a little more energy.

‘Honey, honey, don't conceal it, ah-ha, honey, honey!’

Attempting to do as Amanda Seyfried sang, Logan’s movements became more invigorated, his hips almost popping from side to side with the beat. Now he could practically feel Roman smiling just behind his ear. He knew he must have been doing something right.

“The way that you kiss goodnight!”

As much as Logan attempted to restrain himself, he couldn’t entirely quell the sneaking smile that crept back onto his face as Roman resumed singing.

“The way that you hold me tight!”

He didn’t miss the way Roman’s hold on his waist subtly tightened as if he were subconsciously obeying the lyrics.

“I feel like I wanna sing when you do your... thing!”

Nor could he ignore Roman’s somewhat hilarious attempt to replicate the way Amanda Seyfried had sang the word “thing.” It was clear he had attempted to go for the laughing effect, but it sounded more like he was about to choke than anything. Either way it succeeded in making Logan laugh along too.

As the instrumental break kicked in, Logan could feel Roman gently resting their head against his.

“Feeling more at ease?”

“Well, I suppose this isn’t as bad as I’d imagined it would be.”

“Would you say it’s even a pleasant enough experience for you to sing-along with me?”

“Don’t push your luck, honey,” Logan playfully scolded.

The prince feigned an offended scoff, but still took pride in the little victory he had achieved. Even though he’d had to strike a deal just to get this far, it was nice to see his partner so laid-back like this. More than once he had concerned himself with Logan’s apparent lack of movement and typically awful posture. Surely hunching over books all day couldn’t be good for anyone’s well-being. Perhaps if he made this experience enjoyable enough for Logan, he could make a dance partner out of him yet.

All thoughts of the future were banished however when the third verse dragged him back to the present.

“Honey, honey, touch me baby, a-ha, honey, honey!”

As if on cue, Roman’s other hand slid away from Logan’s forearm and up to the sleeve of his crop-top. With a gentle tug, he prompted the man to outstretch his arm so that it was held far out from his side.

“Honey, honey, hold me baby, a-ha, honey, honey!”

His hand then traversed down Logan’s side, guiding the man’s movements and encouraging an additional flair in every step the pair took together. With his partner’s encouragement, Logan started moving his abdomen is small circles, round and around to the beat.

“You look like a movie star,

But I like just who you are,

And, honey, to say the least... you're a doggone beast!”

Finally, Roman’s right hand landed firmly on Logan’s hips, directly opposite to the left, before each hand slipped forward in order to clasp together in front of Logan’s belly button. While keeping a strong hold on the man, Roman used all his strength to lift his partner up off the ground and spin him around.

Logan only gave a faint yelp before laughing breathlessly, and allowing his feet to hover slightly off of the ground. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was finally placing his trust in Roman, or if all of his adrenaline had just suddenly kicked in, but it didn’t matter. In just a moment it was all over, and his feet were planted firmly back on the ground. Behind him, he could feel Roman catching his breath, causing him to smirk.

“I haven’t tired you out with all this dancing, have I?” he teased.

“In your dreams.”

“With you, every day’s a dream.”

“…Cute…”

Roman’s left hand moved back into its original position and rewrapped itself around Logan’s waist, meanwhile he rested his right hand on the man’s side, ensuring his partner had to keep their right arm outstretched.

“Keep your right arm bent, starlight,” Roman instructed.

“Like… this…?”

“Not quite… Make the bend a gentle curve, not a sudden drop.”

“Is this okay?”

“That’s perfect.”

Before Logan could ask any more questions, he felt a light pressure on his right thumb and index finger. Looking down in confusion, he soon noticed that the source of the pressure was coming from Roman’s own hand, but it didn’t appear as though he were trying to clasp their hands together again. Upon closer inspection, Logan realized his partner’s true ambitions. Not far from Logan’s hips, Roman had joined the pair’s thumbs and index fingers together, creating a small heart shape between them.

“You dork,” Logan commented, laughing softly to himself as he turned his head as far as he could to face Roman, his left hand gently cupping the blushing man’s cheek.

“Guilty as charged.”

The logical Side offered his partner a faint smile before lightly kissing their cheek.

‘Honey, honey, how he thrilled me, ah-ha, honey, honey!’

The song was nearly over now, but Roman was never one to be outdone.

‘Honey, honey, nearly killed me, ah-ha, honey, honey!’

This time, the hand wrapped around Logan’s waist moved slowly, so that Logan was gradually brought face-to-face with the prince.

‘I'd heard about you before,

I wanted to know some more,’

Each man smiled warmly at each other. For as spontaneous as Roman tried to be, even he could be largely predictable. While gently resting their noses against each other’s, Logan waited expectantly for his partner to make the first move.

And now I'm about to see,

What you mean to me.’

Their kiss was soft, sweet, simple, and lasted for only a brief moment before the pair parted, each taking a step back as the song came to an end.

~ ~ ~

A single moment of calm hung in the air before Roman dismantled it with his typical flair for the theatrics and need to be over-dramatic.

With an overly exasperated sigh and grand gesture the prince announced, “You kept your end of the bargain. Now I… I promise I will never ask nor force you to dance ever again.”

In his mind, Logan just wanted to say ‘Thank you,’ but his heart wouldn’t allow for it. There was no way he could stare directly into the prince’s dejected eyes and betray his end of the bargain. He felt a twinge of regret already settling in before he even let the truth slip, but continued anyway.

“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.”

Now looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Roman could only ask, “What do you mean?”

A half-smile made its way onto Logan’s face.

“I meant as I said. You don’t need to entirely abandon your pursuits of converting me into your dance partner yet.”

“I don’t understand. We made a deal. A prince always keeps his word, Logan.”

“If my recollection of events serves me well – which let’s face it, it always does – then we agreed you were only to stop asking me to dance in the event that I… in the event that I did not enjoy this one dance with you.”

One could practically hear the gears turning in Roman’s head as the aforementioned prince mulled over this newly acquired information. If his boyfriend had truly meant what he said, then that meant-

“You enjoyed our dance?” he asked, his tone one of disbelief.

Logan quirked an eyebrow.

“This surprises you?”

“Admittedly it does. Just a little bit.”

Typical.

“Well, while calling our little dancing escapade ‘enjoyable’ may be a slight overstatement, I must admit I… I didn’t find it to be an entirely terrible or regrettable experience either. Besides, dancing is a valid form of exercise so-”

“So you’ll dance with me again?”

“Well, I’ll certainly consider it.”

Roman nodded his head slightly. There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes. No more words were needed to convey his gratitude.

“Just don’t expect me to dance with you publicly. Force me into a public dancing session and I doubt I’ll be able to vouch for your continued survival.”

“Of course, mi querido. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Logan knew that statement wasn’t entirely true. Sometimes his prince couldn’t help where his mind wandered, but he wasn’t about to tarnish this pleasant moment with more factual information.

Of course his mind was still full of uncertainties.

Would he honestly be able to dance with Roman again?

Would he ever become an adequate dance partner?

Would Roman even be willing to continue teaching him?

Those were questions he couldn’t quite answer yet, but, if dancing had taught him anything today, it was that whatever step he and his partner both took next, they would both take it together to the beat of their hearts.

Perhaps musical clichés weren’t so bad after all.

~ ~ ~

General Tag-List:

@lunamay2006 @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @saphael-malec102

Note: It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a fic, so this tag-list may be a little outdated. If at any point you want to be added/removed from my tag-list then feel free to let me know!

As always, feedback is much appreciated! I was pretty out of practice here, so I’m sure I’d benefit a lot from constructive criticism! I hope you’re all have a fan-der-tastic day!

#Sanders Sides #Logan Sanders #Roman Sanders #Logince #My Fic

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riga789 · 7 years ago

Text

Complicated Mating Rituals

Work on chapter 8 of Won't You Dance With Me is in progress. Meanwhile, here's something else that's been sitting in my WIP folder for a while that should probably see the light of day.

Summary: Zay has been watching the pining and angst-filled drama between Maya and Lucas play out for three years. And though he’s generally a sucker for slow-burn romances, he has to admit it’s infinitely more frustrating in real life than it is in books or TV shows or movies.

In which Zay is sick of watching Lucas and Maya dance around each other, and wants to do something about it. But Smackle counsels patience and non-interference.

Meanwhile, there's one love life he didn't foresee popping into existence: his own.

Read on ao3 | ff.net

It’s the summer before junior year, and Maya, Lucas, Zay, Smackle, and Farkle are spending the last couple of weeks of their holidays at Farkle’s parents’ beach house in the Hamptons. Riley and the entire Matthews clan are vacationing in Maui, and Mr. and Mrs. Minkus are in Europe. So it’s just the five of them in the huge oceanfront mansion that has more than ten bedrooms, breathtaking views from every window, balcony, and porch, and a private beach.

In the week that they’ve been here, they have taken full advantage of the house and its amenities. They’ve devoted most of their days to the beach, lazing on deck chairs under big blue and white striped umbrellas or swimming in the sea, returning to the house for big, wholesome lunches made by the housekeeper-cook, Mrs. Grady (whose husband is the butler. The Gradys are the live-in caretakers at the beach house, and their chaperones for the duration of this vacation.).

The five of them have played video games, pool (where Maya kicked everyone’s collective butts), binge-watched TV shows and marathoned movies, tried their hand at tennis, relaxed by the swimming pool, and gone for midnight walks on the beach. Smackle has spent nearly all her non-group time in the library, Maya is on a mission to draw, sketch, paint, and photograph every view from the house, and Lucas, Zay and Farkle are halfway through a prolonged game of CoD involving a zombie invasion.

It’s exactly what they need: a nice, relaxing, uneventful holiday before the madness of school, classes, and extracurricular activities takes over their lives again for the rest of the year.

At least, it should have been a nice, relaxing, uneventful holiday. So far, for Zay, it’s been anything but. And it’s all thanks to his two best friends, Maya and Lucas.

Zay is usually pretty patient when it comes to his friends. He’s content to sit back and watch the shenanigans ensue, the drama unfold — and there’s no dearth of either with his group, especially when Riley is around. It actually makes for quality entertainment.

But he has been watching this pining and angst-filled drama between Maya and Lucas play out for three years. And though he’s generally a sucker for slow-burn romances, he has to admit it’s infinitely more frustrating in real life than it is in books or TV shows or movies.

So Zay is fed up. He can’t take it anymore. He’s reached the end of his tether. It makes him want to tear his hair out.

“You have mentioned that,” Isadora says, not looking up from the brick-thick book in her lap. “Fourteen times in the last nine minutes and forty seven seconds.”

They are in Mr. Minkus’s study/library, where Isadora ensconced herself a little while ago, and Zay came looking for her to vent his frustration after witnessing yet another bout of stare-at-them-longingly-but-look-away-before-they-catch-you-looking between Lucas and Maya.

Zay has spent quite a lot of time with Smackle in the recent weeks, especially after they arrived in the Hamptons. It’s mainly because Maya and Lucas are being Maya and Lucas, and Farkle is spending a lot of time by himself watching space documentaries. (Zay thinks this is because Farkle misses Riley, with whom he had some sort of a fight before she left for Maui, and now he’s feeling sorry about the fight and sorrier for himself because he and Riley aren’t exactly talking, while she and Maya call and text each other all the time.) In short, Isadora is the only sane one around, not to mention she’s quirky and funny and has a great sense of humour. Zay has always got along well with her, and lately they seem to be getting along like a house on fire, so he’s not complaining.

She looks at him and raises an eyebrow, and he realizes he’s been staring at her. He quickly looks away, thanking his stars that his blush doesn’t show on his skin, (though he’s not sure why he’s blushing), and returns to the topic of his pique: Maya and Lucas.

“That’s because it’s true!” He exclaims a tad dramatically. He stops his circular pacing around Mr. Minkus’s desk and chair (currently occupied by Smackle) to stand and gaze out of the large window behind her.

It’s drizzling outside — it’s been raining for the past couple of days — and after being cooped together indoors for so long, everyone has wandered off to spend the afternoon by themselves as they please. Which Zay is fervently thankful for because he doesn’t think he can handle another minute of Maya and Lucas’s charged silences and tense faces.

“I just can’t see them hurting like this anymore,” he says. “All I’m saying is we should lock them together in the pantry, or in a closet or something — god knows there’s enough of those in this house! — and not let them out until they tell each other how they feel.”

Giving up on getting any peaceful reading done when Zay is so worked up, Smackle sighs and closes the book, leaving her finger in between to mark her page.

“Did you know that when researchers, documentary filmmakers, and wildlife photographers study a natural habitat, they are not supposed to interfere or influence the flora and fauna? They must only observe the manner in which the subjects function and interact, because the deliberate introduction of any external factor will cause a change in their natural response — their normal behaviour — to the situation.”

Zay turns around to face her, hiding a smile. Trust Isadora Smackle to use a science analogy to present her argument. “Don’t you think the natural response of our fauna so far has only been to fuck up their situation worse?”

“They have had a significant amount of external assistance,” she reminds him. “I am sure you are aware, even if you were not present, that on New Year’s in eighth grade my former arch-lovesis and once again platonic arch-nemesis decided he knew the correct solution to the triangle based on the value of only one side, with complete disregard for the values — the feelings — of the other two sides of the triangle when he announced that Riley still liked Lucas.”

Zay winces at the memory of Lucas recounting that night to him. Well intentioned or not, that was definitely a pretty bad fuck-up on Farkle’s part.

“Or Riley insisting that Maya only liked Lucas because she had ‘become Riley’,” Smackle continues, curling her fingers to make air quotes.

There’s no missing the sarcasm in her tone.

“And that putting Maya ‘back in her place’—” (more sarcasm and more air quotes) “—would automatically solve the triangle problem. As a straight A student, Riley should have been aware that such a hypothesis has no logic, and no basis in fact and reality. No individual can become another person. Such a phenomenon is scientifically impossible, even when the individual is cloned, in which case they would be genetically identical but still different individuals. And Maya and Riley have zero genetic similarities. Of course, the only solution to the triangle Riley would have accepted back then was where Lucas chose her and not Maya. And since she correctly perceived that was an unlikely possibility, her brain constructed such an absurd theory.”

Zay has to really concentrate to follow what Isadora’s saying, but when he works it out, he has to admit she has a point. But— “Actions and problems based on human emotions don’t always have clear scientific solutions like a math or a physics problem, sugar,” he says gently.

“I am aware of that,” she replies. “Science does not dictate feelings. Emotions cannot be quantified into scientific equations. I am learning that more and more from you guys every day. But neither Farkle’s nor Riley’s actions in those two instances were correct, Isaiah. You do not disagree with me on that, do you?”

“No,” Zay admits.

“Which is why non-interference is our best and most favourable course of action.”

Izzy is right. Farkle and Riley’s meddling has caused enough trouble for Maya and Lucas in the past. And as much as Zay wants to lock Maya and Lucas together in a small confined space until they confess their feelings for each other, he knows it’s not the right thing to do.

Smackle pats his hand. “I am aware that this frustrates you. But just think of it as observing a complicated mating ritual. That is what I do.”

Zay snorts in laughter at the image her words create. But then he notices her tapping her finger on the iPad she carries everywhere to make notes and record observations, and suddenly he isn’t sure she meant that as a joke. And he’s even more unnerved by the fact that he finds the idea of Izzy carefully documenting their friends’ behaviour quirky and endearing rather than weird (and maybe a little creepy). He briefly wonders if she has a file on him too, and what it might say. Deciding he doesn’t really want to examine that line of thought right now, he turns his thoughts back to the more immediate matter at hand: Maya and Lucas.

It’s just difficult for him not to meddle, he thinks as he starts pacing around the desk and Smackle’s chair again, because he’s the only one who knows both sides of the story. He knows why Maya believes Lucas doesn’t have feelings for her, that he only likes her as a friend (all thanks to some carelessly thrown around words during their ski lodge trip back in freshman year). And he’s quite familiar with Lucas’s constant refusals (that usually have nothing to do with whatever topic they happen to be discussing at that moment) to tell Maya how he feels about her because he firmly believes “she doesn’t like me like that anymore, Zay”. No one can fault him for wanting to get his dumb-dumb friends together once and for all.

But he can’t say or do a thing because both Lucas and Maya made him promise not to tell anyone, especially Maya and especially Lucas, that they still have feelings for the other person. (On the same evening, at the same event, no less: the sophomore year school dance. But that’s another story.)

Since both of them had threatened him with bodily harm — Lucas had gone as far as to threaten to throw him into Tombstone’s enclosure, but Maya’s chilling “You won’t know what hit you, Babineaux!” was far more effective — Zay had agreed to keep his mouth shut even though it’s killing him. (Though he’s quite offended that they think he can’t keep a secret!)

He’s pretty sure the need for secrecy is redundant, though.

For one, neither Lucas nor Maya are anywhere near as successful at hiding their feelings for each other as they think they are. In fact, the only ones supposedly oblivious to the other one’s feelings are Lucas and Maya themselves. Even Mr. and Mrs. Grady, the live-in caretakers of Farkle’s beach house, have asked Zay whether Maya and Lucas are dating because of their constant flirty banter and all the not-so-secret glances.

And neither of their two genius friends can have missed the way Lucas’s jaw dropped when he saw Maya in a swimsuit on their first day at the beach. (And pretty much every other time after that.) Zay had to nudge his best friend to stop him from being so obvious. “Put your eyes back in your head, buddy.”

Lucas had snapped out of his daze. “I’m not staring at Maya.”

“Never said who you were staring at,” Zay smirked. “Also, close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”

(He hopes no one noticed that he had pretty much the same reaction earlier when he first saw Smackle in that green bathing suit!)

A couple of afternoons later, they’d ended up watching The Longest Ride (okay, Zay had deliberately picked that movie when it had been his turn to choose). It hadn’t exactly worked the way he’d imagined, though. Instead of seeing themselves in the characters of Sophia and Luke, having an epiphany, and confessing their feelings for each other, Maya sat through most of the movie stony-faced while Lucas couldn’t stop fidgeting and glancing at her every two seconds.

But despite his subtle meddling (he can’t help himself! And yes, it was subtle!), Zay knows Maya and Lucas need to figure this out on their own. More importantly, they need to want to be together of their own free will, and want it enough to actively work towards it.

Or more accurately, as Zay sees it, this is mostly up to Lucas, since he was the one who screwed up by telling Maya at the ski lodge that he didn’t like that they tangled without clarifying what he really meant, leaving Maya under the mistaken impression that she’d misunderstood his feelings for her.

Maya isn’t going to believe Lucas still likes her — more than likes her, since by now Zay’s convinced his best friend is more than halfway in love with her — unless she hears and sees it from Lucas himself.

The worst part of Lucas and Maya’s refusal to declare their feelings for each other is the resulting unresolved sexual tension. It usually takes the form of relentless teasing and bantering, but sometimes escalates to sudden, heated fights, like the one they had just a couple of days ago.

Maya made a passing remark about one of Josh Matthews’ college friends being dreamy, which pissed Lucas off enough to make a snarky comment about it. (Lucas’s severe dislike of Josh — despite Maya being well and truly over him — is no secret.) This made Maya snap at him about how it wasn’t any of his business who she liked and to keep his opinions to himself.

Instead of wisely shutting up and changing the subject, (because Lucas is rarely wise when it involves Maya and his feelings for her), Lucas defended himself by claiming he was only looking out for her, which made Maya really blow up. She’d stormed out of the room, but not before informing him that she neither needed nor cared for his protection, and that he could shove it you know where, leaving behind an enraged Lucas, a resigned Zay, two awkward geniuses, and a ringing silence.

Smackle and Farkle had both showed no outward reactions. But Zay noticed that while Farkle had looked on with narrowed eyes, as if he was trying to solve a puzzling problem, Isadora had watched them closely, as if she was observing a science experiment.

That’s when he’d also realized that Isadora’s eyes are really beautiful and mesmerising, the deep, dark brown colour of chocolate brownies. And she has really pretty hair, like a river of the melted chocolate that Grandma Gandy uses while making his favourite cookies. But he should probably stop comparing her features to chocolate because it’s making him hungry.

Smackle’s voice interrupts Zay’s wandering thoughts. “Aha!” she exclaims, staring out of the window behind the desk, which overlooks the courtyard with the swimming pool. “Looks like you will not have to wait much longer after all, Isaiah!”

Zay scrambles around the table to join Izzy, whose face is pressed against the glass. There, standing by the edge of the pool and carrying a giant red umbrella, is Maya. And facing her, unbothered by the soft, misty drizzle, is Lucas.

Thanks to the drizzle, and the study/library being a floor above, Zay and Smackle can’t see Maya or Lucas’s faces very clearly. But the scowl on Maya’s face and the smirk on Lucas’s lips are unmistakeable. Because of the fixed window, the two watchers can’t hear a word of the conversation below either, but whatever Maya says makes Lucas smirk even wider.

Zay knows his best friend, he knows exactly why Lucas is radiating such smug satisfaction.

After their fight, Maya has cold-shouldered Lucas as much as possible. She hasn’t avoided his presence or ignored him outright, but she hasn’t spoken to him directly for two whole days, and Zay knows it’s making him miserable.

Confronting her like this, alone and outside in the rain where she can’t ignore him, is Lucas’s way of trying to get her to acknowledge him, to speak to him. The smug smirk plastered across his face is because he’s succeeded in getting her undivided attention. Plus, Maya seems irritated, which means she’s not unaffected by him. Which is why the smirk is wider.

Zay wants to hide his face behind his hands — he knows goading Maya into reacting can’t end well for Lucas. But he can’t not watch.

Lucas takes a step closer to Maya, and then another.

Zay holds his breath, and suddenly becomes aware that he and Isadora are clutching each other’s fingers. Her hand is small in his, but her grip is firm. He is completely distracted for a moment by how nice it feels, how soft her palm is. And he’s suddenly worried that his own hand is sweaty.

But just as he’s trying to decide what to do, how to react, to think around the way his heart is beating madly fast in his ears, Smackle lets out a huff of frustration. Zay quickly looks out of the window to see that Maya has shifted her hold on the umbrella, angling it in such a way that her and Lucas’s faces and the top halves of their bodies are hidden behind it. He swears (a little louder than he means to; Izzy’s hand is still gripping his, and he’s nervous), cursing the umbrella for obstructing their view.

They can’t really tell what’s going on now. All they can see are Lucas and Maya’s feet. When Lucas’s feet move another step closer to Maya’s, so that the owners of the said pairs of feet are almost standing toe to toe, Smackle lets out an extremely un-Smackle-like squeal that exactly mirrors Zay’s giddy excitement. Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! he wants to yell.

Instead, there’s a blur of motion, a flurry of action. Before they can comprehend what’s happening, there’s a loud splash as Lucas falls into the pool. Maya drops the umbrella and takes off in the opposite direction.

The two watchers just stare.

“Well,” Smackle says, releasing his hand.

Zay watches anxiously (and tries not to think about how he misses holding her hand), relaxing when his best friend surfaces, his hair streaming with water and plastered to his head, while Smackle presses her face to the window pane to follow Maya’s flight. She sees Maya head for one of the doors that leads back inside the house before turning her attention to the sight of a dripping Lucas as he emerges from the pool.

Zay notices her expression, and feels a sudden streak of pure irritation surge through him. “Will you stop ogling at him! You’ve seen him shirtless several times already!”

Smackle looks at him as if she’s pitying his intelligence. “Why would I deprive myself of such an appealing sight, regardless of how many instances I have witnessed it before? And why does it bother you anyway?”

Zay has no answer except that, for some reason, it does bother him. So he just grumbles as he leaves the room.

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

Zay finds Lucas in the bathroom of the room they share. He’s changed out of his wet clothes, but is yet to put on a t-shirt. He’s sat on the edge of the bathtub, drying his hair with a towel, scowling at the floor.

“Must you wander around shirtless?” Zay asks, exasperated.

“I didn’t know the sight of my bare chest affected you so much,” Lucas deadpans.

“Har har.” Everybody’s a comedian, Zay thinks. “That was just to warn you. You’re the one who complains when Smackle flirts with you.”

“Why does it sound like you’re more bothered by that than I am?”

“Pfft I’m not bothered. Why would I be bothered by Smackle flirting with you? She’s been doing it since before I moved to New York. Of course I’m not bothered.”

But it does bother Zay, so he changes the subject. “So,” he nods at Lucas’s state, “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Zay just raises an eyebrow.

Lucas sighs. “She’s so—” He cuts himself off with a snarl of frustration.

“Why? Because she told you she didn’t care for your opinion on Josh and his friends? Or did you try to woo her with your horse-birthing story again? Because then if I was her, I’d push you into the pool too.”

Lucas flings his towel to the floor in fury and surges to his feet. “I’m just trying to look out for her, why doesn’t she get that?”

“Why don’t you just tell her you have feelings for her?”

“I don’t have feelings for Maya,” he says sulkily, being contrary just because.

Zay snorts. “Right. And I’m in love with Smackle.”

Lucas gives him a weird look as he pulls on a t-shirt.

Zay notices. “What?”

“You have been spending a lot of time with her lately.” Lucas points out.

“That’s because I can’t take anymore of your and Maya’s drama. It’s more painful than a visit to the dentist!”

Farkle enters, a bowl of popcorn in his hands. “What did you do, Freakface?”

“Maya’s the one who pushed me into the pool.”

“Did you tell her that story again about how you gave birth to a horse, because—”

Lucas growls.

Farkle takes a step back hurriedly. “Just checking.”

“How do you know what happened anyway?” Zay asks Farkle, reaching for some of his popcorn. “I thought you were going to spend the afternoon in your home theatre watching space documentaries?”

“I was.” For a second, Farkle’s expression darkens before clearing up again. “But I went to get a snack, and saw the whole thing from the kitchen windows.” He grins. “Maya’s a lot stronger than she appears. Did you see how she just shoved him into the pool?”

He mimics the sounds of a yell and a loud splash, then grins proudly, as if he’s personally responsible for Maya’s feat of strength.

Zay wants to laugh, but Lucas looks seriously unamused, so he swallows his chuckle. “Lucas here needs advice on how to make things okay with Maya again.”

“I do not!”

“Well, we’re still going give it to you, buddy, because I, for one, am sick of watching you two bicker.”

“Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” Farkle asks.

“I don’t have feelings for Maya.” Lucas lies with much more conviction this time.

“Sure,” Farkle nods. “You don’t have feelings for her. That’s why you looked like you were imagining ripping me apart with your bare hands for dancing with her at the winter formal.”

“That was before I knew it was you!”

Lucas’s eyes widen the minute the words are out of his mouth. Zay and Farkle snicker at him, and he narrows his eyes.

“Look,” Farkle says after a moment, his tone uncharacteristically sombre, at odds with his lighthearted ragging mere seconds ago, “All I’m saying is that if she doesn’t feel the same way, you can go back to wallowing in your misery like you’re doing right now, except you’ll know for sure that she doesn’t like you. It’s better than being like this just because you’re too afraid to tell her how you feel.”

There’s an awkward pause as Farkle looks out of the window, and Lucas and Zay exchange uncomfortable glances.

It’s obvious that Farkle is speaking from personal experience. And Zay, being as astute as he is, doesn’t need Smackle-level genius to deduce that this has something to do with Farkle’s fight with Riley. He’s not sure, though, whether Farkle is urging Lucas to tell Maya how he feels because he has already done the same with Riley himself (and possibly learned that she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, though Zay doesn’t believe that for even a second), or because he wishes he had.

Clearly Farkle needs some serious cheering up — whatever has been bugging him, he has hidden it successfully enough so far that no one suspected how much it’s really bothering him. But Zay knows his friends. The easiest way to get Farkle’s mind off his own problems right now is to focus his attention on something else. And how handy that they have a dumb-dumb friend who desperately needs their help.

Except Farkle’s plan has a slight flaw.

“How is telling him that it might be a lose-lose situation supposed to encourage him?” Zay demands.

Farkle turns to Lucas and raises his eyebrows even as he dips his hand into the bowl for more popcorn.

Lucas sighs. “No, Farkle’s right. I should just tell her.”

What.

Zay stares at him. “I’ve been after you to tell Maya how you feel before I even moved to New York, and Farkle’s right?”

“Hey, I’m his best friend, and I know how he thinks.” Farkle beams, seemingly having bounced back to his usual cheerful self.

“Wait a minute,” Zay protests, “I’m his best friend.”

“If you were his best friend, you’d know that sometimes the only way to get Freakface to do something is to call him a chicken.”

“Hey, I don’t need a reason to call him a freak or a chicken!” Zay claps Farkle on his shoulder as they share a laugh.

“Okay, guys. Who are supposed to be my best friends,” Lucas interjects, “Can we get back to my problem here?”

“It’s not rocket science,” Zay tells him, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, listen to him. He hangs out enough with Smackle to know by now what’s rocket science and what isn’t,” Farkle quips.

Zay eyes his two friends suspiciously, trying to decide why that statement sounds like it’s poking fun at him. He doesn’t buy their innocent expressions, especially as Lucas just tried to pass off a snort as a cough, and Farkle is trying (and failing) to suppress amusement of indeterminate origin. (Shit, he must be spending too much time with Smackle, he’s even beginning to think in her words.) But he decides Farkle is merely making an observation, one that is in no way incorrect.

“Exactly,” he says, turning to Lucas. “Listen to Zay the wise! Just take Maya down to the beach tomorrow morning before breakfast, when it’s all calm and quiet and peaceful and fresh, and tell her how you feel about her.”

“Okay.” Lucas takes a couple of deep breaths, like a diver before going underwater, as if he’s gearing himself to go find their blonde friend and talk to her immediately. “Find Maya. Take her to the beach. Tell her how I feel. That’s it. Easy peasy.”

But he looks green, as if he’s going to be sick.

“Perfect!” Farkle finishes the last of his popcorn. “Now, I need to go find my former arch-lovesis and once again platonic arch-nemesis—”

“Why?” Zay interrupts, realizing a second later how abrupt he sounds.

“....Because I want to discuss this hypothesis we have about—”

“Oh, just science then.” Zay holds up his hand, inexplicably relieved for some reason that he does not want to examine. “Say no more!”

“You should come along, it might interest you.”

Zay chuckles. “Since when have I ever been interested in science?”

“I thought you might be, since Smackle’s going to be there.”

“What?”

“Uh.. nothing?” Farkle edges away nervously.

“Damn right it’s nothing!”

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

Zay does go looking for Smackle (and Farkle!) a while later. But he doesn’t find them anywhere until they arrive together for dinner, which sours his mood.

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

Contrary to Zay’s expectations, Lucas isn’t able to lure Maya down to the beach the next morning, or even the morning after that. Consequently, he has to endure two whole days more of Lucas’s looks of longing and desperation, and Maya’s impatience with everyone, but especially Lucas. And if that isn’t bad enough, Smackle seems to have decided that the best way to cover up the awkwardness caused by their two friends’ silent feud is by flirting with Lucas as much as possible.

For some reason, this irks Zay more than anything else. His best friend is supposed to be focused on Maya. Instead, he hangs out with Smackle all day, genially laughing off her attempts at flirting instead of discouraging her like he used to, and joking around with her and Farkle, the latter having seemingly decided to hop on the “let’s-annoy-Zay” bandwagon as well. Only Maya seems to find them just as irritating, something that is evident from the way she glares daggers at everyone.

So, it’s a very grumpy Zay and Maya who make their way down to the kitchen for breakfast a couple of mornings later.

And they arrive just in time to witness Smackle yank Lucas forward by his shirt collar Maya-style and plant one on him.

Zay gapes.

Everything seems to blur around him. All he can do is stare, horrified, as Isadora Smackle kisses his best friend. On the mouth. He can feel a hot wave of shock — and... anger? — and panic (that one he can identify for sure) flooding through him, because all this time, he thought Izzy was only joking around when she flirted with Lucas. But now, Zay’s not sure what to make of the situation at all.

At last, several torturous hours later (though according to Farkle, it was barely ten seconds), Smackle lets go of Lucas, who looks about as gobsmacked as Zay feels. “Huh.”

“Smackle!” Zay squawks, finally pushing past his shock enough to manage to get some words out.

Everything rapidly comes back into focus, and Zay is suddenly aware of Maya beside him, frozen like a stone. In the other corner of the room, Farkle, whom he hadn’t even noticed so far, stands with his brows raised at the scene unfolding before them.

Smackle and Lucas turn, at last noticing that they have an audience.

“Oh,” Maya stammers, “Uh– um– continue– didn’t mean to interrupt...”

Zay is too busy staring gormlessly at Smackle to realize that Maya has left, until Lucas, belatedly emerging from his shocked stupor, calls out her name like a desperate, drowning man, and barrels out after her.

“Maya!” He hollers.

“Come on, I don’t want to miss this!” Smackle drags Zay after them, and Farkle follows close behind.

The three of them get to the back porch just in time to see Lucas catch up with Maya, who has already reached the beach. It’s amazing how fast someone as short as her can move. Even Lucas has had to sprint to catch up with her.

It would have made a pretty picture — Maya with her long golden hair and rust-coloured hoodie, on the beach, a pink rain-washed sky as the backdrop — if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s storming away.

They can clearly hear Lucas from where they’re standing. “Maya! Maya, listen to me!”

He tries to take her hand but she rips it from his, and continues to move down to the shoreline.

“Maya, please! She kissed me, I didn’t kiss her, I swear!”

Maya turns and kicks Lucas in the shin. Hard.

“Oww!”

Undeterred, he hops after her on one foot as she walks away, and manages to snag her wrist. She shoves him away, which, as he’s still hopping, sends him falling on his back in the sand. But he doesn’t loosen his grip on her hand, causing Maya to fall too, right on top of him, and sprawl all over his chest.

From their vantage point, Zay, Smackle, and Farkle have a clear view of the spectacle unfolding on the beach.

In the process of struggling to get off Lucas’s chest and onto her feet, Maya drives her elbow straight into his gut, winding him. He lets out a strangled “Oof!”, but manages to grip her other wrist. They end up rolling so that Lucas is partially on top of Maya, who is swearing loudly and foully enough to make sailors and soldiers blush. Her curses float back up to the trio on the porch.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I told him to have a nice quiet talk with her on the beach in the early morning quiet,” Zay states as they watch their two friends grapple.

Suddenly, Lucas collapses on top of Maya with a yell of pure agony. Zay and Farkle simultaneously hiss in sympathy. It’s obvious what has happened: Maya just kneed Lucas where it hurts the most. None of the watchers can tell if it was an accident or deliberate.

“Get off me, you big fat oaf!” Maya wheezes. “You weigh as much as a horse!”

She manages to shove Lucas off herself, and leaves him curled up whimpering on the sand as she stalks away. But now there’s less stalking off and more weariness in her, as if the fight has gone out of her.

Impressively, after a couple of minutes, Lucas manages to get to his feet and stagger after her, though he’s clearly still in pain. He reaches Maya and turns her to face him, and she doesn’t resist when he cups her cheek to raise her face. (He doesn’t have to make her look up too much; he’s still hurting badly enough that he can’t stand straight and is hunched over.) His voice is too low for those on the porch to hear what he’s saying, but even from this distance, they can see the earnestness (and pain) on his face.

It feels like an eternity, but he finally steps forward, closing the distance between them. Maya doesn’t protest, and Zay, Smackle, and Farkle watch eagerly as he leans down, closer, closer.... and rests his forehead on her shoulder with a heartfelt groan, clearly still needing a minute to deal with the lingering trauma of Maya’s knee making contact with sensitive parts of his anatomy.

Maya winces in sympathy, but there’s no mistaking the smile on her face as Lucas finally straightens enough to kiss her.

“Yeesssss!” Smackle shrieks.

Farkle lets out a loud whoop and snaps off a couple of pictures with his phone, which Zay now realizes he’s had trained on their friends all along. (He’s sure the videos and photos Farkle has taken are already on their way to Riley, a peace offering and a way to make up after their fight. Riley’s going to be pretty steamed she wasn’t there to witness this historic event in person.)

Zay cheers too, of course he does. He’s happy for his friends, and he’s happiest for himself. His otp is finally together, after three excruciating years. Damn, that slow-burn was the slowest burn to ever slow-burn!

But he knows this was bound to happen sooner or later. (He would have made sure it did.) Which is why, after jumping up and down excitedly with the others for a few minutes, he turns his attention to the brunette with glasses next to him. “Whatever happened to ‘non-interference is our best and most favourable course of action’?”

Smackle gives him a devious look. “I was not interfering,” she says primly, with a smug quirk of her lips. “I was merely testing the practical application of the hypothesis Farkle and I have been discussing for the past few days. And as the conclusive results show, our postulation based on empirical evidence for both sets of observations was accurate.”

Practical application of the hypothesis.... Zay’s mouth falls open. “You’re unbelievable,” he tells the two geniuses, aiming a glare at Farkle.

“And after that, I can safely say I do not comprehend what the fuss is all about.” Smackle grimaces and wipes her mouth. “It was like kissing a sibling. It was worse than kissing a sibling.”

She pushes off the railing and takes the stairs going down to the beach to join Lucas and Maya, who have finally stopped kissing and are grinning up at their friends happily. (Lucas has finally managed to stand up straight, though it looks like he’s trying to avoid moving as much as possible.)

Zay’s eyes follow Isadora, not wanting to examine the sheer relief coursing through him that she thought kissing Lucas was worse than kissing a sibling.

Something she said before tugs his brain, and he replays her words in his mind. “Wait a minute. What did she mean by “both sets of observations”?”

Farkle smirks at him slyly.

Shit, Zay thinks as Isadora turns and gives him a coy smile. He’s in trouble.

#lucaya #lucaya fanfiction #girl meets world #maya hart #lucas friar #zay babineaux #isadora smackle #zaydora #girl meets world fanfiction #gmw fanfiction #gmw #my writing #my posts

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carousels-on-fire · 8 years ago

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Sorry to anyone on mobile who accidentally sees this. Readmores don’t seem to work on mobile, so sorry for this mini novel you’re being forced to scroll past. ------------------------------------- My life got so isolated so quickly. I’ve always felt alone on some level. I don’t know if there’s some inherent quality that makes me the odd one out, or if I’ve just never felt comfortable enough around people to believe they really want me around. But I think living back home has put in stark relief how few people care about me. Like I know who my good friends are. I know who...I hope...would be there if things went horribly wrong. But in the day to day I’m alone. And my online friendships have ceased to make me feel less alone, even though they should. Even though people care, I’ve always felt, on some level like I’m sitting in a wide, depthless room with nothing in it, screaming and it doesn’t even echo. Just this emptiness. Silence. There are things to fill the silence, but sometimes it isn’t enough. I think it’s the fact that most days the only people I see are my parents. But they’re not like people, like friends. They’re more of an obstacle that sometimes seems like a person I can care about. But that’s dangerous thinking. I can’t confide in them, I have to be so very careful that the things I do say don’t throw me into a minefield of having to defend myself. Or better yet have the things I love and feel passionate about brushed off as some unimportant thing. As something to which you respond “Hm.” and go back to watching TV. And on the days I don’t see my parents I do see my co-workers at the library. I am friends with one of my co-workers. But its more or less professional. There’s still a level of detachment there. Even if we have talked about our lives and she notices when I’m feeling less than myself, it’s not a friendship that leaves work. And I still feel like a stranger in the tattoo shop. They know me, they teach me things, they try to invite me to things. But I always feel like one day I’ll walk in and not be welcome. That I’ll let them down somehow. I am friends with one of my co-workers. Two maybe. But it feels like something that was forced upon them because I’m a new person that needs to be led around and taught the ropes. I never feel like I’m supposed to be there. It always felt this way in my classes back in college. Even if I’m still friends with a lot of my old classmates. Even if they were friendly to me, I always felt like the friendship ended at the classroom door. I think belonging for me is dangerous, it’s all-consuming. My parent’s love has always seemed to be born out of guilt. They feel bad for how they treated me as a child. I never really thought my parents were in any shape abusive, until I looked back on my childhood. My mother screaming at me, telling me I needed to lose weight and screaming at me about it because she had to buy me new clothing, her digging her nails into my skin, slapping me across the face when I did something wrong. Or the time when I was a small child and my father chased me through the house screaming, and hit the door I’d locked myself behind to escape him hard enough to leave a crack in the wood. My father making comments about my body after I hit puberty and giving my anxiety/body image issues about it for the rest of my life. I always just thought they were strict. It never seemed like how you see abuse on tv. I’m not even sure it counts as abuse. Maybe they were just strict and unkind. Who knows. But I recall an incident when I was 14 or so. I had a friend called Max. He was 18, and a senior, and I thought he was cool because he knew who Cradle of Filth were when no one else did. I was rather oblivious, so I always thought he just wanted to be friends. I suppose I assumed because that’s all I wanted, that’s all they wanted. Plus I was desperate to befriend anyone who was even vaguely ‘alternative’ because I grew up in a town of 2000 people and there wasn’t really a scene. I didn’t really know how to say no or to navigate out of uncomfortable situatuions at that age. But I remember he drove us to see House of Wax in theatres, the whole thing should have screamed ‘date’ but again, I am oblivious. And I just remember he went to gesture about something and I flinched back and kind of curled in on myself like I was about to be hit. And even if he was a bit of a creep, he wasn’t an abuser, to my knowledge. He just said in the most unsettled voice “... I’m not going to hit you.” Like he was surprised. I was surprised too. At that point in my life I hadn’t spent a lot of time around other people. And I remember trying to laugh it off. Are kids who aren’t abused supposed to have a flinch response to a man raising their hand? Not even in anger? I always hated and envied friends who got on well with their parents. Who can’t wait to see them. On the outside mine get along with me, but it’s such a false relationship. It’s just something that looks normal from the outside. I tell them I love them with the same conviction I told customers to have a nice day when I worked retail. I think this is why I struggle so much with relationships now. I remember being the weird kid out because I wore hearing aids and wanted to talk about nerdy things that no one else cared about. But I remember that people would befriend me for a short period of time, and then, it’s like they were embarrassed to be my friend and would gradually stop talking to me. It’s strange that something that happened so long ago, a lifetime ago, would still haunt me now at 26. I graduated high school 8 years ago, elementary and middle school was even further back than that. But I can still remember the cruelty in my best friend’s voice when she told me ‘no one will ever go to prom with you.’ Because we were drawing what our dresses would look like. And the funny thing is, I didn’t even flinch. I didn’t reprimand her. I was...socialized to accept unkind things from the people who were supposed to be my best friends. I think it carved the path for later emotionally abusive relationships. I think once you’re used to the people you love hurting you, making unkind comments, tearing you down, even if, on some level you know it’s not right, you seek out that kind of pain because it makes it feel real to you. I had some friendships in early college, where, even if I’m still friends with those people, they hurt me, they were cruel to me, I distinctly remember it. I remember being yelled at for things I couldn’t control. For habits I had because I’d been basically locked up with hyper-controlling people who watched my every move, who criticized every small thing I did from how cleaned the counters to where I was allowed to wait outside movie theatre after seeing a film with my friends. All that and then I was suddenly tossed out into the world. I went from having to beg to be driven to see my friends, to being able to do anything. And it was terrifying. And to people who’d always had that freedom, my fear was incomprehensible. My habits, the untreated mental illnesses were written off as merely annoying peculiarities that had to be overcome by them. And I’ve never brought it up. Because I understand that they were hurting too. Maybe I shouldn’t forgive them. But I’ve been forced to forgive so many people who have hurt me as survival. But I’ve realized, if I don’t forgive the people who hurt me, I’ll barely have anyone at all. We all wear our crown of thorns I suppose. I think this is why that first relationship I had didn’t last. Because when most of your relationships have been with cruel uncaring people, the first time someone makes you feel special you will cling to that with everything you have. Even if you end up suffocating the other person in the process. You won’t even realize it because you’re desperate. When you go from basically being ignored, to someone thinking you’re worth something, like genuinely, and not because they just want to show you off to other people like a possession; it’s hard to not want to be around that 24/7. It’s a drug-like addiction. And when it ended, when I thought I could just quit that feeling cold-turkey because I realized that person and I were not suited, or that I wanted a different kind of relationship than what we had, the ensuing depression dragged me under. Like imagine wanting something your entire life, being starved of it, having it, conditionally, having to hide it, and then throwing it away because you don’t know how to react to having what you want. The sense of loss and failure and worthlessness can’t be measured in words. It’s a depression that’s taken me 6 years to get away from. I’m still not there. It was like a catalyst for all the self-loathing I’d been feeling to finally be set free. It’s been this voice saying “You ruined the one good thing you will ever have.” I think that may be the real reason I’ve been alone for so long and my friends are not. My casual acquaintances and people I went to school with are all married and living this blissful normal life. But they didn’t grow up equating love with terror, they don’t know how very wrong things can go if you pick the wrong person. They don’t have this terrible weight of years of cruelty from other people that has never once been acknowledged. Its like you accept that cruelty and carry it with you, and sometimes it comes back as that voice in your head. I’m a much more broken person than I ever thought I was, but I suppose I’m still here and that’s what counts.

#do not re'blog #my rambling and being entirely too open about deeply personal things #this one is a doozy #puts up a sign like willy wonka before the boat scene #sorry to folks on mobile this is an extremely long post I'm sorry #tw abuse #tw depression #not sure what else to tag for #here's hoping creeper dudes don't start randomly following because I tagged the tw's

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ixvyupdates · 6 years ago

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Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine

Hi.

I’m going to spend the rest of the year traveling to classrooms all over the country and talking about the things we are doing super well, and some of the things we could be doing a whole lot better.

I’m sitting in my classroom writing this, late on a Friday afternoon, enjoying the short quiet after a long, loud week. I’m looking around my room, dimly lit and breathing slowly, like the set of a play between performances. If you’re a teacher, I bet I’d like to come visit you soon. Before I do, I thought I’d show you around my room and what I do with my students the first week of school.

I really love my room, and it seems like students do, too. I don’t have a class first hour, but there are always five to 10 kids in here before school hanging out. My desks are old and…desky. I don’t have a lot of room or money for flex seating, and I don’t have the eye or time for Pinterest-worthy bulletin boards. Still, my walls, like my room, are a whole lot better when given to the kids.

It Took a Year to Create a Classroom Library with Books Kids Want to Keep

I am absurdly proud of my classroom library. When I moved into my new classroom last fall, the library was suffering badly from being out-of-date and almost entirely full of White writers. In one year, I have done a whole bunch of stuff to bring the collection to where it is now. I’m not done, not by a long-shot, but my collection now includes many books by people of color and indigenous writers.

I’ve always believed in the power of diverse reading choices, but this year I’ve been especially aware of how important it is to my students. I have a ton of graphic novels and superhero comics, and have started to add books in some of the languages spoken by my students that are not English. My students from Tibet and Haiti have been so happy to see books by and about their people.

I had a student walk down from the high school this week, looking to borrow a copy of “The Hate U Give.” I started the year with 15 on my shelf and was already down to my last two. I don’t know her name, but she left with a book. I’m not all that worried about getting it back.

By far, the books are the most expensive part of my room, made more so by my not having any sort of book check-out system and encouraging students to take books that seem interesting to them. I’ve written some grants in the last year that have helped out, have sought donations through a constantly updated Amazon wishlist, and have made some money through writing that I’ve often used to buy every book I can that my students may enjoy.

Also, these pictures are from before school started. The library is now a well-used mess and it is perfect.

Now, let me show you how our first week together went down.

Day One: Four Agreements

I only really have four rules in my room, and I stole them from The Pacific Education Group’s protocol for Courageous Conversations. On the very first day of school, I introduce those four rules to the students and we talk about what they mean, and how they make my classroom a little different.

For example, one of the rules is “Stay Engaged.” I ask them who likes to draw in class, and a bunch of kids raise their hands. Then, I ask them how many students know that drawing helps them pay attention, and about half keep their hands up. So, I explain, if I made a rule like “No Drawing in Class,” I’d be hurting half of you and helping half of you. If the rule is, instead, “Stay Engaged,” then you can do whatever that means for you to be engaged.

For some, staying engaged means drawing, for some not. Some may stay engaged by responding verbally to me or their classmates, and some may need to stay quiet. I had a student a few years back who was most engaged in my class when she was able to do handstands against the wall on the side of the room. OK.

The other rules work pretty much the same way: “Speak Your Truth,” “Experience Discomfort” and “Expect/Accept Non-Closure.” We talk about how your truth rather than the truth is important because it opens up the conversation to multiple perspectives.

I explain that I want them to lean into discomfort, whether that means a challenging conversation or focusing on skills and subjects they struggle with, but I don’t ever want them to feel unsafe or unwelcome. I let them know we will often leave discussions half finished at the bell. And we will not, no matter how hard we work, fix everything in the world this year, but we can be happy at any ground we gain.

I don’t really talk that long. I hope I don’t. Mainly, we get the ideas out there, and then students make little signs to hang up around the four rules, or agreements. We talk about how it looks and feels for them to do those things. They go up the night of the first day and hang there the rest of the year for easy reference.

Day Two: One Word

On the second day of school, I walk students through an identity exercise. I do one myself in front of the room to model the kind of words and thinking they could be doing, but also let them know there’s not any real way to do it wrong.

I hand them this sheet, and they fill in five words that define them (mine this year were Anxiety, Dad, Writer, Teacher, Social Justice Warrior). We talk about what it’s like to define ourselves in such a narrow way, about all the parts of us that didn’t make the list, about how any time we try to reduce ourselves or someone else to a list like that, we are missing big things about that person.

Then—and this is where it gets difficult—we cross a word off. There is much yelling. It is glorious.

When I first did this exercise during a training a whole bunch of years ago in a district that doesn’t even exist anymore, teachers rebelled in every way possible from having to cross out pieces of themselves, even hypothetically, because it was too painful to do. We had a good discussion about how often we ask students to do exactly that, to erase some part of themselves, in the very non-hypothetical space of our classroom.

Still, it’s hard to cross those words off, and harder still as we continue, crossing off one word after another, each time taking small breaks to discuss our reasoning and process. In the end, we end with a single word, a word that we have decided is, at least on that day and in that moment, is the most essential piece of our own identity. This year, mine was “teacher,” which is a departure from many, many years, when “writer” has won the day.

Students then pick out some paper and markers and stuff and write down their one word. After school, I get a whole bunch of tape and a decent podcast, and tape them all up on the wall. It’s a beautiful thing, this physical representation of all these wonderful people, of the diversity in who they are and how they see themselves. The next morning, students from all hours came in early to read through the wall. They stood with their friends, pointing proudly at their sign. They said, “There I am, that’s me.”

Day Three: What I Bring

On the third day of school, students get this packet, and start work on a project that will show what they bring with them into the classroom every day. I’m clear that when I ask this, I’m not looking for them to talk about the pens and folders and stuff they bring with them, but instead key parts of their identity, their passions, their personal history, their interests and personality.

The students have a couple days to brainstorm and work on them, and then we take a few days to share. We put the desks in a big circle (which always makes me think of this), and each student gets a few minutes to show what they made, explain why they made it and answer questions from the class about themselves.

This year, I had a student who didn’t want to make art, so he made a computer program that would randomly produce an image. Another student showed us a digital model of one of his favorite kinds of math equations. Yet another took the opinion section of the newspaper and used it as a canvas to re-create a famous Banksy image.

I could go on, 147 more times, at all the cool things students brought in. They all, each one of them, hang in a circle around the top of my room. Some speak of their faith, or their favorite sport, or their family or where they’re from. It’s a great way to get to know students on their terms, and also a way to make sure that, in addition to their one word, students all have a piece of the classroom that is exactly their own.

Photos courtesy of Tom Rademacher.

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

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ixvyupdates · 6 years ago

Text

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine

Hi.

It Took a Year to Create a Classroom Library with Books Kids Want to Keep

Also, these pictures are from before school started. The library is now a well-used mess and it is perfect.

Now, let me show you how our first week together went down.

Day One: Four Agreements

Day Two: One Word

Then—and this is where it gets difficult—we cross a word off. There is much yelling. It is glorious.

Day Three: What I Bring

Photos courtesy of Tom Rademacher.

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

0 notes

ixvyupdates · 6 years ago

Text

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine

Hi.

It Took a Year to Create a Classroom Library with Books Kids Want to Keep

Also, these pictures are from before school started. The library is now a well-used mess and it is perfect.

Now, let me show you how our first week together went down.

Day One: Four Agreements

Day Two: One Word

Then—and this is where it gets difficult—we cross a word off. There is much yelling. It is glorious.

Day Three: What I Bring

Photos courtesy of Tom Rademacher.

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

0 notes

ixvyupdates · 6 years ago

Text

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine

Hi.

It Took a Year to Create a Classroom Library with Books Kids Want to Keep

Also, these pictures are from before school started. The library is now a well-used mess and it is perfect.

Now, let me show you how our first week together went down.

Day One: Four Agreements

Day Two: One Word

Then—and this is where it gets difficult—we cross a word off. There is much yelling. It is glorious.

Day Three: What I Bring

Photos courtesy of Tom Rademacher.

Before I Come to Your Classroom, Let Me Show You Mine syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

0 notes