#journal of impossible things unbound

[chuitu]

What's wrong with being me.

Written by: Xiaojiao "Mei"

Uploaded: [UD_Error_303]

File corruption: Mild

The Director gave me access to the Cloud system so i can... write my thoughts, not sure what that was about.

Just passed the entrance exam with the highest marks, had to get a medical examination for whatever reason.. It was the Director's words so, I didn't really question it.

This place isn't so bad, these people seem nice.. I was placed in the top class of the collation, Zenith. It's Captain, Kallen Langley Faro,,

Now I'm not talking anything bad about this guy but, just know that he looks really sweet and lax on the outside.. but he's one hell of a nightmare when the rush hour hits, I'm just the new guy but i wasn't spared from his aggressive nagging and lecture-training sessions... It's no wonder some of the freshies before me were glad they didn't land in this class... Well, at least he calms down when work is over..

He's much better than my parents ngl..

He even makes sure to check up on us by the end of each shift, he apologized to me the most since i was new.

Well, we couldn't really blame him, things really aren't easy here, as for me I guess i'm sort of grateful that i got into Zenith, The people here actually listen to me.

Not like my so called family that expects me to be perfect in every way.. even when i was little, high expectations and strict upbringings were shoved at me, I just wanted to go outside, run around, pick at bugs...

But that's nearly impossible when your family is a damn museum and descendants of a long line of ancient dragons... It was hard enough to find a friend who'd understand me.. someone who didn't just befriend me because of my status.. wealth.. lineage.. I never found one.

And then one day, It was just another Thursday.. guests came to see the treasury, The dragon blade.. an heirloom passed down from descendant to another.. Well,

let's just say someone's kid decided to mess around and it almost conveniently slipped out of it's holding stand, Of course i had to grab it before it hit the ground, my parents would freak if there would be a single scratch on it... then it clicked.

I held it, i felt the surge of power within.. And then i looked up and saw my ancestors.. They were looking down on me.. both literally and figuratively, saying that I'm not worthy to hold the sword, That I'm a disappointment to the clan.. WELL HELL I AM.

I AM SICK. OF FOLLOWING WHAT EVERYONE EXPECTS ME TO DO. HOW TO ACT. HOW TO DRESS. HOW TO BEHAVE?! WHEN DID I EVER GET A SAY IN THIS FAMILY? NONE. IT NEVER HAPPENED.

IT'S ALWAYS, BECAUSE WE ARE AN IMPORTANT FIGURE IN SOCIETY MEI. IT'S TO HONOR OUR ANCESTORS MEI. STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS MEI.

I could've sworn the room felt warmer at the time... but i was just too pissed off to notice.. I chucked the stupid blade back in, well.. not after i realized my own parents heard what i said when i was in the moment.. My mom slapped me.. of course she did, yknow what i did? I threw my hairpin at their feet, and i declared myself unbound to this wretched family.

Not really fun that there were guests at the time when it happened.. but what's a girl to do.. So yeah, i ran away from home, never returned, and i never will.

Weeks later the Anti-Entropy Group Collation announced that they were looking for new Aspirants, well.. I had nothing better to do so, I signed up, but i left out my family name to avoid suspicion.. What? My appearance that time? I was wearing a cap and glasses at the time, and no one recognized me..

Moving on, I passed,, And here i am writing all of this down for.. journaling reasons i assume.. Now that i'm an Aspirant, I'll do my best to contribute to the best i can.. As who i am and what i can be, not because i was Long am Xiaojiao.. But because I'm my own person, I'll show them that, I'll show them all.

That's all i have to say i guess..

-- End log --

[journeythroughimpossiblethings]

Fobwatched!Eleventh Doctor - Toymaker

[videofaciempraeteriti-blog]

Kara snuggled up to her. "Mm. You're comfortable."

Anna smiled and kissed her softly. “I like to think that’s one of my better qualities.”

[doctorattackeyebrows]

Anna scratched Jon’s ears. “How are you doing?”

Jon leaned his head into her hand and pawed at her gently.

[journeythrough-impossiblethings]

Journal of Impossible Things Unbound:

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

Fandomless OC Versions:

Prince Jonas – #WerePrince – Nick Jonas – Werewolf Dream Prince Universe

Jonas is a prince who is secretly a werewolf and in love with a mermaid he found in a lake in the woods near his castle. This verse is based on a dream Anna had one time.

John Smith – Damien McGinty – AU

Under Construction

John Smith – James Veitch – AU

Under Construction

Fandom-verses - OC Versions:

John Smith – #Being-Husband – Eddie Redmayne – Being Human AU

John Smith was a history teacher and was married to a woman named Anna Smith (originally Anna Winden, @manenimittliv). When John died, his soul stayed tethered to his house, although his wife did not know that since he did not manifest until a while after his death, so his wife sold the house without knowing her husband would become a ghost. The new owner of the house started renting it out, with it eventually going to two men named Vlad and Quincey, and Vlad's younger brother Barry. It turns out, Vlad (@chosenonedracula) is a vampire, Quincey (@quinceymorris-southerngentleman) is a werewolf, and Barry, called "Wolfie", is half-vampire/half-werewolf, who've also been married to John's reincarnating fae widow Anna.

_____________________________________________________________

Some Fandoms I can see John having a Verse in - OC Versions (Mostly)

- Dollhouse - Charlie (an Active/Doll)

- Kyle XY - 781231 XY (a clone like Kyle and Jessi)

- Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - A good Terminator

- Once Upon a Time - I mean, my Disney verses are Milo from Journey to Atlantis and Giselle from Enchanted and neither of those ever showed up on OUaT, but I mean, they could...

- Battlestar Galactica - A Cylon - Mostly the Reboot because I don't know the original that well

- Jurassic Park - A scientist working with the dinosaurs

- Sliders - Just because

- Quantum Leap - Okay but like a Quantum Leap thing would be so fun

- WestWorld - A Host

- Blade Runner / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - A Replicant/An Android

I think you can get the theme here. Most Sci-Fi (and Fantasy, for that matter) things can work but especially if they have robots/AIs, clones, personality "imprints", or things like that. Also symbiotic relationships. I love those.

_____________________________________________________________

Fandom-verses - Canon Character AU Versions:

Worm John – #I’m-Just-A-Worm – Worm – Labyrinth

The Worm loves his Queen (@manenimittliv). The King (@youreyesxcanbesocruel) scares him a bit but the King has been friendlier to him for a while now. He's not entirely sure why.

He also exists in the verse with Anna's Jareth (@itscnlyfcrever), where John IV (WereJohn Synth) accidentally fell into Jareth's labyrinth.

Spider-Ham/Peter Porker – John Mulaney – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Peter Porker was originally a spider just named Peter until he was bitten by a radioactive pig, which resulted in him transforming into a pig but retaining his spider abilities.

Giselle – #True-Love's-Kiss – Amy Adams – Enchanted

Giselle is a typical Disney not-quite-princess. She sings, animals love her, and she believes in Happily Ever After and the power of True Love's Kiss. She learns about harsher realities when she gets thrown out of Andalasia, her fairytale land, and into our New York City. Despite troubles she faces in the harsh land of New York, she remains optimistic and curious, although she does do quite a bit of growing and never quite marries her prince she had been engaged to in Andalasia (I'll also just reblog and use pictures and gifs of Amy Adams in general, and specifically of her as Amelia Earhart from Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian because she's super cute in that).

Cam Harrison – William Moseley – The Little Mermaid (2018)

Cam Harrison is a young reporter who, while looking for a good story, goes to a circus with his niece where he meets a mermaid (@manenimittliv) who he later rescues and falls in love with.

Dawn Smith – Dawn Summers – Michelle Trachtenberg – Buffyverse AU

Really just Dawn Summers, Buffy's little sister from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dawn was originally a glowing ball of energy that served as a key between dimensions. Monks made the key into a human girl, making her the little sister of the Slayer (Chosen One female super vampire slayer/demon hunter, originally one every generation, the next one is called when the last one is killed, who protects innocents against "vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness"), Buffy Summers, so she would be protected from the angry goddess Glorificus (often just called "Glory"), who wanted to use the key to get back to her home dimension, where she was kicked out of, but doing so would result in the walls of all dimensions collapsing and causing choas and destruction to all dimensions. Dawn was given false memories of living an entire life being Dawn Summers, and anyone who should know who Dawn is would get the fake memories of her having always been there when they see her for the first time.

Frank Wishbone – John Smith? – #Monster-Family – Eddie Redmayne? (Nick Frost was the voice) – Monster Family

Frank Wishbone is awkward, non-confrontational (originally to a fault, being something he had to overcome a bit), and over-worked. He is the father of Fay and Max and husband of Emma. Count Dracula becomes infatuated with Emma and attempts to court her, and in the process causes the entire family to become their costumes when they went to a costume party, when he was only trying to get Emma (dressed as a vampiress Bride of Dracula) to become her costume. Frank was turned into Frankenstein's Monster, Max was turned into a (very cute) Wolf Man/werewolf and Fay was turned into a mummy. Fay was briefly courted by Imhotep until Frank chased him away after it was clear she did not want him. Fay dates a guy named Jayden from her school.

We have an AU of this that has John as Frank, Anna (@manenimittliv) as Emma, Fay as a daughter of Jareth (@youreyesxcanbesocruel) and Anna who gets stuck in a different reality and lives with that universe's version of her mother and her stepfather, John, and TB (@tavinwho) as Max, with Erik (@princeofconjurers / @theabandonedroo) as Dracula.

Amber Smith – #Christmas-Prince – Rose McIver? Melissa Benoist? – A Christmas Prince AU

Amber Moore, a young journalist, is sent to Aldovia to cover a press conference with the crown prince Richard. She accidentally gets mistaken for the tutor of Princess Emily, the prince's younger sister. She uses this mistake to her advantage, posing as Emily's tutor to get a good story on the prince, who she eventually falls in love with.

(In our version, @manenimittliv plays Richard. We might have Melissa Benoist (my most common female version of John called Kara, or maybe Amy Adams or another female FC I use) as Amber and one of Anna's male versions of Anna called Sean (either Ed Sheeran or David Bowie) as Prince Richard.

Cornelius "Lewis" Robinson – #Keep-Moving-Forward – Meet the Robinsons Universe

John is Lewis/Cornelius, Anna (@manenimittliv) is Franny and TB (@tavinwho) is Wilbur. Bud and his wife Lucille adopted Lewis, who changed his name to Cornelius. Bud's brother Fritz, his sister-in-law Petunia, their kids Tallulah and Laszlo, and his other brother and sister-in-law Joe and Billie live with them, as well as Cornelius's wife Franny, their son Wilbur, and Franny's brothers Gaston and Art, and twin brothers Spike and Dimitri (no one knows who they're related to), their butler Lefty and their robot Carl, made by Cornelius, as well as many of Cornelius's inventions, Franny's jazz-singing frogs, and their new pet T-Rex.

[mitigatedchaos]

On Having “Whiteness”

(~2,200 words, 11 minutes)

Summary: A metaphysics of “Whiteness” has overtaken actual sociology in the Democrats’ popular consciousness - blinding them to racial interventions that might actually work and taking them off the table of political discussion.

-★★★-

Donald Moss - On Having Whiteness, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (emphasis mine)

Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.

So both @arcticdementor [here] and @samueldays have linked me to this allegedly “peer-reviewed” article.  The Federalist has a bit more context, but it doesn’t really make the situation better.

Race Theory Problems

Obviously, this is a work of sloppy thinking.  The categorization of “white supremacy culture” or “whiteness” used by people like this is vague handwaving that describes being bad at management as “white supremacy culture,” and which in general labels universal human problems, like organizations being resource-constrained, or people being impatient, as somehow uniquely “white.” 

But this sort of article is really what I mean when I say that social justice’s approach to “whiteness” is about “spiritual contamination.” 

Samueldays called it “the ‘I’m not touching you’ of inciting race war,” and I may cover more of his response to it later.  Suffice it to say, it has the same general kind of problems as “stolen land” arguments (where an entire present population’s living area becomes undefined), unbounded “reparations” arguments where no amount of transfers by the designated oppressor are considered to clear the debt, and so on.

This is exactly the sort of material that conservatives are seeking to remove government funding for and prohibit from use in employment training.  This is the kind of material that the Trump Anti-CRT executive order prohibiting racial scapegoating was meant to cover.

Race Theory Definitions

This kind of stuff is, of course, not really defensible, so usually at this point people will argue that 1), “that’s not real critical race theory,” and then 2), “it’s just a few weirdos.”  For those, I would say...

1) If it’s not real “Critical Race Theory,” then what is it?

We can’t measure or disprove Moss’s proposed “Whiteness,” and this malevolent psychic entity said to “deform” white people obviously isn’t based on a comparison with other human populations or historical periods.  When it comes to “insatiable” appetites, one study argued that the Mongol invasions killed so many people that it showed up in the carbon record.

At best, it’s sloppy race science as practiced by an amateur, like twitter users idly speculating whether whites have ‘oppressor epigenetics’ - but with the veneer of official status.  And it has similar risks to proposing that there is such a thing as biologically-inherited class enemy status, and other collective intergenerational justice logic.

Presumably, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association is intended as a journal of science, or at least serious scholarship, and not of bad racist poetry with no rhyme or meter.

Moss provides a relatively pure example of whatever-this-is. I need to know what it’s called, so we can get rid of it.

Race Theory Prohibitions

2) If it’s just the product of a few race-obssessed weirdos, then it won’t hurt to get rid of it.  So get rid of it.

The actual text [PDF] of the Trump Anti-CRT order does not ban teaching about the Trail of Tears, or Jim Crow, and so on, and both of those topics were taught in school before this recent wave of whatever-this-is was popularized.

Trump’s order banned teaching that any race is inherently guilty or evil due to the actions of their ancestors, and the level of resistance to this has been bizarre.

These teachings don’t seem to provide gains in relatively objective metrics like underrepresented minority test scores (or at least that’s not something I’ve seen - and the continued opposition to standardized tests suggests proponents do not expect it to), so it’s unclear just what of value is going to be lost here. 

Collateral Damage

Samueldays wrote,

Because right now the conservatives talking about "critical race theory" as they fire in the direction of Moss et al. are very important in preventing another race war and you have a moral duty to help them aim, not throw smoke for Moss.

Right now Conservatives are assessing just how much stuff they’re going to have to rip out to make “standardized tests are racist” and “it’s impossible to be racist to white people” stop.  While this may not be the message that Liberals are intending to send, it is the message that many people are receiving.  (I discuss problems with both, and some alternatives to handle them better, in another post.)

Liberals need to get out in front of this.  Sooner is better.

If Conservatives think that they have to gut hostile work environment law in order to avoid their children being taught that they’re permanently morally contaminated by their race, and Liberals have no means to actually close race gaps within a 4-8 year period (and right now it’s slim pickings on that front), Conservatives are just going to gut hostile work environment law.

Aether

From their perspective, why not? 

Everything in the world is only six degrees of separation from something racist.  Anything in the world can be tied to something racist.  (So can anyone.)

But nowhere in this pervasive atmosphere of tying things to racism are there solutions.  There are guesses based on correlations.  Proposals.  But usually when you reach out to grab them, to really get a grip on whether it’s correlation or causation, they dissolve in your hands.  The few that do have any solidity to them are moderate in their success (such as Heckman’s involvement in the Reach Up & Learn study in Jamaica) - and don’t appear to be based on the same style of thinking as shown by Moss and others.

It isn’t just that trying to turn combating an invisible, non-measurable, unfalsifiable, parasitic psychic force into an actual political program would inevitably be oppressive and totalitarian.  It isn’t just that articles like Moss’s are an in-kind donation to the 2024 DeSantis Presidential campaign for that very reason.

It isn’t just that unfalsifiable Metaphysics of Whiteness content like White Privilege Theory has been found to lower sympathy for the poor, and that present diversity training doesn’t work...

Race Content Crowding

This stuff is crowding out legitimate scholarship.  I don’t just mean in terms of funding, tenure track positions, or high-flying magazine coverage - all limited by their nature.  I mean among the base.  I have been interrogating Democrats on Twitter for months, and not a single one has been able to cite a strongly-demonstrated intervention that’s being held back, or even a past one that was conclusively demonstrated to be effective.  They can often recite a list of racial grievances on cue.

Tucker Carlson could run boomer_update.exe on a list of every educational failure since the 1970s, and they would be reduced to sputtering accusations of racism against people who increasingly don’t care.  He could do this tomorrow.  The only thing that prevents this is Tucker Carlson’s conscience.

I discovered the Reach Up & Learn program through Glenn Loury - described as a ‘conservative.’ Scott Alexander, attacked by the New York Times crew, brought some success with multivitamins to my attention.  When I first heard about the Perry Preschool program, I believe it was from someone well to the right of him.

About the only one brought to my attention by the Democratic establishment constellation proper was lead removal, and the gains on that are probably getting tapped out.  The frame it was proposed in was not Critical Race Theorist, as this was likely in 2012. 

As it stands, I’m more likely to find something that works from someone the New York Times would disapprove of than someone they wouldn’t.  Or, as Wesley Yang wrote,

Reality has been contrarian for a while.

Succeed Early

Even if we suppose that Conservatives are inherently racist, Liberals have a duty to support interventions that work.  In fact, the more that Conservatives are a seething, undifferentiated mass of uniform racial hatred, the more important it is that Liberals stick to racial interventions that work, because nobody else is going to fix the problem if Liberals get it wrong.

It isn’t just a matter of resources per year.  It’s also a matter of time.

From Heckman’s website,

Although Perry did not produce long-run gains in IQ, it did create lasting improvements in character skills [...] which consequently improved a number of labor market outcomes and health behaviors as well as reduced criminal activity.

Even if we propose an unlimited amount of funding (which is not the case), people and politicians only have a limited amount of time and attention each year.  Newspapers only publish so many issues with so many pages each week.  Television programs only cover so many hours for so many viewers each day.  Even the dedicated can only read so many books in a year.

Even though the Perry intervention was imperfect, and the sample size was not as large as desirable, every second Democrat I talked to should have been able to answer the question “can you name an effective intervention?” with “what about Perry Preschool?”

Every year that we have entire cottage industries working on and popularizing contentious, ineffective, and backlash-provoking Metaphysics of Whiteness content, based on oversimplified oppressor/oppressed binaries, or theories in which power is held collectively by races as monolithic blobs (rather than modelling power as a network of relations between individuals, in which an individual of any background might be destroyed by the racialized relations in their environment), is another year we haven’t spent that energy on finding or implementing something that actually works.

This isn’t just an individual failure by Democrat voters, who typically have day jobs to focus on - it is a failure by the institutions who are supposed to inform and guide them.  This institutional failure likely contributed to the popularization of Metaphysics of Whiteness content in the first place.

Okay, now what?

Donald Moss is a crackpot.  Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable.  The idea that there is a psychic parasite of “Whiteness” is not a legitimate field of study; it’s parasociology.  The idea that “a sense of urgency” is “white supremacy culture” isn’t much better. [1]

We already tried isolating this content to obscure corners of academia, where individuals with high racial attachment could write about it.  It leaked out. 

We need to get this stuff out of the popular consciousness to make room for stuff that might actually work.  The best way to do that may be to cut off the source.  Since Donald Moss is a crackpot, perhaps it’s time we started treating him, and everyone else like him, as what they are.

People involved in Metaphysics of Whiteness content, like Donald Moss, need to be (figuratively) grabbed by the shoulder, and firmly, but politely, told to stop.  Society has been recklessly handing out race-colored glasses to the general population since around 2014, resulting in a rise in amateur race science, of which both right-wing Twitter users memeing about Italians and Metaphysics of Whiteness participants like Moss are examples.  If they do not stop, they must be stripped of institutional authority.  Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable and we should not be certifying it.

If institutions refuse to reduce the authority of Metaphysics of Whiteness practitioners, those institutions must have their accreditation penalized, and their government funding reduced or eliminated, just as if they insisted on producing study after study on magic or ESP which failed to yield results.  If they do not comply, they must be replaced.

It’s possible that Metaphysics of Whiteness content might have had some obscure, niche function in terms of the exploration of the idea space. 

However, as it has displaced popular knowledge of interventions that might work, and the attention given to them in the political system, Liberals should seek to surgically remove it, at the very least until some more effective interventions see the political light of day.

If not, Conservatives will attempt to remove it with a bludgeon.  "They described an entire race as ‘voracious, insatiable, and perverse,’ and here’s the citation for the exact page where they did that,” is perfect material with which to abolish entire departments.

-★★★-

[1] If we go a bit farther out, scholars of “Decolonization” argue that the field is wholly unconcerned with “settler futurity,” a phrase not much less ominous than describing “whiteness” as “incurable.”  It seems that their entire job should be to answer the very difficult questions they have decided not to.

[ds-ts-smut-fics]

Cave Boys [Chapter One]

Edit: Please tell me if the ‘read more’ isn’t working because this is the third time I tried adding it in and on our blog, it shows, but when I see it on my dash it isn’t there. I’m really sorry if it’s still not working. 

Synopsis: While exploring, Logan finds an unknown cave. He’s too curious for his own good and wanders inside, only to be kidnapped by monsters and taken to their civilization as a prize to be sold to the highest bidder. 

Genre: Logan-centric whump with a happy ending for all, NSFW, romantic intrulogical, parental loceit, parental logicality, romantic moceit, background romantic prinxiety 

Trigger warnings (for the entire fic): Angst and whump, blood, gore, kidnapping, monsters, human in a cage, human in a collar, human on a leash, I think maybe technically body horror?, implied unsympathetic Janus, implied unsympathetic Virgil (neither of them is unsympathetic they’re both just assholes lol), human slavery, human being treated as property, human up for sale, threats, eventual non-con, lots of bullying, poverty

Trigger warnings (for this chapter): Traps, ankle injuries, knives that go unused, suicidal speech, talk of a person ‘fading’ (very briefly and it doesn’t happen), arguing and insults, implied poverty 

Word count: 6171 

Written by: Claire and Virgil

Edited by: Virgil

A/N: Hi, I played Janus and if you ask me where his personality comes from, I have no answer ~Mod Virgil 

When Logan was upset, he explored the forest by his house. 

The woods spread over hundreds of miles. They were covered in towering pines, ground in thick moss and large boulders. There were plenty of places of interest marked out and documented— Hot springs, caves, clearings, ponds. 

Logan had visited all of them. 

It got to the point where he merely wandered, focusing on landmarks instead of the people who upset him, who had once again let him down. After all, he had to be able to find his way home. A few times he got lost in the forest for longer than desired. 

He was several hours into his hike, in a direction he had never been before, when he came across an undocumented cave. He checked every centimetre of his map- The one he updated every night -but no one knew of its existence. 

Humming, he flicked on his light, circling the area just in case, and making a note of the find in his journal before stepping in carefully, eyes wide with wonder. “Stupendous…." 

The entrance of the cave was made of high ceilings and jagged walls covered in moss. The gurgling of running water from somewhere to his left echoed through the room, and straight across, through a narrow crack in the wall, was something… Glowing. Glittering, even, shining with purple, pink, yellow, and blue. 

Gasping softly, he crept carefully towards the crack, a small shiver running down his spine. "Were I more superstitious, I would say this is a fairy ring or some nonsense… how does it shimmer like that though!” Reaching out, he slipped some gloves on to touch the nearest one, the darkest blue he’d ever seen. 

It was… So warm. Warm and beautiful. What was this rock- No, crystal? If he got some of it back home, he could test it… He’d have to get through the crack to harvest some of it. 

Leaning out a little further, he grunted. The moment he stumbled out of the crack, metal slid against metal, and as bars flipped upward to lock him in a claustrophobic cage, pain exploded in his ankle as something clamped around it. Cheers sounded nearby. 

A terrified yelp spilled from his lips as he pushed and pulled at the metal. What’s going on?!

Thick, hairy hands curl around the bars of the cage, the metal screeching along the stone floor as Logan was hauled into the darkness. 

“That’s four for me,” the voice closest to him grunts, “and none for you. Have you noticed that? I have.” 

His hands flew to his ears. He quickly lost track of where he was, darkness and the long strides of whoever, or whatever, now had him, making it impossible. The screaming pain in his ankle had hardly subsided by the time the moving finally stopped. The only direction Logan was certain he went in was down. He started to realize why this place wasn’t marked on the map. 

“Do him like the other humans, there should be an open spot close to the city,” the same voice ordered. “I’ll go update the books.” 

His heart sunk. He flinched back as a long arm reached for him. The monster tugged at him even as he kicked with his unbound leg, fumbling in his pockets for his knife and swiping. “Get the hell away! Let me go!!”

The thing laughed gleefully as its slim form easily avoided his slashes. “You know,” it clamped down on Logan’s injured ankle, pain forming black spots in his vision, “those stupid crystal things were the best thing we’ve ever done for our jobs. Made things so much easier.” 

Logan snarled, certain that if he could just get one hit in, it would be fine. Maybe he’d even wake up, bed sheets wrapped around his ankles instead of this millipede nightmare.

“If you don’t stop struggling,” it sang, “you’ll never be able to use that ankle again.” It squeezed tighter, digging the metal further into his flesh, Logan’s vision turning white.

He screamed and fell limp. 

The thing dragged him forward by his ankle and slapped something against his neck. It crumpled and curled around like a collar, but the material was some type of metal Logan didn’t recognize. It almost… Harnessed heat. The longer it stuck to his skin, the more it burned, like holding your hand too close to fire without touching it. 

It clipped a chain on the collar and dragged Logan across the dirt floor. Logan will never forget the things he saw as it led him further into the cave system. 

It brought him down to an area with square holes cut in the walls, light seeping into the makeshift hallway. What could only be described as monsters peeked through the windows, watching Logan with expressions he couldn’t recognize. There was occasional hissing, chirping, incoherent English mumbling… But not a human in sight. 

Slumped in the larger pen, he tried to put together what had happened for a long time after the creature left, he finally had looked down to see the bloody mess his ankle was, and the trap attached to it. It throbbed with his panicked heartbeat ever since he had given up getting it off. 

“You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

An androgynous voice, sounding almost-human, echoed down the hall as two pairs of footsteps headed for his cage. Were they human? Were they going to save him? 

Shifting to his feet, Logan carefully hopped back a little. A soft whine left his lips as he imagined the horror to come. 

“What?! I’m a bitch?!” A louder tone answered, an almost trill to the end echoing off the cavern walls. “You!” The voice sputtered, as if trying and failing to defend itself. “You’re not even looking at me, fang boy!”

“I don’t have to look at you to know you’re a moron. You’ve tripped over more rocks than me, and I’m fucking blind.” 

Two figures came into Logan’s vision. One of them was biped, and looked vaguely humanoid, but a long snout protruded from its face and in place of nails, long, black talons curled. They were sharp enough to slit Logan’s throat. The thing’s eyes, for what tiny slits they were, had no colour. 

Gesturing with a broad swipe, the second figure proclaimed loudly, “So, I wanted to be fashionable and pretty for the new arrivals, Count Woe-laff! So sue me!" 

“Count… Who?”

Logan gingerly hopped out of range of the claws and the cloak the louder one wore. It floated and fluttered, as if it sat on a tide. Eyes lifting to meet Logan’s, the loud one found a rock and went down hard. He squeezed out a pained breath. 

The badger thing slapped a paw to its face, right above his snout. “God, you are such a moron.” It knelt down and wrapped a paw around the other’s wrist, and for a moment Logan thought those talons were going to draw blood, but the thing helped its counterpart up and patted its back roughly. 

Huffing, it dusted off, just now noticing Logan. "So, I missed a safety measure or three. Did you see-? Oh! There’s a human!" 

A deep rumble fell from the badger boy’s throat, presumably a laugh. “No, I don’t see. But do you know how I know anyway? Because I listen when we’re given orders.” 

The two of them stopped in front of Logan’s cage. The badger held large, flat pieces of stone and ran a single talon along it. The nail wormed its way between all the grooves and indentations, face clenched in concentration. 

“Logan?” It tried. “Did I say that right? You’re listed as male, is that correct?” 

Mouth opening a few times, Logan managed after a few moments, "I… Yes? How do you know that?! I haven't… There weren’t any questions asked!”

“Everything I have here is first impressions, things our superiors could tell from sight. My name is Virgil, and the idiot back there is Roman. He uses he/him, I use they/them. What do you use?” They cocked their head towards Roman and mumbled, “Did I ask that correctly?” 

Roman snorted softly. “I’m not an idiot, V!" 

"Yes, a bit stiff and formal, but basically correct. I prefer he/him pronouns and my name is Logan. Why am I here? Can either of you get this device off of my leg?!” He balanced, using a part of the cage furthest from the two beings, uncertainty clouding his mind.

“You were unlucky,” Virgil answered, and then the rest of Logan’s words caught up with them. They snapped something in a language Logan didn’t understand, in the same implication of one spitting out a chain of curses, and asked, “Damnit, Roman, did they leave that fucking thing on again?”

“Looks like it. They pushed it in, too! Even when they struggle, that’s just mean!” Lilting sounds left his lips in much the same implied tone. “We have to get closer to get it off.”

“I’ll do it. Just make sure he doesn’t escape.” Virgil gave Roman the tablets and pulled a set of keys from one of their many pockets. They spoke as they unlocked the door. “Roman and I are assigned to guard you when you’re on good behaviour. If you act out too much, we can’t help, and you won’t like where you end up.” They knelt in front of Logan and pat the ground. “Put your ankle right here. You’re going to have to trust us, and accept the situation.” 

Slowly pushing off the wall, Logan carefully slid to where Virgil indicated, voice soft and stubbornly resigned. “Do I have a choice? I don’t know where ‘here’ is or how to get home, even if I thought that I could walk or climb to get there.”

“You’re smarter than most humans they catch.” Virgil slipped a talon into a slot on the device, a thin tongue poking between their lips. They plunged the talon deeper, and the device popped off, ripping off some of Logan’s skin with it. 

“FUCK! That hurts!” He groaned. He tugged his foot close and rocked, pressing at the bleeding parts of his foot. He glared. “What good does being smart do me? I’m still here.” 

“I’m sorry.” They sounded genuine. “I didn’t want to warn you, it would have just freaked you out.” Virgil stood and left the cage, closing and locking the door behind them. They took the tablets back from Roman. “We don’t have a lot of human food. Do you have… Uh, fuck, what did that girl call it? Come on, Roman, speak up, you know way more about humans than I do.” 

Roman jumped a little. “Which girl, the one that had those little bars in her bag or the one that said she couldn’t eat nuts?”

“The one who couldn’t eat nuts. She said it’d kill her. We weren’t aware humans weren’t able to eat all human foods. That’s so fucking weird… You guys are fucking weird, you know that?” 

“Those are called allergies. Sensitivity in differing degrees to parts of our environment. I don’t have an allergy to anything. That I’ve encountered so far at least?”

A horrible grating sound sliced through the air as Virgil noted that down with their talon. “And how old are you? We’ve tried guessing age before but another thing humans are fucking weird with, you guys don’t look the same ever.” 

Covering his ears, Logan gritted his teeth. “Twenty- I’m twenty years old.”

Virgil noted that down as well and, to Logan’s immense relief, pocketing the tablets. “Okay. So what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna grab you some food while Princey here watches you, then-”

“VIRGIL! ROMAN!” An impatient voice echoed through the corridor, rapidly coming closer. “I’M HERE TO MEET THE NEW HUMAN!” 

“Get lost, Janus,” Virgil growled. “The human’s not open for meet and greets yet!”

Logan hissed softly, pushing back against the wall. No more new things… 

At first glance, the rapidly approaching creature looked human. It almost startled hope in Logan, until it came into the light. 

It was not human. 

Its skin was ghostly pale in the spaces it wasn’t covered in shimmering green scales. Its eyes were slit like a snake’s, its fangs poking out between its lips. It had similar talons to Virgil’s, but a fraction of the length and looked almost manicured. 

A dazzling grin slid across its face as its eyes landed on Logan. “Oh, hello darling.” It frowned, gaze dropping to his ankle. “Oh, dear, did these two do that to you?” 

Virgil shoved the thing. “You can’t keep doing this every fucking time a human arrives. Just because you meet them first doesn’t mean anyone can guarantee you a lower price.” 

“P-Price?!” Logan trembled. “You mean I’m to be sold… Like property?!” His vision swam. He curled up tight around his injured limb, rocking slowly as he panicked. “Maybe I should just fucking run… Hope I find a damn cliff or something’s claw…”

All three of them jumped in visible panic, jumping over each other to discourage him. 

“-horrible, horrible idea-”

“-please, darling, you’ll only get hurt-”

“-you won’t make it far enough and the punishment will make you regret trying-”

The snake thing wrapped a hand around one of the bars. “I know it looks bleak now, but if you trust me, convince the others that I would be the best buyer… You’ll be happy they took you in the first place.”

Logan laughed with a snort. “Why the fuck would I want something like that?!”

“You’re going to confuse him,” Virgil growled. “Don’t make him think he has any say. Just go and wait for his display day, okay?” 

“You’ll look fabulous! And certainly end up with a better owner than snake lips there!” Roman blocked the view with his body, winking.

“I can make you happy!” It insisted. “Please, don’t listen to them! My name is Janus. What’s yours? Let me get to know you, darling.” 

“Happy?! Go suck an egg and choke.” Turning, Logan tugged at his ankle, turning to Virgil. “Is there any medical treatment? Water? Clean cloth?”

“Yes, I’ll bring you water with your dinner. Roman, did you-”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Janus did not seem sorry, “but I’m not familiar with that human expression? Was that- Was-”

“You were rejected,” Virgil said flatly. “When are you going to accept that no one wants you?” 

“I don’t trust any of you and I don’t like this one bit,” Logan muttered softly. 

Janus hesitated, then spun on his heels and left. 

Virgil sighed. “Roman, did you remember the gauze?”

Producing a roll from a bag on his hip, Roman nodded. "Of course!”

Virgil took it and unlocked the cage again. “I’ll go grab your food after I get this wrapped up, okay? Did they hurt you anywhere else?” They sat and patted the same spot on the floor. 

Slowly stretching out again, Logan thought. “The collar-thing felt like it was burning… But I don’t think so?” Looking at his hands, he hummed. 

“Bruises on his hands at least,” Roman piped up, “probably all over from those damn cages.”

Virgil wrapped Logan’s ankle and held out their paws, palms up. “Give me your hands.” 

Carefully, Logan held them out, palm down. “What is the purpose of taking humans? What use are we to you?”

“It’s different for each buyer.” Virgil’s dark skin was surprisingly soft as their fingers rubbed along Logan’s palms. “The simple answer is that there’s a huge market for it. There are rumours that people buy humans because they want to take out their anger at being locked down here while you all are free up there, but I think that’s bullshit. We could go up there if we wanted, we just don’t. I think the people who think that are cowards.”

Logan snorted. “Everything I’ve seen here is like a cross between a fantasy tale and a nightmare… Things most people don’t believe even exist! There’s no way there’s a lock or force keeping you here! That’s just not logical!" 

“Exactly.” Virgil grinned, squeezing Logan’s hands. “You walked right in, didn’t you? What’s stopping the ones desiring to walk right out?” 

"Well… I was exploring, curious. I rather fell in? It was a doorway, though!” He blushed, thinking back. “Seems it was a trap, though, from what they said.”

“Yeah,” Virgil mumbled as they rose to their feet. “It’s those crystals. Humans go crazy for them. The severity depends on the person, but it just makes you want to know… Everything about them. And you’ll put that priority over any others.” Virgil slipped out of the cage, then shut and locked the doors. “Humans are so stupid,” they sighed, and left to get Logan’s food. 

Logan curled in on himself. Did I upset them? “Oh…" 

Roman hummed softly and slipped into place at the door. "Should we get you more coverings? Are you too cold?" 

Pausing, Logan shook his head. Virgil came back a while later with a tray of what looked close to oatmeal, and a few bottles of water. They slid it through a gap in the bars, towards the bottom. 

“You should try to sleep after you eat.” They shoved a thick roll of cloth through as well. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. You’re going to meet one of our superiors, and she’ll be preparing you for your display day. Please, please obey us, and obey her. If you misbehave, Roman and I will not be able to help you.” 

"I… Okay, I’ll do my best. Thank you for the advice. What- What exactly is a display day?" 

“One of our superiors will take you to the city, along with some other humans, and, well, put you on display. People come by to meet you and look at you, and bids will start.” 

"Oh… Has anyone ever… Gone home?”

Virgil hesitated, expression darkening. “You mean… Left the cave?” 

“Yes. Is there a chance that I will ever see the surface again?” He raised his head to watch the expression of this strangely compassionate being. “Will I ever see my home again… Or am I here until I die?”

“Don’t ask questions like that,” Virgil hissed. “That’s exactly the kind of thing that will land you in a place you don’t want to be in. I’m sorry, I’m sure it must be hard to accept, but this is your best option now.”

“Oh…"  His head dipped, resting on his knees. "That tells me what I need to know, I guess.”

“It’ll be okay,” Virgil promised. “If you’re smart, you can find yourself a good owner who’ll make you happy.” They looked over their shoulder. “Roman, will you set up our tent? I’m taking second watch tonight.” 

Roman rolled his eyes. “Been setting it up as you two gossips talked, guess you really are blind, batboy!”

Virgil looked at them incredulously. “Do you think I’m exaggerating when I say I’m blind?”

Logan couldn’t help but laugh softly, a hand muffling the sound as Roman teased in that other language, causing Virgil to swipe at him.

Virgil finally just rolled their eyes. “Goodnight, Roman. Don’t be stupid, wake me up for my shift, okay?”

He huffed softly. “Fine… Sleep well, emo nightmare!”

“Goodnight, Logan. Let Roman know if you need something.” Virgil ducked into the tent and zipped it up behind them. 

Logan spent most of the night struggling to sleep. The blanket Virgil gave him barely softened the hard stone floor, and every time he fell asleep for a few minutes, he jerked awake, body insisting he was in danger. Eventually, he settled for leaning against the back wall of the enclosure and mentally reciting the constellations to try and remain calm. At some point he must have passed out, because he jerked awake when the door opened, an unfamiliar voice speaking with the two guards from earlier.

“How has he been behaving?” The feminine voice asked. 

“Perfectly,” Virgil said dryly. “Just went right to bed last night, didn’t even think about escaping.”

“Hmm. That’s perfect. Have you noticed anything strange about him, anything to take note of?”

Roman chuckled. “He seems quite intelligent, if a bit scared. The first crew beat him up a bit and I’m not sure if he’s having issues from that first handling?”

“Hmm,” she sounded indifferent, “I’ll check when we get him to the tailor. We’ll definitely have to market his intelligence, most humans are so dumb.” 

Slowly pushing up, Logan hummed softly as dread crept into his stomach. Watching her body language for clues, he steeled himself for whatever she might do to ‘display’ him. 

She talked with the two a little longer. She looked remarkably similar to Virgil. 

She unlocked the cage door and beckoned Logan forward. “Are you awake? Come here, please.”

“I am.” Standing, he slowly approached, watching those long claws carefully. “Am I allowed to speak, ma'am?”

Her barely-there eyes widened a bit. “Wow, you guys weren’t kidding. He is smart. Yes, Logan, you can speak, but keep it to a minimum. I presume Virgil and Roman told you where you’ll go when you misbehave, and I feel it’s important to tell you that our rules and their rules will not be the same.”

“What are those rules, ma'am? I would prefer to avoid punishment if possible.” Gulping as she approached, he fought not to run.

She gracefully slid her talons under his collar and brought him closer, clipping on a chain. She gently tugged, like beckoning a dog, and stepped out of the cage. 

“The obvious ones,” she told him as they walked through the dark corridors, Roman and Virgil flanking them, “like don’t try to escape, don’t be rude, don’t attack anyone. Any others, you have permission to break once, since you won’t know, then any time after that you’ll be assigned new guards.”

He nodded. If he were to break any rules, it would certainly be fighting back or being rude. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.”

“You’re very welcome, Logan. You’re very polite.” 

She took them down a route Logan didn’t recognize, and seemingly all at once, the cave walls turned into carved out homes, the narrow hall opened up into a huge cavern bustling with noise, and he was surrounded in life. It was a complete city, underground, and crawling with monsters. “Roman, please visit the office and update the books while Virgil and I bring him to the tailor.”

Smiling wide, Roman saluted. He took the tablets from Virgil before turning with a flourish. “Certainly! I’ll meet back up with you there!" 

Virgil’s boss led him through the city. Despite her lack of vision, she never ran into anyone or anything. She brought them to a tiny little building made of jagged rock, some of the door crumbling as she pulled it open. 

“Go in, now.” 

Stumbling slightly, Logan ducked inside. His eyes slowly adjusted to the lowered light. He could barely make out a small shop with piles of fabrics, some chains and restraints on the walls. "H-Hello?" 

Scratching sounded as a figure rounded the mounds, low syllabant voice purring as wings and claws came into view. "Greetings, human… Hand over the chain, Sylvia? I need to see all of him easily, you know!”

A griffin. 

Sylvia chuckled and passed it over. “He’s very intelligent, so we’ll need an outfit to highlight that, Rose, make sure everyone who sees him knows.”

Rose’s paw looped the chain over a stand as she drew him in closer. “So I see… His eyes are watching everything. Maybe if we highlight them….” Grabbing some materials, she draped them to check the shade. She sketched concepts with soft mutters. “Scholar… Robes?”

Sylvia hummed appreciatively and found a seat. Virgil stood guard by the door. “Yes, I’m sure that’ll work,” Sylvia said. 

“Of course, darling, I AM the best!” Moving Logan with firm but gentle paws, she measured and worked on creating a heavy-looking robe with colours that complimented his features. It made him look wise, and yet hampered movement so he wasn’t tempted to run. Showing him off when she finished, she motioned for Logan to turn. “I would add some makeup for those eyes if you really want him to sell at mark up, sweetie!”

“I’ll mention that to the stylist tomorrow. I trust you’ve done a wonderful job, if there’s anything the boss has to say I’ll bring him back before closing hours.” 

She stood and pulled a few gems out of the bag at her hip. One of them was an amethyst, but Logan didn’t recognize the rest. She held them out in Rose’s general direction. 

Taking the stones, Rose purred and traded them for Logan’s chain. “A pleasure as always!”

“Virgil, come take this.” She held out the chain, and Virgil felt around until they found her wrist, and felt their way to the end of the chain. “Wait outside for Roman, then get him back to his cage and make him something to eat. I’m going to make sure the work on his display cage is going smoothly.” 

“Sure.” They gestured for Logan to follow, taking it on faith that Logan saw and tugging him out the door. 

Logan stumbled as he adjusted to the change in leading style. “Virgil?”

Sylvia passed them outside and disappeared into the crowd of people. Virgil leaned against the wall of the tailor. “What’s up?”

“Just a question. Am I to wear this outfit only for presentation, or is this to be my new daily attire?” Logan touched the navy fabric, careful not to mess it up. 

“We’re just fitting you for your display day. After we get the boss’ approval, you’ll change back into your original clothes and we’ll keep that safe until everything’s ready. Why?”

“Oh… They are much warmer than what I currently have. The space I was in, it’s colder than I’m used to?" 

Virgil stepped forward and clumsily rubbed one of their paws over the side of Logan’s face. “Hm. You’re right, I don’t think humans’ skin is supposed to be this cold. I’ll grab you a hoodie when I get your breakfast. Jesus, do you see Princey anywhere? He’s so fucking distractable.”

Shivering, Logan leaned into the touch. "Mmm…" 

Roman scoffed softly, coming up behind Virgil. "Petting him without me, V? You’re bonding nicely!”

They dropped their paw with a sigh. “He’s cold. You should carry him back. Body heat should be able to warm him up just as well as fabric.” 

“Oh!” Stepping in, Roman scooped Logan up after a quick consideration on how to position him. “Okay! He’s so light… Are they supposed to be this small?”

Virgil shrugged as they made their way back. “I don’t know. Like I said, humans almost never look the same. Feel below his chest, can you feel his ribs through his skin?”

Logan squeaked as Roman poked at him. “I am not underweight!”

“Just let Roman check,” Virgil sighed. “We need to make sure we’re feeding you correctly.”

Blushing a bright red, Logan nodded and tried to relax. 

Roman hummed softly. “Not easily… Skinny but like just not a lot of natural padding? He is super cold though… Shivering.”

“Yeah, like I said, you gotta warm him up. Use friction.” 

Chuckling, Roman cuddled Logan close, hands sliding under his clothes to rub gently. “Got it, V!”

They brought him back to his holding cage, Virgil holding out his old clothes. “Go ahead and get changed, I need those.”

Turning for modesty even though he knew it was useless, Logan nodded. He held out the robes to Roman. “Here… Might I request something warm for food? It helps.”

“Of course. We have some soups that are safe for humans. I’ll be right back.” 

Roman grinned and settled Logan in his lap, stroking gently. “Soooo… Do you want to talk while V’s doing the boring stuff?”

He blushed and cuddled into Roman’s chest. “Sure?” 

“Awesome!” Petting Logan’s hair, he bounced a little. “So, what do you do for fun? Do you live alone? 20 is above the age of leaving your parent’s territory, right?”

“It varies from person to person. It’s not an abnormal time to be on your own.” He shrugged a little. Somehow, thinking of his old life seemed… Bleeker. “I read a lot. Um, I did a lot of exploring, obviously. I liked finding things I didn’t know about and taking it home to run some tests, see if there’s anything interesting. And, uh, yeah. I lived alone.” 

“Oh! So humans’ life patterns vary? There’s no set time to leave your first home, find a mate?” Roman’s eyes were wide, fascinated. 

Logan nodded slowly. “Yeah… I mean, you can do whatever you want, really. Do you… Have a ‘set time’ to find a mate?” 

He blushed. “Kind of? My species has a limit on how long you have to search. We have a token that we’re to give to our mates after courtship… and if you don’t, we kind of… fade?" 

Logan frowned deeply. “That’s horrible. What if you don’t want a partner?”

 Roman’s head tipped in confusion. "Who wouldn’t want a life partner? The world is lonely sometimes!”

“Well, plenty of people upstairs.” Logan turned to face Roman, wrapping his legs around him. He was slowly warming up, but not quick enough for his liking. “I mean… Well, are we talking about ‘life partners’ or ‘mates?’” 

“Oh! You separate the sexual pairs from the companionship ones?” Roman chuckled. “That makes more sense now!”

He nodded, hesitantly resting his head on Roman’s shoulder. “Yeah. Some people only want one or the other, or neither. I mean, most everyone wants someone to be with for their lives, but… More separated. It’s hard to explain. People can just do whatever they want with their own relationships.”

Roman hummed, sliding off his outer covering layer to hold Logan closer, fingers playing with his hair. “It’s complicated. We do have some help, though? Our tokens can act as a guide, giving a nudge if we’re blind to our feelings!" 

“Hmm… That’s really-”

“VIRGIL? ROMAN? ARE YOU BACK YET?” 

Wincing, Roman groaned and tucked Logan against him. "Son of a sea cow! GO AWAY!”

Janus appeared in the light, looking flustered. “Oh- Logan! You’re out of your cage!” He smiled shakily. “How did you sleep? Oh- Are you cold?” He started to shrug off his jacket. 

Logan snickered softly. He patted Roman’s hair as he hissed at Janus and bared his fangs. 

“I am,” Logan said, “I slept some… Roman is taking care of me, but, thank you?" 

“Oh, I don’t mind!” Janus messily grabbed some gems out of one of the pockets and stuffed them in his pants’ pocket, then held out the jacket. The inside was covered in patches of various fabrics, some of those patches with patches of their own. “I was hoping you’d be more up to talk today? Are you busy?”

Deciding it to be rude to refuse the gift, Logan slid into the jacket carefully. It wasn’t very comfortable— Scratchy, the material stiff. "Well… Um, I don’t think I’m allowed to before presentation day? I don’t want trouble.”

“Janus.” An irritated voice echoed through the tunnel, and Virgil came into view. “Why are you back?” 

“I’m trying to talk to Logan.” Frustration bit into his voice, Janus’ hands curling into fists. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes,” Virgil snapped. “He doesn’t want you. You can bid on him tomorrow like everyone else.”

“Thank you for your interest, Janus… But perhaps some other time?” Logan set his head on Roman’s shoulder, confused by the odd snake creature’s persistence.

One of Janus’ fangs poked into his lip. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to bother you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Virgil set the tray of food down and came over to Logan with a thick hoodie. They felt over Logan’s shoulders and frowned in confusion, then anger. 

“Take that off,” they snapped. 

Blushing, Logan quickly obeyed. “Sorry… It seemed rude to refuse?”

Virgil tossed the jacket on the floor, one of their talons catching and ripping another hole. “When Sylvia said you couldn’t be rude, that certainly does not apply to him. Don’t trust him. Don’t take anything he gives you.” Virgil wrapped the hoodie around Logan’s shoulders and patted him softly. “Let’s get back in your cage, okay?”

Janus picked up his jacket silently, and left. 

“Oh… why?" 

“He doesn’t deserve to be around humans. You don’t know how things work down here, so you wouldn’t understand, but trust us. He should not be around humans.” Virgil held out his food tray once Logan was in the cage. 

Taking the tray, Logan leaned against the bars, wishing for Roman’s warmth again but sipping the soup happily. "Do you have any other advice?" 

“You’ve been doing fine,” Virgil promised. “Just get some rest for your display day.” 

"Are most humans bought after just one display day?” His forehead pinched at the thought of being uprooted again. 

“No. There are usually four, and you’ll be waiting at least a month. How long exactly depends. Bids are open for at least a month, and depending on the popularity of the subject- You -the date might be extended to try and raise a higher price.”

“O-Oh… and I’ll be kept here, or a different place between displays?” I wish I had my notebooks, my things… I dropped all that outside the hole when I fell in.

“It depends on your behaviour. If you behave, you’ll be kept with us until you’re bought. If you break a rule, though, you’ll immediately be switched guards until you’re either bought or the superiors are convinced you won’t act out again.”

Shaking his head, Logan nibbled his bottom lip. “I meant is there a way to earn perhaps… Warmer space, things to distract myself with? I am used to activity, knowledge-seeking.”

Virgil frowned. “I’m sorry. No, that’ll have to wait. You can ask your owner when you’re bought.” 

His shoulders slumped. “Oh… This will be a very long month then.” I’m to be bored and confused and scared, lovely.

Virgil headed back to Roman. 

Blushing a little, Roman pulled out a small package and handed it to Virgil. “Oh, before I forget, I saw this new tea at the vendors! It’s supposed to be super calming and it smells really good!" 

Virgil pressed the bag to their snout, sniffing it curiously. “Mm! Spicy! Thanks, Ro!” They jumped to their feet. “I’m gonna go make some, do you want any?” 

Preening a little, Roman made a little chirp of happiness. "Sure!”

Logan arched an eyebrow. Is… Is Roman courting Virgil?!

Virgil squeezed his hand and rushed away. Logan arched an eyebrow. “So… You did say gifts were instrumental to the courtship process, did you not?”

Blushing bright red, Roman turned to Logan. “Yeah… Doesn’t have to be expensive, just thought out!”

Logan finished his soup and hugged his knees. “How many gifts have you given them? Do they understand what you’re doing?”

Roman hummed softly as he thought. “There was the material for a new hoodie, some repair on their clothes… The tea, a few meals. I don’t know if they do, but I hope so! They’re so sure that nobody would want them, silly Clawsian!" 

“How long do you have until your, um, deadline?” 

Looking down, Roman tugged at his cloak gently. "Six lunar cycles…" 

Logan’s eyes blew wide. “What-? That’s- Tell them! You have to tell them!” 

Roman blush deepened. "Well, I don’t want to make them become my mate out of a sense of duty, to somehow save me? They’re so honourable…. Kind.”

“That’s-”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” 

Two mugs clanked against the stone and Virgil charged forward. They felt up Roman’s arms, his shoulders, neck, finally cupping his face, then tilted his head to kiss him hard. 

Melting into the strong hands, Roman moaned, kissing back with equal passion as he revelled in the caring touches. “Virgil~”

Logan laughed. “I would agree… They seem quite amenable!”

Virgil slid their talons into Roman’s hair. After a moment or two, he pulled away, voice ragged. “If you ever put yourself in danger for me, ever again, I will break up with you so fucking fast, Princey-”

Face bright red, Roman nodded quickly and chased the touch. “O- Okay! I promise to tell you if I’m ever in danger again!" 

Virgil poked his nose. “Good.” 

They grabbed their mugs of tea and settled against Roman’s side. Virgil’s smelled approximately ten times spicier than Roman’s. 

Nuzzling lightly, Roman smiled. "Does that mean we’re together then, you accept me as your mate?!”

“Depends on how good this tea is.” Virgil took in a long sip, eyes fluttering shut. “Yes, I accept.”

Laughing, Roman snuggled in and sipped his own. Virgil finished the mug and rested their head on Roman’s shoulder, falling asleep for a nap while Roman took watch.

The sub of this duo, Virgil, does commissions! Earn yourself 300 words for each coffee and the knowledge that you’re helping me pay the bills and start my own business 

You can read my writing specifically here

[frengles]

Here’s something I just wrote for class UH i am kind of proud of it I GUESS

content warnings: depression, a kind of abstract but personal recount of emotional abuse 

Sometimes

I think I talk too much because I’m making up for lost time and other times because if I don’t say anything the silence will wrap itself around my neck again and choke me in the gentlest terms, slither down my throat and create intrusive abusive loving familiar form and self-reintroduce:

“This is your sadness and this is you,

                                     the sadness.”

(if the space between words is a boil then you must vomit up needles to keep pace with the growth and sometimes sometimes it feels impossible and you are bleeding, heavily)

***

She is 19 and fresh dropped out of hope when someone grabs her hand in a shop basement and shows her she and the universe are more than circumstance allowed her to view. She is bold and unconditionally kind and   important   and just needed a little help getting to that last conclusion. You are her, you hope. You’re also you, 12 and greasy after spending hours cooped up with the other one and a bowl of cold mashed potatoes. Your eyeballs kind of hurt from staring at the square of light in the darkness but you don’t really mind.

***

The anomalous space between when she spoke and when she spoke again reeks of an abstract sense of unexistence. Sound left a certain house when her father did, and the days he drove her up to its overbearing panels she’d look at him. Look at him and remember when she used to clutch his big hand and look up at his sky tall head and babble about nothing in particular. Words were so much easier to find then. Sometimes he’d give a playful limit on them, count her questions but still answer why the stars were that way if she forgot.

I know it’s quiet at your mom’s house, honey, but you don’t have to be quiet with us. When she was younger she believed he could do anything. He’d crouch in the grass and spend hours digging up the dandelions while she braided the stems. She looks at him in this moment and sees a pain they both can’t speak. The yard is filled with weeds.

***

YOUR FIRST LOVE IS A MAN WHO HUNTS DEMONS <PHYSICAL>.

Points to address:

Feeling tethered to yet not a part of his family

Consuming driving thriving sense of unbelonging

His kindness. Sees good in “monsters.” hesitation to kill?

Wants to get out. Wants to be good. Wants to do good things (tragically something always gets in the narrative way)

Conceptually it’s silly, she believes being alive is silly, it works.

There’s a comfort in the easy analysis.

***

Can’t quite remember when speech turned itself on side and refused to unlodge from esophagus instead leaking out in weird sweats and tremors but it’s scattered in between the lines of pubescent journals ripped up in a fit of panic years after the fact. Somewhere, a landfill knows.

***

02/25/2012 1:26 PM

your closest friend who moved across the country and left you here are you sad is online.

                                             [hkajhos[fphjs]

                                             [Hello there]

[hello]

                                             [I missed you]

[i was hardly gone for a day]

                                             [it was a very long day]

[oh i see]

                                             [plus i couldn’t talk with you all day yesterday]

[well i miss you too]

                                             [something about tv]

[something else about tv]

                                             [lather rinse]

[repeat]

                          ....

                                             [I love(d) you to the best of my capacity.]

***

Second love is childhood best friend after the fact. Communication without faces became speciality because eyes hurt too much pour your heart into letter letter idealization letter not quite saying anything but every thing. Chat. Message. Post. Letter Text Letter mold a universe FOR US THAT DOESN’T PIERCE ME IN WAYS I DON’T KNOW IF I’LL EVER BE ABLE TO SAY TO YOU OR ME OR ANY body.  

Years.

Decide you want to write for a living.

***

[Curtains open to a palpable darkness. Spotlight erupts onto upper stage right to reveal THE PHONE. THE PHONE is ringing. You blanch. THE PHONE rings. You have to answer THE PHONE - revocation of contact won’t happen for another week. You have to answer THE PHONE because last time you did not answer THE PHONE it was bad. THE PHONE rings. Answer THE PHONE.]

Give her the sound of you bursting as she gives you the promise to save you from something no one besides her is sure of. It was the most you’d given her in years. It was the last you ever gave her.

You are alone on the stage now in the corner of your closet recall the winter of your 14th when she asked if she could hug you. You said nothing. Her embrace felt hot.

***

The Silence speaks to the silence, asks: “Where do we end?”

There is a day unbound by time I walk up to the silence and ask its name. It looks me in the eyes for once as vulnerable as I am and defines itself in the wail it releases as I wrap it with the intimacy for which I’ve finally judged myself dignified.

There’s complexities and a diagnosis in there but the essentiality is the image of my mother tying our broken door to the hinge to keep it from dancing free in the wind. I always pained for the door imprisoned and the process of my escaping was made that much harder - besides, it was always cold in the house anyways.

Ice has scared me for a while because a long time ago I fell in the wrong shoes, and another pair of wrong shoes, and lost my wrong shoes, and fell in my new wrong shoes with no ice. It was just me and my new wrong shoes and the blisters on my feet and a laughter that lifted me. I know how to pick out shoes now but I can still walk wrong. I tend to trip over strings. Maybe I should untie them.

[zenrenovator-blog]

On Beginning “The Last Day of a Condemned Man” by Victor Hugo

“Condemned to death! “These five weeks have I dwelt with this idea,--always alone with it, always frozen by its presence, always bent under its weight. “Formerly (for it seems to me rather years than weeks since I was free) I was a being like any other; every day, every hour, every minute had its idea.  My mind, youthful and rich, was full of fancies, which it developed successively, without order or aim, but weaving inexhaustible arabesques on the poor and coarse web of life.  Sometimes it was of youthful beauties, sometimes of unbounded possessions, then of battles gained, next of theatres full of sound and light, and then again the young beauties, and shadowy walks at night beneath spreading chestnut-trees.  There was a perpetual revel in my imagination:  I might think on what I chose,--I was free. “But now,--I am a Captive!  Bodily in irons in a dungeon, and mentally imprisoned in one idea,-- one horrible, one hideous, one unconquerable idea!  I have only one thought, one conviction, one certitude,-- “Condemned to death! “Whatever I do, that frightful thought is always here, like a spectre, beside me,-- solitary and jealous, banishing all else, haunting me for ever, and shaking me with its two icy hands whenever I wish to turn my head away or to close my eyes.  It glides into all forms in which my mind seeks to shun it; mixes itself, like a horrible chant, with all the words which are addressed to me; presses against me even to the odious gratings of my prison.  It haunts me while awake, spies on my convulsive slumbers, and re-appears, a vivid incubus, in my dreams! “I have just started from a troubled sleep in which I was pursued by this thought, and I made an effort to say to myself, ‘Oh, it was but a dream!’ “Well, even before my heavy eyes could read the fatal truth in the dreadful reality which surrounds me,--on the damp and reeking dungeon walls, in the pale rays of my night-lamp, in the rough material of my prison garb, on the sombre visage of the sentry, whose cap gleams through the grating of the door,-- it seems to me that already a voice has murmured in my ear, --

“Condemned to death!” So begins Victor Hugo’s novel and polemic against the death penalty, “The Last Day of a Condemned Man.”  A powerful opening - no surprise - this is a novel that I come to while also reading Dostoevsky, who had an extraordinarily high opinion of this work (and, given that Dostoevsky was himself subjected to a mock execution before being sentenced to hard labour, his praise is no small thing).   I’ve never read Hugo before, but he seems right up my alley - dark, deep, philosophical, with a deep enthusiasm and compassion that overcomes all awkwardness.   In the introduction (written only after the publication of the novel - Hugo wanted to see it stand on its own merits first), Hugo argues against the barbarity of the guillotine, of capital punishment in general, saying that the weeks, months, or even years spent under sentence of death, awaiting one’s unnatural end, are tantamount to psychological torture.  Hugo’s narrator, whose crime is not specified and whose name is not given, is condemned to die in three weeks.  He is an educated man of the upper classes, and decides to write his experiences: “I said to myself, ‘As I have the means of writing, why should I not do it?  But of what shall I write?  Placed between four walls of cold and bare stone, without freedom for my steps, without horizon for my eyes, my sole occupation mechanically to watch the progress of that square of light which the grating of my door marks on the sombre wall opposite, and, as I said before, ever alone with one idea, --an idea of crime, punishment, death,--can I have anything to say, I who have nothing more to do in this world; and what shall I find in this dry and empty brain which is worthy the trouble of being written? “’Why not?  If all around me is monotonous and hueless, is there not within me a tempest, a struggle, a tragedy?  This fixed idea which possesses me, does it not take every hour, every minute a new form, becoming more hideous as the time approaches?  Why should I not try to describe for myself all the violent and unknown feelings I experience in my outcast situation?  Certainly the material is plentiful; and, however shortened my life may be, there will still be sufficient in the anguish, the terrors, the tortures, which will fill it from this hour until my last, to exhaust my pen and ink!  Besides, the only means to decrease my suffering in this anguish will be to observe it closely; and to describe it will give me an occupation.  And then, what I write may not be without its use.  This journal of my sufferings, hour by hour, minute by minute, torment after torment, if I have strength to carry it on to the moment when it will be physically impossible for me to continue,-- this history necessarily unfinished, yet as complete as possible of my sensations, may it not give a grand and deep lesson?  Will not there be in this process of agonizing thought, in this ever increasing storm of pain, in this intellectual dissection of a condemned man, more than one lesson for those who condemned?  Perhaps the perusal may render them less heedless, when throwing a human life into what they call ‘the scale of justice.’  Perhaps they have never reflected on the slow succession of tortures conveyed in the expeditious formula of a sentence of death.  Have they ever paused on the important idea, that in the man whose days they shorten there is an immortal spirit which had calculated on life, a soul which is not prepared for death?  No! they see nothing but the execution, and doubtless think that for the condemned there is nothing anterior or subsequent!’

“These sheets shall undeceive them.  Published, perchance, some day, they will call their attention a few moments to the suffering of the mind; for it is this which they do not consider.  They triumph in the power of being able to destroy the body, almost without making it suffer.  What an inferior consolation is this!  What is mere physical pain compared to that of the mind?  A day will come, and perhaps these memoirs, the last revelations of a solitary wretch, will have contributed-- “That is, unless after my death the wind carries away these sheets of paper into the muddy court, or unless they melt with rain when pasted to the broken window of a turnkey.” Powerful stuff.  Very interested to see where this goes.

[journeythroughimpossiblethings]

“Transporters are still bad. Please don’t ever let me use one again.” The ride had been incredibly bumpy.

“Sorry. There really wasn’t much choice.” He frowned slightly when he looked at her. “When did you have time to change clothes?”

[videofaciempraeteriti-blog]

Kara came running up and wrapped her arms around Anna. "I'm off duty for the rest of the day."

“Really?” Her face lit up and she returned the embrace. “When’s the last time that’s happened?”

[journeythroughimpossiblethings]

[[ Pathfinder!John, aka Eydan (plus picture of wife Patience) ]]

[videofaciempraeteriti-blog]

@doctorattackeyebrows

[doctorattackeyebrows]

“Sorry. I’m not meaning to stare.” -for Jon

He blushed. “Is there something on my face?”

[doctorattackeyebrows]

“Jon, look, we match.”

Jon looked at her and smiled at the spots on the sides of her face. “It looks very cute on you.” He pressed gentle kisses to some of her spots.

[doctorattackeyebrows]

Anna kissed Jon’s cheek. “I have a new holo program that I think you’d like.”

He smiled and kissed her hand. “A holo program? Is it one we can do together?”