#kinda boring limericks

[ghostofnuggetspast]

Look Forward

They both started lonely and wrong One shards, like glass pieces walked on The other a rock His esprit in a lock But together as partners, they're strong

Yes, the men are a pair, do not separate. More on ao3!

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @weeesi @friday411 @helloliriels

[doctor-ciel]

hey. Hey. i’m a random internet stranger and i need to know every detail of your classmates overreacting to that poem about kink. what do you mean they SCREAMED ??????

(Post in question). I’m not making this rebloggable for my own privacy and peace of mind, and for the sake of the people I talk about in this post. I'm also going to leave this up for 24 hours max to give anon the chance to read this.

Ok so some background information about the guy who wrote this poem, is that he always wrote weird poems in a humorous tone. Not in a limerick style, but think the kind of tone a limerick tends to have, with the rhyming and everything. For example, another one of his poems was about loving meat but it kinda became obvious that the poem was about cannibalism. Our teacher liked his poems and said a few different times that she could always tell when one was written by him.

In this poem, each stanza was a few lines about admirable traits he got from different heritages(I don’t remember them exactly but I think one of them was Irish), with the last line being a fetish that he claimed to inherit from that part of his family. He clarified during the workshop that none of them were actual fetishes of his, they were either made up or belonged to his friends(idk whether this was true or something he said bc of people’s reaction, but either way it doesn’t matter).

To me the poem was parodying people who idolize their european heritage and pokes holes in the fantasy that older times were an age of valor and shit, but we never got to talk about anything like that in his workshop.

The way this class worked was that we all had read this a week prior(or 20 minutes prior if you’re me and procrastinate). So they weren’t wailing as their first reaction to it. It was more that the longer everyone had to talk about this poem the louder they got.

People skirted around the subject matter a while. But as they kept circling the drain their disgust with it became more apparent. Lots of groaning and laughing like “haha are we really talking about this?” Please bear in mind that as I think the only 19 year old, I was the youngest in the class. I think I was the only freshman. Everyone was adults.

One of the kinks in the poem was inflation, and my teacher didn’t know what it was. Half the class jumped to say “NONONO DON’T LOOK you DON’T want to know”, and a few minutes later when she said she had looked it up the same people all wailed and pulled their hands across their face and fake sobbed. This teacher was a graduate student and was the same age or even younger than some of the students in the class. Only about half the class acted this way, I imagine the silent half thought the poem was normal. There was one girl who offered to sell feet pics to his friend and he said he’d get in touch, that was cool.

Anyway this guy came in for one more class where he was silent the whole time, and never came to class again.

I told my mom about what happened and she said she was surprised to see people my age react so negatively when her generation had worked so hard to push sexual freedom. And was especially surprised this was coming from a creative writing class when the people who take those classes should be the type that likes to express themselves. That about sums up my thoughts too.

This is part of a larger problem that I noticed in a lot of my classmates in the creative writing program, and I don’t know if it’s a problem with my school specifically or a general problem with this generation and the writing major. I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to have picked this major because they write and/or read as a hobby to comfort themselves or relax. When they have to read or write heavy material, they get uncomfortable or even lash out. The quarter before that, people almost always complained about the short stories we were assigned to read, often calling them “pointless” or “boring and dark” (meanwhile I enjoyed every one of them, and usually got weird looks for saying that. A lot of times I ended up being the only one or one of the only ones who had anything to say during the discussion, and my teacher had to basically lead the whole thing herself.)

One of the units in that class was nonfiction and one guy wrote about his close friend who killed himself. It was a really good piece, he didn’t talk about the suicide itself but reflected on his friend, and how his friend group changed after graduation and it changed how he saw the adult life ahead of him. During his workshop he said that writing it was cathartic and therapeutic. Another student told him it was irresponsible to write something so triggering and said he should not have written it. Either implied or said directly(I think it was said directly) that creative writing should be uplifting, not bring you down.

It seems to me that these sort of people wanted going to college to mean turning their hobby into a degree, without having to see anything uncomfortable. But that’s exactly what college is, ESPECIALLY if you’re going into anything that deals with writing. These were all beginner-level classes that I was able to take as a freshman, so I think what I was seeing was all of these people’s first realization that college was not going to be what they thought it was.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

Sept 2022 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying the most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Eclipse (Fri YT) Ep 5 of 15 - Ayan is such a little blackmailing shit, but I love it for him. Also, they brought class into play. Which I always enjoy for added conflict. More longing gazes. Really these two are the kings of the longing gaze. Thua repping for overachieving queers. I see you baby boi. Omg Akk please just figure it out! Honestly? I wanted the Gifted but actually gay, and I got Blacklist but actually gay. Which is kinda of the same thing. So I’m pretty flipping happy. 

My Only 12% (Fri iQIYI) Ep 5 of 15 - Oh boy. This was a rough one. (Still, sisters in BL = some of the best sisters in the world?) That scene with Eiw and his sister made me cry. When I talk about the frustration that I have with tropes like “kill the gay” or “keep them apart” and Chinese censorship, this is what I’m talking about. There have to be queer shows with happy endings because otherwise we don’t have a model for it being a possibility. Also, is this a foreshadow? Maybe. And then that scene with Cake trying to figure out what’s going on and not understanding and them just hurting each other = heartbreaking. On the flip end of my questionable taste spectrum: Peak sure knows how to play nong for a Thai take on classic noona romance and I am here for it (stalker photos tho, please don’t). For a more nuanced look at this ep read this. 

Vice Versa (Sat on YT) Ep 9 of 12 - Perth’s character was a waste of, well, everything. Tun is such a needy af bf. Jeez. Hi Mix! You’re so cute. I like that Mix is the hottie outsider character du jour these days for GMMTV. Happy to have Mix show up as needed. Nothing much happened, I guess Tun’s choices are more understandable but he’s still a liar. 

What If (Mon WeTV) on WeTV for VIP only (pay wall) Ep1-4 of 5 - from Wabi Sabi with all unknowns, starts very cute with middle school kids meeting, realizing they are neighbors and becoming besties. The hair is particularly terrible in this one. But it’s a fun dynamic with the younger one having the crush. It’s a short one (7 Project style) but the pacing is good and I’m enjoying it. Not sure if it will end well, tho. 

Coffee Melody (Mon Viki) Ep 8 of 10 - Evil ex faen fatal booted. Yi and Pleng are sweeter than Jean (or I) can take. Jean is my precious child who thinks no one will take him seriously. Nothing happened. I’m bored. 

Love in the Air (Thurs iQIYI) Ep 4 of 13 - it drove me to the dark side and and so I wrote a limerick. DUMPSTER FIRE TRASH WATCH ALONG HERE.

Unforgotten Night (Weds on GaGa) Ep 12fin - There is a moral to this “story” but I’m not sure what it is. Don’t combine your BDSM-but-not-really BL pulp with plumbing issues? In the end, this dumpster fire was extinguished by a garden hose and all we’re left with is leaky pipes and the smell of damp trash. The only kinks were in the hose. Could be worse, I suppose. Hard to imagine how, tho. (Finished  TRASH WATCH HERE)  5/10 WATCH IT IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO, BUT I WARNED YOU

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Takara-kun and Amagi-kun (Japan Thurs GaGa & Viki) 4 of 8 - This is such an adorable show. I know I keep saying this. And I keep saying how incredibly good it is a portraying high school first love. But to get Takara’s perspective and flashbacks to the original foundation of his crush is just great at the halfway mark. I’m chuffed. To see Takara’s flaws and teenage awkwardness underneath the cool exterior! Nothing really happened. But I’m not expecting much to happen in this drama. It’s reminding me so much of early super soft super sweet yaoi, like Maki Kazumi’s Desire. 

About Youth (Taiwan Mon GaGa) Ep 3-4 of 10 - This show is so painfully genuine and earnest that it becomes charming, and I’m so glad I get to begin my week with it.

Minato’s Laundromat (Japan Weds GaGa) Ep 11 of 12 - this episode really messed with my my head and may hear and days later I am still processing, you can read me trying to figure out why I feel this way in the SQUEE WATCH ALONG NOTE: Yes I think the pink haired guy who takes a photo of them is from an early BL too. But MDL was no help. I wanna say it’s someone like Saito Yasuka from Ai no Kotodama, but it isn’t? Bah. 

Papa & Daddy 2 (Mon GaGa) Ep 6 of 8 - It’s fine. The parents are awful. People react badly to them being out. Tra la la. 

It’s Airing But I’m Not Watching it

Work from Heart (Thurs WeTV? YouTube?) from DV8 an office BL featuring lots of other couples. Stars Love With Benefits pairing Gameplay & Folk. It isn’t even listed on WeTV streaming in my territory, but it is airing to WeTV Thailand. No word on distribution.

Oh My Sunshine Night - I’m scared it’s gonna be sad, so I’m waiting for spies to tell me it’s safe 

180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us - ditto to OMSN

Way of Y - too hard on my soul, will I watch it eventually? Maybe? Probably not. I think we have and ITSAY situation going on here. 

In Case You Missed It

PPKrit won this year's Seoul Drama Awards Outstanding Asian Award for his role in I Promised You The Moon. And Yusei Yagi won the SDA's Outstanding Asian Star for My Beautiful Man. 

GMMTV's Bad Buddy won the Best LGBTQ+ Programme Made In Asia in this year's Content Asia Awards. 

On Cloud Nine finished its run, I watched the final ep. it seems to have remained pulp, pretty, terrible sound, and if not sad at least ambiguous about it’s ending. So I’m keeping it as a dnf and you can watch at your own peril. 

Gossip

New high school set paranormal Thai BL announced for 2023. Normally I wouldn’t report on something Thai this far out, but it’s to star 2 of the biggest guns we got: Singto Prachaya + Fluke Natouch. It’s called Shadow and is from VIU. Full (and coherent for a change) description on MDL. 

JBL Eternal Yesterday will premiere on October 20th, taking over Takara-kun and Amagi-kun's time slot. 

Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet round BL parts recently. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting: Tomorrow 9/11 Fahlanruk (Thai) GaGa Sundays, 12 eps, 45 min ea. 9/14 Once Again (Korea) Viki Thursdays GaGa Fridays, 8 eps, 25 min ea, 9/16 More Than Words (Japan) Amazon Prime Video JP (only?) no word on international. 

Ending: Minato’s Laundromat and What If. 

I posted a full September lineup here!

This week’s best moments?

This bit in My Only 12% was striking enough to get it’s own post. Yes, I was snarky about it. 

Another bout of 2nd lead syndrome for me. It’s a chronic illness at this point. 

I love him unreasonably. (The Eclipse) 

And him too. 

Takara’s response to the fix for overcrowded trains = boys sitting in each other’s laps. I laughed so hard. (How much do I want Amagi to just casually sit on his lap on their date next week? SO MUCH. Takara might faint.) 

Takara thinks about having sex with Amagi, falls into a wall. Been there, dude. 

Also trying to be the best boyfriend in the world (but also cool). Look at Amagi’s little face!!! 

(last week)

Current earworm? The Song from BTOB 

[italiangothicwriteblr]

2 for Nova and Orianna + 3, 4, 7, 8, 17, 19 and 25 for anyone from the younger generation (sorry that's a lot questions!)

Hi! Thanks for the ask!

Who is your best friend?  Tell us about them!

Nova: My best friend is Adrasteia! She's the absolute coolest--we met the first day I came to court. She's terrifying, but in an awesome way--she once pulled a dagger when a remala ambassador insulted Julia. And she moved here from Bellamagna--so she's got far less preconceived notions about magic. From what she tells me, they actually like it over there. I haven't told her yet, but I'm thinking about it!

Orianna: My best friend is (was?) Cloelia. She's just the sweetest, most fun person ever. We had so much fun in the house before....before. She may be human sunshine, but don't be fooled--she's kind of a badass. Whenever I discovered a new, fucked up use of magic that I knew Nova and Zia Cinzia would never approve of, she was the first one I'd show. But the best days were when all four of us were getting in trouble together--me, Nova, Cloe, and Otto. (At this point she's probably crying a little)

What is your favorite childhood memory?

Ottavio: The day Zio Attilio came home with Nova and Cloe. I love my parents, but growing up the only kid in a secluded house was getting a bit boring. I got an older and a younger sister in the same day! And one of them had magical powers? Oh, the amount of times me and Nova almost destroyed the house, or got her caught. Which, I guess I kinda did anyway, so.....

What is your least favorite childhood memory?

Adrasteia: The day my family was killed. I just...knew the invaders were coming after Bellamagnan nobles, and somehow didn't think they'd target us? I left the house, knowing there could be danger, and I came back and... I could have done something, if I'd gotten back a few minutes earlier, if I hadn't gone out right that minute.

Who do you look up to?

Livia: I look up to Zio Niccolo! He was such a great role model when I was a kid--he taught me the best ways to end conflict without violence. He's also a great person to talk to about personal stuff, because he's seen it all--war, betrayal, ugly breakups.

Julia: Zio Giuseppe!! My parents couldn't have picked me a better padrino! He's one of the only people in our family who doesn't seem to have an agenda. I love my family, but sometimes I feel like I can't keep up with them--they're all just so smart.

What do you think had the biggest impact on you growing up?

Saturnino: Being raised in a world of strict, rigid expectations. Even now that I don't really believe in it all anymore, I still have the deep-seated need to do things by a schedule. I still get up a five in the morning, and I blame my upbringing for that (Ottavio had the opposite environment growing up. He sleeps in until nine or ten, and it looks so peaceful--I'm very, very jealous)

What makes you laugh?

Ottavio: Whenever someone fucks up worse than me. It just fills me with so much happiness I can't help but laugh.

Nova: When an anti-magic bigot gets taught a very public lesson.

Cloelia: When I foil my enemies' plans and they're miserable.

Saturnino: I like a good limerick, you guys are fucking horrifying.

What makes you sad?

Livia: Whenever I hear stories about how good the world used to be. Just, the fact that our country had such a great era and somehow, we blew it so bad that this is where we are now...it just scares me.

Cloelia: Thinking about my old home. I'm planning an escape from Grimaldo's prison of a house, and if I ever see Ottavio fucking Volta again it's. on. sight.

Freebie!  Come up with your own question for the character to answer!

What's your favorite family story?

Nova: I love the story of the time my dad and Zia Cinzia used their combined powers of magic and a remala last name to infiltrate an enemy base. Awesome.

Livia: I feel bad about this one, but the story of how Zio Enrico managed to bring a whole regime down by one drunken slip of the tongue is peak comedy. I'd never laugh about it in front of him, but I just cannot fathom how anyone could do that.

[shadowtongued]

What are Babjarrats like?

HHHHHRUGHH, they are as cute as sharp little devils can be.i meant to talk abt them in full at one point but —- lazy. here’s a halfling, he’s p close to what they look like, just with more skull ridges. 

little list below cut, sorry for long post, mobile folks

- they are p helpless when born and hardly cry, as crying p much alerts the other tribes (mahserrats, chelon-mah, mahkorat, oh my) to your location and other tribes will kill everyone since uh, tribal warfare is HIGH and a crying kid is a liability. the ‘weh’ or ‘b’weh’ jokes i make abt the forbidden AU kid between sliske and a shipping partner aren’t too much of jokes; babs don’t need to eat, don’t soil themselves, they just are there until mobile, so they really only let out a tiny BWEH or MWEHH when uncomfortable, being held weird, or unhappy in their little slings a parent keeps them in. ur kinda rubbin my leg meat raw as u walk, mom, bwehhh.

- they spend a fuck ton of time sleeping since they are just so FULL of useless energy from their parents conceiving them that they are just EXHAUSTED and snooze in little rag nests made up of old robes and cloth fragments mahjarrat discard. the scraps move with them since mahjarrats are nomadic on their planet and move a lot in groups.

- they have to grow into their ears,  ridges, eyes, and crystals, and just are fucking big-headed. go ahead, laugh at them. call them big head. they are born with a few sharp incisors and other teeth for self-defense, the rest come in later. they are little snapping turtles and will HANG ON ONCE THE JAW LOCKS. they do this for fun by biting cloth and hanging off taller individuals and are scolded for it. lots and lots and lots of test biting and ear flicking. and staring at hands. they do that. a lot. o holy shit i can’t believe these are attached to me. holyt shit w t f.

- they are rly cute ok. they stick together in playgroups when it is safe for them to roam and adult scouters are watching the area. they’re like your average kids but on a rock lava planet. they throw pebbles into lava flows, scratch little drawings onto slate, have really dark songs and limericks based around myth and rumor they might dance little jigs to. they dig holes in soft ash or soil-like patches. they play fight, headbutt, throw rocks at each other, and have a pecking order as kids.

- adults will often watch kids that aren’t their own if a parent has to do tasks such as making lighting poles to keep camp safe, begrudgingly, but in knowing that the safety and care of their species as a whole despite disliking one another is a form of survival. overall they don’t have the same family structure as us. dads are sometimes deadbeats, moms can be neglectful by virtue, this is normal to them. what do you mean your mom didn’t pick you up by the scruff occasionally????? (sliske and wahi’s parent was a rare outlier and honestly would have loved to get rid of her deemed faulty kids if it wasn’t against tribal law to kill your/anyone’s kids)

- i haven’t decided how long they stay immature or how fast they grow but i’d LIKE to be BORING for once and say it’s the same as us or longer. they are considered ‘adult’ and matured once they go through their first ritual of rejuvenation and then are allowed to become full adults through the right to be part of the enervation (to get laid, laugh abt it ok). general ‘maturation’ comes at abt 50 yrs in our time, i guess. subject to change. we won’t get into the really fucked up politics that older mahjongs are stronger from each ritual/rejuvenation they go through and you have to be a child prodigy to fell one, so they essentially practice a FUCKED UP form of genetic darwinism where they are p much raising kids to cull but….. ah.

- babies are itchy always. there’s no water on freneskae so like adults they dust bath and are itchy little fucks bc UR GROWING AND THERES DOIRT EVERYWHERE OG GOD WHY AM i scritchy. LOTS OF CUTE SNEEZING AND WEH’ING.

-babs aren’t proficient in magic until a long time and accidental cases of ‘baby bob made an accidental plume of shadow thru a sneeze’ is rare but also common when ur an inert vessel for pure divine magic. some do learn early such as ye old hc that sleeze at a young age was perceptive that there was shadow shit and other veils and is LUCKY he didn’t strand himself in the realm with no way out.

[twistednuns]

December 2019

Maxim calling out of the blue, inviting me to the Mine concert later that month.

Stumbling upon great inspiration for plant-based buddha bowls.

@shitgothssay memes.

Zotter salted caramel chocolate.

Finding out about the fact that you can just add the letter A to some words to transform them into adjectives. Like aglitter or aglow and aglisten.

Ayurvedic Kapha tea with some black tea, honey and milk. Sonnentor Gute Laune tea. Green tea with toasted coconut.

Isana shower oil. Works wonders for dry skin. Such a smooth and creamy texture. Great for shaving, too.

Winning the pub quiz - again! I played with Maggie, Dennis, Daniel and Steffen (Team name: Three geese in a trenchcoat) and we won 178€. However, the best thing about this was when I finally solved the anagram after thinking about it for 10 minutes. It was Greta Thunberg! Winning is lovely, of course, but solving the anagram is already a personal win for me each time.

Tuesdays. Coming home early, sleeping it off.

Being super rested after a nap, cooking a huge pot of veggie stew and my ratatouille signature recipe, even preparing a batch of butter bean hummus and salad dressing. Listening to folk music, singing along, even dancing at some point. Standing there, peeling the potatos… Happy moment.

Signature manicure. Always. This time: bluish iridescent lilac with the obligatory black dot.

A personal realisation. I’ve been massively out of touch with myself. I’ve stopped journaling, stopped doing things for myself because they’re beneficial and not because they’re convenient and numb everything. And why is that a good thing? Well, only being at this point and realising what’s wrong with me makes it possible to do something against it. To come up a self-care plan. To make myself feel better.

Semi-deleting Facebook.

Spending time with Manu for the first time in three months. Watching a documentary about black holes and a cheesy Christmas movie. Ordering south Indian food, cuddling up in bed. Sometimes I don’t know why I keep isolation myself. Being around people can be really lovely and soothing if you can be yourself around them. It’s just that I often feel the presence of other living beings drains my energy.

The best massage I ever had. From now on I’ll always request Yaya as my massage therapist. She is SICK. Strong, merciless, forces me into weird poses and makes my back crack.

Also: the chocolate-filled mint hard candy they hand out at the massage studio. I used to hate mint-infused chocolate but somehow I think these are delicious. Perfect after-torture-treat.

Persimmons. Obsessed.

My eye colour in artificial light. A dark moss green with caramel-coloured speckles and a dark rim.

The National playing a 2-hour-long concert and including some of my favourite songs from the High Violet album. Fangirling with Anika.

The smell of cold. You know, that whiff of cool air you get when you’re sniffing a jacket that’s been hanging on the balcony for a few hours to air out.

Learning more about Claire Saffitz from this article - she likes arts and crafts, is a homebody and has degrees in history and literature! She basically enrolled in culinary school because she was bored after graduation. She’s an enigma of a quirky kind. Not brilliant and scattered, but determined and aimless. Not brave and rebellious, but anxious and creative. She hates change yet pursues it, wants order but trades in chaos. She’s loved because she hates stuff; performs well because she can’t perform. And above all, she’s aggressively regular—and something about this makes the crowd go wild.

Fresh laundry smell on my blankets and pillows. And my new gravity blanket. It weighs 11kg which feels crazy heavy when you carry it but the weight evenly distributes over the body when you’re lying down. Apparently the pressure triggers the release of stress hormones. So far I’m sleeping like a baby and I don’t seem to wake up or move much at night.

Stephanie Madewell. I love everything she writes, her blog is such a godsend of beautiful, important, eclectic ideas. One thing I especially like are her imaginary outfits.

Princess Margaret’s limerick contest with President Lyndon B. Johnson in The Crown. Pure comedy. “There was a young lady from Dallas / who used a dynamite stick as a phallus / they found her vagina in North Carolina / and her asshole in Buckingham Palace.”

Little pieces of string in the corners of a duvet cover. It’s the first time I’ve seen those. So practical for big blankets!

Mental health days. I needed this. So much. Mornings in bed, reading for hours. Drinking a whole pot of tea.

Partner yoga. Chanting the closing mantra together.

Making vegan energy balls for my brother. I adapted the recipe and made my own versions so I ended up with a batch of pistachio/cherry and mango/sesame.

Freaking out whenever I see a cute cat. Damn, I really need to spend more time with animals. My highlight: breakfast in bed, watching a video of an adorable cat giving birth. I cried. Yup.

Going swimming for the first time in, man, I don’t even know. Forever. I didn’t swim for a long time, maybe half an hour, but muscle memory kicked in immediately. Water is totally my element. And, as if it had been destiny: I chose the day they cut the hanging plants in the main hall and the guy gave me a variety of five different cuttings to take home!! He made me a very happy girl.

The ink blue sky right after sunset. / The morning after the full moon in Gemini (the moon still bright and huge, visible in the bluish-grey Western sky). / When the sun suddenly comes out after a very dark and gloomy morning.

Buying a new phone. The old one was broken beyond repair. I even got a nice cork protective case. How could I ever live without an uncracked screen? The battery now actually lasts for more than a day. Nice.

Odd bits of knowledge: A galanthophile is an enthusiastic collector and identifier of snowdrop (Galanthus) species and cultivars. (Wikipedia) // Scientists theorize the Universe might have cracks in it: long thin boundaries that formed as space cooled after the Big Bang. 95 billion lightyears long and a few femtometers thin, these wrinkles in space-time would hold enough energy to bend light and destroy entire planets. (PHD comics) // the word to bloviate (German meaning: schwafeln, langatmig vortragen) // In Japan we have three rituals: HANAMI, TSUKIMI, and YUKIMI. HANAMI is watching the flowers. TSUKIMI is watching the moon, YUKIMI is watching the snow. It’s a beautiful tradition when you invite people to watch with you. I remember them all. (Yoko Ono) // In linguistics, prosody is concerned with those elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm. Such elements are known as suprasegmentals. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus. It may otherwise reflect other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or by choice of vocabulary. (Wikipedia) //

I know I mention this a lot but the first olfactory whiff of a freshly cut open passion fruit is one of the best smells I know.

When my breakfast tastes like a candy bar. Which it immediately does whenever I add almond butter and cocoa nibs to porridge.

Yoga at home on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I’m often too lazy to get out my yoga mat but whenever I do afterwards I’m always so glad I practiced. Also: going to yoga class despite being extremely stressed out. It actually helped me silence some of these tormenting thoughts in my head.

Cutting my own hair. It’s kinda ridiculous and layered but I love the new bounce.

Michael Nyman - Musique à grande vitesse x // feels like it makes my pulse quicker, it’s urging and forceful.

My adventures in psychedelia - an article about the therapeutic effect of psychoactive drugs. I’m going to get Michael Pollan’s book about the topic from the library next week. So interesting.

People who are still writing letters.

My pupils. I realised that some of them have become very fine people. Open, compassionate, motivated, interested, bright, polite. Like the students who attended our first school magazine meeting in their spare time - on the last school day before the Christmas holidays - and had all these amazing ideas. Victor, being able to hold a conversation like an adult. Marks cuddling that dog in front of the supermarket. My tenth-graders being really reasonable, managable, easy to talk to.

Liza Weil’s role as Shy Baldwin’s bass player in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It took me three episodes to recognize her.

A little embroidery set. I love keeping my hands busy when I’m watching movies.

Making vegan walnut lebkuchen and a very good batch of crisp bread in one go.

Roast apples with candied almonds and marzipan for Christmas dinner. Some buckwheat chocolate cookies. Actually helping out my mum in the kitchen.

Sitting at the piano with my brother, singing tunes from our childhood series, Disney songs, pop songs… We both had sore throats afterwards.

Visiting Sash’s parents over Christmas. Her mum cooked a pretty great lunch and we played board games.

Learning how to make a monkey fist knot.

Finding a new spot I like in my apartment. The chair right next to the window at the kitchen table. It’s nice and warm because you can sit beside the heater and while you have breakfast or browse through a cookbook you can see what’s going on outside.

Seeing the incredible gobelins at Kunsthalle / Fäden der Moderne exhibition. I loved the Le Corbusier ones.

Visiting Manu at his parents' place. Playing board games together, his mum feeding me with parsley potatoes and a weird _bird's milk_ dessert. Lying on the sofa, watching old movies. It's weirdly nice to be part of a normal family dynamic once in a while.

Andre saving my New Year’s Eve at the very last minute. Out of the blue he suggested a trip to Czech Republic right after midnight the day before. I was like… okay, let’s do this! So I met up with him and three people I had never met before in Regensburg and we drove to Český Krumlov, checked into our fancy hotel and walked down to the city centre. Czech food for dinner, a band playing at the city square. We climbed up to the castle for the turn of the year. This must have been the first year that started out with a proper New Year’s kiss. Afterwards we went to a weird music bar and - apparently - one of the best clubs in the country. I had a lot of fun. Even though getting Andre home was quite a challenge.

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #100

Yes, been a hundred of this things. Totally a meaningless milestone which is one of my oldest tags on here (assuming any are left after the purge...) still I thought I’d do something for it. 

Specifically I’ve gone back over the old Q&A’s and found some favourite questions and answers which I’ll be including in this after the usual round of outstanding ones. Possibly also with some extra commentary where appropriate. 

Anonymous said: Hey. Any pair of characters connected by an Owned relationship/reputation seems to crash the game if you use either one of them on an assignment. Any chance of this being fixed?

- That should be sorted in yesterday’s update. 

Anonymous said: Got a Forest Goblin with both Dancer and Clumsy. This seems like a very strange combination, but imagining it kind of makes me want to laugh my head off.

- Agreed I think that just works due to being amusing. Less poetry in motion and more of a limerick. 

Anonymous said: In No Haven 0.871 the trait " Elementalist: Air " does not appear when using the estimate value function.

- Cheers for pointing out that oversight. Will sort.

Anonymous said: Hi sory english isn't my native langage, In No Have 0.871 TF Edition I have aquired a slaver But with a bug first i don't know how i acquire her and two she had noting , no name no perk jus a little description i will copy the full examine optin on it : - - - - ExamineName: Race: - Sex: - Status: - Reputation: Traits: Condition: 0 Will: 0 Estimated Value: 0 has a flat chest, a regular pussy, and has an unremarkable ass. She is the same size as most goblins, and .She is . 

- That looks like an empty character in all respects. I believe there was an issue with Ritual Casting where that could happen and is now sorted. If you see it happen again please let me know what you were doing when they appeared. 

Anonymous said: Hey Bedlam, watched stream where you discussed not selling slaves debuff, thing is i always imagined slavers being in this business for fun and pleasure first, and gold second. I mean why else would they agree to live in some Skyrim style, long abandoned really, hard to get to fort in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills and marshes(at least that how i imagine it)? So maybe you could make something like,"no new slaves, or slave training for X days, getting bored" or something like that?

- It wouldn’t be too harsh at all. Just a bit of a poke to encourage that you’re business model is based around being a slaver over the leader disappearing to the coast for a week and returning with suspiciously large amounts of gold. In that case you’ve got to think that your slavers might feel that they’re surplus to requirements :D

Anonymous said: I hope you're happy for taking so many hours of my life away from me lol. But playing this again; got a question about NH. Any plans on making some rival groups that we can interact with? Diplomacy, getting tribute, ect. It would be kinda cool to have rivals that push you along 

Glad you’re enjoying it! 

Likely yes. There’s ways currently now to set up a few ways to get tribute every so often. More groups though who are more hostile than the not-witches in the marshlands or the mistress of the Ensnared Rose are sure to be a thing sooner or later. 

doof-ex-machina said: Have you read the Gorean saga by John Nornan? If yes, did it influence your vision of the No Haven world? Gor explores a legal female-oriented slave system, yheah, but there are pretty close similarities with NH in regards to the numbers of ‘fodder’ and the ways of training. Anyway, me personally thinks your world is even better because magic and draenei/succubi boobs, duh.

I haven’t but I am aware of them in general. 

NH is a lot more equal opportunities than Gor where males doing it to females, females doing it to males, and all possible variations of that including others like futanari and sissies are likely to happen. Still high praise indeed, thanks!

And now onto some old questions starting with one from before where I realised beginning to combine these might be a good idea. 

onedrift from 2015:  Trying this again...what's your coder fuel of choice? Red bull, Monster, coffee? None of the above? Soon to be bimbofied slavemakers want to know!

- Heh, totally giving my nationality away (if it wasn’t blatantly obvious already) but the fuel of choice is copious amounts of Earl Grey tea.

Anonymous from 2015: Hiya, been a fan of your work for a long time, captions and games thanks for making them, but a question regarding whorelocks revenge, is it possible to get the tangle infection and bonds of insanity? in all my time playing them I never had either I dont think.

- Not in the current version. Basically I wasn’t happy with the implementation in terms of how they were removed so I disabled them for a bit till I can sort it out… which unfortunately has lasted quite some time.

Soon as I got this No Haven update done they’re top of my list of things to sort in Whorelocks.

(Oh zogging hell. Still not done that yet... Extenuating circumstance for sure with NH taking off and WR was still in RAGS at that point, but even so)

Anonymous from 2015: This is probably a poor place to respond to your open-ended poll question, but have you looked into Twine?

- I’ve looked at Twine and when I one day get round to Rough Landing 3 it’s definitely going to be done using it, but to me it looks like an incredibly poor fit for working on No Haven.

(Oh past me why would say such a thing even if it did make a lot of sense at the time. Let’s hope that guy was wrong)

Anonymous from Q&A #1: Title image is hype, cant wait for next update. recall you mentioned that you had enchantments planed for the update after next (or something there abouts) how far ahead have you planned ahead and any spoilers for the update after this one? :D

- Why thank you! I have several pages bullet pointed of what I have planned along with what I have in my head. For stuff not in the next update I’d say not counting more slave training assignments and options and more assignments in the other areas the big bits of content outstanding are;

Way more potions. (Still do do)

Enchantment/cursing of items system.  (Also still do do)

Crafting Devices. (Also, also still do do)

Ways to manage encampments when they get to large by sending slavers/slaves to new areas to provide ongoing gold/supplies along with the occasional assignment. (Oh dear, also, also still do do)

More stuff for you like going on every assignment, bad ends for some of them, more interactions, being enslaved and so on. Basically lots more sub and also some dom content for when you’re not managing the encampment. (Woo progress made! Bad ends for some assignments going on are indeed a thing. Still work to do as I do want to give Crossbones and Into the Depths the QAYL treatment sometime)

Special events that will occur every so often that will affect things be it for good and bad. This will include a way to get a lost slaver back though perhaps forever altered by their experiences. (Woo again this is done. Definitely could do with more done with)

Encampment reputation to reflect a slaver’s standing with how the other slaver’s see them. This will includes slavers becoming slaves and visa versa. (On a roll now as a great deal of this implemented)

More biomancy options and improving thanks to a multi-part assignment. There will also be other multi-part story based assignments. (Partially done and the biomancy multi-part assignment has been started)

And a bunch more basically but those are the priorities after this next update. Probably not all in the same update though.

Anonymous from Q&A #6: I would play the hell out of Paranoia set in No Haven.  

- Temptation to give slavers and you conflicting secret societies and agendas rising.

Y’know like…

Dire Panthers: A mottley band of young savage orcs, amazons and trolls out to raise hell by breaking stuff, setting stuff on fire and generally being a nuisance to everyone.

The Cooperative: A dedicated group of Frozen Queen cultists out to oppose the Human Empire by working together to make things better for the common people… till you know the Queen awakens and buries all the land in eternal ice.

Mage Smashers: Magic iz like wrong an’ stuff! We smash dem in dere stupid face till dey not so smart.

Fellowship-Fel: The denizens that lurk beyond our reality and infect our dreams with tainted nightmares are our friends! We must expose ourselves to as much corruption as possible to make ourselves like them. We see no flaws in this plan whatsoever, you see the chorus of whispers in our minds entirely agrees with us.

Psion: No changes need to be made whatsoever from the original version.

Trekksters: …and I think that’s enough of that, or further evidence of why I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near RAGS or indeed tumblr when I have my old sourcebooks nearby :D

(Also apologies to most of you who have no idea what that was about!) (This is still far too much of a good idea)

Anonymous from Q&A #17: 2/2 and another hilarious one: Your succubus slave Jaeil was not looking so hot right now so Virholen just held her close and told Jaeil that everything would be alright. Jaeil was oddly quiet everytime you looked in on them and you wonder if they have resigned themselves to their fate. Condition: 45 (Change: 20) - Will: 47 (Change: 15)

After their mistreatment Jaeil sees no reason not to only care for them self as clearly no one else will leaving them hardened and even outright cruel. usc++

- You win best bug report in ages, that is beautiful :D

Anonymous from Q&A #37: Will there be other spirit races in the game besides wisps, such as undynes, gnomes, and dryads? And finally Im new to patreon. I decided to pay for the your character teir but ask for a unique because I dont really understand it. Is the “play your character” a scenario or what? And where do I go to talk with you on what I would like for it?

- True story, I had to google undyines and for ages I couldn’t work out what you were referring too as so many of the results were of that character from Undertale :D

Undines themselves would be no, but I do have a water spirit of a kind planned. (Still do!) Gnomes no, as I’m happy with Hakh Dwarven and the various Goblins as my short races. Dryads absolutely yes, and will be one of the advanced races. See the last Q&A for more details of those.

Thank you for your support! Those options are for those that want to play a specific character that isn’t available in the standard options or design a specific slaver that you can have in your encampment. If you want to see some examples of ones others have asked for before on the playable character front then Orc Wright Raptor, Lago’Mae Scholar or Goblin Underground Potioneer would be a good ones to look at to start off with.

As for the unique slavers then pretty much any of the slavers available under Strong Right Arm/Recruiter.

How much detail you want to go into is up to you. If you want to say oh I just want a Kitsune lady who likes to pole-dance then I’d put something together for your approval, or you can go full on detailing everything about them from their art, description, traits etc. and I’ll work with you to the point I’m happy having it as an option in the game. (Note: If you want an entirely new race like the Golems you need to go for the lore tier given the significantly larger amount of work involved)

For discussing please send me a message on patreon and we can take it further from there.

One thing to bare in mind is that patreon only charges at the end of the month, and so while I’m more than willing to talk it out, if you want to me to do a lot of work on your request I’m going to need to see a pledge go through first. It sucks I know, but this is the unfortunate reality of the internet that alas trust can only go so for.

I’m always happy to discuss things though, I really am, and some people have asked to pay some of their pledge upfront via paypal to get round this which is not a problem if that’s what you want to do.

valhallaimmortan from Q&A #47: I managed to get a elven smith who makes fancy armor that is usually masterwork quality, and equipped my ‘Basher’ Squad with it, the Basher’s are all Ogre’s who I recruited and I have a alchemist who seriously creeps me out with how many petrification potions he has been pumping out. I also like the Lago'mae Scholar how now the Lizard man is using her as his new project… poor Scholar… and I got to ask is it actually possible to recruit a keldan from the keldan mission in the city?

- I love this question, absolutely adore it, and you made the patron who requested the lizardman unique really happy when I mentioned it to them. If people want to send in their favourite/amusing/interesting slavers/slaves that have resulted from generation and gameplay I might do a tumblr post series on them called ‘Tell me about your Character’.

As to the question yes she should be on the critical result.

Anonymous from Q&A #61: Silly question. For clothing and armor, what in your mind is the major difference between micro, and impractical? I can’t really visualize a difference between the two when reading armor/clothing descriptions. Scandalously short is divergent enough that it creates its own image for me. The other two seem as if they would be interchangeable, but they aren’t since there is a distinction so what is it?

- Yay silly questions are always the best questions. Okay micro is where you have outfits that are recognizable bits of clothing but it’s incredibly brief so a skirt that’s more a belt than actually trying to cover anything whatsoever and/or a bikini top so teeny-weeny that it doesn’t even cover all of the nipples. Completely impractical though is the kind of clothing beloved by a certain kind of fantasy art which just doesn’t make any kind of sense whatsoever where looking good trumps any pretension of realism, and the only way it could stay on is either with copious amounts of glue or magic being involved.

Anonymous from Q&A #66: Hello again! I’m the guy who asked about the post-slave [slaver] titles. I’m going to very respectfully push the idea that ex-slaves should get unique titles. First, I honestly think having the unique titles is cooler. It’s more interesting to send a Chosen, an Acolyte, and a Hedge-Witch on an assignment than it is to send three Slavers. It’s a rarity thing, sort of? If you get a character who qualifies for one of those things, it’s a BIG DEAL. Secondly, it already changes with jobs, so…

- Alright, alright, you’ve twisted my arm :)

That should now be included for the most recent update along with a couple of new titles so that all of the more rare traits (not counting crafting ones) should have one. Let me know if there’s any issues as while it was a fairly straightforward change I didn’t get a chance to test that particular bit.

Thanks for reading and here’s to another hundred of these. 

[the-golden-mango-of-discord]

Little Shop of Curiosities

@yourbookcouldbegayer Happy Holigays!

Rosamine sat down next to Chris one late afternoon. The sun was just beginning to set, and he was sitting on the porch staring at the garden. His peonies were growing nicely...

“So,” Rosa said, “What have you gotten Lorelai for Christmas?”

He tore his gaze from the flowerbeds. “What?”

“Christmas...?” When his expression stayed blank, she shoved him, gasping in outrage. “Christmas is in a few days! Have you even started your shopping?”

“Well, I got gifts for you, and Mom and Dad,” he said. “I just have to get something for Lori... But like you said, I still have a few days.”

“No!” she protested. “You don’t understand what this town is like! We have one outlet mall. One! Where all the shops and stores are! Stuff sells out like Hamilton tickets here, and if it’s not on the shelf at one of the stores at the outlet mall, you’re not gonna find it this year.”

“There’s always online shopping...” he stammered, intimidated by her intensity.

She waved the thought away with a hand. “It won’t arrive in time. In case you haven’t noticed, this town is in the middle of nowhere!”

He sighed. “So you’re saying we have to go now?”

Yes!” She jumped up, dusting off her skirt and stomping back inside to grab her purse and jacket.

Fifteen minutes later, they were stepping out of Rosamine’s car and heading for the nearest store, Macy’s.

“Lorelai doesn’t like big department stores, though!” Chris complained.

His sister snorted. “Come on, everyone can find something here.”

“How about that bookstore over there?” he asked tentatively, jabbing a thumb in the direction of a small local bookstore overshadowed by the Barnes and Noble right next to it. He almost felt bad for the little shop.

Rosamine squinted. “No. Not a chance. That place is full of weird stuff like ‘spell books’ and shit like that. Home to untrustworthy people like wannabe witches, people who still play D&D, and tax collectors.”

“What’s so untrustworthy about D&D--” Chris started to ask, but Rosa cut him off.

“Sister knows best,” she said.

She marched him toward the Macy’s.

It turned out not everyone could find something at Macy’s. Chris tried so many times to tell Rosa that Lorelai was not a clothes/jewelry/shoes type of person, that she didn’t usually pay any attention to her appearance, but his sister was hearing none of it.

“Why are you so stubborn today?” he groaned as she looked through a rack of printed T-shirts. “Why can’t we just go to a bookshop or something? I’m pretty sure she would like that way more than a pair of jeans.”

“Fine,” Rosa sighed, dropping a band T-shirt. She hung her head. “It’s just that... yeah, sorry. My mind kind of went into overdrive when you told me that you hadn’t gotten Lori anything. I tend to panic during the holidays.”

“I know.” He patted her shoulder comfortingly.

“Fine. We can go to the Barnes and Noble.”

“No, I have something else in mind.” He grinned. “Trust me.”

Lorelai was probably the worst girlfriend ever. If you asked her what her partner would like more than anything for Christmas, she would have pulled a blank. So here she was, in the little trinket shop next to the Barnes and Noble in their small town’s only outlet mall, looking at a fake dragon’s egg.

When the bell over the door rang, she paid it no mind, until she heard a familiar voice laced with slight panic.

“Oh god, if anyone sees us here, they’re gonna brand us as druggies or something... I’m not a druggie, by the way, don’t look at me like that!”

Rosamine, aka Lorelai’s partner’s sister. And that could only mean that Chris was with her.

She turned around, and yep, there they were. Chris was wearing an adorable fluffy beanie, eyes roving over the cramped disorder of the shop.

She grabbed the first thing she saw - an enormous, dusty tome full of oddly specific spells - and covered her face with it, then hid behind a bookshelf.

As she watched from above the rim of the spellbook, Chris wandered around the shop, picking up anything interesting and inspecting it with a calm, persistent gaze.

Rosamine stood in a corner looking extremely uncomfortable. Every so often she would sneak a glance at the guy at the cashier and smile nervously, then look away quickly. The cashier guy looked bored, as if he got this reaction often in his shop.

When Lori tried to back away from the bookshelf and make a run for the door, maybe try again tomorrow, Chris had caught sight of her.

“Lorelai!” Chris said, setting down a crystal ball, looking sheepish. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, uhh... shopping. Not Christmas shopping, obviously, just, uh, shopping. Yeah.” She dropped the spell book and tried to regain her composure.

When she looked closely, she was pretty certain that Chris was male today. But she asked, just to be sure.

He nodded, and she smiled, feeling slightly proud of herself.

They talked for a while after that, completely forgetting about the gifts that they had to buy.

But eventually, Rosamine tugged on Chris’s sleeve and whispered, “Not to be rude or anything, but this place is kinda creeping me out and can we leave?”

Chris glanced at Lorelai, who nodded and held a thumbs up. 

“Yeah, okay,” he murmured. “Sorry, Lori.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I have to go to a few places after this anyway.”

“But we didn’t get Lori anything,” Chris whispered to his sister when they were out of earshot.

“Abort mission!” Rosa hissed back. “We’ll come back tomorrow!”

He looked over his shoulder at the strange little book/trinket shop. “It was pretty cool there...”

Lorelai let out a breath she’d unconsciously been holding in. But the encounter had made something click for some reason.

She picked up the dusty spellbook and placed it on the counter. The cashier looked surprised that she was actually buying something.

“Just this, please,” she said.

Of all the gifts he’d ever wanted for Christmas, an old spellbook was not one of them. Chris sneezed when he first opened it, waving away all the dust motes that floated up from the pages.

As he flipped through the pages, he read about potions to turn people into salmon, incantations to vanquish demons, and curses to make people only speak in limericks.

He had no idea what he would ever do with something like this.

He loved it. It was strange and exotic and random, but entertaining.

Well, Chris wasn’t one to judge weird Christmas presents, actually. The day after his meeting with Lori in the trinkets shop, he’d gone back and bought a crystal ball with valves that opened up and let loose a stream of purple smoke that knocked out anyone who smelled a whiff of it. Lorelai said that it would be quite useful when she was listening to her college roommate spouting out shit about people.

He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

Either way, they both now held the trinket shop in their highest esteems. But then again, both their tastes were weird.

[musicalsandmayhemandmurderohmy]

New Beginnings - Chapter 2 - Sprace and Newsbians Modern AU

Apologies if this chapter is a bit disjointed, half of it was written either on the way to Limerick or in a random theatre in Limerick, soo yeah! Before I hand you over to The Characters, thanks to my lil sis @knivesandsarcasm for proofreading this, at least to some degree, ANYWAY, enjoy! *********************

“What are they like?”

Davey sighed, taking his eyes off the road to glance at his sister. To anyone else, she would have looked perfectly calm, but he could see by how she was holding herself that she was nervous. Her shoulders were ever so slightly tense, her back gently curved, as though she was slowly beginning to retreat into herself. “Relax”, Davey said reassuring. “They’ll love you. They’ve met me, they’ve met Les, they’ve been dying to meet you. Plus, who wouldn’t love you?”

Sarah looked at her brother, smiling. Nobody knew how to make the sun shine quite like Davey. “Of course, the rum will help”, he added playfully as he eased the car into a space.

Crutchie opened the door for them in his wheelchair, a tray of buns balanced on his lap and a broad smile breaking out across his face when he saw Sarah. “Hi! You must be Sarah - you can call me Crutchie!” he remarked brightly, offering her his hand. “Davey here talks about you all the time. Ballet is your thing, right? You’ll like Specs and Romeo then, I think. Anyway! You ever played twenty-five?” Sarah shook her head with a smile. “No, I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it”, she murmured softly. Crutchie laughed. “A quiet Jacobs? Pigs do fly! Alright, well while everyone is still setting up and before I get too tipsy, I’ll show you. Follow me!” he exclaims, handing the buns to Davey before shooting off towards the corner. Davey shoots Sarah a reassuring smile before heading towards the kitchen with the buns and alcohol. See? It’s not so bad, she can almost hear Davey think.

“ Right, so, twenty-five. We play it in teams so if you don’t understand all the rules it’s okay, half of us don’t either. Davey’s probably drawing up the teams at the moment - he’s too clumsy for anything else and nobody else likes that job - but he’ll hopefully put you with Spot, see the guy moving the couch- the one closest to the window? That’s him”. Sarah glanced over at the boy Crutchie was pointing at. “He’s kinda intimidating”, he continued, mirroring Sarah’s thoughts. “Don’t let ol’ Spotty fool you though - his bark is worse than his bite. Just as long as you don’t call him that to his face”. Sarah nodded and bit her lip. Hopefully what Crutchie had said was true.

Katherine Plumber was in the bath when the noises started. She hadn’t been able to get her current assignment for the Sun off her mind, and the bath was her way of relaxing and forgetting about all the things that stressed her out. Or at least, it had been, until her upstairs neighbours had begun to drastically rearrange their apartment, complete with scraping, banging, and an excess of shouting, laughter and loud footsteps. She sighed in frustration as another chorus of squeaks and creaks began in earnest. Today was only her first day in the new apartment, and she could already sense that her relationship with the people upstairs was not going to be a good one. Cursing to herself, she pulled the plug and wrapped herself in a towel, her peaceful mood shattered. “I suppose I’d best finish that bloody story”, she muttered to herself.

An hour later, she found herself staring emptily at a couple of lengthy, garbled paragraphs, a forgotten mug of coffee rapidly cooling beside her. The noise from upstairs had been getting rapidly louder, until it had filled her head, pushing out any chance of the quality reporting she had so long aspired to produce. Sighing, she stood up and stretched. A good sleep was needed, and then she could finish the story in the morning.

BANG!

Katherine gasped, shooting upwards before she could stop herself. A raucous cackle rang out from above her, before being replaced by a loud hum of conversation. Squinting bleary, Katherine glanced at her alarm clock’s neon display. “Two forty seven? You are fucking joking!” she hissed dangerously. Party or not, she for one had work in the morning, and she’d even damned if a ragtag gang of raggamuffins were going to steal her sleep. Swinging herself out of bed, she pulled on a robe and picked her way through the darkness to the stairs. Those boys would be sorry they’d ever messed with Katherine Plumber. She cursed as her feet found the splinters in the stairs, adding to her anger. Raising her fist she banged forcefully on their front door.

Sarah laughed as Crutchie laid down the last of yet another bum hand. A moan went up around the group. He was more than tipsy by now - not that it had taken him very long - and his hands had been getting worse and worse. Even Spot’s face betrayed a flicker of a grin as he raked in yet another small mountain of coins and wrinkled dollar bills for her to divide up between them. “How ‘bout we split it sixty-forty, on account of me being the expert player?” Spot muttered mischievously to her. She laughed and tipped their winnings into a jam jar. The maths could wait til later. Another wave of laughter rose up in the apartment at Race berating his teammate. C'mon Crutchie, man up! We can let my boyfriend and the newbie beat us, we’re meant to be old pros! Carry on like this and we’ll - we’ll be cooking breakfast for everyone in the morning!“ Sarah smiled as she looked around the room at the circle of seemingly unlikely friends.

There were Specs and Romeo, who’d accosted her in the kitchen, eager to share their love of theatre with her. “You do ballet like us as well!” Specs had exclaimed. “Do you know how rare that is? We never have someone to fanboy over theatre with, but especially not ballet!”

There was Mush, who had weakly opposed the “no-couples-on-the-same-team” rule and was now making eyes at Blink, who was quietly but effectively replacing his cards with substitutes from his boot.

Jack, the joker, always protesting that the deck was rigged against him, who’d been gently teasing everyone, even her, since he’d gotten there. Despite his flirtatious nature, it was clear he had eyes only for Crutchie, who despite being on the other team was nestled cosily on the floor next to Jack, his wheelchair abandoned in the corner. “I’ve always preferred just using crutches, but for long distances, well, I can’t really handle them too well with the gimp leg”, he’d grinned toothily by way of explanation.

Race and Spot, the hosts, both quietly hospitable. Race was the more outgoing of the two, the twinkle in his eye as constant as the cigar in his mouth. Spot was also smoking, but Sarah could sense that he craved something more. Every so often, his fingers would begin tapping the floor subtly, in a frantic but almost imperceptible rhythm. She saw Race reach over and give his hand a quiet squeeze. Davey caught her eye from across the circle and shook his head gently at her. Don’t look the gesture seemed almost to say. Sarah understood what he meant - Spot was a deeply private person, even she could see that, and his and Race’s affection towards each other seemed the same - subtle enough that you’d miss them if you weren’t observant, but deeply loving all the same.

It may have been the warm glow of alcohol she felt talking, but the atmosphere in the room felt more like a family - a family that tonight, she felt like a part of. There was something wonderful about how relaxed it was - this was a place she knew she could be herself. It was different to college, where sometimes socialising felt like a test, or even the Academy, where the competition to be the best could dominate friendships and alienate quieter girls like her. This felt more like a save haven, the ten of them protected from the rest of the world, at least for one night.

A loud bang snapped her out of her reverie. She turned to see Blink sprawled on the ground, his mouth stretched in a comical “O” of surprise. Jack shrieked with happiness. “You see?” he cried, pointing at the cards sticking up over Blink’s sock. “I KNEW he was cheating! Nobody gets dealt that many trumps!” Blink gasped in mock horror. “They’re there for safekeeping! Plus, you tripped me! An unarmed man! If you weren’t already on the floor, I’d soak you clean into it!”

Sarah laughed as the boys descended rapidly into a swell of bickering. Her brother, ever the peacemaker, was trying in vain to establish some sort of order. Her eyes were drawn to Crutchie, who was banging his crutch on the ground with a grin. “Order in the court, the judge is eating beans!” he sang gaily, apparently floating above the melee next to him. It was Davey who heard the knock first, his head snapping to the door. “Hey! Open up!” The noise in the apartment died suddenly, being replaced with an atmosphere of subdued hostility. Whoever was knocking on their door at almost three in the morning they were unlikely to be good news, and even more unlikely to be welcomed warmly.

Spot glance around the apartment. Nobody looked particularly joyful at the prospect of opening the door. He sighed and rose slowly to his feet. It was, he supposed fair that he dealt with whoever the hell this was - after all, it was his door they’d come knocking on.

Katherine’s speech all but dried up when the door opened. There she stood in nothing but her nightrobe, in front of at least a dozen tall, slightly drunk, and quite noticeably hostile boys. Scarier yet however was the boy who’d answered her knocking. “Who the hell are you?!” he snapped, sharp enough to make her flinch. Katherine stood silently, taken aback. “Do we have a problem?” he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. His eyes bored into her, pinning her to the wall behind her. She licked her lips nervously. “Only, we were in the process of enjoying our card game, so if you’d like to spit it out…” He raised one eyebrow. “Yes, well um, I just… Wanted to say hi, and…” Katherine took a deep breath; it was now or never. “I don’t know about all of you but I actually have somewhere to be in the morning - early - and I do not need to have you pack of-of hoodlums upstairs fucking around until who knows what hour keeping everyone in the building awake and-”

“We’re the only ones in the building”, he interrupted. “What? No you’re not!” Katherine exclaimed, flustered. The boy looked her coolly up and down. “Who are you?” he asked bluntly. “I - Katherine. Plumber. Your downstairs neighbour, commencing yesterday”. To her surprise, he spat on his hand and offered it to her. “Conlon. Right, well we’ll try keep it down. No need to go calling us hoodlums lady. Is that everything?” he said, never breaking eye contact with her as he shook her hand. Katherine squirmed under his glare, suddenly desperate to be anywhere but here. “Yup!” she squeaked, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks. Without a word, the boy turned on his heel, the door swinging shut behind him. For possibly the first time in her life, Katherine was lost for words. She stood before the closed door, unable to believe what had just happened. That asshole! He hadn’t even apologised! And spitting on his hand - who even did that anymore! Without thinking, Katherine let out a shriek of frustration and stamped her foot - probably a little too hard for someone in their bare feet. Cheeks burning once again, she fled back down the ancient staircase to her own apartment, painfully conscious of the laughs and jeers coming from the apartment above her.

Spot felt a pair of arms wrap gently around his waist. “I think you might have been a bit harsh on her there babe”, Race murmured in his ear. Spot shrugged and turned to face his boyfriend. “Maybe”, he admitted, leaning in closer. “I guess I’m just craving. I’ll talk to her when I’m in a better mood.”

Race nodded and nuzzled his head against Spot’s shoulder, his hand snaking down his back until he found what he was looking for in Spot’s pocket. “Here”, he whispered, lighting Spot another cigarette. He knew that they were a crutch, sure, but they were better than the alternative.

I need some fucking coffee, Spot thought, opening his eyes. If he squinted, he could just about make out the clock in the slice of artificial amber slanting in through the windows. Ten to five. Yup, coffee time, he decided, picking his way across the sleeping bodies sprawled on his living room floor. He paused briefly at the kitchen door to look back at Race. A loving smile slowly transformed his face as Race frowned a little and pulled the blanket up to his chin, muttering something softly in his sleep before rolling over. A sudden surge of protectiveness swelled through Spot’s body, strong enough to take his breath away. So this is what all those songs are about, he mused. Huh, no wonder they’re so freaking popular.

Race woke up cold, the body that had been beside him now nothing more than a memory of warmth on the wood. From the kitchen, he heard a click! as the kettle boiled. Wrapping the blanket tightly around himself like a second skin, he shuffled towards the light. Sure enough, Spot stood facing the wall, silhouetted against the light of the small lamp. Race smiled gently as Spot slurped noisily from his mug and released a sigh of fulfillment, oblivious to Race behind him. “Head in the game.. Head in the game… Getcha getcha getcha getcha head in the game”, he muttered, his hips swaying ever so slightly. A quick peal of laughter escaped Race’s lips before his hand stifled them abruptly, but it was too late. Spot whirled around, eyes wide, his coffee splashing onto his bare wrist. “Oh God, I’m so sorry! ” Race exclaimed, running to grab a towel. Spot hastily wiped his hand on his trousers. “It’s fine, honestly”, he said in a low voice, catching his boyfriend with one arm and sipping his coffee with the other. “Look at you, all rolled up like a lil burrito, what woke you up?” he joked, standing ever so slightly on his toes - not that he’d admit to it - to plant a kiss on Racetrack’s jaw. “Shave, hipster”, he muttered, resting his head on the other boy’s shoulder. Race sighed and wrapped the blanket around the two of them as Spot set his coffee down on the counter. They stood like that, one form with two heads resting gently on each other’s shoulders, for what seemed like an eternity. Moments like these were rare, which made them all the more precious. Spot felt a breath against his ear. “What was that?” he said quietly, raising his head slightly. “I said, why were you singing high school musical at five a.m.?”, Race whispered mischievously. He yelped as Spot’s hand made sharp contact with his rear. “Mmmm, kinky”, he breathed, waggling his eyebrows. Spot snorted. “Crutchie’s had it going around me head all night. Even with that cheery bastard asleep I can still hear him singing it”, he grumbled, an Irish lilt fighting to break through his second-generation Brookelyn twang. Race chuckled and booped Spot playfully on the nose, before his eyes rounded with seriousness. “There’s that lovely accent again, what’s bothering you love?”

Spot sighed heavily, his small frame crumpling against Race’s reassuring solidity. “I guess I should tell you… I’m trying to quit.” He stared up into Race’s eyes, seeing the realisation dawning. Even though Race had never actually said so, Spot had known for a long time that his marijuana use was not something Race approved of - the only reason he put up with it was because he knew Spot’s history and he knew how much worse it could be.

“You’re… Stopping weed?” he murmured, trying to hide his astonishment. It was something he’d learned to live with when him and Spot had started dating, but he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. “Yeah”, Spot replied, hopping up onto the counter and pulling Race closer to him. “I mean, I’ll try… I’m not going to promise it’ll work but….for you, I’ll try. Just…” Spot gulped and continued. “I’ve tried it before and I’ve never been able to do it, so… I’m going to warn you now, I don’t want it to happen but if-if I don’t manage to quit… I don’t want you around me.” His words hit Race like a punch to the stomach, his air leaving his lungs in one hurt gasp. “You don’t mean….” Spot shook his head violently and shuddered. “No, God no. I’m not good at this feelings thing. What I mean is…I want what’s best for you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be successful. I want you to have a future, a good one. And let’s face it, Stoner Spot, right now, is going nowhere fast, and we both know why. I want you to have everything you can, and someone who can give you everything you deserve, because I can’t -”. A single tear rolled down his cheek. He drew a shaky breath and looked Race deep in the eyes. “I guess what I mean is… You hear all these people talking about stuff like… Like love and shit. And I always thought they were gone nuts. But now… I think- I know- Racetrack Higgins, I am in love with you.”

Race stared, gobsmacked, back at Spot for several seconds. No way had he expected the great Spot Conlon to be the first to say I love you. Spot chewed his lip nervously, worried he’d gone too far. “I- oh Spot, you fool!” he cried. Spot’s heart dropped. “Don’t you… Don’t you know how much you mean to me? You are everything I’ve ever wanted, you are my future and my happiness and just plain mine he said fiercely. “And I love you the world over!” he continued. Spot breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “I’ve waited a long time to hear that”, Race murmured gently in his ear, “and an even longer time to say it”.

[look-whos-evil-now]

Dream 2/19/17 (part one)

Soooo, the beginning of the dream was me parking Trembles (my car I just totalled) in Germany. I was going to this place (didn’t know what it was yet (well, i knew in the dream i guess, but i didn’t really know yet, you know?)) and I got there like 5 minutes before opening (it was like, early-morning dark outside) so all of the parking was open, and I was able to park in a lot real close to the entrance. It was very clearly like some kind of tourist-y type thing. The outside of the place was this big warehouse looking building with a lot all around it and then a garage a little farther off. So anyways, the place opens and it’s some kind of ice cream/fudge shop. Like a Kilwin’s, pretty much. But, the space inside looked more big than it would be for a fudge shop, it was like if you took one of those places for kid’s parties with the inflatables and stuff, with big orange walls, but you took all the inflatables out, and just dropped different stalls. There was one for ice cream, presumably one for fudge, one selling t-shirts, etc. So, I see B (male friend) in the line for ice cream, and I was just like “I don’t know what I want, but I don’t really want ice cream,” and he was like “Well, they sell cake, too, and it’s H C's (dean of our college) favorite.” Like, I don’t know why, but my dream was making a really big deal out of the fact that the cakes were H C’s favorite. So, I go looking for the cakes, and I’m walking around and I see someone with this weird fudge-pretzel thing on a stick, and I’m like “Hmmm, that looks good, too,” and decided that OBVIOUSLY these things and the cakes were being sold from the same booth (dream logic) , so I was looking for both. And I’m walking around, and I keep thinking I’m finding the right booth, but then I walk up and it’s like, cake-themed magnets or hats. So I keep walking. And I remember at one point thinking like “None of these stalls actually sell food, they all just sell merch, wtf.” That’s how bad it was. And eventually, I notice there’s this archway way back in the walls, (think, like, the entrance to the lay-away section at Wal-Mart but smaller. Purple molding) and I figure it was the bathrooms, but it was also the only section I hadn’t checked, so I walked in. And there’s these two worker guys sitting behind this little table, and these three doors, and an archway leading somewhere else. And above the doors there was this big lettering saying “Hotel/Changing Rooms” (verbatim), but only, y’know, three rooms. Seriously, this whole place was designed like a Chinese theme park’s ripoff impression of Dr. Seuss. And the guys behind the table were like “do you want a room” and i was like “no” and then they somehow convinced me to check out the art, which was where a whole bunch of people were heading, behind the other archway. So, behind the archway was like this kinda intro room with the name of the exhibit of the wall (don’t really remember it. it was something really generic like “reflections of the past” or “leaves of memory” or something) and a Japanese –sounding female name underneath it. And the way the exhibit was structured was that, from this room, you go into the first room, and then into this hallway where there were five other rooms you could visit in any order, and then after those you could go into the last room. Keep in mind, unless I note otherwise, none of the exhibit really breaks from the whole Chinese-Dr.-Seuss-ripoff aesthetic. Everything is either orange or purple pretty much haha. The other important thing is that with the exception of me (and later, Z) nobody else really reacted to anything happening in the exhibit with anything other than like, mild interest and enjoyment. They were all very much just typical stock tourists. So, I go in the first room with these two other random women and the door closes. It’s like a Dr. Seuss style bedroom, unrealistic proportions and curves, whatever. Pretty small room. And the most obvious thing was this mirror that was pretty obviously holding a TV-screen instead of a glass. And so the three of us sit on the bed, and the lights dim, and the TV starts playing. It’s like this choose-your-own adventure story, mostly text, and occasionally we got to choose what happened, but mostly we didn’t. and like, when we did, the impression i got was that the choices mostly led the same place. There were pictures to go with it too, that were all like photoshoot modeling-style pictures of this girl (kinda looked like N (girl I go to class with), if i had to describe her) slowly climbing through this black picture frame, but in a very elegant, posed way. meanwhile, the story was (presumably) about her, and her day-to-day life, pretty boring, very mundane. but somehow, it led to her like getting drunk or lost or something(?), and going back to her room. and then it switched to a video. The video was super grainy, surveillance type footage, and the camera was from the perspective of the mirror. The girl was sitting on the bed, like head down, hair over her face. And then the door bursts open (the one we would be going out, not the one we came in) and this big dude walks in and just immediately starts BRUTALLY raping her. And we had to watch the whole thing. It was long, and I remember the impression i got was that it looked way too real to be fake, y’know? like i very much felt it was real and that was scary. it was a TOTAL shift in tone from everything before it. and the other ladies weren’t really reacting, but i was sobbing by this point, basically having a panic attack. and so, anyways, the video ends, and the entire room just goes PITCH BLACK, and the far door bursts open like in the film, but of course nothing happens and the lights fade back up, cause in the exhibit, it’s just an effect, y’know? and we all walk out. So the hallway was the same aesthetic as everything else, with these 5 archways with curtains in front of them on one side, and then double doors at the end to the last room. the whole thing was slightly curved in like a c-shape, but you could still see the end. and on the other side, there were these tablets mounted on the wall with like a survey or a test or something you could take using your personal info(?), but i ended up never touching those in the dream. and next to each archway, there were these signs with like limericks describing the room on each, that were super child-like and friendly. but i never read any and i don’t really remember them, i just remember they kept with the tone of the dr. seuss exhibit, and not of the really weird exhibit. and there were a few attendants walking around this hallway too. So, i go up to one of the attendants, and i’m like “i’m done, please show me out” and they took me out this side curtain to the main room with all the booths. Because, at this point, I’m still freaking out SUPER hard. and while i’m being escorted out, who ends up walking beside me but H (male acquaintance, used to work in shop) who starts making conversation when I really don’t want to. and then almost as soon as we walk out, i see a cluster of grad students from my program, and it’s Z (my… idk, I guess ex??? We were in love, but we never dated officially because he had a girlfriend, he betrayed me, we still love each other but he diesnt want to try to fix the friendship I guess), G (girl Z replaced me with, friendship wise), and i think G and S ( two other male grads) (might’ve been S, (other other male grad) idk, they were basically there to stand around). So, for some reason, i walk over, and me and H join their circle, and idk how it got to this point, but somehow it led to H pinching my backside and walking away. which made Z obviously super mad, and i guess that made me feel like i could go to him again, since he obviously felt still protective over me. So i go to Z, still freaking out, and i’m basically like “i don’t know if i can give you for sure proof, but i think that exhibit might prove it” idk why i thought they were related, i guess i just felt it. and so Z got dead serious, and he agreed to go with me. and as we’re walking away, i think G said something about why Z was going with me (?) and he got super upset with her and the other grads. like, for some reason i could only understand the first sentence of what Z said, but he sounded MAD. and he was kinda crying a little. anyways, the only part of it i made out was that it started “i don’t know how you could DARE think I would EVER leave her like that” and then i kinda hid behind him so my dream decided I couldn’t understand the rest, but damn, he was UPSET. like voice-cracking rage upset. so, we go into the exhibit, and i should probably say i spent like 90% of the time going through the exhibit either buried in Z's side, with my arms wrapped around his neck, or crying profusely. he was also very obviously scared for a lot of it, but he seemed to handle it better than me. and he was encouraging me to cling onto him, which was nice. So the first room went pretty much the same way, we were the only people in there. i remember i let Z choose the answers because i was too scared to (since i knew where it was leading), and then when we got the video, i just buried my face his shoulder. i couldn’t look. the main difference was that the lights were out for WAY longer, to the point we both started freaking out a little (well, i was freaking out a LOT, he was just at the beginning of starting to panic), and then the door swung open and the exhibit continued as before into the hallway. I don’t remember the exact order we went into the 5 rooms, but we did go into all of them. I think I remember the approximate order, but I wouldn’t make any big assumptions based on it. I also don’t remember if we went down the row, or skipped around, so there’s that. We also went into all of these with a big crowd of non-reactive tourists, unless I note otherwise.