#many of my problems at this stage could probably be solved by bouncing my thought processes off of another person

[brinnanza]

I keep trying to gotcha my brain out of anxiety by thinking like well what can I do about it right now with what I have because often it's tangibly nothing but unfortunately I can always Plan and I don't really know how to respond to that because it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do when there's nothing else

[prettywordsyouleft]

Miss Writer

Pairing: Brian Kang x female reader

World: To Be Continued

Genre: writer au / fluff

Warnings: none

A/N: So I had no intentions of returning to the TBC world so soon, but as you can read below, I had a bit of trouble trying to write something for 2021 and this is the result of my nonsense thoughts at the time. I really am happy I wrote this as it feels like a good opening act for what’s to come this year!

Word count: 1558

“Hey! Did you hear about the writer who didn’t want to write?”

“They what?”

“She sat there for hours on end, just avoiding every idea that came to mind.”

“But why? Aren’t writers meant to write?”

“Why am I writing this?” you complained out loud, sighing heavily and leaning back in your computer chair. Staring at the basic dialogue in your word document, you groaned.

Why was it so hard to write?

You had been through this before. Where the words wouldn’t flow the right way, and your characters felt hollow.

But that was because Brian wasn’t in the story at the time.

You couldn’t solve this the way you had back then either. Once Brian had gone back into the world he had stepped out of, you finished the story without any further mishaps. In this case, you didn’t have any other fictional characters stepping out of any novel you had written to send back in. You didn’t even have a character to write about.

That was no doubt the whole problem.

“Miss Writer,” a voice called out, and you turned, smiling warmly at the man leaning against the threshold. Brian tipped his head in your direction. “How’s it going? Is your next bestseller getting ready to leap onto the pages?”

“Ha! At the rate I’m going, I might as well retire.”

“What?” Walking over to your side, Brian then leaned down to inspect your laptop’s screen. “You’ve written only four lines in two hours.”

“Four lines are better than none, though, I can’t say they’re four impressive lines,” you muttered, pouting up at the man. “I’m broken.”

“Shall I fix you?” he murmured, leaning down to kiss you. His lips were almost on yours when the doorbell rang. Brian heaved in a heavy breath. “If that’s Sungjin, I swear…”

“It’s probably Lily,” you mentioned with a knowing smile, climbing out of your chair and heading down to the front door to answer it. When you swung it open, however, you merely stared back at the woman standing there.

“Can we help you?” Brian asked from over your shoulder, right when you gasped noisily. “Y/N?”

“You’re… you’re… no way.”

Sungjin leaned around the side of the house and grinned. “Y/N! You need to stop making people so realistic that they come to life.”

“I’m confused,” Brian announced as you began to bounce with excitement, reaching out to touch the woman’s hand before you.

She grabbed it warmly and grinned at you. “I’m so amazed to finally meet you!”

“Ella,” you murmured and then glanced at Sungjin standing all too protectively at her side. “You found your Constable.”

“Ella?” Brian echoed and then lurched forward, leaning over you. “Ella from the Protector story?!”

Ella nodded and held out her hand to Brian. “You must be the first of our kind, Brian Kang, right?”

“Our kind?”

“Well, I had to explain it somehow to Ella,” Sungjin admitted with a chuckle. “It’s not every day that characters step out of documents, now is it?”

“Maybe that’s why I can’t write,” you murmured, watching the instant despair cross over your friend’s face, whilst a smug smile appeared on your partner’s. Rolling your eyes, you shunted Brian in the side before stepping aside and letting them inside. “Come, I promise this time I’m more equipped to dealing with my characters in the flesh. I won’t be fainting this time.”

“I’m starting to get worried now,” Brian confessed later in the evening as he carried your cat Binks around. “If Ella’s here too, who’s going to be next?”

“Well, considering I can’t seem to create anyone, you won’t have a problem any time soon.”

Brian pointed at you in warning. “Don’t you dare go opening Destined’s file.”

“Ooh, now there’s an idea!” you teased, grinning at Brian as you approached him. Stretching up to kiss him softly, you shook your head. “I doubt I could love anymore more than you if I tried.”

“And you always say I’m the charmer yet here you are causing my heart to go erratic with lines like that,” Brian stated with a giddy smile, his eyes disappearing and turning into little crescents.

“Well, you can’t be the one with the upper hand all the time.”

“Miss Writer.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think Ella is the problem this time. I think you’re just putting too much pressure on your shoulders.”

“Pressure?” you repeated with a frown and Brian placed Binks down before nodding at you. “Of course, I’m under pressure! I have to get my first chapter to Lily by next week, and I have nothing, not even a name.”

“You’re trying to write the next best thing, aren’t you?”

“That’s the whole concept of being an author, Brian. Writing something better than your last story. We’re always on the path of personal growth during this journey, Brian.”

“I know,” he agreed initially, rubbing your shoulders affectionately. You let out a small whine, not realising how tense your body was until he touched you. Brian instantly moved behind you and started working out the knots residing there. He stopped, leaning close to your ear. “But can’t you just write something for fun?”

“Fun?”

“Isn’t that the whole point of writing? To enjoy the world you create. You’ve been non-stop since I’ve known you. Before my world, you write a four part series with Jinyoung, then a three part series with me and Charli. Right after that, you completed Protector, and now you’re looking to follow that up as quickly as you can even though it’s only in the publication stages.”

Brian stepped around to face you, his face growing concerned. “Why don’t you slow down? Write something just for yourself.”

“I have. I wrote you into existence,” you reminded, and Brian slid his hands around your waist and tugged you closer. Placing your palms upon his chest, you gazed up at him lovingly. “I have to write something worth publishing.”

“Do you?”

“Huh?”

“Why not write something that the world will never see?” Brian offered and you chewed on your bottom lip in thought. “I think you’ve forgotten the joy of writing just for yourself, Miss Writer.”

The following morning, you sat at your desk deep in thought. Brian’s words had played over in your mind throughout the night and still were at the forefront of your mind now.

Did he think you had lost your personal enjoyment along the way as an author?

“Hey, that can’t be right,” you hummed, shaking your head before posing your index finger back up to your lips.

Had you?

The last time you had written something just for your own pure enjoyment was Destined. Sure, you had been excited by your ideas ever since, and laughed, cried, grown frustrated and been endlessly happy with the words you had crafted. But you were also contracted to write down those words. Since the third part of Destined, you had been signed under the publishing house you belonged to and had written consistently since. You hadn’t taken any time to write for yourself, aside from short stories here and there when you didn’t feel like working on a bigger story.

Even though you had enjoyed the journey thus far, it hadn’t been one you took alone.

“Maybe Brian’s right,” you said, blinking a couple of times before reaching into the top drawer of your desk for your external hard-drive. Glancing at the clock to see how much time you had left before Brian got home from running errands, you took in a deep breath, opening up your older fiction files.

Back here you were full of naivety and fresh ideas. The world was your oyster, as the saying went, and you had been hoarding many of them. As you scanned the title of projects you once hoped to write, you shook your head in amazement.

“There’s so many ideas here that I haven’t tried yet,” you breathed, stopping on one and clicking to expand the notes on it. “Wow, an enemies to lovers story.”

You continued to make your way through, finding an assortment of ideas. From fluff to angst, and all those in between, you had ample inspiration here to fill an entire year of stories.

“Should I indulge myself in writing these for a bit and come back to writing my next novel at a later date?” you wondered, your smile growing as your computer’s cursor hovered over an idea that piqued your interest.

“I’m back!” a voice called out and you spun around in your chair, leaping up and dashing into the arms of the man you loved. Brian chuckled. “Well, I missed you too!”

“You were right! Instead of looking for the best idea for my next story, I need to take some time off and write for me.”

“I was, huh?” he mused with satisfaction, cupping your face within his hands. “So what do you plan to write next?”

“I have so many ideas! There’s general domestic stories and a murder mystery, some periodic pieces about pilots and regency era based ideas. Of course, there’s a bunch of fluffy ideas, with a few royal au ones and even pirates! But you know, there’s one I really want to try first.”

“Which is?”

You grinned before poking his nose fondly. “You’ll just have to wait and find out what’s to come.”

_________________

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[captainficspace]

Game Night- Five’s Day

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy 

Characters: The Hargreeves Sibs

A/N: I think this is actually my favorite fic I’ve written for this week. I couldn’t wait to post it :) 

Movie night wasn’t the only “mandatory fun” the household had started keeping up with. Game night probably never would have happened in a million years if Vanya hadn’t suggested it and everyone wanted to let her have this one thing. Not that it had gone well, naturally. The initial concern would be that no one would care enough to show up, but the opposite ended up being true. No, everyone cared entirely too much when it came to game night. She had forgotten that everyone in the house was competitive as all hell, and so far there had been three game nights in a row that ended in someone flipping the board in frustration. It took serious begging to give it all one more try, and reluctantly, everyone agreed, if not out of the potential entertainment that would come from giving Klaus a Taboo buzzer.

Vanya had also thought things over, learning from the past nights. This had to be different. Everyone gave her looks of startled bewilderment when she came into the house that day, Klaus in tow, with a traffic cone, a 2x4, spray glitter, and a bulk bag of googly eyes.

“We’re making the game this time and it’s gonna be better than anything else you suggest, so don’t even start.” Klaus announced.

 It somehow ended up being so much worse. There were seven pages of hand-written rules and a haphazardly painted board studded with google eyes and plastic dinosaurs. They had all been trying to play for a solid half hour and not even Vanya could remember what the objective had been. Putting the finishing touches on the game had taken up a good part of the night, so midnight was slowly approaching when things started to get real.  

 “So clearly, the spacemen need to roll to enter the chaos volcano and trade for the ice crystal if you’re going restore the dinosaur kingdom.” Diego moved the plastic army man they had been using as pawns, approaching a cardboard volcano at the center of the board.

“We don’t have enough HP to enter the volcano realm, yet. Everyone still needs to collect the spells.”  Luther said, flipping back through the rules again for what seemed the thousandth time. None of it made sense. Vanya sank down in her seat ever so slightly. The goal was to make a game where everyone used their competitive-ass natures to work together for once, and she couldn’t even do that right. Five kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, silently begging for her to allow him to leave. If this didn’t turn around in fifteen minutes, she was throwing in the towel.

“How can we be spacemen and also wizards?” Allison asked, looking over Luther’s shoulder to see the rules for herself, trying to find the bizarre cast of characters they had to pick from when starting the game. Spacemen, necromancers, aliens, ghosts, something called Bananamen…was there even a mention of wizards here? Five, on the other hand, had not looked at the rules since beginning out of silent protest for being part of game night once again. He stared into space or at the bottom of his empty mug, waiting for everyone to give up so he could just go to bed.

Klaus had long stopped trying to explain the rules that he and Vanya had come up with and instead became distracted with how many of the little plastic eyes he could pick off the board and stick to his face.

 “Well, my character is a dinosaur and also a necromancer, so anything is possible.” Vanya added, trying to stay positive.

 “See, so she can resurrect us in the volcano realm.” Diego said.

“She can only be allowed three healing spells. Did you pay any attention to the lizard king?”  Allison asked.

“If Diego had used the action cards to fill out the sidequest-“ Vanya tried to balance between letting the others figure things out and outright telling them what to do out of growing frustration, and it wasn’t going well.

“Who has time for the sidequests?”

Five buried his face in his hands, slowly slumping down in his chair. No one could tell him he wasn’t being a good sport for just showing up.

“You’re just going to sit there as a level-two hermit and tell me, to my face, that I’m wrong?” Oh great. Diego was on his feet now, staring Luther down across the table. It was only a matter of time before the giant sheet of plywood they had used as a board was going to go flying.

 “I will look you dead in your face and say you have zero idea how the sidequest with the elf queen was supposed to get us to the volcano realm.” And now Luther was also standing, nearly hitting his head on the chandelier that hung over the table. A shadow fell over the board

“Hey, guys. Look. I’m an angel now.” Klaus interjected, drawing attention to his eye-covered face, “I’m using my holy damage by punching the volcano in the face until we get the ice crystal.” The two feuding brothers ignored him, still refusing to take a seat until the problem was solved.

“You shut your damn velociraptor mouth.” Diego growled.

From behind his hands, Five squeaked. Vanya looked closer and realized his shoulders were shaking. He wasn’t just playing up his exasperation for dramatic effect; he was giggling. The others turned as well, equally surprised.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Allison asked, “We hadn’t heard much at all from our level 3 firebreather.” Five shook his head, still covering his face. He was doing a progressively worse job at keeping himself quiet, and his laughter was beginning to break through, high-pitched and sweet.

 “He would always get like this when he stayed up too late.” Luther said, “Don’t you guys remember?” The memories slowly started to come back of them sneaking into each other’s rooms after lights-out to actually be kids for once. Five was always the first to succumb to the midnight giggles, curling up and hiding his face in a pillow to muffle the sound so he wouldn’t get them caught. It would spread like wildfire, and they would all end up giving into that magical hour of the night where everything became funny, cracking jokes and teasing each other and finally not taking anything too seriously. Either Five had never outgrown it, or it was just another perk of new form.

“He’s overtired. I guess he’s just loopy.” Allison said, grinning as she heard a muffled snort come from the giggling pile of sleep-deprived goo that was her brother. He put his head down on the table and buried his head in his arms, well-past being able to stop at this point.

“Instead of turning into a pumpkin at midnight he just turns into a gigglebox.” Klaus leaned over and squeezed his knee, “Come on, let me see your smiling face!” Five squealed, nearly falling out of his chair trying to squirm away. He still refused to lift his head and show that he was actually capable of laughing.

 “We need your firebreather wisdom, be a team player!” Diego added, coming over from behind and digging his hands into his ribcage.

A solid thud came from under the table, knocking over several pieces on the board from the force. Everyone sitting nearby said a silent word of thanks that Five ended up kicking the underside of the table and not anyone’s shins. Five kicked like a mule when he was tickled, especially in the scream-laughing stage Diego had him in as he wiggled his fingers in-between each bone.

“Oh, and now he’s taking down the bananamen army.” Luther said, throwing up his hands in mock-anger.

Five finally lifted his head, swatting his brothers away. His unrestrained cackling bounced off the walls, almost startling in its volume and intensity.

“E-Enough!” He squeaked out, sniffling. His face was bright red and streaked with tears. The brothers slowed down, but still didn’t stop completely, sneaking in pokes and squeezes to keep him giggling.

“His dimples hadn’t changed at all.” Klaus said, pinching his cheek and giving him one last tickle behind his knee. Five swatted him with one hand and muffled his laughter with the other, shoulders shaking. He couldn’t look Klaus in the face with those stupid googly eyes and Diego’s ‘ ”shut your velociraptor mouth” comment kept playing over and over in his head. The teasing and the tickling did nothing to help his attempts at pulling himself together. He pounded his fist on the table, the hand over his mouth doing little to suppress his giggle fit.

“Is it past someone’s bedtime?” Allison asked, doing everything in her power to be condescending.

“I h-HA-hate you!” He managed out at last. Everyone waited for him to blink away in a burst of angry eyebrows and swearing, but he stayed. He actually stayed. Vanya then considered every part of game night a success. No one had seen or heard Five laugh, really laugh, in forever. She had almost forgotten what it sounded like. Five himself probably forgot what it felt like, still shaking with leftover giggles from the tickle attack. He finally caught his breath, trying to scowl but failing.

“I hate you.” He repeated, wiping his eyes.

 “You hate how much I’m kicking this volcano’s ass.” Klaus said, “You wish you were a level 420 angel spaceman like me.”

“Now you’re just making things up!” Vanya said. The game was hopelessly out her hands at this point, but she was strangely at peace with it.

“We made up the entire game! If anything, I’m just creating the expansion pack as we speak.” Klaus defended, grabbing the rules out of Vanya’s hands and scribbling a new page of ideas.

 The game went on well into the night, with each twist and turn becoming more and more bizarre. Five’s uncommonly giddy mood was infectious, and everyone had to stick around to enjoy it while it lasted, even grabbing at his knees when he tried to shift back into his typically grouchy state. The ice crystal was never acquired, but Five ended up with the hiccups from laughing so much and so hard, so everyone thought the evening was worth it. As the game wrapped up, everyone left the room feeling somewhat lighter, relieved almost. They were going to have to start later more often.

[lonelypond]

Yen For Success

NicoMaki RinPana, Love Live, 1.9K, 1/1

Summary: Maki’s stuck studying while 1Kiss runs into choppy waters.

Yen For Success

WEAKEST MEMBERS OF MUSE ATTEMPT IDOL KNOCKOFF GROUP

WHY ISN'T HOSHIZORA HEADING A BOY BAND

IS NICO NI MANIPULATING HER YOUNGER BANDMATES

HOW HEFTY IS HANAYO

Nishikino Maki leaned back in her desk chair, unpleasant headlines screaming from multiple open tabs. She glanced down at her phone, no relief there. Rude comments on the 1Kiss TWIG feed as well. She wanted to throw her phone across the room. Her two best friends and her one true love aka 1Kiss were finally landing bigger venues, but they'd also landed the wrong kind of attention. The buzz was leaning bad and Maki knew from Nico's worrying how hard that could be to recover from. Their last two concerts had only had half the seats sold. Plus, even the normally enthusiastic 1Kiss fans were being exceptionally harsh about both Rin's and Hanayo's appearance and Maki knew too well how much her friends struggled. Nico's confidence was practically undentable, but Rin and Hanayo…Maki dropped her head in front of her laptop, reminded of the other times she wanted to help but couldn't...or Nico wouldn't let her. Nico...Maki raised her head, a gleam in her eye. Nico wasn't here. Nico was probably too busy trying to stitch together Rin and Hanayo's self esteem to suspect that Maki might try to intervene.

"Call Umi." Maki's voice was clear, determined. This was a problem a Nishikino could solve.

###

Nico was sitting in her hotel room, staring, at a loss for ideas. Rin had refused to even come out of the room on their afternoon off, here in Cancun. Hanayo was holed up with her, refusing to eat. Nico had gone for a run, stopped at a beautiful beach, texted a selfie to Maki with a too deeply felt 'Nico misses you." But Maki had college exams to study for. Nico would see her over Christmas and then in a few months when Maki joined them for her ronin year.

A brusque knock on Nico's door startled her. She moved to the spyhole, heart pounding, to see two familiar heads, one fair and one dark. Kotori and Umi. Nico yanked the door open and grabbed them both in a hug, before pulling back with an embarrassed cough,

"What are you doing here?" Nico glanced from one to the other, "you" pointing to Umi, "are in Japan, and you" back to Kotori, "are in France."

Kotori giggled, "We decided to have a weekend rendezvous" Kotori leaned into Umi "and see our favorite band in concert."

"How, who…?" Nico shook her head, "I don't care. Nico's just glad to have some backup. Rin's a real mess."

"Nico!" a squeak come from behind her visitors as Hanayo opened her door, "TONIGHT'S SHOW JUST SOLD OUT!" Hanayo raised her eyes from her phone to see two familiar but unexpected profiles. "KOTORI! UMI!"

"They're having a sexy tropical getaway." Nico chuckled. Umi went pale in contrast to Maki's usual flare of tomato shade embarrassment but it was almost as much fun.

Hanayo just grabbed them and held on, sobbing. Nico manuevered them all into her room so they could talk about the biggest problem.

"Rin won't even talk to me. Or even pick up her phone to watch cat videos. She's been ignoring Maki's calls as well." Hanayo sat on Nico's bed, eating the chicken rice soup Nico had ordered her.

Nico smiled, glad that Maki was trying to reach out to Rin. Nico hadn't had a chance to talk to Maki this week, their rehearsal schedule was brutal, but the Nico knew the redhead must have seen the recent rush of bad press. Maki...Nico glanced at Umi speculatively, but the dark haired archer and poetry student just smiled kindly. Nico shrugged, her attention back on Hanayo. But it was Kotori who seized on a solution, "Obviously, we need to go shopping. How long until sound check?"

Nico glanced at her phone, "Three hours."

"I already checked with the concierge about cute local shops. And the driver knows how to get there." Kotori put her hand on Umi's shoulder, "If you'll just go get Rin, we can get started."

"But our costumes are already…"

Kotori's golden eyes met Nico's and the number one idol saw a challenge there. When had she ever let what should happen stop her…

"All right, go get Rin, let's try out a new look for 1Kiss." Nico turned away to pull out a long linen shirt that nicely layered over her shorts and tank top. She also didn't want to see the look on Kotori's face. It would tell her too much. "Nico knows you'll find the best bargains."

"Uh huh."

###

Many more photographers than Nico had expected, and a crowd of fans waiting when they pulled up backstage. Rin had a gorgeous frilly skirt covered with vibrant birds and flowers, a simple white linen shirt, and the cutest slouched two toned straw cloche hat Nico had seen yet. She bought a similar trilby for Maki, since the redhead liked both hats and gifts from local artisans. Plus, knowing Rin and Maki, they'd put them to good use dressing for one of the now traditional RinPana NicoMaki seasonal double dates. Nico and Hanayo always had so much fun guessing what kind of look the two were going to surprise them with. Kotori had dressed Nico in a simple red and black dress and Hanayo had gone for sportif, with an Atlante F.C. jersey, cute shorts, and a matching 1Kiss beanie. On stage, for an additional change and shout out to the local culture, Kotori had found matching swimsuits and sarongs with vivid blue orange splashes of colors that would look better on Rin and Hanayo than Nico, but for once the idol didn't mind. Rin had been glowing as Kotori fussed over her, Nico finding the perfect matching pearl hair accessories for the three of them. The boutique owner had helpfully refused to mention prices and Kotori just flashed a card that Nico thought she recognized to take care of the tab. So she caught some video of Rin spinning happily in her new skirt and hit send, knowing Maki would feel lighter after seeing it.

The concert was a SCREAMING SUCCESS. Both Idols and the audience were hoarse by the end. TWIG was buzzing with shots from the concert, Nico pulling fans on stage to dance, livestreaming on TWIGTube with the screaming audience in the background, Rin down in the front row, teaching everyone their latest dance steps, her face ecstatic. That's what the people wanted to see, Nico thought as a stream of hearts and comments raced across the screen of her cell. This was the energy boost 1Kiss needed. This was who they were.

###

Maki grinned at her laptop screen. Rin was bouncing up and down on her hotel room bed while Hanayo was unwinding with a bath.

"It was AMAZING, Maki. The best night ever. The crowd knew ALL THE SONGS, even the new ones. Sold out, people lined up at the back." Rin flopped back onto the bed, "Now I know why Nico's so addicted to making people smile."

"That sounds...fun."

Rin snorted and rolled up, "Oh Maki, you know you would have loved it. And Nico practically glowed."

Nico always glows, Maki thought as she frowned at Rin, "I'm fine here."

Rin shook her head, "You can say you miss music, Maki. It's okay."

Maki sighed, "I do miss all of you."

"Maki must be lonely." Rin started bouncing again, "So write us a song for the next concert."

"Write your own."

"Hey, you wrote Hanayo a rice song, where's my ramen song?"

"And how catchy will that be in Central America?"

"Ramen is an international sensation. Students love ramen, students love 1Kiss...instant hit."

Maki couldn't hide her grin. It was great to hear Rin being obnoxiously, stupidly, wonderfully Rin, "Sure, sure...keep telling yourself that."

"I will. AND I'll tell you and Kayo-chin and Nico and Umi and Kotori and..."

As Rin rattled off an ever growing list of names, Maki's phone buzzed. Nico.

Nico: Exhausted, but had a wonderful concert. Nico can hear Rin through the wall so you've probably heard how it went ヾ(≧∇≦)ゞ

Maki: Yeah, she's trying to get me to write a ramen song.

Nico: Hey, we did well with a burger song once.

Maki: d(-_^)

Nico: really great that our biggest fan club donated tickets to local fans.

Maki: oh did that happen, that's cool.

Nico: And Kotori picked out the cutest outfits,

A selfie of Nico in bed, sheet barely pulled up flashed across Maki's screen.

Nico: Not that I'm wearing it now (⌒.−)＝

Maki blushed.

Maki: Rin sent me a snap of you onstage. It's my new screensaver.

Nico: Stalker.

Rin had moved from ramen to the hats Kotori had found them. Maki made encouraging noises as she continued her conversation with Nico.

Maki: Maybe. I miss you.

Nico: I miss you.

Nico: But Nico needs to sleep now. Rin plans to drag us and Umi and Kotori to the beach for breakfast.

Maki: If she's stopped talking by then.

Nico: (°o°)(°o。)(。o。)(。o°)(°o°)(°o。)(。o。)(。o°)

Nico: Maki…

Maki: …?

Nico: Nico will thank you properly when I see you.

Nico: But don't ever do that again (｀^´)

Maki laughed. Of course, Nico knew what she'd done. Nico knew everything. Rin startled out of her story, asked "Maki?"

"Sorry, just texting Nico. Keep going. She's looking forward to breakfast on the beach."

Rin bounced up, "It's so weird being on this side of the Pacific; it's like the world is backwards."

Maki shook her head at the silliness of Rin and typed a response to Nico's jab.

Maki: I won't have to. You're the number one idol trio in the universe after all.

Nico: And don't you forget it.

Maki: (#^.^#)

Nico: (● ∀ )

Nico: See you soon.

Maki: Not soon enough.

Nico: True. Have sexy dreams about Nico (๑ 3 ๑)

Maki: I don't sleep ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Nico: Silly Maki （＾。＾；）

Maki: *shrugs*

Maki slid her phone to the side and focused on Rin, who was winding down the perfect beach breakfast list. "So tell me about Nico."

"Oh, she was so wow, Maki, from the first step on the stage. It was like she was drinking the energy in the air. I'll send you her solo."

"Cool."

"So how's your studying going?"

Maki groaned, "Slow…"

"You can do it. You're the smartest person I know."

"Thanks, Rin."

Her phone pinged at her. A 1Kiss alert.

Rin For The Win in Cancun. "1Kiss bops into audience hearts with their cutest looks yet. Is Muse designer Minami Kotori responsible for the redesign? Local eco friendly fashion is a big win for the planet and 1Kiss with their biggest crowd ever."

Yep, Maki thought, they'd do just fine from here.

"Hey, Rin. Check your alerts."

"Ooohh, they used a really great snap of Kayo-chin."

"Yeah, she should make the local jersey a thing. Lots of crossover fans."

"Ooohh, good idea, Maki-chan. I'll tell her. And I know all the teams."

"Yeah."

Maki put away her books. Time to talk women's football with Rin. She could stare at the selfie Nico had sent her later. Some nights were girlfriend nights, Maki thought, but sometimes it was nice to just vent and ramble with Rin, whose eyes were gleaming life bright again.

"So who's your fave Atlante player?"

"We actually met a whole bunch of fans, Maki, when we went to dinner after the concert. It was so cool. Let me tell you what happened when Nico…"

Maki settled back on her couch, happy to hear stories about her three favorite people conquering Cancun. With maybe a little help from her, Maki thought, hugging a Nico sized pink pillow, glad to still be part of it.

A/N: I've been missing 1Kiss and going back through my files and found this mostly finished bit of business so I polished it up. Enjoy.

[javic-piotr-thane]

TW One: Latter Days - the VORTEX article on the upcoming audio!

THEY’RE BACK and it’s all about the team (unless you’re Yvonne Hartman and then it’s very much all about you !)… We return to Canary Wharf in London to meet the team at Torchwood One for a third box set of adventures in Latter Days. Tracy-Ann Oberman is back in the heels and business suit of Yvonne Hartman, and Gareth David-Lloyd reprises his role as Ianto Jones.

In this box set of three tales we meet Yvonne’s mother; see Torchwood through the eyes of one of its cleaners; and Ianto finds himself trapped inside the retirement plans of Tommy – the head of Alien Acquisitions.

The set opens with Retirement Plan which was written by Ianto  himself, actor Gareth David-Lloyd, and features a character we first met in box set one – only now, Tommy is retiring. But there’s something very wrong in the idyll of El Cielo, and it’s going to kill Ianto. There are spies, guns and snowmobiles, a secret base – and definitely piranhas!

Gareth says: “I’m a bit more familiar writing for the characters than I was the first time around when I had to go back over the first series of Torchwood One. I did some more research on Yvonne’s character for this one, but I know her and the others much better this time. 

“I wasn’t given too much of a detailed brief – just that it was all to do with retirement – and that was it! The central character in this one is Tommy played brilliantly by Tim Bentinck who was in the first series of Torchwood One. Unfortunately, death is the way most people leave Torchwood – either that, or they are retconned! But Tommy has some ideas about retirement within the constraints of working for Torchwood and he’s planning an alternative. He’s been secretly pottering away on his own retirement dream but he needs Ianto’s help to realise it.”

As well as writing the adventure, Gareth is enjoying playing a different facet to Ianto’s character, having established himself as a firm favourite with listeners through his work at Torchwood Three in Cardiff.

He confirms: “It was great fun to play a different, more innocent side to Ianto in the first series, and to come back and write for him has been a great pleasure.

“The whole idea of Ianto living out his fantasies as a secret agent has been in my head for some time. Ianto and Yvonne get trapped in a James Bond world – it’s a bit risqué.

“When I was writing there were some moments where I thought Tracy-Ann will either love me or hate me for this – the reasons for which will become evident! “Yvonne is a great character. At least you know when you work for Torchwood that you are sort of being looked after by Yvonne – as long as you do exactly what she says! She can be very unforgiving if you stray from her agenda.” When you’re writing a script that features the character you play, do you ever consider giving yourself all the best lines?

Gareth laughs: “Ianto always gets a couple of nice dry one-liners, though there wasn’t any temptation to give myself the best lines – I definitely wanted to make the story about Tommy. Ianto has some fun interjections but Tim has got such great comic timing I wanted to utilise that as best as I could.”

A MYSTERIOUS FORCE is wiping out Torchwood in Locker 15, by Matt Fitton, the second story in this set, and the only person who can save London is a cleaner called Dave.

Matt explains: “The Torchwood One stories are all about office life, in a way. I just wanted to look at how Yvonne runs things, and what it is like working there for her. Yvonne likes to know her staff but she can be incredibly ruthless, to get the job done.

“The first box set was about the new person coming in to work at Torchwood and seeing it through her eyes; volume two was about business as usual and the day to day work. Series three is about what happens when you retire, and we’ve various stories about people coming to the end of their Torchwood working lives and their different ways of leaving.

“In Locker 15 they uncover a problem in the offices of Torchwood One and need the help of an old employee who used to be a cleaner and has been retired for a few years, as he might know something about what’s going on.”

Although Torchwood as a series features fantastical ideas, there’s always been an element of the real world to it. As the original publicity for the television series said, it’s The X Files meets This Life.

Matt explains: “Even though Torchwood are dealing with weird and wonderful aliens you’ve got to remember they still have an office to run – with people to empty the bins, refill the paper tray and fix the photocopier. Would someone who has done that at Torchwood need to be retconned when they leave, and what would the longer term effects of that be?

“Just what happens when someone retires from Torchwood? There’s a high mortality rate among its agents, but what about the cleaner? That’s when we meet Dave Cook, who Yvonne and Ianto find in a care home, and they try to prise information from his memory.

“In the past, we’ve likened Torchwood One to the TV series Archer which features a dysfunctional group of spies – here we have a dysfunctional office, which just happens to be full of alien hunters.”

THE EVENTS of the Torchwood team’s domestic lives come to the forefront in The Rockery by Tim Foley. Anne Hartman has retired to the country, which comes as a surprise to her daughter. Has Yvonne met a problem even she can’t solve?

Tim says: “This is probably the first Torchwood story I’ve pitched completely from scratch. I was watching the recording of 9 to 5 (from the previous box set) and Tracy-Ann squared up magnificently against Jane Asher. Yvonne’s dynamic with a figure that was older and equal to her was so electric. So I got in touch with James Goss and asked, ‘Are we ever going to meet Yvonne’s mother?’ Hint hint hint. He got in touch with Russell T Davies who really liked the idea, and then we found ourselves working out how we could meet Anne Hartman, what she was like and what she’d think of the daughter she’d raised. It turns out that the themes worked really well for the next Torchwood One box set, so I leapt at the chance to write it!

“Yvonne’s mother has retired early and Yvonne isn’t happy about it. Anne Hartman moves to the countryside and we see Yvonne bouncing back and forth between her life in the city and her mother’s new life in Shropshire. It’s a story of a strained relationship, with love and pain and things unsaid and strange plants at the bottom of the garden.”

For Tim, expanding on Yvonne’s personal life was something of a joy. He says: “This is somebody retiring who has never known Torchwood… and never wishes to know it. It would be very easy to write a character that was effectively Yvonne senior, but we found it far more interesting to imagine Yvonne as her father’s daughter (I obliquely referred to Yvonne’s dad in a previous Torchwood story since we decided he’s mentioned as working in security in a certain 1970s Doctor Who!). 

“Who, then, is Anne? I’m really excited for listeners to meet her. Unlike her husband and her daughter, Anne has always tried to live a quiet life. But with Yvonne back in the picture, there’s hardly going to be much of that…”

Tracy-Ann adds: “There’s so much love for Yvonne. Whenever I’m on tour, people bring her up and say how much they love her in Big Finish.”

Matt Fitton and producer James Goss have previously told Vortex that their writing for Torchwood One has been partly inspired by bad office jobs they’ve held in the past. Has there been anything from Tim’s own working life that’s fed in to this story?

He reveals: “I mainly work in theatre, and this script is the most play-like I’ve written for Big Finish (that’s something James Goss noted as well, I think he called me out for using act breaks!). It’s three characters navigating what it means to be human; it’d work well on stage. I adore the fact that Torchwood as a show can be this flexible. Some days I get to write about the end of the world, and on other days I get to write about a lonely woman tending to her rockery. When I retire myself, it’s a time I’ll look upon very fondly!”

TASKED WITH bringing the trio of tales to life was director Barnaby Edwards, who tells Vortex what he thinks makes Torchwood One so special: “We only got a glimpse of Yvonne Hartman on television before she met her well-deserved cybernetic fate. And yet those brief minutes during which she lit up the screen with her ruthless, camp, solipsistic effulgence were enough to make us thirst for more. Similarly, we never got as much Ianto as that character merited.

“So, for me, what makes the Torchwood One adventures so special is expanding our knowledge of Yvonne, the black widow spider who is the master brain at the centre of Torchwood’s web, and Ianto, the loyal puppy who is very much the heart of Torchwood.”

Barney – who also directed the first two box sets of this series – particularly enjoys working with the series’ two main leads. He says: “Tracy-Ann and Gareth are two of my favourite performers. The partnering of cynical Yvonne with the exuberant, innocent and utterly loveable Ianto is what makes these stories such a joy to direct. They’re the best double act around.”

And were there plenty of memorable moments during the recording days? Barney grins: “Many, actually. Hearing Ianto’s James Bond fantasies, finding out what makes Tommy (Torchwood’s Q, played by the brilliant Tim Bentinck) tick, and – of course – meeting the only woman more terrifying than Yvonne Hartman: her mother!”

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter Thirty One

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

February 1st, 2019

Patton wished, not for the first time, that he could just escape this house and never return. He loved his mom, honestly, he did. But Charles made loving her feel hard. Because she always sided with him and that meant he and Virgil were always the troublemakers, even when Charles provoked them.

Granny was calling their mom over and over, asking for help or something, and Mom didn’t want to help. Charles kept telling her to ignore Granny and she’d go away, but he knew Mom felt guilty about it. And as such, she was much quicker to get angry, to get upset, to point fingers.

Patton knew that Granny needed help, and he didn’t understand why Mom wouldn’t help her. After all, didn’t family help each other when they were in trouble?

July 14th, 2019

Patton was absolutely delighted that Dad’s parents, his grandma and granddad, were staying for the weekend. It had been ages since he had seen Granny, even though she wrote them when she could, it was hard with their mom pestering her for Patton and Virgil’s location. And to have two grandparents from one parent, well! That was really cool!

They talked a lot, mostly asking questions to him and his brothers to get to know them. But sometimes they’d talk beyond small stuff, and let Patton talk about Legos, or Virgil about the Goosebumps books that he loved. And when Logan talked about Jack and his other friends, he’d get this spark in his eye that made him look truly alive. Even Dee got to talk about snakes. The only one who didn’t speak much was Roman. He sat in a corner of the living room, looking like he would rather be anywhere else. “What about you, Roman?” Granddad asked. “Is there anything you really like?”

Roman ducked his head. “I like fairy tales, and theatre,” he muttered.

Logan’s head snapped up from his phone. “Wait, you’re going into eighth grade! You’re going to my high school after this school year!”

Roman looked confused. “Yes?” he said, phrasing it like a question.

“Our after-school drama club is unbelievable!” Logan said. “I’ve worked tech on stuff when the sound booth has issues, and watching those kids act? It’s amazing. You should try out for the fall play, you’d love it!”

Roman looked vaguely interested, but uncertain. “You sure? I probably wouldn’t get that good a part...even if I do well in the middle school play this year...”

“No, that’s the best part of this whole thing!” Logan exclaimed. “There’s two sets of actors! The actual people, and then their understudies. And if nothing happens to the main actors, the understudies still get to have a part, because the school rotates who plays what show on what days! So you might not get to do the Friday night show, but you could always do the Saturday matineé!”

Roman’s lips twitched into a smile. “That sounds nice,” he admitted.

“It’s super fun,” Logan said. “All my friends try to get me to perform, though I prefer helping the techs. Too much attention on me makes me stressed.”

“I can understand that,” Roman said.

“Most people don’t,” Logan replied, “So I thank you for trying to empathize.”

Patton shot his hand up and asked, “Do you know what play they’re doing?”

“Not yet,” Logan said. “Usually they don’t announce that until the beginning of the school year.”

“Oh,” Patton deflated a little. “I was hoping that I could figure out what the play was so I could help somehow.”

“Well, we could always make our own play,” Logan said with a shrug.

Patton blinked, trying to make sense of that sentence. “We can?”

Logan nodded. “I know how to write screenplays, it can be done.”

Patton grinned. That sounded amazing! “Can we do it today?”

“I don’t see why not, provided Grandma and Granddad are okay with it,” Logan said, looking to their grandparents.

“I have one condition for you five working on a play,” Grandma said with a smile. “I want you to work on it here, so your grandfather and I can see your creativity at work.”

“I have another condition,” Granddad said. “I want to see the play when it’s done, even if it’s just a silly videotape that your dad sends us.”

Patton jumped up and down and looked to Logan hopefully. “Can we work on it now?”

Logan looked a little exasperated but chuckled all the same. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll grab the laptop.”

The laptop was a recent gift from Dad and Ami to Roman and Logan, informing them that they could only afford one laptop at the moment, but if the boys shared well enough there could be a second one in the near future. If Patton was lucky, and Logan and Roman had finished whatever work they were doing, he’d sometimes get to play games with Virgil on it.

Logan left the room quickly and Patton bounced where he stood. Writing a play would be so cool! He couldn’t wait to see what happened!

When Logan returned everyone started talking. “We need a concept for the plot,” Logan said.

“We need to figure out who everyone will be in the characters!” Roman said.

“I think we should figure out a setting first,” Virgil volunteered.

Patton watched as the three of them talked over each other, until Dee jumped on the table and waved his hands like crazy. Everyone turned to look at him and he signed, “One thing at a time.”

“Dee’s right,” Patton said. “What should we start with?”

Logan, Roman, and Virgil each said what they were saying before, at the exact same time. Patton frowned and looked at Dee. He had no idea how to solve the problem of everyone wanting their way to be the right way. Suddenly, it struck him. “Why not figure out a theme?” Patton asked. “If we can figure out a theme, then we can figure out the other three things faster!”

The three stared at him, until Logan laughed and tweaked his glasses. “You’re pretty smart, Patton. Okay. What should our theme be?”

“I vote family!” Roman exclaimed. “We could make a play about our stories!”

“Or we could do something where a family fights dragons or aliens!” Virgil said.

“Why not both?” Patton asked. “Brothers who were separated because they’d be too powerful together, and they find out about each other and save the world!”

“That sounds so cool!” Virgil exclaimed.

Dee clapped his hands and grinned.

Roman clapped Patton’s back. “That’s not a half-bad idea, kid!”

Logan thought about it, and nodded. “Okay, I can work with that.”

They all sat down on the floor and suggested ideas, which Logan would dutifully write down on the computer. Patton noticed their grandparents whispering to each other, but they were smiling, so he didn’t think too much of it.

It had to have been hours that they worked, deciding to go with Patton’s idea and then starting to write a story. Roman came up with the biggest ideas, which Virgil would point out might be a bit too complex for them to pull off, and Logan would scale them down to manageable size. Dee would occasionally add his two cents to what they were doing, but was mostly happy if he could play an antihero, to use Logan’s words.

When they finally stopped, it was because Dad and Ami came into the room asking where everyone was, because they had called that dinner was ready and none of them had heard it. Roman promptly answered, “We were fighting aliens in the play we’re writing,” and left it at that, as if that explained everything.

“Right...” Dad said, glancing at Ami. “Regardless, dinner is ready. We should eat it before it gets cold.”

They all went into the dining room and slowly started eating. “So, can we get context for this play?” Dad asked.

“We were talking to our grandsons about what they liked to do, and Roman brought up the fact that he enjoyed theatre. Logan said that he liked the theatre group at their high school, and when Patton asked if he knew what the play would be this upcoming year, Logan said no, but they could make their own,” Grandma summarized. “And these boys are amazing, Emile! They were all so creative, figuring out what to write and how to scale it down to something they could do with five actors! You never told us that they were so smart!”

Patton blushed a little and all his brothers were also in varying stages of embarrassment. “It’s not such a big deal,” Roman protested weakly. “I create crazy stories all the time.”

“And I’m usually the one who drags him back down to Earth,” Logan said.

“I was just trying to be realistic with what we could do,” Virgil said.

Patton shrugged. “I think it’s kinda a big deal, if only because usually the five of us don’t all work together like that.”

“But the fact that you don’t see it as a big deal means that you are talented,” Granddad said. “I would go so far as to say extremely gifted.”

“No way,” Roman said, scratching the back of his neck, as Logan tried to not choke on the water he was drinking. Virgil looked like he had just swallowed a frog.

“The boys still aren’t used to high praise,” Ami said, looking extremely amused. “No matter how many times we compliment them, they try to play it off. I don’t think you’re gonna be successful in getting them to accept your words, Dad. Much as you try.”

“Think I’ll have better luck?” Grandma asked.

“No,” Patton said. “I don’t think the others will be convinced that what they’re doing is a big deal, at least not for a long time.”

“But you disagree?” Grandma asked.

Patton shrugged. “I don’t think it’s as big a deal as you’re making it, but it’s not nothing, either.”

Grandma grinned. “You’re the mediator of the group, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Patton said. “Usually I just say something ridiculous enough to get Logan and Roman to stop arguing, but sometimes I actually add my opinions.”

Everyone continued to playfully argue about whether or not the play was a big deal, long after dinner. When Dee started yawning, Dad took him upstairs to get ready for bed. When he came back downstairs, Granddad haltingly signed, “Can I hug you?”

Dee looked surprised briefly before he nodded.

Granddad smiled and hugged Dee gently, and Grandma kissed his forehead when Granddad retreated to the couch. Dee walked up the stairs to his room, looking dazed and shell-shocked.

Patton glanced at Virgil, who was reading a Goosebumps book. “Do you think they’re gonna do that to everyone?” he asked.

“Everyone who accepts it,” Virgil said. “They’re leaving early tomorrow morning, so they’re saying goodbye now.”

“Oh,” Patton said. “You know, Granny would hug us goodnight, but Mom didn’t do that for a while before we ran away.”

“I know,” Virgil said. “I was there too. It’s nice to have people who care, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Patton said softly. “It’s weird, but it’s nice.”

Virgil looked over at Patton from his book, and Patton was surprised to see the amused smirk on Virgil’s face. Virgil almost never was this expressive with Mom, and it still shocked him to see Virgil come out of his shell. “You say that a lot. Things are always weird but nice to you.”

Patton shrugged. “Maybe one day it’ll stop feeling weird, but today’s not that day.”

Virgil shook his head and sighed. “Yeah, I get that feeling a lot, too.”

They shared a smile before Virgil went back to reading and Patton continued to listen to Dad and Ami talking to Grandma and Granddad about everything that had happened over the past few months.

Patton stretched and yawned, and hopped off the couch, gathering the attention of all the adults. “I’m gonna get ready for bed,” he announced. “I’m kinda tired.”

“Can I get a hug before you go upstairs?” Granddad asked.

Patton nodded and walked over, hugging Granddad tight. He smelled like wood shavings, and Patton wondered if he did any woodworking in his spare time.

When Granddad let him go, Grandma kissed him on the forehead too, and Patton giggled. “I like you both a lot,” he said.

“We’re honored to hear that, Patton,” Grandma said. “Go ahead and get ready for bed, we’ll see you soon.”

Patton smiled and nodded, and headed upstairs. He was grinning the second he was out of sight. Grandma and Granddad were super nice, and he hoped that he’d get to see them again soon. When he was around them, he felt truly loved, which meant he could add two more people to the list of people he had as good people in his head. He couldn’t wait until that list was too long to remember.

[beardyallen]

Here we go... (Part 2 of 3)

Alright, so let's talk about April.

[Warning: This is mostly just about my mental health. It’s not super interesting. You won’t learn anything about Beijing. Many of you will probably read this and imagine me sitting here whining. I prefer to call it venting. Feel free to skip this and go directly to Here we go... (Part 3 of 3). It’s where most of the fun stuff is. But...there’s a pretty dope comic about halfway down, so if you also suffer from depression, you should check it out. It’s a good comic. And it makes me smile when everything is gray.]

I generally only talk about my depression with a few people, but I think we could all benefit by having more open discussions about how it affects us. Too many people struggle with this illness, it's stigmatized, and future generations need to know that what they experience is more common than they think. Plus, I imagine that making this beast something that we can talk about will reduce its power and prevalence.

I'm not going to try to talk about the root cause of my issues as I'm not entirely sure where to even start, so I'll just share how it all manifests. And how that's changed over the years. If my mental illness is in fact something that I've been struggling with my entire life, I imagine that it manifested as anger when I was child, usually in response to anxiety around my social situation, exacerbated by end-of-the-semester stress. Why do I think this? Because it seems that I only really got in trouble for acting out in early December or late April/early May. And I was usually retaliating towards a feeling of isolation, invisibility, or worthlessness. It's a pretty strong pattern.

I'm not gonna share any sob stories about how I didn't fit in as a kid, or how moving into a tight-knit community in fifth grade led to a strong feeling of isolation that persisted through middle school and high school. I'm not going to talk about the bullying or harassment. These are things that happened, but they aren't the point. And I'm just as much, if not more, to blame for my circumstances as anyone else.

The anxiety is the point. The feeling that I've had at every stage of my life that I don't matter to the people around me if I'm not always around. That they don't think about me. That if I vanished from their life, they wouldn't notice. That I was replaceable. Or that I was a burden that they would rather shirk off. As far as I can tell, I've felt this way since kindergarten, and all of the anger I felt as a child was in response to stimuli that reinforced this notion.

And in April, the intrusive, invasive thoughts started up again. Yes, of course there were people who wanted to know what was going on with me. There were people who frequently checked in with me to see how I was doing in China. I had every reason to believe that I matter, that my presence was missed, and that I'm still important to people. And in spite of that, it's not how I felt. It even led me to start questioning whether or not my best friend cared about me, which is absurd because of course he does. Life happens. But the voice in my head is a prick.

On top of that, every source of stress in my life spiked. Complications with my teaching assignment manifested, including (but not limited to) issues with my paychecks. Financial reimbursements for my health insurance policy have not been disbursed despite repeated messages to those responsible. Since I'm currently not enrolled in any course credit, my student status was revoked and now those entities which own my student loan debt are looking for payments. My dissertation research stagnated as my collaborator has other super important grad school obligations to deal with, and my Masters Project has been put on hold again for reasons outside my control. It also seems to just get bigger every time I try to make progress. There's also a nagging voice in the back of my head constantly whining about how much more complex my project seems to be in comparison to other Masters projects I've seen from the department. But when the voice pops up, I do what I can to pummel it into submission. I can't live my life in comparison to others.

Beyond that, I randomly wound up with a case of insomnia. For three nights in a row, I laid in bed for hours staring at the inside of my eyelids, watching imaginary scenarios play out as my consciousness jumped from random topic to random topic. In spite of how exhausted I was, I just couldn't get my brain to turn off for more than 30 minutes at a time; during the one or two brief naps, I was privy to some of the most vivid dreams and nightmares that I've had, and my baseline dream/nightmare is already more vivid than most.

So work sucked, minor frustrations related to living in Beijing, no sleep, missing my friends, trying to not freak out about the fact that I'll be effectively homeless all summer (insomuch as I won't have an apartment that I'm officially renting or anything), worrying about the fact that I'm not making as much money as I projected, and just being sick and tired of being sick and tired. April was super fun, guys. Can't you tell?

Mental illness blows. Depression blows. Intrusive thoughts blow.

So I spent an absurd amount of time doing very little. Laying in bed. Reading comic books and rewatching Community. Not writing. Not researching. Being pathetic.

Wondering if I should reconsider my stance on medication. So let's talk about that.

From a philosophical standpoint, I don't much care for the idea of needing a medication to get myself on track. My mental illness is a part of who I am just as much as my intellect and sense of humor are a part of who I am. I'm no genius, but let's consider those individuals who have been described as such and think about just how many of them are suspected to have been depressed or grappling with some sort of mental illness. I'm not going down in history as anyone whose mind is something to admire, but I know that I'm smarter than your average bear. I'm a PhD student studing theoretical mathematics, probability and statistics. I'm simulataneously working on a dissertation related to subgraph density problems and a masters project centered around reconstructing familial networks in forensic databases. These topics are not related, nor has the coursework had very much overlap. Balancing two different graduate degrees is not common among people in my department, but I know that I can handle it.

So if I seek out medication as a means to balance my life, what sort of unforeseen impact will that have on my studies? It is not uncommon for the process of finding "the right medication" to take months, and as your life changes, so too does "the right medication." I have one year left in my program (maybe two if I'm unlucky, and that seems to be how my life goes), my diet is fucked, my sleep schedule has been jacked up for the last few months, and I haven't had regular physical activity excepting the 2 mile walks to and back from Wudaokou several times a week. My work life is tumultuous at the best of times, and all of this is changing in the not-so-distant future. I have been in academia my entire life, living on the same stress-rhythm for the past 24 years. What happens when I'm suddenly a research or data scientist?

Medication is off the table for the time being. I had bi-weekly counseling last semester which seemed to help with my stress levels, but at some point I would like some sort of diagnosis. But before I can seek therapy, I need to be back in the States, with some sort of stable life. That means August of September at the earliest. Probably September. In the meantime, I bounce between feeling like I've got everything figured out and feeling like I'm holding my sanity together with scotch tape. All the while, I question all of the things I thought I knew about how I wanted my life to look as I see more clearly every day just how messed up the world is. Ignorance definitely wasn't bliss, but knowing doesn't feel much better.

------------------------------------

Damn. That was pretty bleak. But I needed to get it out of my head.

Enjoy this dope little comic that I think about every Sunday to help me get through the week.

------------------------------------

Now back to it. I'm open to therapy, I know that it will help. It's part of my long-term plan for mental stability. And I'm open to talking about medication with my future therapist, once the "big issues" in my life that I can control are worked out.

In the meantime, I'm okay. Or at least that's what I'll say whenever someone asks.

Of course I'm not okay. For some reason that I haven't yet worked out, my brain focuses on the negatives waaaaay too much. I do my best to combat it, but generally I've just managed to make this work to my advantage throughout my life, planning for worst-case scenarios, being comfortable with failing when I try to solve a problem, being the skeptic in my research groups. It's made me a better mathematician. It's made me push myself further towards excellence. But it's also inherently held me back.

Before I really had a grasp on my mental illness, I would have periods of numbness. I would get absorbed by these intrusive thoughts and mistake them for my authentic voice. I would see everything around me as gray and conclude that my friendships weren't as wonderful and remarkable as they are, that my relationship is doomed to fail because I don't feel a spark or magnetism anymore, that I'm not actually supposed to be a graduate student and that I'm not good enough and that I've only made it this far as a fluke and eventually everyone will figure out that I'm a fraud. And I've made mistakes because of it. I've let friendships die, relationships fail, and...alright, so I've pretty much been kicking ass at the grad school thing, but I guess my response to feeling like a fraud is usually to push myself super hard until I start burning out. This actually happened last school year when I was preparing for my comprehensive exam, which led to my oral exam, which led right into the end of the semester, with several conferences that I was running and attending, and then a research workshop and then...my seizures came back. Maybe "seizure" isn't quite correct, but I'm not sure what else to call it when my body has a stress-induced reaction that feels like someone swinging an icepick in the back of my skull.

So I'm not okay. But for the time being, that's just going to have to be okay. [Queue i'm ok. by Judah and the Lion]

I could use a nap.

[foxyorston]

Kolb Cycle Learning Experience

The Cards for Play Experience:

The Cards for Play Assignment experience in BCT has probably been one of the biggest learnings for me. It left me thinking, reflecting and analysing my takings from the experience for weeks afterwards, and has affected the way I approached future assignments such as the current Data Objects assignment. The Cards for Play task forced the need to think creatively, yet at the same time critically. Forcing idea and concept development and redevelopment. It put me in the mind of a creative designer and forced me to think in ways I hadn’t previously. It set a good example for me personally of how a designer should think, and approach difficult scenarios.

Designing a set of cards that facilitates play sounded easy. A deck of playing cards flashes through your mind, easy. Simple. And yet, even within the first few days I was being forced to think in new ways, challenge myself and my “comfortable” design processes. The fact that it was a team exercise made me feel confident in my ability, as I excel in a group environment, being extroverted. I find it easier to bounce ideas off others and thought that working in a team would be easy and would accelerate the solving of the ‘problem’. Throughout the experience this assumption was proven wrong however. At first the group couldn’t think of enough ideas, and then we boxed ourselves in by deciding on one that was complex because we wanted to do something ‘unique’ and ‘risky’. As the experience neared its end we had cycled through so many different concepts, and ideas that didn’t work that by the time we had one that ‘might’ be workable it was too late to back out, and we had to rush through and complete the idea we had due to the now miniscule time left before submission. In the end we finished the morning it was due and looking around at other team’s work I realised our project was one of the more ambitious ones, and while it had worked out in the end, it was shallow and not as fleshed out as it could have been due to being rushed. I think the lack of clear focus and proper productivity in the beginning of the experience really held us back as it came to the later weeks in the assignment. By the time we had all found our ‘places’ within the group and started to work efficiently it was already almost too late, and we found ourselves panicking and rushing to finish our project.

 Experience Observations:

I believe one of the major challenges to face in this first assignment was that for most of the group, this was their first proper University assignment. This meant that a challenge to tackle as a group was the independency, and the need to self-direct ourselves as an efficient team. Luckily, the team was confident that we would be able to create a unique set of cards that fit the brief well. Often ‘Team confidence is related to, but distinguished from, efficacy and group potency. Efficacy researchers have shown that individuals who believe they can perform needed actions exert effort and are productive’ Steve Alper, Dean Tjosvold, Kenneth S. Law, Interdependence and Controversy in Group Decision Making: Antecedents to Effective Self-Managing Teams (1998). This added confidence in our own skills both independently and as a team meant that we were productive moving into the concept stages. I think that this was one of the major factors that helped our team pull through as we faced concept failure after concept failure. I noticed that despite our ideas often falling short, there was always another one to replace it, and the group never lost confidence that we would be able to complete a high-end product.

Something that I noticed throughout the project was that there tended to be a singular person, or two people taking control and guiding the other team members to a solution. This seemed almost natural, as certain individuals were more vocal leaders, and more outspoken. According to the ‘Babble Effect’ Daniel Levi, Group Dynamics for Teams, ‘Group members are more likely to select the most frequent communicator as the leader’ Mullen, Salas & Diskell (1989), Group Dynamics for Teams (10.1). Whether this is a subconscious or conscious ‘election’ of a group leader, I viewed it happening as my team members seemed to gravitate towards one person’s ideas and listen to what they had to say primarily. While this was effective, it was never clearly voiced that ‘this person is the team leader’. And while this doesn’t always have to be the case, the unproductivity of our group in the early stages could have been prevented if someone was to properly take charge and set everyone on a productive path.

It was interesting being in a group with largely Introverted or silent people, as they would only contribute ideas when asked, or after others had put forward their ideas. The Extroverts seemed to be the ones taking control of the project and putting forth the ideas, ‘Intrateam communication will be more natural for the extrovert than the introvert’ John H. Bradley, Frederic J. Hebert, (1997) Journal of Management Development. However, upon reflection, everybody had ideas, the people who were more silent and ‘introverted’ just required more prompting to divulge their ideas, whereas the more vocal and ‘extraverted’ required none. Prompting the more silent members of a group proved to be vital towards the end of our assignment, as some major problems were solved with their input. Knowing this now will enable me in the future to take into consideration even the those who don’t seem to want to talk at first sight but might have crucial information or concepts in their thoughts.

Reflection:

On reflection of the project, the early weeks where the teams were told to constantly scrap their ideas and start over make a lot of sense. I believe it was this that nailed in the message of learning from failures, and always striving to improve. As more of our joint ideas “failed” the group strived to better the concepts and learn from past ones to come up with more effective solutions.

The project taught me a lot about how to manage and work with different learning styles and personality types within a group. This was one of the most important take-aways from the Cards for Play experience because for the rest of the time I will be working as a Creative Technologist I can expect to be working with many different types of people. And understanding how best to work well with them, and slot into my own spot within a group dynamic is important. Not knowing how to do this before Cards for Play affected the speed with which we were able to reach an effective solution. I believe that If I had known how to mesh better with a team and work together in a self-directed environment sooner we wouldn’t not have been as rushed and unrefined by the end of the project. Being able to take that knowledge into future projects will enable me to more effectively work with differing learning styles and personality types while staying productive.

The skills I can take away from this learning experience are endless. The different ways to approach problems and constantly better my ideas kindly ‘hammered’ into me by the repeated process of scrapping and improving one’s ideas, to the ability to quickly get a team into a productive headspace. Being able to take these skills forward has already helped me, as the Data Objects Assignment has in my opinion progressed much smoother now that I have a greater experience in with properly working and meshing with different learning styles.

 References:

Daniel Levi, (2015) , “Group Dynamics for Teams”, https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=l3tZDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT18&dq=group+dynamics+teams&ots=GlazVg2Yf4&sig=DgSs1e6SS-kwUZqw0X2tMftb2QE#v=onepage&q=leader&f=false

Steve Alpera, Dean Tjosvold, Kenneth S. Law, (1998), “Interdependence and Controversy in Group Decision Making: Antecedents to Effective Self-Managing Teams”. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/science/article/pii/S0749597898927480

John H. Bradley, Frederic J. Hebert, (1997) "The effect of personality type on team performance", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 16 Issue: 5, pp.337-353, https://www-emeraldinsight-com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/doi/full/10.1108/02621719710174525

[ficdirectory]

A Disuphere Universe Short: Finding Her

There’s one video, from the week before Dominique was taken - Jaimie’s positive she was taken - her baby would never just disappear.  

Her birthday.  She’d come to them in June, just after school let out (as was her way) to let them know her earliest thoughts on all things birthday.  

Was always a big planner.

Is.

She is a big planner.  Jaimie knows she’s out there somewhere.

So, because Dominique loves a good plan - gets that from Michael - Jaimie’s just sure - she believed that they needed four months of lead time to get used to the idea that Dominique was over the bounce house thing this year, and would like to do something more grown up.

Turned out, Dom wasn’t wrong.  It took Micheael about three of the four months lamenting how their baby was growing up.  How Can She Be Over Bounce Houses eventually turned into Soon She’ll Want Earrings and then to She Won’t Be My Little Girl Anymore.

But once Michael worked through all the stages of dealing with the fact that babies grow up, he was so on board for that final month.  For all of September he was calling places every spare minute, doing research when he wasn’t working, about what was “in” or “cool” for 11 year olds these days.

And it was Michael who found (and booked) Zombie Detective.  A thing where you get two adults and however many children in a room and they have to stay away from the zombie and solve hidden clues to escape.

Jaimie hadn’t been sold on the idea.  Dominique was smart.  A natural at practically everything she tried.  She was easily bored.

But when they surprised her, and her two best friends - Jennah and Sharna - those three were like the Three Musketeers - Dominique was over the moon.  And Michael?  Was just as into it as she was.

They set a record, those two.  As Jennah and Sharna tried desperately to keep up and Jaimie stood back with her phone, recording.  (At the time, Michael was on her about joining in, but now?  Jaimie’s so glad she has that video.)

Jaimie watches it probably twenty times a day.  The look on Dom’s face - how she broke into the biggest smile when they figured out the final clue together and they escaped.

She looked right into the camera and said, “We did it, Mommy!  I got us out!”

Jaimie remembers the hug, just after the video cuts.  How Dominique felt, held safely against her.

“Ugh, my little zombie escape artist, I love you!  I am so proud of you!”

Now, Jaimie can’t stop being glad that she told Dominique she was loved.  That her mom was proud of her.  Never knowing that in seven days time, she’d just be gone.

--

Realizing Dominique was missing?  

That’s all a blur.

All a major blur.  

Michael remembers it was Saturday, a week to the day after Dominique turned eleven and together, they saved Dominique’s two best friends, and Jaimie from zombies.  (Totally worth the $350 he dropped reserving the whole room for just the five of them?  To have that moment with his baby girl?  Well, it was priceless…)

“Team Williams for the win!” he’d said, and she’d giggled.  

“We set the record?  Really?” she’d wondered, so excited.  So driven - always - to do her best, to be her best.

That memory screeches to a halt like a record on one of his grandmothers’ records on a bad day.

Time jumps.

It’s Saturday again.

Afternoon.  (He and Jaimie did drop off but pickup was a solo mission.)

He parked and waited, ‘cause Dominique hated it when he showed up early, telling her he wasn’t a regular dad, he was a cool dad.  So, he waited until she could not legitimately be embarrassed by her Cool Dad.  He walked in.

Saw other little girls walking out.

One, Jennah Solomon, Dominique’s first best friend, lights up when she sees his face.  “Mr. Williams!  Hi!  Is Dominique feeling better?”

His brain screeches again.  That record scratched.  Damaged.  Never playing the same again.

“What do you mean?” he’d asked, a smile still on his lips.  It falters.  “Did she get sick?  Is she hurt?”

“No, I mean...I don’t know.  She didn’t come in.”

“What do you mean she didn’t come in?” Michael asks, over-enunciating, and itching to hold onto Jennah by the shoulders.  “She was waiting for you by the doors, right?  You walked in together.”

“No, I came last minute.  No one was outside.  I came in and looked around.  She wasn’t there.”

A blur of looking for Dominique.  Of trying to remember what she had on.  Of tearing the car apart for the little directory sent home with all the names and numbers on it of all the girls Dom cheers with.

One after another.  After another.  As Michael called.  Asked and hoped and prayed and willed it - that somebody might know where Dominique was.

But none of the cheer moms had her at their house.  (One of the girls said, she’d seen Dominique talking to Brittany, but Michael reread the damn directory 17 times.

32 names.  

Not one Brittany.

Calling Jaimie, Michael felt frantic.  Like he’d swallowed stones.

“Babe, I just got to work.  What’s up?” Jaimie had asked, sounding so normal.

He dragged in a breath and said the words that would break her world:

“Dominique’s missing.  Nobody’s seen her in two hours, babe.”

“Michael, don’t play me like that.  She’s at cheerleading.  You gotta go pick her up.”

“I am.  I am here, Jaimie, but she isn’t.  I’m telling you.  Something happened.”

Silence.  Long.  Agonizing.

Then:

“I’m coming right now.”

Click.

--

They called police and they showed up.  Then they gave the third degree about what kind of girl Dominique was.  If she was the type to run away.  If there were family problems.  Jaimie answered each question as clearly and calmly as possible.  Shared that Dominique was a straight A student.  Didn’t matter.

When the cops left with a “she’ll turn up,” over their shoulder, Jaimie knew this wasn’t about to be any Jesus-Foster situation.  She’d thought about it before, of course, but living it…  Well, that was altogether different.

When they searched, it wasn’t strategic.  

Wasn’t with a plan.  They had no plan.  They had people.  They had neighbors.  Family was just plain too far away.

So, they called everybody they could think of.   Asked them to get out and drive around.  Look for Dom.  Call out for her.

Jaimie had been so positive that they’d find Dominique immediately.  That day.  Or that night.  When they didn’t?  Deep down, she started to panic.

For about a week, their neighborhood search party was strong.  Michael had printed countless MISSING flyers with a picture of Dominique from her birthday celebration a week ago.

Just like she promised her daughter two years ago, Jaimie took to Twitter.  Getting Dominique’s face out there.  Her description.  A number to call.  Their number.  Just in case anyone knew anything.

Michael had the phone book out, old school, looking up Brittanys.  Because eleven year old kids don’t pay attention to license plate numbers.  Details.  So all they know is so freakin’ little, it makes Jaimie’s throat ache:

Long blonde hair.  White.  Older.

But older could mean anything.

Eventually, the massive search presence dwindles.  Pretty soon, Jaimie and Michael are the only two driving around.  Keeping an eye out.  Michael has a stack of those posters in his back seat.  Puts them up wherever he can.

“I want Dominique to see.  To know we’re looking.”

But hours turned to days.  Days to weeks.  Weeks to months.  Halloween came first - Dom’s favorite holiday.  No sign.  Thanksgiving, and she wasn’t here to request Gran’s mac and cheese.  Christmas.  Jaimie had been sure Dominique would be home by Christmas, but no.  And after the New Year, something shifted.  Jaimie still looked every time she went out, but now?

She wasn’t so sure she’d like what they found.

Valentine’s Day.  St. Patrick’s Day.  Spring Break.  School letting out.  Summer.

Never, Jaimie, thought, crying in her car.

--

Friday, August 27th.  5:04 PM.  

10 months, 17 days, 7 hours and 4 minutes after he last saw Dominique, Michael’s phone rings.

By now, he’s stopped expecting it to be somebody who might know something.  Stopped expecting it to be Dominique, lost, scared, all by herself.

But his anxiety means that he cannot just let this unfamiliar number just go to voicemail without checking it out.

“Hello?” he asks.

“May I please speak to Michael Williams?” a voice asks.

“This is he,” he offers, distracted.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, sir, but your daughter, Dominique, has been injured in an accident.”

He blinks, his brain screeching back to that day in the zombie room - “I got us out!” - to that day almost 3 years ago when he and Jaimie had this talk with her and she asked why she’d go to the hospital, and if she would be hurt.

“Which hospital?” Michael blurts, grabbing the nearest pen and scribbling four letters: UCSD.

--

It’s night.

Several hours since Michael got that call, and Jaimie’s torn.  She can’t help but be happy that Dominique’s here.  She’s alive.  Somehow, she made it.  But she’s also hurt almost beyond what Jaimie can comprehend.

Burns over 45% of her body.  Her face, both arms, both legs.  She’s not been conscious yet.  They’re still waiting.  Hoping.  Praying. Willing her to pull through.  She’s come this far.

She’s wrapped from head to toe in gauze.

Michael about passed out when he saw her.  Or it could’ve been the other news the doctor gave them: Dominique, at almost 12 years old?  Had been pregnant.

“She told the EMTs to please save her baby after she passed along your number.  She was only about three weeks along.”

Didn’t take long for the doctors to give Michael something to help him rest.  But Jaimie’s up.  For the long haul.  Maybe, for the rest of her life.  

She sees movement out of the corner of her eye as she stares, blankly at the vending machine.  Turns.  A sweet elderly woman in a fancy hat and jacket approaches her.

“You’re that girl’s mother,” she says, knowing.

“I beg your pardon?” Jaimie asks, still not yet able to shake off the shock that after almost a year - yes - she is still someone’s mother.

“The little girl they brought in here,” the woman insists.  “She asked for help, you know.  To use my phone.”

“My daughter?” Jaimie stutters, confused.

“The one who they pulled from that burning van?  Yes.  I guarantee it,” the woman says.

“What happened?  What did Dominique tell you?”

“Just that she needed to make a call.  Needed to use the bathroom.  I could tell she was in trouble.  So, I told her ‘go ahead, and I’ll guard the door.’  She stayed in there as long as she could.  ‘Til those men she was with started hassling me.  Think she came out to protect me.  Then, they got her in the van, and a few seconds later?”

The woman’s face is so sad.

“Thank you, for helping her,” Jaimie offers, her voice breaking.

“Of course.”  The woman clasps Jaimie’s hand.  “Is she okay?  How can I pray for her?”

“Right now, we’re just praying she makes it through the night…” Jaimie manages.

“Oh.  Sit right down now.”

Jaimie does.  Feels herself enfolded in the impossibly frail but strong arms of this sweet, sweet stranger.

And as she falls apart, Jaimie thinks - this woman’s arms - they feel a little bit like wings.

--

Roberta becomes a fixture at the hospital in the coming months.  She brings food and just sits in the burn ICU waiting room.

Michael takes to her.

She reminds him of what he guesses his birth grandmother might be like.

It’s a relief, to have somewhere to be.  Because Dominique, through her horrifying ordeal, has become terrified of men.

All men.

Including Michael.

It breaks his heart, but he gets it.  As much as he can.  Roberta has a good amount of insight on “the men” and “the life” and could easily recognize Dominique was a young girl and in trouble.

“So you just give her space.  It’s not personal.  You follow her lead.  Take her cues.  And eventually?  She’ll come back to you.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Michael says, blinking tears from his eyes.  “Thank you.”

Roberta pats his hand.  Then she takes her cane, and her hat, and walks out the door.

[danyka-fendyr]

Sleep is For the Week

Big thanks to Tumblr user @tantalum-cobalt for inspiring me on my main account @rmswiftie13 to write this! This is just a short fic I wrote about Damian and Tim doing some brotherly bonding.

Word count: 2378

Tim Drake was not too proud to admit he had some issues. Some less open-minded individuals might even call them problems. However, Tim was an intellectual, and therefore could recognize at 5:00 AM on a Tuesday, watching the sunrise on a digital screen showing a view of the woods outside the manor that he had set up when Steph had asked when the last time he saw the sun was, that not sleeping for 8 days straight and not eating for 3 was really more of an issue than a problem. Tim knew this because Tim had been solving a problem for those 8 days, 5 hours, 23 minutes and 52 seconds. If anyone knew what a problem was, it was Tim.

No, Tim Drake didn’t have any problems except the one he was currently working on. He couldn’t figure out how Bane was doing it, but somehow he was managing to get a new and apparently enhanced form of his special little strength elixir through Tim’s carefully constructed screening system. Technically it was the GCPD’s screening system, but Tim may have nudged them along by dropping a fully formed plan into Commissioner Gordon’s inbox using an anonymous email account. Not to say that Jim didn’t know exactly who was responsible for the new low in drug-trafficking currently occurring in Gotham city. Jim Gordon was good at knowing things quietly though.

Tim hadn’t figured out exactly how enhanced Bane’s new serum was, and he wouldn’t be able to until he got his hands on some of it, which was another thing bothering him. He had some idea though since Bane had used it to knock Bruce straight out of commission for the past 8 days, 5 hours, 26 minutes and 34 seconds. Let’s just say there were a lot of broken bones involved. A ridiculous amount really.

That was why Tim was currently sitting here, working on overdrive. Dick was dealing with something in Blüdhaven. The details eluded him at this particular stage of caffeine-driven sleep deprivation. Jason was off with the outlaws doing goodness knows what, but probably involving murder on some level. Steph and Cass checked in on him occasionally, but they were a bit preoccupied, Steph with helping Dick and Cass with helping Alfred watch over Bruce, who was being particularly difficult.

That left Damian. Tim wasn’t worried about Damian interrupting him though. When given the option, the demon-brat avoided Tim like a vampire avoided daylight. So Tim was left in peace, except for the nightly patrol where he and Damian tried to avoid speaking. They couldn't afford to get into too many arguments, spread as thin as they were, so it was better to just not talk at all.

A steady dripping sound filled the cave, a peaceful background to Tim’s research. His fingers clicked steadily across the keys, and his background ambiance audio was helping him stay focused. Or so he thought.

As it turned out, the classical music combined with the sounds of a storm, the dripping off some stalactite in the back of the cave, and the steady thrumming of his fingers on the keyboard may have been a little too calming. Tim’s fingers began to slow as his eyes began to droop. In a last-ditch effort, he reached for his coffee thermos, only to find it empty. He idly wondered how that had happened, closing his eyes in annoyance. He only meant to close them for a moment, but once they were closed it just felt so nice.

All he wanted to do was drift out of his tired, aching, throbbing body that had been screaming in protest at him all week. His eyes itched and burned even while closed, his stomach churned, his head hurt and his limbs ached. Before he fully knew what was happening, brain slowing down to match the speed of molasses, Tim Drake was asleep.

Damian was bored. No, bored was an understatement. The understatement of the century. If he didn’t find something to do, he was going to stab someone. Speaking of stabbing people, what was Drake up to?

Damian figured he was probably in the cave, and if Damian was lucky, his guard would be down. A prime target for stabbing. Perhaps torture, if the opportunity presented itself.

Damian made his way down to the cave, at first confused by the echoing sounds bouncing off the walls. He couldn’t understand why on earth someone was playing classical music in here without headphones. It was an unspoken rule of the Batcave that if you were going to listen to music you should probably do it with headphones since sound resonated all too well. The answer became clear to him though when he took a few steps further.

Drake was lying crumpled in a desk chair, his body in a pathetically grotesque position. Headphones hung halfway off his head, the cord jerked out of the computer by some movement in his sleep. One arm was folded between his waist and his legs, and it looked like he was probably losing blood flow to it. The other dangled lazily down to his toes, fingertips brushing the floor, while his head was buried awkwardly between his knees, neck twisted in some inhuman fashion.

“Drake, as much as I would like to see you in pain, I need you to have my back on patrol tonight. Wake up, or I assure you, you will not have to feel my wrath to understand the meaning of pain. Though I shall provide more, no doubt,” Damian added.

Tim didn’t stir. He didn’t even move a single muscle, other than to breathe. Damian wondered if maybe someone had put something in Tim’s coffee, but then he realized that someone would have had to be him since no one else had the time for that kind of devious micro-managing. That was certainly one way to get Drake to sleep.

“Drake!” Damian called his name louder this time.

Still no response. He frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. It would seem there was only one option left to him.

Damian crossed the room, pushing Tim up by his shoulders into something that resembled a sitting position. He was heavier than Damian expected him to be, still in his Red Robin suit that he hadn’t changed out of from patrol. Carefully, Damian hefted him halfway over his shoulder. He stumbled slightly, taken aback by the sheer muscle mass of the older boy. He knew on a subconscious level that Drake had to be strong to some extent, but he hadn’t thought about how much time Drake probably actually spent working on maintaining that strength, or the weight that would result from that behavior.

Damian dragged Tim along, refusing to bow under his weight. Tim still hadn’t stirred, fast asleep. Curse Drake and his dangerous sleeping habits. Didn’t he know he could get Damian killed?

Eventually, after much dragging but certainly no sweating, panting, or any other signs of large amounts of effort, the 13-year-old managed to get his older brother into bed. The only problem now was that it was not Tim’s bed, but  Damian’s.

Bruce’s room was the closest to the cave, naturally. He had to be there at any given time during the day, or the night for that matter, so it only made sense. However, Bruce was currently occupying his room, so it wasn’t like Damian could drop his load off there. The next closest room just so happened to be his.

He had demanded it under the pretense that, as the heir to the mantle of Batman, he ought to be just as close, if not more so, to the cave than his father was. It definitely had nothing to do with the nightmares that had plagued him since his death or the fact that the room had belonged to Grayson in previous years and perhaps was capable of bringing Damian such paltry feelings as peace and comfort. No, his reasons were purely practical.

So there Drake lay, diagonal on Damian’s Superman comforter, a gift from Jon. It was a stupid gift, but he never knew when Jon would be visiting, so he thought it best to keep it on at all times so as not to hurt the feelings of his overemotional...ally. Constant vigilance was important. Almost as important as making sure to stay on the good side of one of the most powerful families in the universe. It was an intelligent political move on Damian’s part, of course.

Damian’s hands came to rest on his hips as he stared at Drake, surveying his conundrum. The true heart of the problem was not that Drake was on his bed. No, the real dilemma here was that, after lugging Drake up a few flights of stairs and placing him on his bed, Damian was not tired, exactly. No. He just thought it might be prudent to rest and make sure he was up to his full strength for patrol tonight.

Of course, Damian could only see one way of getting any sleep right now. He refused to use a bed that wasn’t his own since that would be admitting defeat, something Damian never did. Instead, he would simply have to share the bed with Drake.

Moving him again wasn’t an option since Damian didn’t want to strain any muscles that could be vital in his role as the next Batman. He had a responsibility as the blood son. With that in mind, Damian moved to the far end of the bed, as far from Drake as he could get, and went to sleep.

When Tim woke up, his first thought was that he was not in the Batcave. Slowly, he assessed his surroundings. The first thing he registered was warmth. Radiating out from somewhere near his chest, there was something providing heat.

Tim looked down to see a shock of dark hair, messy with sleep. His first instinct was confusion, unsure who exactly was sleeping curled into his side. He shifted slightly to get a better look at their face, and nearly cried out when it was Damian.

The young boy’s long dark lashes brushed his high cheekbones, eyelids fluttering lightly from some dream and obscuring his sharp green eyes. He had his arms wrapped in on himself, knees pulled up to his chest, back pressed firmly against Tim’s own chest.

Tim was just going to quietly sneak out of the room, already sitting up halfway, when he heard something. A quiet groan slipped out of Damian’s mouth, so low Tim almost missed it. The noise got louder, whimpers now, gut-wrenching in their vulnerability.

Tim almost left it, knowing that the last person Damian would want to see waking up from a nightmare was him. When Damian cried out sharply though, Tim knew he couldn’t leave him like this. He didn’t have the heart to wait for someone else to help the demon brat. He may be annoying, but he was still Tim’s baby brother, and he looked tiny and fragile lying on his Superman blanket in the dim room, curled in on himself.  He was protecting his core, the very same place Tim knew a large scar lay, one that marked more than just an injury.

He reached out, shaking Damian’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Tim whispered harshly. “Hey, kid. Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Slowly, Damian stirred, the strangled noises coming out of his mouth fading.

“Drake?” Damian asked, blinking and revealing his hazy green eyes. “How did you get in...never mind. Go away Drake, I’m sleeping.”

The tiny boy turned onto his side, away from his brother. Tim knew better than to think that he was just going back to sleep. He had seen the sheen of tears in his brother's eyes before he had rolled over, and he knew what he was hiding.

“You were having a nightmare,” Tim said.

“I’m fine now. You may leave,” Damian muttered.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tim asked softly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I will be quite alright, Drake. I assure you I shall be more than competent on tonight’s patrol.”

Damian’s voice was terse, but he couldn’t hide what Tim knew. With his pale hand on the boy’s dark shoulder, he could feel the slight shudders running through Damian’s body. Without pausing to ask, or to consider the possible effects on his own health, Tim scooped Damian up and placed him in his lap. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around the little boy and held him close.

“You don’t have to talk about it. I know I’m not close to you like Dick, and I can’t relate like Jason. Just...don’t do this alone. You don’t want to be alone, Damian. Trust me.”

There was a moment of silence, the feeling of it thick in the room, like the tight feeling in the back of Tim’s throat.

“Very well. I shall allow you to stay on one condition. Go back to sleep Drake. I can’t have you collapsing in the middle of a fight. You’re already a disaster enough as it is when you’ve had enough sleep, you had best not get me killed in a situation that could have been completely avoidable,” Damian said.

“Yeah, okay kid,” Tim said, lying back down with Damian still held tightly in his grasp.

“And you will eat something as well. Not that you need it. You are incredibly heavy, do you know that Drake?” Damian grumbled, wiggling so that he was more comfortable.

“Sure. Whatever you say, Damian,” Tim said, grinning to himself.

“Now go to sleep Drake,” Damian commanded.

As it turned out though, he didn’t need to tell Drake to fall asleep. He had already done just that, his breathing settling into a steady, slow rhythm. Damian felt his own breathing slow too, and before he knew it he had joined his older sibling.

When Bruce would finally convince Alfred to let him out of bed for the first time in over a week, he would be surprised when he went to check on his youngest only to find him sleeping, curled up underneath the cape of his third son. He smiled, closing the door as he turned to head back to bed. Not, however, before he had time to snap a pic to send to his eldest in Blüdhaven. Dick was going to love this.

[setepenre-set]

Set, I just have to ask. How is your writing process? I'm blown away by the speed you publish such quality stories at! What's your secret?? If you don't mind my asking :)

an anon also asked: 

How do you write so fluidly? You’re an inspiration and I’d love some tips or even just how you prep to write? Thank you, love your work!

Thank you so much! 

( I’ve got a number of other writing advice posts: one, two, three, four which you may find interesting. And, as always: remember that writing is an individual thing; a technique that works for one person may not work for another

I go through periods of intense hyperfocus and extreme productivity sometimes; I don’t know how to make them happen, sadly. but! I can give you some tips and go through what I do for prep work and my writing process!

I will use my fic Love and War as an example, so that you can see what I’m talking about. ( later on, there’s also an example from my fic Code: Safeword )

Step one is, of course, to get an idea for a story.

And the very important step two is to play out the story in your head–check that you can imagine a good and satisfying ending, that you have an idea for the beginning of the story, and a rough idea of how to get from the beginning to the ending.

So–my idea for Love and War: The Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest fought a war over the love ban / imprisonment of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Dark Forest won, and Bog marries Marianne for political reasons. Eventually they fall in love.

There’s a satisfying ending there: “eventually they fall in love”

There’s a beginning: “Bog marries Marianne for political reasons.”

But did I know how to get from the beginning to the ending? I did not.

So I adjusted my ideas for the fic: Make it much shorter; a one-shot. Instead of having the ending be the demonstration of Bog and Marianne’s love, the ending will be the reader learning that this love will eventually come to pass. So all we need to see is the start of them falling in love.

Ending: the reader sees Bog and Marianne start to fall in love, and is assured that they will eventually be in love.

Beginning: Bog marries Marianne for political reasons.

Middle: We need a reason for Bog to start falling in love with Marianne, and a reason for Marianne to start falling in love with Bog.

In canon, Bog seems to start liking Marianne when she breaks through his skylight and attacks him. Marianne seems to start liking Bog when, after this fight, he leaves his weapon in the throne room, takes her to see her sister, and assures her that he’s working on an antidote.

Bog falls in love with Marianne’s sharp edges. Marianne falls in love with Bog’s kindness. And the whole thing centers around the two of them dueling.

So in the fic, Marianne challenges Bog to spar with her, gives him a sharp smile, and half-jokingly threatens to maim him. And Bog starts falling in love with her sharp edges.

And when he comes to her rooms to spar with her, Bog treats her as an equal, clearly enjoys fighting with her, and doesn’t even suggest that they consummate the marriage. And Marianne starts falling in love with his kindness.

And just like in canon, the whole thing centers around a duel.

So we have a beginning, a middle, and a satisfying ending, and the plot of the fic echoes the plot of canon in an interesting way, which is extra pleasing to me.

When I’m writing a one-shot, this is generally the extent of my prep-work; I start writing after this.

I wrote out the first chapter of Love and War, which follows the plot outline, and has the satisfying ending of them starting to fall in love.

After publishing the one-shot, several people asked me to continue the story, so I tried again to plot it out in my head. And, again, I couldn’t think of a middle bit. 

At this point in the prep-work, if you’re stuck for a plot, it can be useful to bounce ideas off of other people–and if you’ve already posted the one-shot, then comments and speculations from readers can be useful as well. 

Finding a middle for the story is sort of like finding the original idea for the story: it requires a certain amount of sudden inspiration–there’s usually an ‘ah-ha!’ moment when you figure out the plot.

Mine came when I read a comment from @displacerghost on the first, one-shot chapter. She mentioned that non-consummation is potentially very problematic in political marriages.

AH-HA!

Well, Marianne, as crown princess, would know that, of course, and so it would be likely that Bog, as king, would know that as well…but wouldn’t it be more interesting if, for some reason, he didn’t know? Cultural differences in marriage law–

–so you’ve got Marianne worrying over the non-consummation and…yes, she would try to come up with a way to solve this problem, and being who she is, she’d probably favor an attempted coup–

–but that’s a secretive thing; it’s something that only Marianne will be doing; this story is working towards the satisfying ending of Bog and Marianne’s happily ever after, so the plot absolutely needs something for Bog and Marianne to be doing together while they’re falling in love…

–cultural differences in marriage law–cultural differences in all laws! And of course since their kingdoms are united, now, they’ve got to come up with a unified law code!

Play out the story mentally:

Beginning: Bog and Marianne’s political marriage, the start of them falling in love.

Middle: Bog and Marianne work together to create a unified law code while Marianne secretly plots a coup, and all the while the two of them are falling in love.

Ending: Marianne decides not to attempt a coup, she and Bog confess their love; happily ever after.

We have a beginning, a rough idea for a middle, and an idea for the end.

Time to work this plot out in more detail and outline!

For a while I didn’t outline stories until I was about a third of the way through them, but lately I’ve been working more with outlining them ahead of time. Love and War was definitely outlined.

The original outline for Love and War looked like this:

BREAKFAST, ARGUEROLAND VOLUNTEERS TO HELP COUPLAW CODE / FALL IN LOVE / MARIANNE PLOTSDAWN AND SUNNY ENGAGEDDIVORCE MISUNDERSTANDING / LOVE BAND LIFT

MARIANNE IS BITTERPLANNING WITH DAWNROLAND CALLED OFF

BOG AVOIDING MARI

DAY OF THE WEDDINGBOG COMES TO TELL HER ABOUT SEPARATIONF I N A L L Y   T H E Y    T A L K

AT WEDDING, EVERYTHING HAPPENS, ROLAND STARTS COUP, SUCCESSFUL, CONVINCES EVERYONE SHE TOLD HIM TO DO IT, DAGDA BELIEVESDAWN SAYS MARI WOULD NEVER STAGE A COUP DURING HER WEDDINGMARI COMMANDS THEM TO LET HER GO, SHE KICKS ROLAND’S ASS, CUTS HIS FACE AND THROWS HIM OUTPARTYMARI DRAGS BOG TO HER ROOMSEX SCENE HAPPY ENDING YAY!

You will notice that the plot of it is considerably different than how the actual story turned out–many of the details are missing (Imp, the love potion, all of the girls at the party, the trip to the Dark Forest, Griselda). And Bog and Marianne confess their feelings before the wedding / the attempted coup–and the tone of the sex scene is different; Marianne is clearly dominant in this version.

Outlines do change as the story is written–you get better ideas, details take shape; it’s very exciting! The outline isn’t there to force you to do anything; it’s just there to help you keep track of your thoughts. It’s a safety net, not a prison cell.

I typed this outline directly into the Love and War document, and then started writing the actual text of the story above the outline. That way the safety net was always visible to me, and I could cross off each plot point as I wrote it out, which is satisfying.

BREAKFAST, ARGUEROLAND VOLUNTEERS TO HELP COUP

(so satisfying!)

And as I write and details emerge, new plot points become necessary–I add these to the outline, and change things as needed.

ROLAND CALLED OFFMORE PLANNING WITH DAWN (TRANSITION)ROLAND PLOTS, CONVINCES GIRL TO GET POTION

BOG AVOIDING MARI, WEDDING PLANS, BOG AND MARI SING

TALK ABOUT SWORD DANCES

ROLAND TRIES LOVE POTION, IT FAILS

SWORD DANCE DEMO

MUSES ON FINALIZING THE LEGAL SEPARATION OF THEIR KINGDOMSROLAND TALKS TO PLUM, LEARNS ABOUT LOVE POTION,

BOG TAKES MARIANNE TO THE DARK FOREST, TALK WITH GRISELDA

ROLAND COMES UP WITH PLAN

DAY OF WEDDING IMP IN MARIANNE’S ROOMIMP TO ROLAND’S ROOMSFAMILY BREAKFAST WITHOUT BOGMARIANNE’S AWKWARD TALK WITH DAGDA

ROLAND ON THE WAY BACK FROM READING THE LETTER IN FRONT OF THE TROOPSIMP IN ROLAND’S ROOM

CELESTE NECKLACE SEARCHROLAND IN MIRRORBOG CAPE PAPERSBOG’S BOUQUET, NOT NOWCELESTE TAKES SWORDS TO BALLROOM, MARIANNE PUTS DAGGER IN POCKETCELESTE GOES TO ROLAND’S ROOM, FINDS MEMENTOS, FREES IMP

WEDDING, BANQUET, BALL BEGINS, FIRST DANCES, SWORD DANCE TO STARTGO! WE SURRENDER, NO WE DON’TROLAND’S PLAN UNFOLDS, DAGDA UNCERTAIN, MARIANNE DAGGER, SEARCHEDBOTTLE AND ACCUSATIONS, PUNCH, IMP, BOTTLE AND POTION FALL ON BOG, HE SEES DAWN FIRST, NO REACTIONCELESTE DOESN’T RECOGNIZE SCENT, APHRODISIAC NO NOTHING IF IN LOVEMARIANNE ACCUSES ROLAND OF DUSTING HERCELESTE SAYS HE MADE HER GET THE POTIONBELLA CLAIMS HAIRCELESTE MENTIONS NECKLACE, MARIANNE SUGGESTS THEFTROLAND POINTS OUT LETTERCELESTE MENTIONS DRAWERPOTION SHENNANAGAINSDAWN SAYS MARIANNE WOULD NEVER RUIN HER WEDDINGMARIANNE DEMANDS FREEDOM AND SWORDFIGHT, CUT, BANISH

NECKLACEBALL CONTINUESMARIANNE LEAVESBOG FOLLOWSDISCUSSION AT LAST

WINGSROBESNECKLACEBOTTLE, DRESSWINDOW SEAT, WALL, BED, NEW BED, EXCUSE FOR A PARTYHAPPY ENDING YAY!

You will notice that the details of the sex scene itself has now been outlined: wings, robes, necklace, bottle, dress, window seat, wall, bed.

As I wrote the story, my feelings on what the tone for the sex scene should be shifted–we see Marianne come into her own and take charge in the ballroom, which is good and emotionally satisfying. So the sex scene can be emotionally satisfying in a different way. Marianne’s spent this entire story feeling like the weight of the world is on her shoulders, like she has to manage everything all the time, has to always be strong. 

The sex scene is emotionally satisfying because it allows her to finally relax and let Bog take care of her–because she has gotten to a point where she trusts that letting him take charge right now won’t mean that he respects her less or gives her any less power in their relationship.

And it’s emotionally satisfying in regards to Bog because he’s spent the whole story feeling ugly and untrustworthy and now he’s allowed to really realize and revel in the fact that Marianne wants him so badly and trusts him so much.

You are allowed to change your outline as needed!

A note about plot–the big “action” moments in the plot should also be the big “emotion” moments for the characters. This is where my first outline was unsatisfactory! 

If Bog and Marianne confessed their love before the wedding, Marianne wouldn’t have spent the entire wedding in a state of emotional upheaval. She and Bog wouldn’t have been so emotionally overwrought about dancing with each other. And the drama the attempted coup would have been lost–Bog couldn’t have that big emotion moment of thinking Marianne had set up the coup, and surrendering to her, and Marianne couldn’t have that big emotion moment of saying that they don’t surrender and stepping in front of him. No extremely emotional sword dance! No intense misery concerning both of them being dusted with the love potion.

Do you see what I mean? Every big ‘action’ moment: the wedding, the dance, the coup, the sword dance, the love potion–needs to be a big ‘emotion’ moment for the characters. 

The things that happen have to matter to the characters not just on a surface level, but in a way that affects their inner emotional state of being.

Outline for the emotion, and write towards the ending. 

Having a good and satisfying ending is, in my opinion, the most important thing when writing a story. Everything that happens in the story is working towards that ending.

And this holds true for each chapter of a story as well! Every chapter should have a good and effective ending; the entire chapter should be leading up to it. Cliffhangers are generally effective, as are notes of despair, and uplifting notes.

The ending of Chapter 12 of Love and War is Roland shouting “go” to start the coup, and the line “and chaos erupted in the ballroom”. Clearly a cliffhanger!

But this is also something that the entire chapter has been working up to. Things are tense, and the tension has been wound tighter and tighter until finally chaos! And the cliffhanger!

Chapter 2 of Love and War has Marianne curling up on her bed in despair and thinking “you cannot trust anyone”. This–the note of despair–is an effective ending to the chapter because she has spent the entire chapter feeling as if things are steadily getting worse, and as if nothing she does improves things. The chapter has been working towards this moment of her despair.

Chapter 26 of Code: Safeword, on the other hand, ends with Megamind and Roxanne lying in bed together. Megamind tells Roxanne that, because of her, he’s trying to stop hating himself and to believe that she’s right about him. He asks her to try to like herself more, too, and to believe that he’s right about her. She says that she’ll try, and the two of them fall asleep. An uplifting note.

This chapter has also been working up to this point–there have been plenty of explosions of tension in the chapter–this ending is satisfying because, after the arguments and explosions of tension, we saw the two of them trying to begin the process of recovery–they’ve begun discussing their concerns and problems openly with each other, and have started to be emotionally honest. The uplifting note is a reward for the reader and the characters, an assurance that they really are beginning to recover.

Mechanics-wise, I write a chapter at a time, and when I’ve finished a chapter, I read through it once, proofreading and correcting as I go. Then I copy and paste the chapter into a separate document, and change the font to something completely different. (I write in helvetica; I change it to american typewriter.) If you write in a sans serif font, change it to a serif font, and vice versa; the change of font allows you to catch mistakes more easily.

If I catch a lot of typos during this read-through, I do another proofread. Repeat as needed until I manage to get through it without finding more than one or two typos.

Then I copy and paste the corrected chapter into the main document, delete the original, uncorrected text of that chapter, and save. And then either send to my beta reader (if I’m using one for the story) or post the chapter!

So! That is an example of my writing process, and some writing advice. I hope it is helpful!

-Set

[clarste]

Because I feel like it, here are my thoughts on all the Hidden Star in Four Seasons characters now that’s been a few weeks:

Eternity Larva

She’s a dumb fairy like all other fairies. That’s not an insult, it’s just how it is. I happen to like dumb fairies so I hope we’ll see her in VFiS soon-ish, and maybe fans will keep her around as a friend of Cirno’s. She does have this weird “maybe the god Tokoyo?” aspect to her from Cirno’s Extra Stage, but personally I don’t put much stock in that. And even if she used to be that god, she almost certainly isn’t anymore. Her friends call her Larva.

Nemuno Sakata

She has the best character design of any of these characters, but probably the least to say about her. She’s a mountain hag who lives on her own in the wildnerness, maybe eats people. I guess one potentially confusing thing about her is her “power to create sanctuaries” but I personally took that to be just an extension of her solitary lifestyle. Basically she’s marking out her territory, except spiritually.

Aunn Komano

A lot of people dislike the “hey, I’ve always been here!” characters in Touhou, but personally I love them. I’ve never felt that we see enough detail in everyone’s lives to definitively say that they don’t have this neighbor, and of course both Reimu and Aunn’s attitude seems just right for “I was always at your parties, but you never noticed me.” In a more general sense, I hate seeing fanworks where Gensokyo is portrayed as “complete.” Like, the ones where everyone already knows everyone else, and all the named characters are actually the only relevant people in the world. In my mind, Gensokyo is full of interesting people we’ll never meet, and a lot of characters (especially early stage bosses) are just generic people Reimu happened to run into once. There are many many more Mystias and Shizuhas out there with their own stories to tell.

Personality-wise, Aunn actually seems to respect Reimu a lot, saying things like “I know you’ll win in the end, because you always do!” which I think makes for a pretty hilarious dynamic given Reimu’s attitude. Kosuzu had a bit of that too, but it was usually overlapping with a more cynical belief that she could use her. Aunn really seems to be just super-hyped to be working with Reimu. She’s like a puppy, except smarter.

Narumi Yatadera

I love having new magicians, because it’s such an interesting category of youkai. Unlike other species of youkai, they aren’t defined by any particular purpose, but instead by using magic to power their bodies. But even so they individually have their own purposes, which I think tells you a lot about them and their goals. This is of course reflected in their magical specialties. Marisa isn’t a youkai yet, but she values flashiness above all else, so she uses light magic. Alice wants to create a true living doll, essentially the creation of an artificial soul. Byakuren wanted to prolong her life so she has body-improvement magic.

Which brings us to Narumi. She’s a statue brought to life and she... uses her magic to manipulate lifeforce? It’s a bit unclear what exactly that means, but we do know that she can erase fairies (who are made of lifeforce), and bring inanimate objects to life (one of her spellcards is “Bullet Golem” and its Hard/Lunatic counterpart). Is she trying to create more of herself? She does emphasize her loneliness on occasion. I want to know more about her and her goals.

She’s also just a fun character for others to bounce off of. I’m sure Alice would love to talk with her about living dolls (if she hasn’t already), and Marisa having a more “normal” neighbor to talk to has already been the set-up for plenty of comedy, of which there will be more to come. And what does it mean to be a Jizo statue who’s not a Jizo? It’s certainly an interesting position to be in.

Also she calls Marisa “laaame” in her ending, which will forever color how I picture her.

Mai & Satono

I’ve had a lot of discussions on what exactly these characters are, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re basically human familiars for Okina. They don’t quite have their own free will, but nor are they mindless robots or extensions of Okina’s will. They’re somehow “enchanted” by Okina’s magic (and this is specifically Magic, not just vague spiritual power or divine energy), but can still have their humanity restored if she wants to.

I also think that how they got into their position is an interesting question. Okina says in Reimu’s Extra stage that searching for a replacement was a lie, but in both Marisa and Cirno’s Extra stages she certainly seems interested in recruiting. Maybe she just never expected to actually find anyone worthy of it? Are Mai and Satono really that talented? I like to imagine that they were the Reimu and Marisa of some bygone era: skilled youkai extermination specialists who were specially recruited by Okina. I want to see their adventures. This would predate Gensokyo as we know it, of course.

Okina Matara

The big salami. Another sage. While she’s clearly on-board with the mission statement of Gensokyo (unlike Kasen), I see her as managing a more subtle aspect of Gensokyo’s subsystems. While her most obvious power is her ability to open doors anywhere, I think the more important power she has is the one she granted to Mai and Satono: the ability to control lifeforce ( 生命力) and spirit ( 精神力). Honestly I’m not quite sure how to translate these in context: lifeforce is usually used in Touhou to mean some kind of abstract spiritual energy manifesting as fairies and growth, but here we’re also talking about an individual’s lifeforce, or their “vitality”. Spirit is meant to be the opposite: the spiritual/mental/emotional energy in contrast the the physical/bodily one. Her (minion’s) ability to draw out both lifeforce and spirit therefore brings someone to their maximum physical and mental potential.

Anyway, the point is that, as a sage, Okina is in charge of monitoring both of these things in Gensokyo at large, and making sure they don’t get unbalanced or corrupted by foreign energies. And she fixes problems from behind the scenes too, using her minions as “fixers” to solve the issue before anyone else notices. Honestly, she makes me think of a server admin, keeping the hardware running behind the scenes so everyone else can focus on living. How many incidents has she resolved before Reimu noticed them?

There’s also the interesting implication that the sages aren’t in contact with each other at all. Why else would Okina need to send a message via incident? “I’m still here, doing my job. Are you?” There’s no shadowy council making decisions on the fate of Gensokyo, just a bunch of talented individuals doing their own duties based on their own judgments. I’d love to hear her views on the Gensokyo project.

[rannadylin]

Clan and Court, Chapter 3: Folcsdag

Lots of writing going on here today, including a third chapter of Clan and Court that’s basically as long as the first two chapters put together. Yay subplot! :-) Herein we get to know the Itzli siblings a little better, learn shocking things about Anselm, and actually make some grueling progress on this mystery investigation. Also, I do a lot of research on farming various types of livestock. And poisonous plants in Eora. Whee!

Word count: 4.6K

Rating: G or maybe PG for brief fight scene

Pairing: Watcher Violet/Edér Teylecg...eventually :-)

Read it here or on AO3

Previously: Chapters 1 & 2 here and on AO3

Chapter 3: Folcsdag

They reached Dyrford late the next morning. In the hours on the road, Edér learned that Audie’s sharp eyes missed nothing but that her sharp tongue barely concealed a fierce protectiveness toward all her siblings; that Xipil’s hound was fanatical about rabbit jerky (thanks to Xipil quietly pressing a wad of the meat into Edér’s hand and nodding toward the dog, collaborating in Edér’s thus far fruitless attempts to win Yaotl’s affection); that Yolotli must be some sort of soul twin to Kana Rua, the way she took in every sight on the road with such delight and had apparently never grown out of the question-laden stages of early childhood. She soon gravitated toward Edér, skipping to keep up with his longer steps, her braids bouncing over her shoulders, till he caught on and shortened his stride for her. Far from naive, her questions about the landscape, the flora, the fauna, the peoples of the Dyrwood, their beliefs, their customs, their clothes, their cuisine, and every other topic that crossed her mind revealed a quick intelligence, handily assimilating and comparing his answers with what she already knew of other lands.

Questions about Edér himself came, instead, from Audie. Nor did they come immediately. For the first day, she kept a watchful eye on him but interacted mainly with her siblings. When they broke camp the next morning, though, she soon fell back to walk with Edér at the rear of the party, where he’d been keeping a curious eye on all the orlans.

“You know, big man,” she said, keeping up with his stride without apparent effort even before he remembered to slow down, “I’ve been looking forward to actually meeting you.”

Edér’s stride stuttered mid-step as he processed this. “How’s that?”

“Violet mentioned you in her letters, naturally.” And she looked up at him with a smirk that he couldn’t quite interpret.

“Oh. Guess that...makes sense? All good, I hope.”

“Depends on how you mean that. Me, I was hoping for more embarrassing stories to hold against you, but Vi’s too nice for that.”

“Ha! Wait...more embarrassing stories? Like, more than none or…”

“Don’t worry. Even the embarrassing ones were quite affectionate.”

This left Edér at a loss for words. He scratched at his beard and looked at Audie out of the corner of one eye until she piped up again.

“So you don’t actually live at Caed Nua, then?”

“Nah, not all the time, anyway. Got a room in Brighthollow for when I do stop by, on Night Market business or just to see Vi. Apparently your brother Nico’s family is occupying it right now.”

“Oh, that one.” Audie glanced at him, a shrewd glint in her eye. “So outside of Caed Nua, where do you call home? Vi said you met in a place called Gilded Vale.”

“Haven’t called that home for a while now,” he nodded. “Fact is,” he lowered his voice, “I owe your sister a lot for getting me away from that place. Probably wouldn’t still be around if not for her.”

Audie’s look softened to a smile. “She does tend to have that effect.”

“Right? I mean, I could point out half a dozen people’s lives she basically saved, or at least set on a better course than before, and that’s just the ones she traveled with back when we were fixing Waidwen’s Legacy, not to mention all the random people she helped ‘long the way, or the Eothasian folks we’re looking out for these days, or everyone who looks to Caed Nua for help of any sort.”

“You’re a fan, I see,” Audie grinned.

Edér felt an unaccustomed warmth to his cheeks and looked away. “Yeah...guess so. Proud to call her a friend.”

“Me too,” Audie said, her voice warm even as she jabbed Edér in the side with a friendly elbow of solidarity. He yelped, more from surprise than anything -- it was much the sort of sibling rough-and-tumble he’d once been used to, but that was years ago and he was hardly expecting it from Violet’s sibling. And yet...it was nice. He traded companionable smirks with her as she continued, “So you must live in Dyrford, then?”

“Most of the time,” he said. “Found work on a farm there. Keeps me busy and keeps me in contact with folks who need us. Night Market’s growing fastest in Dyrford of anywhere. I run a lot of messages, though, to Vi or to our folks in Defiance Bay, so don’t know if I’d call Dyrford home. I’m on the road most of the time.”

“Your farm, was it one of the ones that got poisoned?”

Edér nodded. “Then when we heard about the others, Gjegricg -- it’s his farm I work on -- realized it was only happening to Eothasians. He and the others wrote Vi for help, and here I am.”

“Because she’s a priest?”

“Only priest of Eothas left in these parts. And because she’s damn good at sorting out trouble,” Edér grinned.

“That,” Audie said with a toothy smile, “runs in the family.”

The Itzli siblings were open books, however, compared to Anselm Coatl. Edér made sure to always keep an eye on that one, but Anselm seemed determined to keep to himself throughout the first day’s march. He walked towards the front of the group, near Violet but not too near. Though the day was warm, he kept the hood of his cloak up so that Edér, walking at the back of the group where he could watch them all, deduced little from his body language or expressions. He spoke seldom, and mostly in response to Vi’s infrequent questions. He followed her instructions without question or hesitation. Anselm seemed to be on his best behavior, and this only made Edér all the more suspicious. He whiled away the hours, whenever Yolotli or Audie had paused to think of more questions, by imagining malcachoa slipped into Anselm’s tea, lizards slipped into his bedroll, and the like. Until a significant look from Vi made Edér think that she had guessed the nature of his thoughts and would have none of it. So he subsided, doing his best to ignore the interloper.

And then, late the next morning, they reached Dyrford. Vi led the way through the village amidst the stares of townsfolk who first glared at the sight of five orlans, then, recognizing the Watcher of Caed Nua among them, changed their demeanor entirely. They might be unaware how great a role Violet had had in the ending of Waidwen’s Legacy, but they knew how much she had helped in their lesser complaints. A gauntlet of smiles and greetings shepherded them through the town. They stopped off at the Dracogen Inn to quench the thirst of the long road and to observe the locals, as a prelude to a more focused inquiry and investigation. As far as Edér could tell, the mood of the village was no different than usual. The poisonings had affected only a few families thus far, miles out from the village on the outlying farms. In Dyrford Village, life went on as usual. With any luck, Vi would have the problem solved quickly enough that that need not change.

Refreshed, the party continued their march out to the first of the farms. Wilfrith Gjegricg, Edér’s employer, played host every Godandag to a small gathering of Eothasians in his cellars -- or rather, in the catacombs adjoining them. Like so much of Dyrford Village and its outlying lands, the Gjegricg farm was built partly atop and among the ruins of settlers from ages ago, and a warren of underground tunnels and neatly bricked hallways, not unlike those beneath Caed Nua, or more like those once used by the cult of Skaen operating in Dyrford, could be accessed through a hidden door in the farmhouse’s underground pantry. Gjegricg had set up a neat little round chamber not far from his cellar with the altar and candles and all that Eothasian ritual required. When Edér had first introduced him to Violet, bona fide priest of the shattered god, and she had honored him with rites to consecrate his little chapel, Gjegricg had wept for joy and then obliged them to feast till they could barely move on the firstfruits of his farm.

Now, as they approached the farmhouse, they heard the reverberating chunk-and-clatter of an axe splitting logs. The other orlans hung back as Violet and Edér walked up to the gate. At Edér’s holler, the farmer himself emerged from around the side of the house, stripped to the waist and wiping from his brow the sweat of his labor. Gjegricg was a big man, portly but well muscled from years of honest labor. He beamed to see the party approaching. “Ah, Edér! It’s good to see you back, lad. And milady!” He sketched a clumsy bow toward Violet.

“None of that, Wilfrith,” she insisted, flustered.

“Well, it’s always good to see you, Miz Violet,” Gjegricg amended. “Especially in these troubled times.”

“That’s what we’re here about, of course,” Violet continued. “I intend to get to the bottom of these poisonings.”

“Be appreciative if you can, Miz Violet. ‘Twas a lean enough winter already. My family, we’ll manage and with enough to spare for the others as was hardest hit, but it’ll be trouble if this keeps going on.”

“Of course,” Violet said. “Now, I wonder if we might take a look at the pig-sty? I understand it was your pigs targeted first?”

“Just so,” Gjegricg nodded, beckoning them toward the small shelter off in the corner of the yard, with a fenced-in run now quite empty of the animals normally to be found in it. His eyes widened as Violet’s companions caught up to her. “Well, I’ll be...How many o’ ye are there?”

“Here?” Violet asked, deadpan. “Or in general?” At Edér’s chuckle, she shook her head. “Never mind. Wilfrith, these are family and...an acquaintance of mine, from back home in Ixamitl. My sisters, Audrisa and Yolotli; my brother Xipil; and this is Anselm. We thought it best to bring a few people to help in the investigation, and it so happened they recently came to visit me.”

Gjegricg nodded at the orlans. “A friend or kin o’ Miz Violet is a friend o’ mine. Apologies if I, ah, seem rude or anything. Never seen so many orlans at once.”

“You should see Caed Nua,” Violet said, still deadpan, and turned toward the empty pig-sty. A human boy of some twelve or thirteen years was currently coming out of the little pig-house, wearing a scowl and hoisting a bucket of soapy but now filthy water. “Eadric,” Violet favored him with a smile. “Helping your father clean up?”

Eadric grumbled something under his breath. Gjegricg cleared his throat. “Now, son,” he began. “Be gracious. The priest’s here to help get to the bottom of this.”

More audibly this time, Eadric grumbled a “Sorry,” then shuffled past them toward the house.

Gjegricg sighed as he watched the boy go. “I won’t ask ye to excuse him, Miz Violet,” he said. “But Eadric’s just not been the same since this all began. Well, really, since a week or so before. He got into a bit of a scrape, wandering into the ruins with some friends o’ his. Scared him right shitless, and more’s the better for that if it keeps him outta that sort o’ trouble. Thought he’d be over it by now, but then the pigs died and he’s had to help me deal with all that, especially with Edér off to fetch you.”

Edér chuckled. “So I’m missing out on scrubbing out the pig-sty? Courier work has its appeal, for sure.”

Their orlan companions had taken Eadric’s place inside the pig-sty while Violet and Edér spoke with the farmer. Poking her head out and brushing hair from her eyes, Audie frowned at them. “Vi, I hope all this cleaning hasn’t erased evidence we could have used.”

Gjegricg blanched at her words. “Oh, no, I -- do ye think so? Gods, I hadn’t thought o’ that. It’s just, you see, we wanted to bring in new pigs soon as we could, and I didn’t think it’d be safe to keep ‘em in the same pen if’n some trace of the poison was still around. Been scrubbing the sty and replacing the top soil in the run for days now. Rumbald’s sending up a few of his herd tomorrow and we’ve got to have the place ready.”

“Quite understandable,” Violet soothed. “If any evidence has been washed away, I suppose there’s nothing for it now. We’ll see what we can find all the same. You inspected their trough, I’m sure?”

“Aye, and saved what was left o’ their slop.”

“We’ll take a look at that,” Violet nodded. “What about the trough itself?”

“Planned to burn it,” Gjegricg said, brightening, “but hadn’t got around to that yet. Think you’d learn anything from it?”

Violet smiled. “Let’s go and find out.”

While Violet was inspecting the trough -- still filthy with the remains of the pigs’ slop from their fateful last day -- Anselm approached. She glanced up and restrained herself from reacting, managing only a bland smile. But it seemed her once-betrothed was all business at the moment. He ran a finger thoughtfully along the trough’s wooden edges. “Safe to assume this was where the poison was introduced?” he asked.

“Seems likely,” Violet nodded. “There’s an alchemist in the village. We’ll see if she can identify anything poisonous in the leftovers.”

“Excellent,” Anselm nodded, swiping a film of grease from the inside of the trough and holding it to his nose with a critical expression.

“Careful,” Violet said. “Could still retain the poison.”

“I’m not planning to eat it,” he huffed. “I’d say it certainly smells off, but I have a feeling it would do so even without being poisoned.”

Violet laughed despite herself. Seeing the hungry and hopeful look kindled in Anselm’s eyes at her reaction, she reined it in and stepped back from the trough. “Guess the pigs never knew the difference, then.”

Tucking a jar of the suspect slop into a pouch, Violet led the way to the next farm. Bannen Uescwyn raised sheep, or had until recently. While the mysterious poisoner had targeted only the pigs on the Gjegricg farm, leaving behind perfectly healthy cattle as well as the crops, Uescwyn’s entire flock of sheep, all of his livelihood, had been slain. Even his faithful old sheepdog had fallen stone-dead after crawling back to his master with a whine of mortal distress to alert him to the flock lying poisoned in the pasture.

“Folk’re looking after us,” Uescwyn assured Violet when she expressed her sympathies. “Even with the church abandoned all these years, Eothas’ folk take care of our own. Gjegricg’s offered me work till I get back on me own feet, even after he lost his pigs too. I’m appreciative, but I do miss me lambs.”

“Of course,” Violet said. “Any idea how they were poisoned? Do they eat from a common manger, or any such thing?”

“Oh, nay, m’lady,” said Uescwyn. “They graze in the pasture and I water ‘em in the stream.”

So the party marched out to inspect the pasture and the stream. They combed the long grasses for hours without any sign of the poison. Violet was about ready to admit the pointlessness of their search when Xipil’s hound sent up a howl from a far corner of the pasture. Xipil caught up with Yaotl, bent to inspect the ground, and then waved frantically to the rest of the party.

Violet reached her brother two steps before Edér and two steps after Anselm. Xipil shrugged at her as Anselm bent to pick up what Yaotl had found: a handful of small, red berries.

Violet leaned in for a closer look. “Wait,” she said. “These look familiar. Edér? These aren’t native to the Dyrwood, are they?”

Edér crouched down to orlan level to join the inspection. “Mm. Nah, nothing like that grows ‘round here. But -- no, I got it. We’ve seen ‘em before, out in the White March, Vi.”

“Ah!” Violet brightened. “I knew they were familiar. Rin- Ryg-”

“Ryngr berries!” Yolotli corrected her, brightening as she saw an opportunity to put her research to use. “I read about them. They’re very hardy, so I’m not surprised you saw them in the White March. Not necessarily poisonous, but very bitter, and toxic in large quantities.”

“Toxic enough to kill off a whole flock of sheep?” Violet wondered.

“Something was enough,” Anselm pointed out, slipping the berries into his own pouch and frowning as he glanced back in the direction they had come, toward the Gjegricg farm. “Perhaps your alchemist will be able to identify if the pigs’ feed contained traces of these.”

“However many it’d take to kill off sheep,” Edér said, frowning at Anselm’s pouch of murderous berries, “those didn’t grow here naturally. Maybe our culprit’s recently come from the White March.”

Yolotli thought for a moment, then gasped. “I remember now. They’re used in dye -- red dye from the red berries.”

Violet exchanged a look with Edér. “Maybe we’ll have to pay the currier a visit after the alchemist.”

Before any visits to Dyrford Village, however, they had one more farm to investigate. According to the letters, Osgar Heafric had lost half his cattle, including a dozen new calves, to the poison. But as they were marching the last mile from the sheep pastures to Heafric’s farm, Xipil, now walking at the front of the group, suddenly stopped and looked around. The rest of them stopped to watch him. Audie started to speak, but Xipil put a finger to his mouth -- and then a hand to his bow, with a whisper of “Ambush!”

And he was right. No sooner had he put an arrow to his bowstring, while the rest of the party scrambled for their own weapons, than a whoosh familiar to Violet and Edér after months spent traveling with a wizard alerted them to the fireball moments before it impacted. “Take cover!” Vi shouted, and the party scattered towards the edges of the road, but too late: though they evaded the worst of the sudden explosion, every one of them suffered some burns. Then the attackers were upon them. Besides whoever had cast that fireball, two thugs with swords bore down upon them and a hail of arrows flew in from both sides of the road.

Violet kept near the center of her party, quckly calling on the power of her faith to shield her allies from the brunt of the attack and to refresh them after the initial damage. Edér waded into the fray, catching arrows on his shield and keeping the attackers away from the orlans. At least -- most of the orlans. While Yolotli began chanting an invocation and Xipil took aim against a distant archer, Audie slipped into the shadows, only to reappear behind the thug Edér was now dealing with, her knives buried convincingly in the man’s sides. And Anselm drew his heirloom sword and stepped right up beside Edér, timing his strikes to coordinate surprisingly well with their human ally’s. Violet gasped, momentarily pausing in her own battle prayers, to see the eerie purple light that coalesced around Anselm’s blade. After that, however, it came as no surprise when one of the enemy archers suddenly turned his arrows on his own allies, while Anselm grimaced in concentration, until finally the charmed archer was the last of the attackers left standing and one of Audie’s knives finished him off.

They made camp after that. The battle had not lasted all that long, but had left them in need of rest and recovery. Xipil scouted out a clearing within the woods not far from the road, safe from prying eyes at least for a moment. Edér dragged the bodies of their foes out of the road, to be searched and disposed of once the needs of the living were seen to. Violet went around tending to the worst of her companions’ wounds. Besides the burns from that opening fireball, they were in fairly decent shape. Edér was fine, of course; he rarely needed her attentions after a fight, but she made sure he rubbed some salve on the burns nonetheless. Audie and Xipil had some minor scratches and bruises, which they insisted on tending to themselves, pointing her to their sister Yolotli, grazed by an arrow that left a deep gouge in her cheek and one ear. The poor girl seemed much more distraught about the braid it had sliced off in the process, but bore Violet’s ministrations with good cheer all the same.

And then Violet came to Anselm. Remorse for having put off dealing with him till the last struck her at the sight of blood oozing between his fingers as he clasped a hand to his side.

“You’re hurt!” she gasped. “I mean, seriously hurt!”

“A little,” he admitted with a hesitant smile.

“If you’re trying to impress me with heroics, you can stop right now,” she scolded, motioning him to sit down on a nearby rock so she could take a look at the wound.

Anselm gave a rueful laugh, then winced as she started cleaning the wound. “I promise, that was not my intention. That...could have gone better.”

“Could’ve gone much worse, too,” Violet said. “Seems we...we all make a pretty good team.”

“Thank you, Violet,” he said quietly, “for including me on it.”

“Keep getting hurt like this and you’ll stop thanking me,” she said with forced cheer. “Also. That soul whip…”

Anselm blanched. “Ah. You noticed.”

“You charmed an archer, too.”

“It was necessary. He was the one that shot Yolotli.”

“No argument here. It was well done, Anselm. Been a while since I traveled with a cipher, but I know the signs. And I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before. It explains so much. Why didn’t you tell me you were a cipher to begin with?”

Anselm’s gaze fell. “I...had hoped not to let that fact color your judgment of me. Most people are not very trusting of my kind.”

Violet shrugged. “Same goes for Watchers, in these parts. Garivald was right about you making yourself useful on this expedition, though. I owe you an apology.”

Anselm regarded her hopefully. “For…?”

“Gar was so evasive about just what your ‘useful skills’ were, I figured they just weren’t all that useful at all. I suppose he didn’t want this coloring my judgment, either.”

“Just so.” Anselm nodded. “Whatever he thinks of me, he would like to see you back home with the clan in the life your parents planned for you.”

Violet narrowed her eyes as she finished binding his wound. “Garivald is hoping that if I marry you I’ll come back to Ixamitl?”

“In Garivald’s mind,” Anselm said, “one duty leads to another.”

“Are you saying that as a cipher?” Violet grinned. “Or just as someone who knows him well? Because that is exactly how Gar’s mind works.”

Anselm shook his head. “As one who knows him. I would not presume, nor wish, to delve too deeply into your brother’s mind.”

Violet grew still and quiet for a moment, then moved to crouch directly in front of her patient, meeting his gaze directly and catching his hands in a firm grip. “And what about my mind? Do you intend to win me back by bending my soul to your will?”

“No,” Anselm said immediately, fervently, holding her gaze. “I promise you, I will have you by your own will or none at all. Although, while I will not attempt to charm you as a cipher, I certainly hope to charm you as a man.” And for a moment, the subdued, on-his-best-behavior mask gave way to a mad grin that almost reminded her of the Anselm she had once been pleased to be betrothed to. Almost.

“Hm,” Violet huffed, standing and starting toward the bodies in need of searching. “Well, don’t expect much. And stop it with the heroics,” she flung back over her shoulder. “Can’t marry a dead man.”

Finding no hint on the bodies of their motive or employer, they set fire to them and finally moved on toward the farm. The smell of fresh manure soon alerted them to the proximity of their destination. Edér chuckled at the visiting orlans’ expressions. “Welcome to the country, everyone!” he said, arms spread wide.

“Maybe they poisoned them for the smell,” Audie grumbled.

“Counterproductive,” Edér argued. “Corpses would smell even worse.”

Osgar Heafric, a wiry man missing most of his hair and a few teeth, glumly showed them his dairy barn, now nearly empty. A few cows stood ready for milking, though Violet wondered if even the surviving cows’ milk might still be contaminated by the poison. Out in his pastures, another ten or so cows remained, bereft of their calves.

“Lucky so many of the girls survived,” Heafric shrugged. “I’ll get by. Bull’s fine, too, or s’pose I’d have to ask Gjegricg for the loan of his.”

Violet asked the usual questions about the animals’ food and water supplies and left with a sample of the hay the cattle fed on to supplement what they could graze at pasture and another of recently collected milk, in case the poison were indeed still in the cows’ systems. Full of questions, and clues for Hendyna to interpret, the weary party finally made their way back to Dyrford Village and the comforts of Dracogen Inn.

In the middle of the night, Edér woke suddenly to the silence of the room he shared with Anselm and Xipil, the memory of whatever sound had wakened him already fading. The orlans still slept soundly while Edér crept to the door and peeked out into the hall.

Violet was looking back at him from the door of the room she shared with her sisters, wide-eyed and fresh from bed herself, judging by the tousled mess of her hair. Edér grinned at her and whispered, “You hear that too?”

“I heard something,” she whispered back. “Someone was at the door, I think.”

“Think our poisoner came to confess?”

“That’d be nice,” she sighed. With a glance back into the room where her sisters were presumably still as sound asleep as the male orlans, she stepped out into the hall and sat down against the wall between their doors. Edér joined her. They sat in silence for several minutes, watching both ends of the hall for movement, listening for any sound of their supposed intruder. But the night remained still.

“Guess whoever it was heard us get up and chickened out,” Edér whispered.

“Guess so. We’ll catch them in the morning, though.”

“Hey, Vi,” Edér said before she could get up again. “You, ah...you all right?”

“Me?” She looked at him, wrinkling her brow in question.

“Famly’s one thing, on a job like this, but Anselm’s not giving you trouble, is he? If he is, you just say the word…”

“Oh, that,” Vi chuckled quietly. “No, Edér, it’s fine. He’s...being a perfect gentleman. Not as I remember him, but it’s a change I could get used to.” Edér shifted in his seat at that; Vi looked over at him as the implication of her words suddenly hit her. “Not like that! I mean...I’ve made it clear, I hope, that his suit is pointless. But still. It’s nice to see that he’s not quite as vile as I remembered.”

“Think he’s really changed that much?” Edér asked. “Or just showing you what you want to see?”

Vi shrugged. “I think he’ll have plenty of opportunity to prove himself one way or another on this trip. And so far, I’m...pleasantly surprised.”

“Well,” Edér said, reaching over to pat her hand encouragingly, “if that changes, if you have any problems with him, I’ve got your back, Vi.”

“I know, dear,” she smiled up at him. “I know.”

[hlsummerexchange2017]

Working with a Beta

We got an ask from someone interested in betaing for the first time. Since fic exchanges are popular with both new and experienced writers, and since a lot of people get their first beta experience by volunteering to help with a fic exchange, we decided to put together a post about the process of betaing.

All beta/writer partners work out their own methods of working together, and we are not saying that there is one right way to work together. But we hope this will give people some idea of what betaing means to different writers.

The three of us have experience as both writers and betas, so we tend to switch between those two voices/roles in this post. As such, this post is not aimed at writers or betareaders, but at both.

This post is rather long, so under the cut you’ll find a chat about Levels of Betaing (from developmental work down to proofreading), Navigating Expectations, Suggestions for Where and How to Work Together, and How to Provide/Take Feedback.

Levels of Betaing

Mod 2: In traditional publishing, there are different levels of editing/proofreading. I think problems can arise when the beta/writer pairs want to work at different levels. I’m borrowing ideas/definitions from another site. You don’t have to work in these stages (and some publishing houses don’t), and there is definite overlap between them, but I think it’s worthwhile to label them.

Stage 1: Developmental Work This usually happens pretty early in the work/draft. It’s a really big picture edit, looking at the structure of the work, themes, etc. In fanfic, I tend to think of this as being the stage where you’re bouncing ideas of off someone, brainstorming, maybe giving them an outline, or asking them for general feedback, like which tense should you use, does your characterization make sense for the fic. For me, this often doesn’t even involve actual writing, it’s more talking about ideas. Other times this is when I hand a chapter or scene over to my primary beta and say, “I just need to know if I’m on the right track.”

Mod 1 jumping in here: I generally cling to my pages and wait until it’s in pretty good shape before I hand it over to a beta. But there are definitely times when I’ve written something and I’m not feeling it or I know something is not quite right that I’ll pass it off in the beginning as a sanity check. Am I on the right course? Is this okay so far? Correcting the course early on if I’m not sure about something saves so much time and effort in the end. Sometimes at this stage, I really just need a cheerleader too!

Mod 2 again: Yes! I think cheerleading is big here, and problem solving. If my author is asking for this level of betaing, I think in big ideas. I also purposefully give a lot of positive feedback. If my writer is stuck with something, I ask a lot of questions. Where are the characters coming from? Where are they going? What do they know about each other so far? What are they afraid of… For my style, asking a lot of questions works. But you may also need to make suggestions. If a writer and beta are working together at this stage, you need to feel comfortable giving/getting suggestions, and accepting or rejecting them tactfully.

Stage 2: Content/Structural Work This would happen after the first draft is written. Look at rearranging things, adding or taking things away, saying some characters need to be fleshed out more, look for plot holes, etc. In fanfic, I think of this of also the stage where you make sure the fic is canon/factual if it’s a canon fic. Also, this is where I do fact checking. Does the sun actually set at that time of the day for the season/location this is set in? Is that how a photo is printed?

Some people do this only after the entire fic is written. Others prefer to do this chapter by chapter if it’s a chaptered work. The decision is up to you, and there are pros and cons of doing it both ways.

Stage 3: Copyediting Work This happens after the other editing. This is checking for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It’s also about being consistent in style (grey/gray, OK/ok/Ok, are you using single or double quotation marks?). By this point, the content itself should be solid!

If I need a Britpicker (someone who gets rid of my American errors), I give my Britpicker the fic after this stage. Still, she always finds missed typos, thankfully. The reason I wait to have a Britpicker until this stage is because there shouldn’t be big changes to make that might introduce new content/Britpicking-related errors. And she acts as another set of eyes for me for the copyedit. Not all Britpickers will also copyedit—so don’t expect a Britpicker to do this without asking.

Reading your fic out loud at this point is incredibly helpful. You’ll find awkward sentences, weird constructions, repetitive phrases, and sections that look good on the screen but feel sloppy in a read. At this point you (the writer) are so close to your own work, and reading it out loud can give some distance and allow you to “see” with new eyes—your ears.

Mod 3: Reading the work out loud is an excellent idea, and it has helped me greatly. I’ll add another step where I actually print the thing out on paper and read it out loud from there. Something about reading it aloud from a different medium makes it easier to find and fix those parts that don’t flow just right.

Stage 4: Proofreading Mod 2: This is the absolute last stage, and it shouldn’t actually be much editing at this stage. Instead it’s checking for typos, text alignment, etc. This is when I save my fic as a draft on AO3, then read the draft on my phone to see if there are quirks in the publishing. (I know you just want to publish your fic, but please at least glance at the formatting on your fic. It’s really distracting when there are double spacing between paragraphs, and for some people it actually makes it extremely difficult to read your fic.) By the way, looking at your fic in a different font or on a different screen can help with the proofreading!

Another way to think about these stages is in the terms of a red-line edit and a blue-line edit. It’s an old term. Red-line editing is all about the content (stages 1 and 2). Blue-line editing basically ignores the content (stages 3 and 4).

A few notes. Most people are not good at doing all of these things! So expecting a beta (whether you are the beta or you are the writer working with a beta) to be great at all of these things is unrealistic. This means if you are a writer who knows your strengths, you probably want to look for someone who is strong in your weaknesses.

Even if you find someone who is good at many or all of these stages, working in multiple stages at once is hard. Noticing big content ideas is a different skill than noticing grammar/spelling errors. This isn’t to say that you might not notice a typo and correct it on the spot, but it’s normal to want to focus on one thing at a time. So give your beta time!

Mod 1: Also! If you have one beta you’ve been working very closely with from the very start, getting another beta to read it in the Stage 2/3 timeframe can be really helpful. Sometimes even your beta is too close to the work to see what might need to be tweaked a bit.

Navigating Expectations

Mod 1: First and foremost, I think having clear expectations is really important. I would hate to jump into someone’s fic and do a deep dive into structure/etc and try to give suggestions for reworking when the only they wanted was a final copy edit. Or, conversely, only give grammar suggestions and not make bigger changes if they were open to it and I thought it could be improved.

Mod 3: Yes, that is a great place to start, to make sure you both understand the need and expectation. Be clear about what you feel comfortable doing as a beta; if your strength is plot and characters, and you don't feel as comfortable digging into grammar, say so. Authors, be honest about what you need, because you don’t want to waste your own or your beta’s time and effort.

Related to this, it might be worthwhile to find out from the author what other people might be working with them, so everyone is on the same page about who is going to be doing what and what their expectation is.

Mod 1: I also think it’s worth discussing up front if you have any history with having your writing critiqued and basically how thin/thick skinned you are. I have had years of weekly critiques of my writing, so almost nothing phases me. If I was betaing for a first time writer, or someone who is not used to having others read their work, then I’d try to be a bit more gentle with my beta comments than I would with someone who might not take it as personally. Not that I’d try to be mean to anyone, but maybe just a bit more delicate with some writers.

Mod 2: I also think that the writer and beta need to be honest about how much time they have. If I’m working under a deadline, I’m going to beta in a different way. I’m going to be far less picky, because I don’t have time to be picky, and my author probably doesn’t have time to make the more time-consuming content changes I’d suggest. (On that note, if you are giving someone very little time to beta something, please make sure that you’re giving them something really polished!)

Mod 3: Sometimes the vibe of the beta and writer just don’t mesh. Personalities and styles can be like oil and water, which doesn’t make for a great creative atmosphere. It will depend on your relationship how the communication about problems will go, but one thing is for sure—it’s never a good idea to ditch your writer in the middle of a project without explaining the reason. As a writer it feels terrible to be left high and dry and have to find another beta willing to pick up mid-project. Communication is key. This is a partnership and it should be treated with some courtesy and respect, and with that in mind, it is respectful to give your beta credit for the work they’ve done, even if they didn’t finish the project with you.

Suggestions for Where and How to Work Together

Mod 2: I like working in Google Docs, and I ask that everyone working on the doc use the “suggesting” button. That way I have to review every correction or suggestion. This helps me learn my own errors/quirks/ways to improve.

When my beta makes a general content suggestion (like “I’m confused about what’s going on, can you rewrite this” or “I feel like I need a little more emotion here”), I don’t just fix it and close out their comment. I rewrite it and reply to the comment with something like “does this work?” Similarly, when I change large parts of my fic, I tend to highlight the section and write a comment like “how does this look?” That way my beta can see where big parts changed, and she can put a little more attention there to see if my rewrite introduced new errors, if it’s still weird, or if it’s better.

Although everyone I’ve worked with prefers Google Docs, as a writer, I’d defer to my beta. If they want to work in Word with track changes, I’d have them do that. Whatever makes the beta’s life easier.

Mod 3: Agree about “suggesting” in Docs rather than straight editing. As a writer it’s nerve-wracking to turn your work over to someone else in the first place, then to fear that the work will be altered and you won’t know why or where on top of that is not a good place to be. Betas doing edits as suggestions means that the author has to accept or reject them, and these suggestion threads don’t go away completely even after they are closed, so it serves as a great record of what changes were made, when, and why. That may not be important on a short fic or oneshot, but in a long chaptered fic it comes in handy.

Mod 2: On that note, since I work with multiple people (like a beta and a Britpicker), I find it easiest to make copies of documents. I have the document I work in. I make a copy of that and rename it TITLE DATE (Larry Fic 022517, for example) and share that version with my beta. When my first beta and I are done, I’ll make a copy of that betaed document as TITLE NEW DATE and share it with the Britpicker. That way I have completely clean documents that are being shared, and I always know which version is the newest. I don’t tend to have two people (the beta and Britpicker) working in the document at the exact same time because it can get really confusing.

Mod 3: So does your document that you work in, that you made a copy of to give to the beta, become obsolete after you give that to the beta? You don't go back and make the beta's changes to it? In other words, that beta document becomes the "real" and "current" version of the work?

Mod 2: Right. Each newest version is current version. Until it’s finally the actual, real, final version that I plunk into AO3.

Mod 1: One thing I like to do as a beta, and I appreciate when my betas do this, is ask questions, and make it more of a dialogue instead of just suggest and then accept/reject. Sometimes because I want to make sure I’m suggesting the right thing and sometimes because what I am suggesting is not the ‘proper’ way to do something but I think it would be more effective for whatever reason, so I might say something like, “What do you think about doing this because of X reason, even if most people would be doing Y thing?” I like when my betas do that because sometimes it gives me a different way of looking at it or it is something I hadn’t considered. And if I’m doing it, then my writer won’t think I’m totally off my rocker for suggesting something that is maybe not so straightforward.

Mod 2: Please thank your beta, especially if they make content suggestions. I don’t care if an author just accepts typo fixes, but a “good idea!” or “thank you” or “perfect” when I’ve made a more involved suggestion is really nice. Betaing takes time, so you can take time to type “thanks.”

Also, if a writer rejects an idea/suggestion, it helps if they tell me why, because it helps me learn their style. I think instead of a flat rejection, this is also where you (as the author) can open up a dialogue. “I’m not sure about your suggestion. I feel like it doesn’t fit ____. But I know you think ____ is unclear. What if I write ____?” Obviously you don’t have to do this every time, but it can help sort out where things are confusing, and I think it shows a level of respect of the beta’s ideas, even if you ultimately disagree.

How to Provide/Take Feedback

Mod 1: The whole point of being a beta is giving *constructive* criticism. This means offering up suggestions and not just saying that something doesn’t work. That’s not to say that betas have all the answers though. It definitely happens sometimes when I’ll say something like “this doesn’t quite work and I’m not sure why, let me think about it” but the intent there is improve the fic, not just tear it apart.

Mod 2: Absolutely agree that this is constructive criticism. I think it’s important to remember that betareaders and writers are on the same side—we want the best possible fic to be published. This isn’t a university class where someone is trying to one-up the other. We’re both trying to make the fic better. That doesn’t mean that we’ll always agree, but it does mean that the goal of the beta should be to give friendly support and suggestions.

I think a big part of that is pointing out things you like, too. “Oh, this phrasing is really nice.” “This is really funny.” And I agree that sometimes the comment needs to be something like, “Something feels off here, please leave this comment open and let me sleep on it.”

Mod 1: YES! Positive feedback is so important.

Mod 3: I remember there was a tumblr post awhile back about this concept, and it really stuck with me: a great way to make sure we are being constructive is to couch the criticism between a few positives. Do point out when you are struck by a particularly well-written section. Tell the writer about areas where they have made you feel something. Even just one word here or there such as “wow” or “nice” go a long way toward making the parts that aren't so complimentary easier to hear.

Mod 2: Related to the above, I think the positive feedback is more important in the earlier stages of betaing, personally (stages 1 and 2, the red-line stages). Because the suggestions at that stage involve changing more writing, and take more time, the positive feedback helps keep me going. As a writer, by the time I’m on the blue-line copyediting stage, I just want to fix errors and publish the dang fic!

Having said that, if I’m basically doing a blue-line edit and not offering as much content editing, I still try to stick in positive comments so it’s not just a sea of typos to fix.

Mod 1: Another thing I think to keep in mind when offering suggestions is that everyone’s writing style is different, and you should try to keep the author’s integrity of their writing style intact as much as possible. As a beta I know I struggle with this and it’s one thing I always have to keep in the back of my head, because when I start to beta, sometimes I accidently try to force my own voice into the sentences, but once I get into it a bit, I get more used to the author’s voice. When I realize I’m doing it, I stop betaing for a bit and just read, and once I’m into the groove of the story then I go back and start to actually offer suggestions.

Mod 3: This is really a good point. My first attempt at fanfic a decade ago was ripped pretty much to shreds by a beta, to the point where most of the character of my writing had been edited out. I was crushed, shelved the project, and didn't write again for years. In other words, I think it's important to point out issues while making sure the tone and personality of the writing stays intact. Each writer has a unique voice, and that's the beauty of reading and writing.

Mod 2: Writer’s voice is so important! You are not trying to polish their voice, not change it. Yes, yes—let the writer’s voice shine through!

If you have any other suggestions, tips, or tricks to help make the betaing process a smooth and enjoyable one, we’d love to hear them. Please feel free to reply or send us an ask with your own ideas. Thanks!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND TIME

Gradually employment has been shedding such paternalistic overtones and becoming simply an economic exchange. A minimum of several hundred thousand dollars. Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing company. And frankly the thought of a 30% success rate at fundraising makes my stomach clench. Those are actually the elite of failures. Since what you need to launch is that it's only by bouncing your idea off users that you fully understand it.1 It used to be that way in America too. Let the conversation get general; don't be trying too hard to find startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas will seem obvious to you. Probably for the same reason it is in Silicon Valley. And frankly the thought of a 30% success rate at fundraising makes my stomach clench.2 This pattern is repeated constantly in startup hubs. Most founders of failed startups don't quit their day jobs, but which never got anywhere and was gradually abandoned.

The other place you could beat the US would be with smarter immigration policy. In the best case, this consultingish work may not be very appealing yet, if you're a startup your programmers will often be way better than the ones your customers have or can hire. The reason Sequoia is such a good deal is that the business guys choose people they think are good programmers it says here on his resume that he's a Microsoft Certified Developer but who aren't. And yet both have the same answer: 1/1-n. The famously rigid labor laws hurt every company, but startups are extreme. If the founders know what they're doing, it's better to have half their attention focused on the product than the full attention of investors who weren't local.3 And what pressure it would put on the city. Startups need to be able to talk some specific ones into using what you're making.4 Most founders of failed startups don't quit their day jobs. Immigration policies that let in smart people?5 Work on hard problems, driven mainly by curiosity, but have a second self watching over your shoulder, taking note of gaps and anomalies. Gas stations?

The first thing to understand about paths out of the third world. 1% as his retail price. 2 with no money 3 to do something. If your valuation grows 3x a year, the total cost in stock of a new hire's salary and overhead is 1. Suppose the company wants to make a profit of 50% on the new hire mentioned above. 43, meaning that deal is worth taking if they can improve your outcome by more than 43% just to be able to do in the new world we'll have in a few years unless the university chooses to grant them tenure.6 To succeed in a domain that violates your intuitions, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong. The patent pledge is in effect the company's profit on a hire, the market will determine that: if you're the right sort of hunches. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. As well as pinching off the stream of patents at the point in their life when they naturally take root. But the less you need further investment, the easier it becomes to start a company with someone you dislike because they have no redundancy. Lots of people heard about the Altair and think I bet we could write a Basic interpreter for it.

When you feel that about an idea you've had while trying to come up with good ideas involving databases? But I doubt they could do it yet either. A good way to trick yourself into noticing ideas is to become the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don't discard the idea. Because the self-reinforcing nature of this situation works the other way too: the less you need further investment, the easier it is to get. The problem is that the cycle is slow. There have never been swarms of beggars in the streets of American cities. It's not as if you have a beachhead. There have never been swarms of beggars in the streets of American cities.

When you use the organic method.7 I invented a model of work from the 1970s. Palo Alto, the original ground zero, is about thirty miles away, and the most productive people are attracted to employers who hold themselves to a higher standard than the law requires. Gradually it will re-emerge.8 It could be replaced on any of these axes it has already started to be on the safe side it would cost a million dollars if they'll relocate to your city, and see what happens after a year. Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not an intolerable one. They're most productive when everyone gets to do what they'd do if they'd been retained to solve the hard part of starting a startup—becoming the sort of person, you have to be willing to fund 10x more startups than launching too fast, but it wasn't designed for fun, and mostly it wasn't. So if you squash dissent, the back pressure will propagate into technical fields. Google or Facebook suing startups for patent infringement generally do it with no indication of whether you're succeeding.9

But I'm not too worried yet. Founders overestimate their chances of raising more money, as if you have a much greater chance of succeeding. You should give up n% of your company if what you trade it for improves your average outcome by more than 43% just to be able to do in the new world we'll have in a few decades speak a single language.10 They didn't have to try very hard to make ourselves take enough risks.11 You keep the IP and no billing by the hour. I missed that after we sold Viaweb, and for all the years after I always had a background process running, looking for something to spark a thought. If you have to fund startups that won't leave. If you look at the way successful founders have had their ideas, it's generally the result of some external stimulus hitting a prepared mind.

I've seen between founders could have been avoided if they'd been more careful about who they started a company to put art galleries online. Are there good universities nearby? Does that mean you should quit your day job? This gives you maximum flexibility.12 Because making something people want is so much harder.13 You almost have to trick yourself into seeing the ideas around you. What sustains a startup in the beginning is the prospect of getting their initial product out. And it is a recipe of a sort, just one that in the worst case you won't be wasting your time. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. What happens, in practice, is that it it makes it easier for people to start startups.

Notes

Com/spam.

Some translators use calm instead of crawling back repentant at the start, so it may be one of the word wealth.

For example, will be maximally profitable when each employee is paid in proportion to the home team, I've become a so-called lifestyle business, Bob wrote, for the next round.

Zagat's there are signs now that the middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the cost can be fooled by the customs of the reason the founders realized. In fairness, I mean forum in the few cases where it was too late? If you believe in free markets, why didn't the Industrial Revolution happen earlier? The second part of this model was that it even seemed a miracle of workmanship.

The only reason you're even considering the other reason it used to wonder if they seem to have balked at this, but the returns come from. As Jeremy Siegel points out that successful startups have elements of both.

An accountant might say that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality is a well-known byproduct of oligopoly. Which helps explain why there are few things worse than the don't-be startup founders, because they are within any given college. Words about luck. Something similar has been rewritten to suit present fashions.

The New Yorker.

It's surprising how small a problem so far done a pretty comprehensive view of investor is just visual spam. We could have tried to combine the hardware with an excessively large share of a Linux box, a VC fund they outsource most of the Nerds. When a lot of great things were created mainly to make you expend on the cover story of Business Week article mentioning del.

They don't know whether this would give us.

That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day by encouraging them to. That's probably too much to hope for, but conversations with potential acquirers. One father told me about several valuable sources. A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that alone could in principle is that so few founders are effective.

That name got assigned to it because the publishers exert so much on luck. The US News list is meaningful is precisely because they could not have raised money at all is a trailing indicator in any case, is he going to call them whitelists because it was cooked up by the fact that the payoff for avoiding tax grows hyperexponentially x/1-x for 0 x 1.

For example, if they were going to give you more by what you've done than where you currently are.

I'm not saying it's impossible to succeed in a series A in the U. In theory you could only get in the same work, done mostly by people who are good presenters, but less than 500, because a friend who invested in the most powerful minister of the court. And if they make money, then their incentives aren't aligned with the same superior education but had a vacant space in their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. There may be even larger than the 50 minutes they may prefer to work your way up.

Thanks to David Cann, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Dan Giffin, Paul Buchheit, and Geoff Ralston for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[73oss-blog]

Here's a Quick Way to Solve Low Ranking

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In today's rapidly moving world, SEO techniques can modify on the dime—and the most severe part is that you merely might not even know this. Hacks which could have received you a front-page result mainly because recently as 2016 are outdated now, but they may also hurt your website's rankings. It's a really good and knowledgeable blog to enhance your SEO ranking. Take some time plus find out about your Meta titles, description, URL readability plus how to earn featured thoughts and site links SEO's about the globe are taking click through rate seriously claiming it in order to be one of the best ranking signals. Bing has confirmed that will they track unlinked brand says and use them as the ranking signal — and the patent by Google (along along with observations from many SEO experts) indicates that Google may end up being doing this as well. I've seen success with producing videos lately and am searching forward to utilizing your SEO ideas to help my videos position on page 1. Plus SEO professionals are absolutely thrilled about this new opportunity due to the fact featured snippets provide a opportunity for low-ranking pages to access the particular top of search results along with almost zero effort. SEO stands for lookup engine optimization. ” It is definitely the procedure for getting visitors from the free, ” natural, ” editorial” or natural” research engine results on search motors. This typically involves using advanced SEO tags (e. g., tags) that search motors like google reference when the more visual search engine outcomes page is displayed. Focal points for SEO in 2018 functions suggestions on what to prioritise in 2018, including on-site research, topical, local and mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and where SEO capabilities need to sit within organisations. We would certainly construct a blog post that will has the SEO related key phrases in it and we would certainly put the link of the particular website that individuals are trying in order to build the back link in order to within text of that blog page post. My SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION guide will break search motor optimization down for you. Meta description is not a immediate SEO ranking factor but this helps in ranking indirectly. Once such an interview gets published, it nearly always gets a lot of backlinks and SEO value.