#might mature real poorly...but I am willing to try and see how it looks!

[bee-menagerie]

...it begins.

[faustonastring]

About the new update

A good amount of people are shitting on the new update, and it’s totally valid if you didn’t enjoy it, or if beach episodes aren’t your cup of tea, I understand! But what’s not okay is shitting on it to the point of no return. Like do you really hate it that much that you’re complaining about every nit picky detail? Like I agree there are things that I didn’t really like, but there’s a difference from pointing out a couple of off things, and saying “i didn’t really care for it” or “I still really liked it” and just complaining about every little thing. And this isn’t even new, like people do this every update and it makes me so mad. Yes the devs are sketchy, and some of them aren’t great people but they don’t account for the whole team that works on the arcana. And on that note, there are people who work hard to make this shit for us, working overtime some days, and also they’re real people! They have off days where they’re writing might be sloppy, and they face writers block. Nobodies perfect. We should all atleast try to be greatful that they’re working hard (most of the time) to put out new content for us, and put out new merch for us, even if we don’t really like it. And again, I’m not just saying this because of the beach tale, I’m saying this because it happens every update. Like if you find a need to hate on the game everytime it updates, then maybe stop playing the game or maybe leave the fandom? Just a thought. And again again, your opinions are valid, you don’t have to enjoy everything the devs put out! I sure as hell don’t! And you’re alowed to voice your opinions! Who the hell am I to tell you what to say! But I’m tired of the people who always complain and have nothing nice to say ever. You can have opinions and criticize, but please remember that the arcana isn’t written spefically for you. Like I may not like some things, but I remember that there’s people out there who do, so I just remind my self that atleast some one out there is enjoying this shitty update. I dunno, maybe it’s because I’m an empath, or maybe it’s because the arcana has been a great outlet for me, and I’ve taught my self to be greatful for anything they put out.... either way, there’s no need for the overwhelming negativity. I’m sorry, I know I don’t have any room to say what people should post, and that’s not what I’m trying to do it’s just some of you seem like really ungrateful which pisses me off because people work hard to put this shit out for us, and they’re going through they’re own shit too ya know. So not every update or cg will be perfect, or exactly what you wanted or imagined, but atleast they released something. And we should all try to be greatful that they fed us with what ever little slice of content it is no matter how bad it is or poorly it’s written. And if your having a hard time with that, usually in the updates you learn a little something new about the character(s) so maybe try to be greatful that you now know a new fun fact about your fave.

And like, the pricing of the tale was fair. Think about it. It’s three diffrent short stories, about the same length of a paid option for only one hundred coins per story. (The 25 extra goes towards the content in the beginning and the end that stays the same no matter what), paid options within the routes can cost any where from like 150-250 coins, so your getting more content for a cheaper price. The pricing is more than fair. Yes I can see getting upset that you wasted your coins on something you didnt enjoy, but don’t say it’s “overpriced” because it’s fair.

I’m sorry if this came off as rude, or mean, I’m not trying to be rude, it just kind of agitates me, and if I’m off, please comment or reblog or message me so I can edit the post or delete it, fix it, something because I don’t want to offend or hurt any one, I just want to try to make the fandom a little more positive? And I know people won’t see eye to eye with me on this, because I’m a super positive person, and I know there’s a lot of pessimistic people in the fandom which is fine! And I’m more than willing to have a mature conversation with some one with the opposite view, because then maybe we can help each other understand! And this also doesn’t apply to everyone who criticizes the devs, or complains every now and then, this post goes out to the people who are always negative, the people who disagree with canon, the people who are super ungrateful for the devs hard(?) work. I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say (words aren’t my strong suit)

((Also I personally really enjoyed the new update, I love that we got to see the main six interact non canonically, and they’re bathing suits are super cute, I can see why people may not like it if filler beach episodes aren’t they’re cup of tea, but that’s not an excuse to shit on the devs to no extent. They did make 7 new sprites and edited two of them to look sunburnt))

[buzzdixonwriter]

Trigger Warnings

Recently on my Facebook page someone took me to task who was triggered by a political cartoon I shared.

The cartoon showed the symbol of Justice being held down and muffled by the arms of a male figure. 

Before we go further, let me state there is no judgment to be passed on the person who was triggered.

They have a personal history that explains why the image would trigger them.  Their reaction is not to be evaluated:  It happened, and it needs to be acknowledged.

And while I don’t think the image crossed the line and serves a greater good as a warning against an onrushing authoritarian mindset (elsewise I wouldn’t have shared it), to the person in question my motives and rationales don’t matter.

They saw something that reminded them of trauma in their past and it hurt them.

To have caused that hurt, even unintentionally, is something I regret and apologize for.

. . .

I belong to a writers’ group that meets once a week at a local bookstore.

It’s a good group, although last year it was an even better group.

I’ll explain.

While no one is compelled to participate, those who bring something to share with the group typically read it aloud at the table.

Mind you, we’re literally in the middle of the bookstore as we do this.  They’re open for business and customers of all ages are coming and going until the store closes and the writers’ group ends at 8pm.

While the group’s membership has always been elastic, with new members joining and old ones leaving for whatever reason, our core group numbered around ten, divided roughly evenly among those who identified as female, those who identified as male, and those who identified as non-binary.

[SIDEBAR: At this point I have lost those who read the first block above and decided I was an unrepentant sexist because I didn’t retract what I posted even though I expressed regret for causing hurt, and now those who assumed I was going to stand up to what they consider “political correctness”.  

So be it.

I am a writer, and a writer faces two primary charges:  Know thyself and To thine own self be true.

To know one’s self means to constantly be questioning and re-examining one’s presumptions, weighing them against new knowledge and experience.

To be true to one’s self means not to compromise that self-knowledge in a desire to please others.

I write for an audience of one, and if I am not satisfied with what I write, of what value is your opinion?

You may very well challenge what I write after the fact and you may indeed convince me to change my mind -- it has happened -- but unless I believe in the veracity of what I write when I write it, it’s all bullshit.]

The group was very diverse in opinion / style / skill / politics.

We tacitly agreed that politics in any work read aloud would not be commented on.  

We would assess the style and technique, but never challenge a writer’s personal beliefs directly.  (See above “to thine own self be true”)

We carefully and respectfully critique style and technique.  No one ever says “Your story is stupid” though they might say “It was hard to follow the characters’ motivations”.

We support other writer’s efforts even when not in our wheelhouse, and seat writers who specialize in sci-fi of a libertarian bent, old school horror, gender-bender romances, and my own off the wall material.

(The other writers are unfailingly polite and never once say, “What the hell were you thinking, Buzz?”)

And we respect of the fact not all of us write at the same skill level or the same stage of our careers; no matter, if you’re there to hone and improve your craft, we’re there to help.

But while we set no preconditions on what can / can not be read at the table, we realize a few practical real world concerns need to be addressed.

First, as mentioned we meet in a working bookstore during business hours.  Everybody from elderly retirees to grade schoolers could come in at any hour.  Being aware of our venue, if one’s material might be considered edgy, we wait until the store seems less crowded to read it or skip over the more adult / violent / gruesome parts.

(Here’s where style and technique come into play.  A traditional monster story can get away with fantasy carnage that would redline a contemporary crime story.  A non-binary romance written by someone from that background is more palatable than a similar tale written by a heterosexual for titillation.  A skillful writer can describe something in a manner that creates a vivid impression in their audience without using any explicit language.)

Second, among the table itself sit those not comfortable with certain types of stories or scenes.  We consider it good manners to offer a heads up before reading a story -- “This one is a little risqué” or “This is a crime story with some gruesome details” -- so that those who might be triggered by such material can either prepare themselves for it or, if they know they would respond poorly, leave the table while it’s read.

(Acceptable table etiquette states if one feels triggered by a story one may leave the table until it’s finished.  We view this not as a reflection on the story or writer but simply an acknowledgment of the effect of the story on the one who heard it.)

As I said, as good as the group is now, a year ago it was even better.

But then the Turdmonger showed up.

. . .

I’m going to refrain from describing the Turdmonger.  I will limit my comments on their writing to this saying it was a contemporary crime thriller.

No, I’m lying, I’ll comment further: While there certainly are real life parallels to the story being read, I personally found the style and technique laughable, sounding much more like something a 12 year old boy would write than a person my age or older.

And by this I don’t mean that the sentence structure and story flow felt awkward (though that argument certainly could be made) but that the crimes were described at a 12 year old’s level of sophistication and titillation, not the way a mature adult would be expected to approach the material.

Soon-ok watches murder mysteries and crime documentaries and shows like Forensic Files all the time and I know there are myriad means of conveying brutal / explicit information without raising a typical audience’s “ick!’ factor, much less actually triggering someone susceptible.

The Turdmonger triggered quite a few people their first time reading at the table, but despite being upset those writers felt willing to count it as simply the Turdmonger’s ignorance of the table guidelines.

We clued the Turdmonger in and asked for warnings in the future; the Turdmonger agreed to do so.

Next time the Turdmonger read, same problem.  No warning, then =boom!= -- really rough stuff.

People looked visibly distressed when the Turdmonger did this.  Again, we requested the Turdmonger give a warning or better yet, bring copies for those of us willing to read their work and provide feedback.  (IIRC, mostly the male readers volunteered to expose ourselves to this, though one or two female or non-binary writers may have done so as well.)

So, problem solved, yes?

No.

The next time the Turdmonger appeared, back to their old tricks.  Now people looked more than a little upset.

They saw this not as a simple mistake, but a deliberate pattern.

The Turdmonger got cautioned yet again on appropriate for table read etiquette.

Despite that, the Turdmonger seemed unable to grasp female and non-binary writers writing about their own traumatic experiences could do so with far greater authority than the Turdmonger.

First off, they always prefaced their reading with a trigger warning, and they always kept an eye on the venue, careful not to continue reading when children or people who might be offended came within earshot.

Second, they wrote from the point of view of someone who actually suffered significant trauma in their past, and wrote not so much to titillate or entertain as to exorcise demons of their own.

Because of my personal schedule, I’m frequently the first person to bolt out of the bookstore when the table ends at 8pm.

As a result I wasn’t privy to discussions some table members had after the store closed.

While I knew the Turdmonger’s readings upset many of them, I wasn’t aware how deep and how painful their trauma went.

Events conspired against me and I missed a couple of meetings.  When I returned, the table felt on edge.  

The Turdmonger returned the previous week and read a new story, one that by all accounts sounded deliberately crafted to spit in the face of those who asked for trigger warnings.

The Turdmonger appears to have gotten their jollies out of tormenting those who felt triggered.

That’s why the Turdmonger never brought more copies for volunteers to read; by and large we were somewhat older, somewhat more seasoned, certainly less likely to be triggered by their clumsy attempts at provocation.

(I mean, geeze, I was an editor at Penthouse Comix and wrote for The Little Clowns Of Happy Town; there are no horrors left to make me blanch.)

I’ll spare the he / she / they said of that meeting, mostly because it would not be fair for me to try to summarize the various divergent opinions, but also because it serves no purpose in this narrative.

The Turdmonger achieved their desired result.  The writers’ group split up, with roughly a third staying with the original group, and the bulk of the rest -- mostly female and non-binary writers -- forming a new group.

Which is a pity, because several of them were among the best and most insightful writers in the group.

. . . 

The bookstore writers’ group still meets, and we’re slowing rebuilding our ranks.

We lost many of our best members, and I’m saddened by that:  They truly contributed great insights to the table.

The Turdmonger, achievement unlocked, never came back.

I would love to have the Turdmonger return…just once.

At the table and at other venues such as conventions, etc., I am very judicious in my feedback.

Not everybody operates at the same level, and while I might point out areas where a writer or artist can work to improve their craft, I will never be cruel or dismissive.

But if I am being paid as an editor and you are being paid as a writer and you turn in a sub-par piece of crap, I will rip out your heart and shit in the hole.

Promise.

That’s what you get for disrespecting my craft.

And oh, dear Turdmonger, how I hope you come back just one time.

One time is all that I will need.

. . . 

Last week a writer who is a mom came to our table for the first time with her 14 year old daughter in tow (I’m guessing 14; definitely under 16).

The story I planned to read that night featured a 14 year old schoolgirl getting comeuppance on an obnoxious boy her age.

Some might call it risqué’ but I carefully avoided anything explicit and kept the style and tone down to a PG-13 level.

But still…the daughter’s first visit to the table, and she’s subjected to a story she might find (a) embarrassing if not (b) creepy?

So I said I would shelve the story until a later time.

Fortunately, that later time turned out to be just two hours when mom and daughter needed to leave early.

Once they left I read the story to the rest of the group.

They laughed.  They found it entertaining.  They agreed I didn’t cross any lines.

But they also thought I made a damn good choice in not reading it in front of the girl and her mom.

Now it’s not impossible that after I sell the story and it’s published, the girl may find it and read it herself, and in the privacy of that read (as opposed to being trapped at a table with a bunch of adults) find it cute and funny and get a kick out of it.

Or she might ask, “What the hell were you thinking?”

To which I would say:   “Child, get in line…”

. . .

So back to my Facebook post, the one that unfortunately triggered a person through no fault of their own.

A few days ago I posted on colonialism, and how it affected our storytelling over the last five centuries.

I approached the topic from the angle of old pulp magazines, citing with deliberate vagueness how they frequently featured damsels in distress and / or the evil “Other” on their covers.

When I wanted to find art to highlight the post, I realized I couldn’t use any actual pulp covers.

Doing so would undermine the very argument I was making.

Instead I posted a Carl Barks’ Scrooge McDuck painting that spoofed the old style pulp covers.

It’s anthropomorphic ducks and pigs parodying the tropes of old adventure pulps.

You can’t successfully argue that it carries the same meaning as the original pulp covers because it displays those tropes and ridicules the reasons for them.

I mean, how seriously can you take a dance hall dame when she’s a DUCK?

(From my tenure at Penthouse, I know some people out there most certainly do get off on anthropomorphic ducks; nonetheless, they remain outliers, not the standard.)

The point of art in whatever form is to get the audience to look at something afresh, to see connections and meanings previously hidden.

I can’t fault and certainly would never blame the persons who felt triggered by the image I shared for what they felt.

That’s a wholly legitimate reaction.

It’s unlikely I’ll post something that might produce this particular trigger in the future; it’s just too specific to the political comment in question.

If I do think an image might trigger this person, I’ll make an effort to see that it doesn’t pop up on their Facebook feed.

As a writer, I keep a lot of references handy.

I’ve got a large number of medical photos that would upset a great many people.

Those will never be shared with the public at large.

I’ve got a few crime and war photos I will never share.

But you will see some old comic book and pulp covers I use for fictoids (i.e., add captions and dialog to), as well as old time magazine ads and illustrations from less enlightened eras.

You’ll also see almost everything I post along those lines either deconstructs or ironically comments on the image depicted.

I never present it as is.

So while I will take care in the future, I make no promise never to post or say things that may trigger people without warning.

What I find acceptable and appropriate clearly is not what everybody finds acceptable and appropriate.

I will promise to listen to responses, and try to learn from them.

That’s the only way I can be true to myself.

  © Buzz Dixon

[labyrintharchitect]

Can a dragon hoard fly?

In the light of the various hyped up posts I have written concerning the latest chapter of Part 5, how did I find episode 16? Preeeeeeeetty bad. However, now that I have mulled it over for a few days, I feel like the disappointing pay-off was mostly due to an unusually limp storytelling and poorly handled subplots. Looking past all that, everything I found promising and intriguing about the story remains unchanged, and I am still excited to find out how it all pays off in the end. They will just need to really hit the ground running with that finale arc, and please PLEASE not lose all their steam before the end.

The sudden drop in energy and the poorer composition were pretty baffling in episode 16: that show has been downright ridiculous at times, and certainly has had its share of problematic moments, but so far it had managed to stay vibrant and engaging, with amazingly choreographed action sequences, genuine-sounding character interactions, pretty good comedic timing overall, and a sense of purpose to the general story. I’m willing to look past so much dodgy shit if I can tell a story was made with ambition and love –and I respect what a vulnerable position that must be for the creative team, to get so invested in a series that has passed through so many hands over the decades. It has been energizing to watch this strange chimera of a story being built out of the mismatched pieces of the Lupin III mythos –like a monstrous machine created from the treasures and junk found in a dragon hoard; you expect it to fall apart any minute, but also can’t help but want to see it fly. Wherever this is going, I am grateful for the energy it has given me.

This episode… felt limp, mostly. The main cast and especially Fujiko were dropped so that the Padar civil war situation could take center stage, but with Dolma’s character development being so inconsistent, and Ugo’s downright incomprehensible, it was hard to engage with any of it. There was very little contrast –arc II had a good mix of funny and tense scenes, and a steady escalation of violence as though Albert and Lupin were peer pressuring each other into being their worst selves. Arc I had a nice use of light and darkness, solitude and public overexposure, which suited Lupin well and made for a neat introduction for new viewers. 

Here in arc III, I guess they wanted to go with this whole tradition/high tech dichotomy, but they failed to make that resonate with Lupin in any way, or with anyone in the main cast for that matter. The dichotomy wasn’t even handled all that well visually, a shame since until then, the seamless incorporation of actions and backgrounds had been a strong point of the show. For instance, the reveal that the High Priest is actually a tech guru could have been made very striking visually, with changes in lighting and texture and sense of space, to underline the hypocrisy of the character and make him all the more shifty and sinister. Instead, all we got was one admittedly cool eye-scanning statue, and a bunch of doors sliding open. Wheee.

The unengaging subplots only made more frustrating the apparent lack of progress in the overarching conflict between Lupin and Fujiko. I say apparent because we did get some extra info in there – it’s pretty clear by now that Lupin is the one who refuses to communicate and face the situation, and possibly the one at fault in their breakup. Add the hint that Lupin is doubting the solidity of his friendship with Goemon and Jigen – and it still seems like Lupin’s character flaws and contradictions (secrecy and mistrust as a flip-side to his showmanship and self-reliance) could be exploited as an important plot point in the finale arc. It also makes Fujiko appear mature and resolute by contrast, and I am pretty happy with her characterization in this arc.

Now, regarding Ami –that confession scene at the end would have been pretty awful had it been the final scene of the series, for how it pitches women against each other to win the affections of one morally ambiguous guy. The script for the dialogue was definitely poor. The one saving grace I found for it was how heartbreakingly out of his depth Lupin was looking during its delivery: the poor dumbass has been trying so hard to relate to Ami as a daughter figure, as a friend, as a potential work colleague, as a younger self. And yet, for all that he can change the course of a civil war in one afternoon, he has zero control over the emotional growth of this teenager he is feeling responsible for. His reluctance to provide any clear answer also contrasts with Ami’s straightforwardness and courage. I don’t think this is the end of Ami’s journey, or heaven forbid, an indication that she and Lupin might actually become a couple one day – it would be unfair to her character if it were. And Lupin still owes her an apology for his shit dad job, damn it! But for further development to occur, Ami needs to retain an important role in the finale arc.

I was hoping this chapter would let Ami see the limits of a man like Lupin, and make her realise some of the less than ideals influences he’s had on her. As with the conflicts between Lupin and Fujiko and then Lupin and Albert, the story instead shirked away from providing any real closure, and is now one big mess of loose threads. So: is that some crazy gambit from the creative team, where all those thematically-linked conflicts have been introduced then pushed almost to their breaking points, and are all going to crash down on Lupin in the finale arc? Or will the story lose itself once more in convoluted geopolitics and miserably run out of steam before the big pay-off? I really can’t tell at this stage XD

But to hell with my pride and the possibility that I’m placing way too much hope in a dumpsterfire of a show: I have booked my ticket for the hype train, and I am having fun, and I will stay and watch this series fly or burn!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Will you do your fave book? Or if you already did it, the next fave? And so on...

Short opinion: I am constantly torn between wishing that The Beginning was twice its actual length and being in awe that Applegate manages to cram so much into a sparse 156 pages.

Long opinion: 

As I mentioned here, #54 is actually my favorite book in the series.  I’m probably the only fandalite on the planet for whom that is true, but I am a complete and utter sucker for tragedy. And this is tragedy in its purest form.  Tragedy is frustratingly hard to find in contemporary American stories, because it offers no happiness or culmination at the end.  Bad guys don’t always get punished; good guys don’t ever get medals from princesses or happy retirements into the sunset or reunions with lost loved ones; the very notions of “bad” and “good” get irreversibly complicated.  A tragedy is the story of well-intentioned and deeply sympathetic protagonist(s) coming to a bad end that is at least partially one’s own fault, at least partially the fault of random Shit Happens, and entirely coherent and fitting with the tiny cascade of random events that led to the fall of a lightning-struck tower.  

The purpose of comedy (i.e. stories with happy endings) is easy entertainment.  The purpose of tragedy is to inspire fear and horror through making the audience wonder whether it is possible for each of them to meet a similar end.  With the arguable exception of Cassie, every one of the Animorphs gets his or her own tragedy in the end.  This series is a war epic about the costs of violence.  It was never going to have a happy ending.

Rachel’s loss, in the opening moments, is the most obvious character culmination of the series.  She has been struggling for months if not years to define herself outside of the war, attacked on all sides (her best friend, her boyfriend, her cousin and field commander, her own mother) for the very role that they all nonetheless demand that she perform in order to keep them all safe, not only from the yeerks but from themselves.  Rachel has been the team’s first and last line of defense since the EGS tower battle (#7), and has all-but taken on the title of trash collector since becoming the one to handle David (#22).  Killing Tom is her final act of protecting her found family; completing the suicide run is her final ability to use her comfort with violence to do something good.  She might have done and even become terrible things, but she ultimately succeeds in turning that terror against an even greater evil in her last moments of life.

Arguably the next domino to fall is Tobias.  I’m with Cates: his is the ending I find the least satisfying, because it devalues his friendship-cum-familyhood with Ax.  However, I also can’t say that Applegate didn’t set that ending up.  As early as #13 Tobias shows worrying signs of codependency with Rachel; as early as #3 he proves willing to retreat into his hawk side when the going gets tough.  The scene where “Ken and Barbie” disturb his self-imposed exile through their simple reminder of humanity suggests that Tobias’s retreat isn’t nearly as complete as he’d like it to be, but then he’s never been able to escape being human no matter how hard he tries (see: #3, #33, #43, #49).

Part of what I find so fascinating about Jake’s character arc (fascinating enough that I wrote a goddamn novel or two on the subject) is how much his family story starts complicating this hyper-normative idea of married-parents-two-kids-fenced-backyard-golden-retriever-nice-neighborhood-white-upper-middle-class familyhood starting right in the first book, and how it only makes things worse once the war is over. Jake’s family continues to look “perfect” (i.e. normative) from the moment he first gets home and joins his brother and parents (and resident yeerk) for a home-cooked dinner in #1 all the way up until the alien inside his mom is firing a dracon beam at him from the front seat of her minivan, putting the first scar on the otherwise flawless siding on the facade of their two-story McMansion in #49.  So it’s only natural that Jake’s first thought on committing fratricide in the immediate aftermath of mass murder is to wonder “how would [he] explain this to [his] parents,” and it makes a fair amount of sense that he basically tries to retreat back to that safe haven he (unlike all of his friends) has before the war begins (#54).  But Jake can’t go home; home isn’t there for him to retreat to anymore.  His desire to retreat back to his childhood home borders on pathological, since in many ways he’s older than his parents have ever been, and he’s gone beyond the point where he could ever hope to give his burdens back to them.  

And then there are three.  And then two.

There are two details about Ax’s role in the final book that I find really fascinating.  The first is that line (which I quote all the time, because I find it so revelatory) where Cassie describes herself and Marco as “the only two real survivors” of the war (#54).  Why isn’t Ax included in the list of “survivors” along with Cassie and Marco, even though he’s alive and (physically) well at the time?  My guess would be the hints that he is, in his own way, just as addicted to risk and violence as Rachel ever was.  He doesn’t know how to survive without the war, which leaves him “looking for trouble” in his “boredom”—right up until he recklessly stumbles upon enough “trouble” to get his entire crew killed (#54).  That chapter also contains the other fascinating detail: it’s labeled “Aximili,” not “Ax” the way his chapters are in all the Megamorphs books.  Ax has at least partially given up on the identity he fought so hard to forge throughout the entire book series.  He has retreated back into being what his society expects him to be: a leader, a warrior, and an andalite who does not concern himself much with alien cultures.  He continues playing that role, apparently indifferent to what is happening with Tobias and the others on Earth, right up to his death.

Quick side note: I find it so cool (by which I mean excruciatingly painful) that each of the Animorphs gets what they wanted in the first books in the series—and that those dreams prove to be so hollow once achieved.  Rachel gets eternal glory, and the ultimate thrill ride along the way (#2).  Ax surpasses Elfangor in reputation and respect (#8).  Jake fulfills his daydreams of being treated as a superhero (#2), and of going home to his family (#1).  Marco gets to be not only “an entire episode of Stupid Pet Tricks” but quite possibly the most famous person alive (#2).  Tobias escapes his life and manages once and for all to “fly free” (#3).  Cassie finds a non-violent way to change the world (#4); she even gets to be a horse for a while along the way (#29).  And it’s nothing like any of them thought it would be.  None of their childhood dreams have much feasibility or even appeal by the time they are some of the weariest, most mature and worn-out adults of their generation.  Only Cassie manages to find satisfaction in getting everything she ever wanted.

Only Cassie… because Marco’s not quite a “survivor” either.  He brags about his fame and materialism, sure—but then we’ve never been able to trust Marco’s narration.  (See: the amount of time he spends obfuscating and/or lying to the reader in #30, #25, #15, and #35.)  If you ask Marco outright, everything’s fine and it always has been.  But then Marco describes Jake and Tobias showing up with an offer of a suicide mission as “everything around me turned translucent, like it was all fake… an old reality emerged from beneath the illusion” (#54).  Even before that scene, it’s striking just how much time Marco spends obsessing over Jake.  Marco freely admits to Cassie that he acquired an eagle morph for the specific purpose of following Jake around to spy on him, spends almost half the alleged description of his own life talking about how poorly Jake is functioning, and actually talks Jake into leading his crazy suicide mission for Jake’s own sake.  What Marco doesn’t mention—and what we can assume from Jake’s own narration doesn’t happen—is him actually picking up the phone to call Jake and ask him if he wants to talk.  The flash and glam and seven cars and heated pool and personal butler are yet more misdirection; Marco’s not okay.  He’s just telling us about all the ways Jake’s not okay because that’s safer than admitting his own vulnerability.  Jake says “Marco, you were bored out of your mind” and Marco unhesitatingly agrees (#54).  Marco spends so much time trying to convince everyone of how very happy he is with materialism and Hollywood glam that he fools Cassie, he fools Tobias, he all but fools himself… but he never fools Jake.  Which is why he has to keep Jake at arm’s length, no matter how much his guilt at doing so might eat him up as he’s sitting around watching Jake watching Rachel’s grave in the middle of the night.

And then there’s Cassie.  Cassie who I’ve compared to an anti-Susan Pevensie, Cassie who finds a man who treats her right and uses power for good without resorting to violence.  Marco, who was the last to join the war effort, might have eventually been able to find equilibrium if he’d been willing to get a haircut and get a real job (X). Cassie, who is unafraid to work on her own and leave her team when something needs doing and they can’t help her (#19, #29, #43, #44), is already living a new normal.  Jake is right when he says that Cassie’s “a one-woman army,” and he’s right that she’s “the soldier who has fought her war and moved on.”  The two Animorphs with the least “addiction” to the war emerge from the other side the most intact (#22). Cassie’s never going to be the same person she was, but she understands that.  She doesn’t try to hide from the past, she doesn’t try to retreat into it; she picks herself up and figures out a way to live on her own.  She shows that there’s hope for life after war, but also that there’s no returning to childhood.  She lives, and keeps on living, even after two (maybe three, maybe five) of her fellow Animorphs have been eaten alive by the war.  Because right from the start, Cassie has been comfortable with leaving her team behind—and in the end, she leaves her team behind, and she can’t save a single goddamn one of them.

It’s not a happy ending.  It’s not a comforting ending.  It’s not the kind of ending that suggests people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.  It doesn’t offer the comfortable reassurance that the right ends will justify any means.  It’s the kind of ending that gets in your head, burrows down deep, reads through your memories, and won’t leave you alone.

Don’t get me wrong: I love these characters.  They were my heroes and my idols and my ink-and-paper friends throughout my childhood.  They’ve taught me as much as a lot of real people I’ve known in my life, and there’s a part of me that does want them to live happily ever after.  But if they did, they would lose a lot of the realness that makes them so precious and so painful to love in the first place.

[cummunication]

The before and after of Trauma

If my life were a movie, it’d be a film where you’re brought past to present, switching between the two. 2017 is coming to an end and it was a transformative year with extraordinary breakthroughs. I’m ending on a high note, and for the first time in a long time I’ll admit, there’s not much I would change in my life. It started with a budding romance; I began dating someone from my job and we were together from January till May. Although this relationship had some triggering and conflictual moments for the both of us, I walked away with additional knowledge. Relationships help you mature, and I don’t regret any of mine since they’ve aided me in being more resilient. This year I realized not all love has to end in tragedy. I dated more this year than ever before and this is beneficial. I used to avoid dating & people in general because I felt weary of allowing anyone to get close to me. I was convinced I couldn’t get hurt if I built a high enough wall. Nothing transpired from these dates, nonetheless, it’s vital to put ourselves out there and face our fears. If we stay in our comfort zone, we prevent ourselves from reaching our fullest potential. Dating builds character so you recognize what you will and won’t accept. It also helps to come to terms with the fact there’s many fish in the sea… some are sharks while others are dolphins, you just need to find the right ones. You can try & protect yourself from heartbreak by isolating and forbidding love, yet this only makes your heart grow cold and numb. People do this because they are terrified of rejection [I would know] however when we do this we reject not only the bad but also the good. This year I got back together with my ex-boyfriend. This was unplanned and not called for. Although it took me about a year to try and move on, when I saw him randomly in June, I realized I never genuinely let go, and I wasn’t over it at all. Yes, the month or two we dated again was re-traumatizing, still, I trust the universe made our paths cross for a reason. Some may say closure; others are convinced I was just weak. Loving him was like driving lost in the dark without headlights. When you are away from a person you love for an extended period of time, you begin to miss the person you wished they were… you grieve the loss of what could’ve been. You idealize them in your mind and put them on a pedestal they may not deserve. It’s less painful to remember the tragic times & easier to imagine the good, no matter how few. It took me getting back together with him to see how much progress I’d made in the last year without him. The year without him I felt so alone, but I never felt as lonely as when we were together. Love can sweep you off your feet & before you know it, you have all the wind knocked out of you. A large portion of this year was spent depressed and enveloped in my eating disorder. Even though depression sucks to put it lightly, I know I wouldn’t be where I am currently without having experienced such lows. Currently, my depression is in remission as well as my eating disorder. I still have setbacks of course, but I’ve developed the tools to get my shit together a lot quicker. I’m a firm believer of people, places or things entering your life for a reason, to teach you a lesson or to be a guide to help you blossom. We might not see it at the time, and it’s hard to feel gratitude when we are drowning in our sorrows. It’s easy to thank God and love life when things go our way; on the contrary, it’s not as simple when things keep going wrong. We say “why me?” and doubt Gods existence because if there was a God, this wouldn’t happen right? I believed this for a while too. When I look back on my 23 years of life, it’s challenging to not view it from a “before and after” point of view. I can’t remember who I was before 21 years old. I remember things that happened; many events I wished hadn’t occurred. I used to be trusting, naive and wore my heart on my sleeve. Part of me is sad when I dwell on the innocence lost, while another is thankful. Today my mom stated I am “emotionally scarred” from the last two years. I’ve known this for a while but it’s worth mentioning; we all have scars. Some are physical & some invisible. In my experience, the internal scars have been tougher to heal than the external. Something I learned this year is that everyone has their own pace of healing, and you can’t compare your healing journey to someone else’s. Last night I was asked “what did you see in your ex?” It would’ve been faster to blow off this question, to ignore it or proclaim “I don’t know, I was young & dumb and he was a jerk” Blaming others is the easy way out. Truthfully, I don’t blame my ex for anything, even when he had no problem blaming me for everything. I hold him responsible for his actions but I also take responsibility for my role in our dysfunction. When I was together with him (for simplicity, I’ll call him Jackson here on out) I became who he wanted me to be. Often I want to bury this side of me, erase the memories of my past. It makes me feel ashamed that I let someone treat me so poorly; he treated me like nothing so I became nobody. Nevertheless, that part of me is still inside; I realized that a few months ago. We all have a side of us we hide; that is small and frightened and craves love and acceptance. We must make peace with this side of ourselves, acknowledging the wounded child within us, he or she carries the weight of the stories we tell ourselves; that the way people treat us is equivalent to our value as a person. When we quit feeding ourselves these lies, and wake up to the idea that we don’t need others approval to be worthy of love, we have a shot at self-love. Jackson and I demanded too much of each other. He wanted to control me and have complete power, and I wanted him to fill the ache inside. He used me and I guess you could say I used him too, but for different reasons. When you feel as if you no longer have a say in relationship, it’s impossible to flourish. Jackson’s rancidity spread through me like an infection; but I was willing to grin and bear it in exchange for [a false sense of] belonging. Before 2015, I was coy, always pleasant, afraid to rock the boat. I wish I could say I’m a badass who gives no fucks but who are we kidding? I’m aware change takes time. Lifelong habits don’t disappear overnight. A people pleaser inside me still lives. I continue ignoring my needs and accommodate from time to time… but not nearly as much. We are convinced if we set boundaries or aren’t a doormat maybe somebody wont love us or they’ll leave. If your opinion doesn’t matter to your significant other, it’s a blessing if they leave, trust me. There’s a quote that says something along the lines of “we don’t know a person until we don’t give them their way.” Real love is not conditional. Now, I make my desires top priority in my life & the person I look to please most is me. This year, I began to find my voice; a voice that had been taken from me and unfortunately lost. I see how you can still be assertive and a kind person. In fact, you are more capable of loving if you are willing to communicate your limits and be authentic. One of the biggest takeaways from this last year is no longer identifying as having PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I do not deny PTSD being one of the worst things I’ve underwent in life. Today, I identify more with PTG (post traumatic growth). I thought my heartbreak would kill me. Some days, I wished it would since I was in so much agony. My biggest fear is loss, abandonment, the feeling of grief [this could be linked to the loss of my father]. I used to say “I would never get back with Jackson since I can’t handle losing him again” Obviously, I doubted my strength. Either way, I did lose him, twice. My worst nightmare at the time, manifested and I still survived. I trust if I can survive that, I can survive anything. Falling in love is scary shit. We hesitate to be vulnerable because it’s like we’re on a plane while your lover is the pilot. They maneuver how high we fly and if we go up in smoke. It doesn’t have to be like that though. Last night, I was on my way somewhere and I felt butterflies. It was unbelievable and simultaneously, horrifying. I hadn’t felt that way in quite a while and frankly, I didn’t wish to. But I know feelings, like anything else in life are temporary and thank god! Instead of panicking that it won’t work out, I can relax knowing “rejection is God’s protection.” Cliché, but true. I’m ending this year knowing my worth; practicing trusting my beautiful intuition which I frequently ignored. My instinct is my friend and I will not turn my back on her anymore. I advise you do the same. Others can try and tell you what’s good for you or what’s not, but you already know the answer if you listen to the voice inside. From the outside, I see my life as before and after yet I also understand my circumstances and past do not define me. We can choose to change our story, thereby changing our life. Or we can choose to own our stories, and own our lives. Either way, the choice is ours

[manascoundrel]

Trophy- Chapter 10

by Yarking Fandom: Dragon Age (general) Summery: Two troubled children meet at the Minrathous Circle. One is a magister’s heir, groomed to be the blood mage general of Seheron, without fear or mercy. Hopefully, that will keep people from noticing how very much an elf he is. The other is last born, least loved and most of his emotions involve academics and cadavers. They love each other, even if they’re not terribly good at it. Warnings for this chapter: references to past trauma (non-graphic), violence (non-graphic) Special thanks beta, Autumn <3 AO3: here 

"So, what do you want to do?"

Tertius paused where he was sitting, sliding off his boots and into the little cubby holes lining the wall of the bathing rooms. He was having such a good time having a friend that he had quite nearly begged to come with Cato the the baths, and Cato welcomed him eagerly. It occured to him only when they arrived that Cato was still preparing for the swarm of the apprentices who had last abducted him. They arrived at the room with the running pool, and Cato scanned the few other apprentices already there with sharp eyes. If that was the case, Tertius decided, then he was more than happy to come with him. No one would bother harassing Tertius- it was hardly worth the effort- so if things went wrong he could run to fetch a patrolling prefect.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, a job. If you aren't going to be a magister."

"Oh. My job's to not be an embarrassment," Tertius said.

Cato snorted. "I'm serious."

"So am I?"

"Oh... well, do you want to have another job?" Cato asked, obviously a bit unprepared for Tertius' candid answer. That was his only duty: 'Don't get into trouble'. Tertius didn't blame Cato for not understanding; his eldest brother Cyprian probably didn't realize what Palermo and Tertius were expected to do either, and they were brothers.

But now it was time for Tertius to be unprepared. "I... don't know. I hadn't ever thought about it. I forgot that I was supposed to do something."

"Yeah? Well, you might not be a magister, but that just means you get to have a lot of free time to pick something else to do. That's pretty nice, at least."

"I suppose," Tertius said, gathering his underrobe over his head and rolling it up with his robes. "How am I supposed to pick, though?"

"Dunno," Cato admitted. Tertius sighed, stuffing his clothes into one of the cubbies. He wouldn't know. He gets to be a magister. "What do you like to do, though? I should know; that's definitely best friend stuff."

"That's true," Tertius agreed. Now that he had a friend, he ought to do it proper. "I like... horses. And drawing. I'm good at drawing. Uh... I like red, but I don't think you can make up a job out of liking the color red. I like inside stuff."

"Inside stuff?" Cato asked, stuffing his own clothes into a cubby next to Tertius'.

"You know, stuff inside you," Tertius explained. When Cato's head tilted in confusion, he remembered seeing the illustration of inside the cat for the first time and realized he had to clarify further. "Things like bones and organs."

"Organs?" Cato wondered.

Tertius motioned over his bare belly in a sweeping gesture. "Yeah, organs. Like the stomach and the kidneys and the liver and stuff."

"Oh, entrails!" Cato said emphatically. His comprehension seemed to click. "Guts and stuff!"

"Yeah, but guts are here," Tertius explain, pointing below where his stomach would have been in the pictures he looked at. "And I like stuff all over, like up here with the lungs and-"

"And the heart? Is the heart an organ?"

"Yeah, like that. You got it!"

Cato's head tipped back thoughtfully. "Huh. That's pretty neat, I guess. Tamas always tells stories about guts and stuff being spilled on the battlefield. Maybe you should be a soldier, like me!"

"Maybe," Tertius said, skeptically. "But I don't want to hurt anyone..."

"Well you wouldn't, you'd just be killing oxmen, with me! We can fight together while I'm at Seheron so we can still grow up and work with each other, least until I have to go be a magister."

"I don't know. I don't think my papa would like that, anyway," Tertius said, deciding that he didn't want to reveal to his new friend that he was still not keen on killing even oxmen. They had just become best-best friends, so he didn't want to pick a fight so soon, especially knowing that Cato seemed more than willing to step up to being challenged, if the knife was any indication.

And it was true. His papa had always spoken of the soldiers in Seheron with vague disdain. When Palermo had joined the Imperial Navy they had fought, his papa slinging shame like a trebuchet against his brother's drunken defiance.

("If you didn't want me to do something with my life, perhaps you should have made an effort to do something with it, or not burden me with it at all!" Palermo had snarled, and a bottle of Pavali had smashed against the ground almost prettily.

It had been the only time Tertius had seen his brother anything but properly dutiful and compliant, and the words stuck hard.)

"What about a butcher?" Cato tried, stepping out of his smallclothes with a furtive, nervous glance around the baths.

Tertius snorted. "I think he'd like that even less. He wouldn't want me to sell things in a shop like that, he'd call it 'beneath' us."

"That's dumb. Tamas says that I have to respect everyone who I buy things from," Cato explained, looking superior. "She says 'someone's gotta do it, so you should be grateful that it's not-'... huh. Maybe we should figure out something else."

Tertius laughed at his friend's (his friend, oh he liked that!) sheepish expression, but his glee turned into fascination when Cato began unclipping and sliding off his ear cuffs. Tertius had never seen ears like that- they crumpled and folded, looking soft and almost dainty.

"Why do your ears look like that?" he asked, not thinking. Tertius regretted it the moment Cato reared his head, eyes sliding away uneasily. "Sssorry. That's rude. I just think they look neat. Can I touch them?"

"No!" Cato snapped, curling his lip in irritation. "They're normal. Or... at least they will be. They're a little late, but elf ears don't always stand up right away. These-" he said, motioning with the cuffs- "are supposed to help them do that though. They just need more time."

Tertius shrank. "Oh. Sorry. That's too bad though. I think they look really nice like that."

Cato remained leery, tilting his head with skepticism. "Nice?"

"Yeah, they're special! I haven't seen anyone with ears like that, not even other elves."

Cato seemed to be coming around, cautious but willing. One of his ears even flicked, pricking forward where it met the side of his head and swinging loosely. It looked, in Tertius' modest opinion, really cute. "Special's something," he mumbled. "You don't think they look gross and all... doughy?"

Tertius watched his friend pluck at the tips. They were a bit shapeless and puffy, and the cuffs kept the skin peachy-pale and... yes... a little doughy looking. But Tertius meant what he said. "I like them. They're floppy like a dog’s ears can be floppy."

"I'm not a dog!" Cato grumped.

"What? I didn't-... I like dogs," Tertius reasoned, feeling bad that was taken poorly. He did. Not as much as horses, but dogs were fine.

Cato pouted for a moment longer- or at least pretended to pout, Tertius realized as Cato stuck his tongue out playfully. "I'm a wolf," Cato corrected him, chest puffed out proudly. He turned to Tertius, a glint in his eye. "A vicious badger-wolf from Seheron! And I'm gonna... drag you back to my den!"

Cato latched upon his arm, suddenly growling absurdly and he pulled Tertius towards the edge of the baths and into the water. Tertius trudged along, nose scrunched as his friend pulled him farther into the waters. When they were waist-high, Cato seemed to notice his puzzled expression and stopped, letting him go and returning the expression with equal confusion.

"What are you doing?" Tertius asked.

"I'm... playing pretend?" Cato's shoulders drooped. "Do you not do that? Me and Aun do it a lot."

"Oh." Tertius had seen other children running around like wild animals before; he just hadn't expected something that seemed so... kiddish to come from Cato, who he judged to be much more mature, like him. Tertius had played at pretending back at the estate, but his papa had passed through the foyer where he was playing and called it 'undignified', telling him to stop behaving like a creature. He had only tried it once since then. He tried being a pony with Stardust, but deemed Stardust to be much better at it than him, and he didn't much care for the taste of grass. "I haven't with another person. But I could try."

"Yeah! What are you going to be? I like being a badger-wolf. That's what 'Fen'Rhea' means. They're these big, hulking, super strong, super smart wolves from Seheron that could fight a bear and a dragon and bite off their whole head! Usually Aun's the bear and dragon. He likes being the dragon more but he's a much better bear, and our nanny said he needed to stop jumping on the chairs and throwing things, which is how we knew he was flying and breathing fire when he's a dragon. He tried being a bear that breathes fire, but that's dumb. But you can be a dragon if you want! I trust you to say when you're breathing fire and flying. Aun likes to cheat."

The excitement in Cato's voice was infectious, even as unsure as Tertius was in all this baby stuff. He smiled. "I bet that's the only way he could win."

Cato laughed, a sound that made Tertius' heart feel glowy and nice. "Uh huh!"

"Can I be a horse?" Tertius asked, tentative.

"Yeah that's fine! I'll hunt you down and you have to get away so I don't eat you, how's that?"

Tertius considered this, face scrunched in thought. "I don't want you to have to eat me, though. Can't we be a horse and a wolf that are friends?"

"Badger-wolf. And yeah, I guess that'll work. We don't have to pretend like real animals, we can be on the same side, like in the fables."

"You like fables?" Tertius asked, delighted.

It turned out to be something else they had in common other than friendlessness and a suspicion of the other apprentices. Cato's favorite had been 'The Fox and the Stork,' while Tertius favored 'The Tortoise and the Hare' more. He had mentioned the one about the gryphon and the nug, where the little nug helped the gryphon when he had a thorn stuck in his paw, and ended up telling Cato the whole thing when he revealed he had never heard it before.

All throughout the story, Cato scrubbed himself in the current of water. He took the oils at the edge of the bath and worked them into his skin by himself, politely dismissing the bath slave that approached him for service. Tertius paused the story as he watched and tilted his head. "Why don't you want the slave to help you?"

"I don't know," Cato said, shrugging and watching as the slave retreated to offer his services to another apprentice. That one accepted, presenting his body for the slave to massage in the oil and scrape it off, along with the sweat and dirt, with a blunt, curved strigil. "I mean, I can wash myself, it's not hard. I don't need anyone else to help me."

"Well, neither do they," Tertius reasoned, nodding to the older apprentices enjoying the attention. "They don't need the help, but they don't have to do it themselves either, so they don't. And besides, the part where they rub your muscles feels really nice."

"I don't know. Isn't is weird that they're all elves?"

"Who?"

"The slaves," Cato clarified.

Tertius looked at his friend. "No? What else would they be? Qunari?"

"Humans."

Tertius considered that, brow furrowed. He did know there were some human slaves, but they were rare and often plenty more expensive. "Why would the Circle bother getting human slaves? The elves do everything well enough; they don't need them to do anything that fancy."

"I just don't get it. My tamas has as many human slaves as she does elvhen. And did you know there is only one other elf in the whole school? It's so weird."

"That's not weird, your tamas is weird. Most slaves are elves and they're a lot cheaper than humans. Usually you only get a human slave when you need them to do something that elves can't, like writing and maths and stuff," Tertius explained. Hearing that Cato's tamas owned many human slaves was as curious as it was impressive. That would be a lot of money to invest in higher-quality slaves. What was she having them do?

Cato whined in his throat. "Elves can write and do maths! You just saw me write my name not even an hour ago, and I can count all the way up to one hundred, easy!"

"Well, you're not a slave," Tertius pointed out.

Cato pouted. "How come you know about all this stuff?"

"My papa breeds slaves. He has a whole bunch and they have babies and the babies sell for a lot because we only buy incaensor so they have lots of magic in their pedigree. Papa said he'd like to buy a human mage to use as a stud because then all the babies would be human too and sell for a lot more, but he didn't want anyone to think they were his bastards, so they have to all be elves," Tertius explained, then paused. "...why are you mad?"

It was true, the longer Tertius had spoken, the more cross Cato seemed to become, his mouth screwing up in a irritated scowl. When asked, though, it melted into something more unsure and troubled. Cato shrugged. "Dunno. It doesn't feel good."

"Why?"

Cato simply shrugged again, and Tertius felt bad until Cato gave him a crooked smile. "I bet we have so many humans for slaves because my tamas wants to show off how much money we have when we have guests over. All our slaves do the same kind of thing because she knows elves can do everything just as good."

Tertius wasn't sure about his friend's reasoning, but he was pleased that his friend was no longer sad.

They finished washing off in the running baths, dirt and grime draining away to be cleansed somewhere deep in the bowels beneath the Circle, and moved to the steaming hot baths, skipping the entire way there as they shivered in the cooler air. The hot baths were still and wafting as they slid in, a layer of frothy bubbles from some special soaps coating the surface.

Cato rested his chin on the rocky edge of the baths, eyes sliding shut and sighing pleasantly. "Thanks."

"For what?" Tertius asked. He sprawled next to Cato, sitting on the rocky steps beneath the water's surface and stretching out comfortably. The water was just a shade too hot, turning both of them cherry-red, but they'd get used to it.

For a long time, Cato said nothing. Then, "For getting the dorm master."

It took a second for Tertius to figure out what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah. You're welcome."

Cato's eyes opened, and he slid up so his arms folded on the lip of the bath. He pillowed his head on his arms, face turned to Tertius. "Can I ask a question?"

"Yeah."

"Why did you talk like that earlier?" Cato asked, his ear perking slightly in interest. Not as much as an elf with a regular ear might- there wasn't enough structure there to lift it- but enough to show that he was listening.

Tertius shrugged. "I have a stutter sometimes. It's getting better."

"A stutter," Cato repeated, evidently not familiar with the word. "How come you have a stutter?"

Tertius opened his mouth to reply, then paused. Instead, he offered, "I'll tell you how I got it if you tell me what happened in the basement."

"Never mind," Cato grumbled, ready to give up.

"Wait! I'll tell you if..." Tertius thought, lifting his hand out of the water to tap on his chin like he's seen people do when they're thinking hard. "If you let me touch your ears."

"Why do you want to touch my ears so bad? That's weird," Cato asked, voice cracking slightly as it rose in confusion. But he didn't sound angry or annoyed, at least, so Tertius pressed on.

"They just look neat. They look soft. It's not as weird as <i>having</i> ears like that, even if they are really nice."

Cato tilted his head, considering the offer. "Alright," he conceded, scooting over and presenting his swinging ear. "Just don't pinch them or anything, that hurts."

Tertius held one between his index finger and thumb, rolling it as gently as he could in wonder. "They're squishy! They're so soft and squishy! Do those big ear things that you wear hurt them?"

"Not really," Cato assured him as Tertius dropped the ear gently. "I got a couple different kinds and the heavier ones can tug them, but that mostly just makes the skin around the ear ache a little, and sometimes I get headaches, but mostly it's fine."

Tertius nodded, continuing to watch the little ears swing until he noticed Cato watching him intently. "Yeah?"

"Your stutter?"

"Oh yeah! I-" Tertius began, before his smile dropped. He hadn't actually considered telling the story when he had bartered it, but he couldn't very well go back on it now. Cato was, again, very newly his best-best friend, and he couldn't spoil that trust by taking back a promise already. "I, uh... d-didn't do what my papa said and he cast a spell on me. It hurt a lot, and... I dunno. I ssstarted stuttering after."

Cato's face turned solemn. "My tamas can be like that too, only she doesn't use spells."

"Yeah?" Tertius asked, caught between a flurry of emotions at the confession. Relief that he didn't have to explain further. Guilt that he was willing to avoid telling Cato the details he had omitted. Dismay at envisioning his new, dearest friend's own punishment and a strange comfort that it was something he understood. Guilt, again. Shouldn't he want his friend to be spared something like that? "She shouldn't. I can't see you doing things bad enough to deserve it like me. You're good. I try, but you're really nice."

Cato lowered himself into the water so that his nose barely cleared the surface and blew a jet of bubbles. "Nah, I have to be better. I'm going to be a magister and a blood mage and I'm the heir so I have to be really, really good because a lot of people are going to count on me. I have to mess up less, so she's helping." Cato's smile, something that looked like it didn't quite fit his face right, slowly faded. "I'm an elf, too, so I have to be double good at things. Tamas said people are going to think if I mess up it's because of that, and it'll just go to show that I'm not as good, so I have to be really perfect so they don't have any reason to say I can't be those things."

Tertius scowled. "That doesn't sound very fair."

"Tamas says 'life's not fair'," Cato recited, nodding at the very serious bit of wisdom. "It's okay though. I just have to be better, and Tamas is helping. She always points out when I mess up so I can fix it next time. I just have to stop being dumb and messing up. That sounds pretty fair to me, since I want to be a good magister."

"I guess," Tertius agreed reluctantly. He still wasn't convinced that Cato deserved all that, but then those apprentices did already hurt him pretty bad. Perhaps it was because he needed to do better. Tertius didn't know; he wasn't an elf. Tamas was, and an adult besides, so she would definitely know these things.

"I-" Cato started, and stopped himself. His ears swiveled black, flopping so Tertius could see the inside part instead of the back that was usually shown from how it naturally folded. "I don't know what to do before I get better. I'm really trying, but..."

He shook his head, looking miserable as his ears flapped with the motion.

"But it's easier when you don't have to worry about people coming to hurt you," Tertius finished for him.

Tertius understood that.

Cato nodded. He returned to the edge of the baths, resting his chin on the stone. When he spoke, his words were hardly a whisper. "I can't just not be here, and I can't just stop being me and stop being an elf. I don't know why they hate me so much."

"It's because they're dumb," Tertius supplied instantly.

Cato scrunched his nose. "But they're older."

"Can still be dumb."

"Why don't you hate me?"

Tertius shrugged, surprised at the question. "Because you're nice to me."

"How?"

"Because..." Tertius started, brow furrowed as he tried to figure out why. "You make me feel like it's not bad for me to talk. No one else does that. Even the enchanters make these really sad faces at me when I answer a question."

"Because of your stutter?"

"Because... I don't know. Maybe. I think they know I'm not supposed to be here."

"Why not?"

"I have two older brothers, so my family doesn't need me."

"Well, you should still learn how to use magic. Even if you're not a magister, you-"

"No," Tertius said, suddenly angry. "I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have been born."

Cato looked at him, taken aback. It was a while before he said anything.

"Well. <i>I'm</i> glad you ended up getting born, at least," he mumbled, almost petulantly.

Tertius couldn't help but smile. "See? This is you being really nice."

--

They left a train of water dripping from their hair all the way back to the dormitories. Cato yawned great, loud yawns like a lion every other sentence and blinked slow and often, his exhaustion evident. Tertius was used to staying up all night, but he only managed by sleeping all through the day, sometimes even dozing in classes when the enchanters were talking on and on about something he had already understood. Cato, however, didn't have the benefit of sleeping through the day.

"Well, here you go," Tertius said, swinging his hand at the door to Cato's dormitories, and looked away. He didn't want their fun to end. He had a strange certainty that the next morning it would be like none of this happened, and Cato wouldn't forget him and forget being friends, and this was the end. But Cato was dead on his feet and it was making Tertius tired just looking at him. He couldn't make it much longer, Tertius knew.

It was fun while it lasted.

Cato looked at the door to his dorms, then back to Tertius with a sad, scrunched face. It was as if he didn't want to be forgotten too, but that couldn't be right. Still, he asked, "How 'bout I walk you to your dorms?"

"Oh, I'm gonna stay up longer. I always stay up at night," Tertius explained, shuffling awkwardly.

Cato looked back at the door, then back at Tertius, almost like a puppy. "I..." he began, words soft. "I don't wanna go back to sleep."

Oh. That was it. It was just that. Tertius shrugged. "You can't stay up forever."

"I know." Cato agreed quietly. "I'm scared, though."

"Scared?"

"The first time, they came when I was asleep. What if they come again?"

Tertius considered this, tapping his foot thoughtfully. "Why don't you just go someplace they can't find you?"

"Like where, though?"

Tertius shrugged, but a thought soon came to him.

"I have an idea."

--

The cubby behind the bookshelves had been comfortable when it was just him, but it was a snug, cosy fit when it was the two of them.

Cato had lingered in the aisle between the shelves, looking to and fro and asked again how Tertius was sure he could sleep someplace so public and expect to be safe.

"I know they don't allow magic in the library," Cato reasoned, "but what's to keep them from just dragging me out? I've seen them here before. The other elf comes here too! What if he tells on me?"

"He won't know where you are either," Tertius had said, pulling the books off the lower shelf. "Trust me."

He slipped into the hidden compartment, motioning for Cato to follow, which he did. The space was not quite big enough for the both of them to comfortably sprawl out without budging up next to each other, but the indentation into the wall was large enough so that they could both curl up and rest with ease.

Cato crawled up onto the bench cushions of the nook, looking around the dim hidey-hole suspiciously. He inspected where the bookshelf met the wall and all the small gaps of where missing books would allow library patrons to peek in. They were few, narrow little slits, small enough that one would have to already know what to look for to notice at all.

"This," Cato said slowly, settling back into the cushion with a reluctant approval. "This is pretty good, I got to admit."

"I only know about it because I saw it from the loft. I don't think many people go up there just to look around, though. If those apprentices were mean to you, then they are probably dumb and if they're dumb I bet they wouldn't think of checking like that."

Cato nodded slowly, deciding that that logic was sound enough. Tertius propped himself into the reading nook himself, swinging his legs and hitting the wooden paneling under the cushions absently. He watched, trying not to laugh, as Cato slumped further and further, until he was nearly falling off the cushions altogether. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

Cato blinked slowly. Once, then twice, fighting the call of sleep hard. "If someone comes for me, you'll go get an enchanter, right?"

"Uh huh."

"You won't let them drag me away? You promise you'll do something?"

"I did last time," Tertius reminded him. At that, Cato smiled. His eyes were nearly slits and he wavered in balance when Tertius gave him a prod. "Lay down. That looks really uncomfortable. I'll shout if anyone comes for you, you know I will!"

Cato turned to him, blinked a slow, uncoordinated blink, and swung his body over, stretching out as much as he could and resting his head on Tertius' leg like a pillow. "M'yeah. You did."

Cato was heavy and warm and nuzzled against him like a big, sleepy... badger-wolf. Tertius couldn't get up to get more books if he wanted to, and he had to balance the big, heavy anatomy book he did have on his other leg, and it wobbled so it was hard to read unless he held very still. All in all, it was a very cumbersome sort of arrangement, and Cato had been terribly presumptive to think he could just drape himself all over him like that just because they were friends.

But…

"Hey," Tertius whispered. "Just don't pee on me, okay?"

He found he didn't mind as much as he had expected.

[rsetton]

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

AMBITION: “A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones, onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, in conversation with the elements. Looking back we see the wake we have left as only a brief glimmering trace on the waters.”

ANGER: “Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care, the internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for. What we usually call anger is only what is left of its ssence when we are overwhelmed by its accompanying vulnerability, when it reaches the lost surface of our mind or our body’s incapacity to hold it, or when it touches the limits of our understanding. What we name as anger is actually only the incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care in our outer daily life; the unwillingness to be large enough and generous enough to hold what we love helplessly in our bodies or our mind with the clarity and breadth of our whole being.”

BEGINNING: “Beginning well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin...”

COURAGE: “ The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly to live to the point of tears, not as a call for maudlin sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level. It is a fundamental dynamic of human incarnation to be moved by what we feel, as if surprised by the actuality and privilege of love and affection and its possible loss. Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.”

DESPAIR: “To see and experience despair fully in our body is to begin to see it as a necessary, seasonal visitation, and the first step in letting it have its own life, neither holding it nor moving it on before its time. 

“Despair is a difficult, beautiful necessary, a binding understanding between human beings caught in a fierce and difficult world where half of our experience is mediated by loss, but it is a season, a waveform passing through the body, not a prison surrounding us. A season left to itself will always move, however slowly, under its own patience, power and volition.”

DESTINY: “We are shaped by our shaping of the world and are shaped again in turn. The way we face the world alters the face we see in the world.”

DISAPPOINTMENT: “The attempt to create a life devoid of disappointment is the attempt to avoid the vulnerabilities that make the conversations of life real, moving, and life-like; it is the attempt to avoid our own necessary and merciful heartbreak.

“The measure of our courage is the measure of our willingness to embrace disappointment, to turn towards it rather than away, the understanding that every real conversation of life involves having our hearts broken somewhere along the way and that there is no sincere path we can follow where we will not be fully and immeasurably let down and brought to earth, and where what initially looks like a betrayal, eventually puts a real ground under our feet.”

FRIENDSHIP: “But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

GIVING: “To stop giving in any situation is to call an end to relationship.”

“...but to give appropriately, always involves a tiny act of courage, a step of coming to meet, of saying I see you, and appreciate you and am also making an implicit promise for the future.”

GRATITUDE: “Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.”

HEARTBREAK: “Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.”

“Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong; an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.”

HELP: “It may be that the ability to know the necessity for help; to know how to look for that help and then most importantly, how to ask for it, is one of the primary transformative dynamics that allows us to emancipate ourselves into each new epoch of our lives. Without the understanding that we need a particular form of aid at every crucial threshold in our lives and without the robust vulnerability in asking for that help we cannot pass through the door that bars us from the next dispensation of our lives: we cannot birth ourselves. To ask for help and to ask for the right kind of help and to feel that it is no less than our due as alive human being; to feel, in effect, that we deserve it, may be the engine of transformation itself. Our greatest vulnerability is the very door through which we must pass in order to open the next horizon of our lives.”

HONESTY: “Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually now, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life.”

“Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are.”

LONGING: “Longing has its own secret, future destination, and its own seasonal emergence from within, a ripening from the core, a seed growing in our own bodies; it is as if we are put into relationship with an enormous distance inside us leading back to some unknown origin with its own secret timing indifferent to our wills, and gifted at the same time with an intimate sense of proximity, to a lover, to a future, to a transformation, to a life we want for ourselves, and to the beauty of the sky and the ground that surrounds us.”

MEMORY: “...the pas is never just the past, memory is a pulse passing through all created life, a waveform, a then continually becoming other thens, all the while creating a continual but almost untouchable now.”

“The genius of human memory is firstly its very creation through experience, and then the way it is laid down in the mind according to the identity we inhabited when we first decided to remember, then its outward radiating effect and then all its possible future outcomes, occurring all at the same time. We actually inhabit memory as a living threshold, as a place of choice and volition and imagination, a crossroads where our future diverges according to how we interpret, or perhaps more accurately, how we live the story we have inherited.”

NAMING: “Naming love too early is a beautiful but harrowing human difficulty. Most of our heartbreak comes from attempting to name who or what we love and the way we love, too early in the vulnerable journey of discovery.”

“When we demand a certain specific kind of reciprocation before the revelation has flowered completely we find ourselves disappointed and bereaved and in that grief may miss the particular form of love that is actually possible but that did not meet our initial and too specific expectations.”

“The act of loving itself, always becomes a path of humble apprenticeship, not only in following its difficult way and discovering its different forms of humility and beautiful abasement but strangely, through its fierce introduction ot all its many astonishing and different forms, where we are asked continually and against our will, to give in so many different ways, without knowing exactly, or in what way, when or how, the mysterious gift will be returned.”

“We name mostly in order to control but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened to us or is continuing to happen to us: an invitation to the most difficult art of all, to love without naming at all.”

NOSTALGIA: “Nostalgia is not indulgence. Nostalgia tells us we are in the presence of imminent revelation, about to break through the present structures held together by the way we have remembered: something we thought we understood but that we are now about to fully understand, something already lived but not fully lived, issuing not from our future but from something already experienced; something that was important, but something to which we did not grant importance enough, something now wanting to be lived again, at the depth to which it first invited us but which we originally refused. Nostalgia is not an immersion in the past, nostalgia is the first annunciation that the past as we know it is coming to an end.”

PARALLELS: “...as the years pass, our relationship to the path not take or the person we did not pursue changes as much as it does with the one we did.”

PROCRASTINATION: “What looks from the outside like our delay; our lack of commitment; even our laziness may have more to do with a slow, necessary ripening through time and the central struggle with the realities of any endeavor to which we have set our minds. To hate our procrastinating tendencies is in some way to hate our relationship with time itself, to be unequal to the phenomenology of revelation and the way it works its own way in its very own gifted time, only emerging when the very qualities it represents have a firm correspondence in our necessarily struggling heart and imagination.”

“An endeavor achieved without delay, wrong turnings, occasional blank walls and a vein of self-doubt running through all, leading eventually to some degree of heartbreak is a thing of the moment, a bagatelle, and often neither use nor ornament. It will be scanned for a moment and put aside. What is worthwhile carries the struggle of the maker written within it, but wrought into the shape of an earned understanding.”

SELF-KNOWLEDGE: “What we are actually about to become or are afraid of becoming always trumps and rules over what we think we are already.”

“What we can understand is the way we occupy this frontier between the known and the unknown, the way we hold the conversation of life, the figure we cut at that edge, but a detailed audit of the self is not possible and diminishes us in the attempt to establish it; we are made on a grander scale, half afraid of ourselves, half in love with immensities beyond any name we can give.”

SHYNESS: “Shyness is the exquisite and vulnerable frontier between what we think is possible and what we think we deserve.”

TOUCH: “Being alive in the world means being found by that world and sometimes touched to the core in ways we would rather not experience. Growing with our bodies, all of us find ourselves at one time violated or wounded by this world in difficult ways, and still we live and breathe in this touchable, sensual world, and through trauma, through grief, through recovery, we heal in order to be touched again in the right way, as the physical consecration of a mutual, trusted invitation.”

VULNERABILITY: “The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.”