#posts adapted from patreon comments

[leletha-jann]

All right, kids and kittens, it is CONSPIRACY THEORY ON NO REAL EVIDENCE TIME

The question of the hour now is not "is Klaus still in the timestop?" (NOPE, WE KNEW IT, KLAUS IS SO GONE), but "who's giving the Black Squad these orders?" Who wants Klaus back in play but under control, and has the ability to exert that control, and wants both Gil and Agatha specifically out of the picture?

Because it can't be Klaus. Klaus went to great lengths to put himself in the timestop and out of reach so that he couldn't carry out whatever orders Lucrezia/Lunevka had given him. This is not a Klaus contingency plan.

(A Klaus contingency plan would be having a second timestop bomb in his pocket, which, uh, would have been bad.)

So damned if this doesn't sound like probably Zola, who at last count:

zapped the Black Squad out of the picture in the first place

is the most likely to have retrieved them

has ambition to spare

possibly can command revenants?

was mentioned recently

and is suspiciously missing

BUT

you know what

you know what

My question is "Who's running Zola?" and I suspect the mastermind behind this is

Princess Terebithia

Yes. Grandma. The power behind the Valois dynasty.

who was also mentioned recently, is also suspiciously missing, and was last seen not only with Zola, but calling the shots...

She's also terrified me from her very first appearance. This woman makes me bristle like a spooked cat.

Terebithia is one of those characters who, if they were my protagonist, I would be cheering for every second as they absolutely wrecked everyone's everything. If this was her story, I'd be making popcorn and cackling. If this was her story, I'd be crazy about her. Since she's not my protagonist, and I don't trust her an inch with any of the characters I love, she scares the hell out of me.

Also? This panel.

Gil is a problem to be dealt with. Agatha is a problem to be dealt with.

Tarvek is not listed as a problem, nor does the Black Squad (that we know of) have orders to deal with him. If this is Terebithia giving orders for Zola to issue, I suspect that Terebithia might very much want her grandson dragged back by the scruff of his neck again, since she did not endorse Seffie shuffling Tarvek off to England that one time. (And if Zola was giving orders on her own, I doubt she's forgotten Tarvek beating her half to death with his bare hands back in Castle Heterodyne. Oh no, she would not have forgotten to give orders about him.)

Yeah. Uh. If we're looking for a master manipulator with a lifelong history of successfully giving orders behind the scenes...who'd be absolutely delighted to have her hands on the bits and bridles of various power players, including Klaus Wulfenbach...who's suspiciously missing but with a convenient recent reminder...and who was last seen acquiring the woman with a captive Lucrezia copy in her head AND the power to command revenants...

I have not forgotten about Terebithia.

Now this one, I'd love to be wrong about, because - as mentioned - Terebithia scares me.

[thesiltverses]

A very big thank you

I posted this on Patreon, but really wanted to share it here as well:

Post-show life begins

For a long while now I’ve been getting up at 4.30 or 5am, grabbing myself the first coffee of four, and then coming to sit at my desk.

I open up the assembly cut of the newest TSV episode.

I listen to it, I try and pin down which scenes I need to be going back over today. I try and push through the entire morning without a break because when the momentum stalls, that’s what kills your release schedule. (I also worry endlessly about just how much of my hair is falling out, and how spending 12 hours a day wearing headphones could be contributing to that.)

Today was different. I still woke up early - it’s a hard habit to shake off, and probably a useful one going forward. But I didn’t go to my desk, and I didn’t put my headphones on.

I went to the rocking chair we bought for our son when he comes, and I sat there - gently swaying and trying not to spill my coffee all over it, because for some reason it’s fucking beige - and looked out over the city skyline. 

I slugged back my coffee surrounded by all the stuff we’ve panic-bought for the baby, and I got to take all of it in - washcloths and the changing table and romper suits - with a sudden focus and a clarity and a rising excitement that I really hadn’t allowed myself to feel until today, because until today the work was still unfinished and there was still much left to be done.

All at once I felt very free, and fully sated, and happy and proud for everything that’s coming next.

There’s so much to feel grateful for from the past three years of working on this show. But what’s probably going to sit with me the most is being able to arrive at that moment and those feelings today, - and we have all of you incredible people to thank for that.

Not just in terms of listenership or financial support, although that’s been truly invaluable and a lifeline for us that’s enabled us to actually make the show - but also your enthusiasm, your passion, your jokes and comments and everything that’s helped to keep us motivated and working on it.

So - with as much feeling as words can convey, thank you so, so much for everything.

What’s coming next, in rough order

#1: Parentdom is going to take over our lives for a while! I also want to write the final Patreon episode commentaries in the next few days, while I have the time and the clear memories. #2: The next thing we’ll organise will be the post-season Q&A (we’d also like to do some kind of off-camera cast party if we can make schedules work, just to say thank you to our amazing VAs and celebrate with them). Please do ask us questions! #3: We have long-unfinished commitments to the Patreon which I need to complete: the last two episodes of So Long, Good Luck, and rounding off Sid Wright’s story. As ever, huge thank-yous for your patience with these; they’ve just been impossible to polish off while also working on the main show so much. #4: Something I’ve been thinking about for a long time is the possibility of going back to Season 1 and redesigning it from scratch to try and bring it closer in style to S2 and S3. We have the raw audio files - some of the mic quality will just be rough no matter what, but we can certainly try.  This is something I want to be conscientious and careful about; I very much want to respect the sound design work that’s already taken place, and ensure we’re not overriding anything. But I do know that the initial quality still sometimes puts new listeners off; we were learning a lot about direction and mastering from scratch, and our designers were working with limited budget and a total lack of plugins, so there’s simply a lot more we can achieve now. (This would also be a good opportunity for me to finally rework the transcripts, another fallen hurdle). #5: A few months back, we were contacted by a literary agent in NYC who was interested in us adapting the show into a series of novels. There’s a long road ahead to actually get published, but I'm thrilled to say that I have signed with them and I’m really excited to hopefully start work on the first book once I’ve settled into dad-dom. I’ll need to check what’s possible, but if it doesn’t interfere with any contract condition I’d obviously love to share excerpts on here as it’s written. #6: Then there’ll also be another larger audiodrama project - we’ve spoken about the different possibilities before! Excited to get started on our final choice.

Just one last word about endings

God, endings are scary. Because endings are impossible.

How many serialised stories actually end in a way that’s received unequivocally well?  People yelled at The Sopranos for its ambiguity and open-endedness. People criticised Breaking Bad for treating Walt too sympathetically at the end and relying on a generic mob of snarling Nazis to act as his final foe.

Endings are either too pat and neat, or too inconclusive to be satisfying, or too surreal and dreamlike, or they simply make what feels like the wrong choices for the characters we care about. We’re all caught in that barbed wire, creators and audience alike, weighed down by the baggage of what’s come before and we've already spent so much time anticipating the infinite possibilities of how it could all turn out - it’s like we can’t get free of the story that’s trying to end. 

And the beautiful thing about these longform, iterative works is that they insist upon becoming completely ungovernable. No matter how much of a planner the creator claims to be, how much prepwork they carry out - they were never really in control. There’s spontaneity and surprises and dead ends and beautiful distractions that come spilling out along the way (I was baffled and delighted to learn that people really - at the end of the show, with such limited time to spare - wanted to find out what had happened to Eddie*). 

So they can’t end. Not really. There’s too much wonderful mess in them to ever be reasonably disentangled.

And, of course, for every ending people remember with frustration or dissatisfaction, there’s another hundred endings that nobody remembers at all, because we lost our enthusiasm along the way and it feels better to keep going back to the start and avoiding the slow decline. (Who the fuck remembers how the umpteenth X-Files reboot ended? What increasingly tired post-modern antics was Alan Moore getting up to in the final League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books?). I really just didn’t want the show to end up in that latter category.

All of that probably sounds like I’m warding off criticism about the show's ending, but for me it’s actually been the opposite. 

For an ending which is all about narrative dissatisfaction, and failed potential and missed opportunities, and how we need to come to terms with the lack of existential fairness and certainty and narrative control in our lives and keep ploughing forward all the same for as long as we possibly can, I’m massively stunned at just how positive the reception has been on here and elsewhere, and that’s something I’m actively having to process, because I think I was fearfully anticipating much more pushback.

But, look - the Eskew finale was originally quite poorly-received and then people came back around to it over time. So I’m not going to pat myself on the back too hard, because maybe it’ll ultimately be the opposite with this show, and that’s OK. For 200 years everyone was convinced King Lear was improved by having everyone survive at the end and get married. Endings take time to settle into their final condition.

For now, I am incredibly relieved that the ending we chose seems to have landed for most people, and I’m incredibly grateful for the lovely messages we’ve got about it and for the trust in us that you’ve all shown throughout the story.

So, yeah, let’s end with another thank you, because that’s what I feel so deeply and so forcefully at this point.

Thank you so much again, and speak soon.

Jon

*My take? We’ve established that the guy is in some kind of blue-collar job and has been pushed into constant overtime due to the reduced workforce. We’ve seen that the so-called ‘national holiday’ doesn’t actually rescue workers from their commitments. So I personally imagine that Eddie was working during the parade somewhere on the city outskirts, and is alive and well.

[johannestevans]

A Man's Indentures

Fantasy/romance short. A man indentured is dispatched to an island to be a bailiff’s bodyguard.

13.5k, M/M, rated M. A man indentured for his parents’ debts is dispatched to a magic-poor island to serve as bodyguard to the local bailiff — an imperfectly beautiful man who has indentures of his own.

Adapted from a TweetFic. CWs for economic violence and the violence of poverty as a cudgel throughout, non-consensual body modification, debts, sexual violence, etc.

Read on Medium. / / Read on Patreon.

---

His name is Josep Garnet, and he’s the most beautiful man on the island, perhaps even in the world.

It’s the commonly held opinion on the boat over. He overhears a man telling another traveller – not an indenture like Denari, but a tourist, a student of architecture and history intent on sketching the results of non-magical building techniques – how pretty he is, how even the straightest of men wants to fuck his arse or make use of his mouth, and two of the crew laugh and nod their heads and murmur their agreement.

He assumes it’s the same as it ever is – one man gushing about a favourite whore.

Garnet is pretty, true enough, when Denari lays eyes on him.

He’s tall with exaggerated features – high cheekbones, a narrow waist, a plump arse and thighs, delicate hands, pretty lips. His hair is the colour of lilacs, and but for his eyebrows, there’s no hair on his face at all.

His irises are the colour of pearls.

The white should be unnatural, should barely be distinguishable from the whites of his eyes, but there’s a dark ring around his irises showing the separation, and the effect is strangely hypnotising.

He’s guarded when he meets Denari, looking down at him with a cold expression. He dresses in fine clothes, neatly tailored and covering him from the top of his throat down to his toes, and he wears gloves as well. It’s a fine day, a little too fine to be wearing such a high-necked shirt and so many layers, but it’s not as though he’ll be the first man Denari’s ever met more concerned with modesty than sense.

They were meeting outside of a modest office at the portside, a set of noticeboards displaying documents of varying descriptions – bounties on debtors who had fled to the mainland, a few calls for particular objects of value, stolen or simply rare, a few open job postings and vacancies.

“You’re indentured?” Garnet asks.

“Uh huh,” Denari says. “Since I was a lad. I’m to stay in lodgings at the debtors’ house?”

“That’s correct,” Garnet says, gracefully inclining his head. “You’ll have a bed, three square meals, a little money to play with. It’s hardly an extensive allowance, particularly with the economy here on the island, but it’s something. How much longer have you?”

“Thirty years.”

Garnet’s pretty eyebrows rise – they’re delicate things, carefully plucked like a woman’s, thin. His eyelashes are fine things too.

“You racked up high debts,” he remarks dryly. His tongue is pierced, Garnet sees, a silver barbel shining inside his mouth when he speaks.

“My da did,” Denari says, and shrugs his shoulders. “What else was a son for, he said, but to pay off a man’s debts?”

Garnets says nothing to this, but his nostrils flare – he’s got damn near no hair at all in them, and his nose is a prettily carved thing too. Denari sees all these details, sees that he’s pretty, but there’s something artificial in it, something constructed, that sets his teeth on edge.

“Come,” Garnet says, shouldering a bag and taking up a box of papers, gesturing for Denari to take up a cart outside the office, which Denari does. “I’ll lead you to the central square, and then to the debtors’ lodge.”

“Yessir,” says Denari, and Garnet blinks, frowning slightly, but he makes no comment as they walk side by side through the city streets. The island is quite hilly in places, a mountain in the distance, but Denari is relieved to find that although the road Garnet leads him down weaves somewhat through the various buildings, public gardens, statues, and monuments, he does not lead him uphill, and the road beneath them has much more evenly laid stone than he might have guessed for a magical island like this one.

Lesh is a large island with a few scattered, smaller islands in the seas around it, although they’re even more treacherous to journey to than the mainland and back, and starved of significant magic as it is, it’s impossible to build with active magic. It’s full to the brim with examples of fine art or novel forms of architecture, building, and garden design – the lack of magic and magical technology forces students of the craft to be innovative if they can’t be rich, and even the very richest are still beholden to the limitations of physical labour.

There’s a reason so many indentures are dispatched here to the island from all across the continent.

“You been a bailiff long?” he asks.

“Twelve years,” Garnet answers.

“You like it?”

“No.”

Denari sniggers, and they walk in silence for most of the rest of the way, which is no hardship. Denari looks at the different houses and public buildings around them – museums, shops, different storefronts, and all the public art, as well. Now and then, Garnet will gesture to one building or another, saying who lives there, or saying what that business sells.

The lodging house is uphill from the central square, but it’s not too painful of a walk, and although it’s a little steeper than he’d like, the bricks are well-textured and the wheels on the cart have been given additional grip to help them keep their purchase, not to mention a complex system of braking mechanisms to ensure a safe stop even if they were on a steep incline.

“I live not far from here,” Garnet says once Denari parks the cart outside of the central office.

“You indentured yourself?”

“In a way,” is the cool answer. “The evening is your own – I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Aye, sir,” Denari says.

Garnet gives him a queer look this time, as though Denari’s said something very odd or unusual, but he makes no comment as he disappears into the office with his papers.

Inside that night, Denari listens to the other boys laugh as they talk about him, about Garnet’s pretty arse, talk about tugging on his pale purple hair, talk about the magic in his voice and the spit on his lips, about how every word he says drips with lust – and not just that, but a woman’s lust, a whore’s lust, the lust of a bitch desperate to be bred, and doesn’t even care who by.

Denari, swinging in his hammock, takes this in with vague interest and distant disbelief, and wonders what exactly fucking piece he’s missing here.

“He’s a born slut,” says the fella in the next hammock over. “Craves a man as most crave bread and water.”

They’re laughing, the other men, but it’s not the mocking laughter of sarcastic comments – it’s laughter more of agreement, horny agreement, and Denari shifts his leg, making his hammock swing a little wider from one side to the other. They all seem to believe it, what they’re saying.

He thinks of Josep Garnet, cool and a bit haughty, but with a careful blankness to his face and his tone, covered in layers of fabric, and tries to imagine him injecting lust into anything he’d said today.

Hmm.

* * *

“Master Fayt, you are six weeks overdue on your repayment,” Garnet says, sounding almost board as he looks up from his clipboard. “Good faith has been extended to you, but it is swiftly evaporating. If you cannot pay us an instalment today—”

“D’you get off on this?” Fayt growls.

He’s a big man, bearing, and Denari gets ready to beat him back if he lunges for Garnet, but as soon as he’s within six feet of the man, his angry demeanour changes, a ripple passing over his face, and his snarl becomes more of a sneer.

“You do, don’t you?” he asks lowly.

Men might lie with men in all kinds of ways, fuck them all manner of ways too, but Denari’s never seen a man look at another the way that Fayt is looking at Garnet now – maybe, he’s seen a man look at a male whore this way, but even then, he doesn’t think so.

There’s a derision in his face usually reserved for women as he looks Garnet up and down, and Denari can see Garnet isn’t surprised. He sets his jaw, presses his lips together, leans his head slightly back, as Fayt asks, “You do, don’t you? Fuck yourself to the thought of it? Finger yourself raw thinking of the men you humiliated, casting them out of their homes, their businesses?”

Garnet’s tone is even, his voice measured and slow, as he says, “Master Fayt, even a small instalment paid today—”

“Why? The fuck good is the gold to a whore like you – going to stuff it up that greedy cunt of yours?” There’s a snarl on his lips as he spreads his thighs and grips at his crotch through his trousers, making an obscene gesture. “I’ve something better for you, you little bitch, come here and—”

“Denari,” says Garnet, sounding almost bored as he turns away and rolls his eyes, and that’s all the invitation he needs to break the fucker’s nose.

Fayt hits the floor hard, clutching at his face instead of his cock now, and Denari can see something dazed in his eyes as he looks up at Garnet for a second as though he’s never seen him before.

“Go in, boys,” Garnet barks out, and the other men get ready to move as Denari grabs Fayt by the shoulder and hauls him up and away, taking him out front and out of the way of Garnet and his work. “Start with the booze, then the crystal.”

* * *

All week, it’s the same – a lot of the men seem straight as you please, men who’d never so much as glance at a boy even if he was paid for and trussed up ready for them, but once they’re close enough to Garnet physically, once they’re within the sphere of whatever influence he has, it’s like they forget it all.

“Ask, if you want to ask,” says Garnet over dinner one evening, the two of them at a table together. Garnet is a free man, for all he implies he’s half-indentured, and he invites Denari out twice, this one the second time. “I can see the question on your tongue.”

“Spell, is it?”

“Spell?”

“What makes men act the way they do around you,” Denari says.

“Men act as they act,” Garnet says lowly, taking a little sip of his drink.

He’s fussy about his drinks – whenever they come into a bar or a pub or a café, he keeps an eagle eye on whoever is making his drink no matter where he is, often requests or specifies a specific worker on shift, usually a woman. Even now, the two of them sitting in a booth separate from the rest of the pub with Garnet nestled against the wall, he keeps laying his palm over the open vessel of his drink as though to shield it from interference.

Two men tonight have tried to send over drinks for him tonight, and he’s refused each one: Denari’s drunk each of them, each time with Garnet wrinkling his nose at him and looking faintly disapproving.

“There’s an aura around you,” Denari clarifies. “Something that makes men lose themselves.”

“Not all men,” Garnet points out in a very quiet, nigh venomous tone – he’s almost smiling, though not quite. It’s a curiously angry expression, a hardness in his pearl-white eyes.

“They treat you the way they’d treat a woman,” Denari says. “Not just a woman, either – a whore, a cheap one.”

“Yes,” Garnet says. “You don’t, though, do you?”

Denari shrugs his shoulders. “Suppose not. Turn it off for me, do you?”

“Turn it off?” Garnet repeats, and he laughs – there’s genuine humour in it, caught by surprise, no matter that there’s an obvious bit of gallows in there. It makes the uncomfortable perfection in his face yield somewhat – the faint ghost of dimples, very nearly smoothed away, show around his mouth, and when he laughs, one eye closes more than the other.

Denari feels himself smile at the comforting softening of what feels like a polished mask, at the soothing appearance of those tiny little flaws.

“I’m not able to turn it off,” Garnet murmurs. “Would that I could.”

“Another drink for you,” says the woman from the bar, holding a tall glass of honeyed cider. “From that fella over there, this time. Surgeon from the tall ship out of Ila.”

“Take it if you want it,” Garnet says when Denari looks across at him for permission. “Sari wouldn’t let him put anything in it.”

“I might if he paid me enough,” argued Sari, and Garnet’s answering laugh was dry as Denari took the glass and tasted it, letting out a satisfied smack of his lips afterward.

“Free drinks taste good,” Denari said.

“You’re stupid,” Sari said, folding the tray under her arm – she was smiling at him flirtatiously, and Denari beamed right back at her as she said to Garnet, “I like him. You should keep this one.”

“We’ll see,” said Garnet, and looked back to his meal.

* * *

It doesn’t affect women, not in the same way. Some of them look Garnet’s way, true, look at the fine thing he is admiringly, desirously, but not in the conquering way the men do, even when they’re very close to him – some women smirk or mutter, give him foul or disgusted looks, laugh amongst themselves.

Most of them silently ignore it, or very occasionally give Garnet a look of sympathy, although Garnet never meets their gazes, never shares the sort of knowing look some women do with one another. They look his way, and he doesn’t look back.

The work is easy enough, though, and not particularly difficult. Here on Lesh, most of the work orders they have, for reclamations or evictions or whatever else, are for the very rich fucks who can afford to live on the island.

There are a handful of poorer free residents, but they live out on the island outskirts or on the smaller islands nearby, on the shittier and harder-to-work bits of land, where foundations can’t be built as deeply. Gods know, the work isn’t as hard on the soul when most of their responses are for businesses rather than individuals, and most of the individual debtor on the list are richer and have posh family to fall back on if they leave the island for the mainland.

“Come,” Garnet orders him one early afternoon, and Denari follows good-naturedly, his hands in his pockets. He’s been on the island a few months and he knows most of the streets okay by now, but they haven’t been down this one, and it’s a little too out of the way to use as a shortcut.

They’re up one of the steeper pathways, some of the oldest houses on the island built high around them and stretching up toward the sky. They’re made of carefully sculpted grey brick, every fifth brick sculpted of a shining silver that catches the light, and they all have silver edging around their windows, their doorframes, or silver filigree painted on their straits and beams and supporting columns.

Garnet leads Denari up the steps off the street and through a silver-arched doorway. All these houses are built flush together in a multi-levelled terrace as the street climbs higher up the slope, many of them with different coloured rooves and matched – this one’s roof tiles are dark green, and as well as the silver edging around the green-painted door, there’s a silver door-knocker as well.

Garnet doesn’t knock on it, just pushes the door open and heads right in, and Denari hesitates as he stands on the welcome mat.

“This place on the docket?” he asks, looking in bafflement at the fine hallway mirrors and the various expensive coats hung up on the rack.

“No, we’re breaking for lunch,” Garnet informs him, sweeping off his coat and hanging it up, and Denari obediently does the same.

All the harassment, the men’s eyes on him, the catcalls in the street, it never seems to interrupt Garnet’s natural sense of authority – he gives crisp orders as easy as breathing, and he’ll let any of their men call him any name, make any overture they feel like or curse in his face, but as soon as they disobey, he calls for the whip.

He always watches, too, stone-faced over the indentured men’s lodgings as the foreman brings the whip out, calls for a different braid or set of tails if he doesn’t feel the man is feeling it enough. He has a good eye for that sort of thing, even though he never delivers the beating himself – they always break under the punishment, make their apologies even though they never fucking mean them.

“One of them could rape you,” Denari had told him last night after one such beating. “They’re bigger men than you to a man – you not worried about making a show of punishing them like that, making them angry?”

“I ask for one thing and one thing only,” Garnet had replied. “That my enforcers do as they’re bid.”

“What, so long as they try to rape you off-duty, you’ve no quarrel about it?”

“I haven’t the time to spend worrying about such things.”

Denari doesn’t know if that’s true, but Garnet never does seem worried about it, never seems to show any anxiety. Maybe it’s a brave face, a refusal to show weakness in response to threats, but he doesn’t seem worried in their relaxed moments, either. He doesn’t seem worried now, the two of them in this painfully fine house, the door closing behind them.

“You live here?” Denari asks.

“Not anymore, no,” Garnet murmurs, and then smiles as a woman comes down the hall toward them. She’s a very finely dressed woman in a dark green dress, white pearls around her neck and hanging from her earlobes, and she reaches for Garnet’s cheeks, touching her thumbs against them as his hands go – seemingly automatically – for her waist. “Hello, Irin,” he says richly.

“Hello, Josep,” says Irin brightly, pecking Garnet on the lips before she draws away from him. “Who’s this?”

“Denari,” Garnet answers for him.

“Denari,” she repeats, and she sweeps around him, looking him up and down critically, appraisingly, her skirts shifting as she moves. He bows his head to her, saying nothing at first. “Well,” she hums. “Where did you come from, Denari?”

“Darjan, ma’am.”

“You miss the bustle of the city?”

“The island bustles plenty.”

“Does it?”

She shares a look Denari doesn’t understand the full meaning of with Garnet, and then leads them through to a warm and well-lit dining room, quickly setting another place for Denari at the table. A servant brings through plates for each of them, and Denari sits beside Garnet and begins to eat.

Little attention is paid to Denari as the two of them – Irin and Garnet – make idle and easy conversation with one another, plainly well familiar with each other. Not anymore, he’d said – what, they were married before? They’re too familiar with each other, physically, to be siblings.

Denari hopes.

“Work good?”

“It’s infuriating, as ever,” Garnet says. “And how’s your leisure, my dear?”

“The opposite of infuriating,” Irin says. “It’s quite perfect. I’ve just redecorated the salon.”

“I saw when we came down the corridor,” Garnet says. “I know you were worried about that wallpaper being overpowering when you ordered it in and you saw it on the bale, but now you’ve got it up it looks lovely.”

“As a feature wall only,” Irin says dismissively, waving her hand. “I was going to have it on all four, and that would have been a bit too much, I think.”

“What are you going to do with the rest of the bale?”

“Oh, I gave it to Kel Frenkel on the south side of the island.”

“On credit, presumably?”

“Credit’s long gone, now,” Irin says in satisfaction, smiling. “Two lovely new dresses, that wallpaper bought me.”

The food is fucking great, and it’s not like Denari knows anything about interior decorating beyond what’s easiest to lug into the back of the bailiffs’ wagon, so he doesn’t mind not being included in the conversation as he eats from his plate – fresh, perfectly salted ham peppered with flakes of crystal pepper that sizzles and pops on his tongue, root vegetables that have been pickled and fried to a gorgeous crunch, and a fresh and spicy side salad that refreshes the palate in between bites of the rest.

“Your hair is turning a lovely colour,” Irin says. “This soft lilac, it’s pretty – not quite grey, hm?”

They talk on with one another, the conversation idle and easy – it’s evident that they know a good deal about one another’s lives, and as much as Garnet seems very familiar with the house and the ins and outs of Irin’s wardrobe, Irin is very familiar with Garnet’s work and its rhythms, knows a lot more about debt collection than Denari would have expected of a posh and fancy woman like her.

He still isn’t quite sure if they’re siblings or lovers until Garnet helpfully makes it a bit clearer by turning the conversation and asking, “How’s the newest beau?”

“Dull,” Irin sighs. “Worse in bed than you were – he’s interested in art, vaguely, but he hasn’t any taste.” Than you were – ex-lovers, then.

“No?”

“We went to the mainland this week past, went to a museum in Lix.”

“Oh, at the Spire?”

“Oh, no,” Irin says witheringly, wrinkling her nose – it’s almost as pretty as Garnet’s. “A new built hall near the university, far too much natural light, more like a chapel than a museum. Aims to be historical, I think, but…” She trails off, shaking her head, then goes on, “I believe the exhibition’s intention was to showcase art and sculpture from different temple schools, but I assume there were budgetary limitations. Or academic ones.”

Garnet snorts. “You can hardly blame him for that,” he says diplomatically. “You held your tongue as to your criticism, I assume?”

“I was waiting for him to make some comment,” Irin says. “Walking down this agonisingly bright hall, seeming some sub bar pieces on display from the Solstice School, some oils that were never properly cured in between these shitty little clay sculptures, a piece of dryad’s topiary, no… No cohesion. No intention. Good curation is a lost art these days, I swear to the gods.”

“We can always agree on that,” Garnet says. “And him, um… Perry?”

“Petty.”

“Petty. He was too shy to make criticism, was he? What, sound carried too well in this awful hall, too worried about being overheard?”

“I don’t think it was anxiety – he’s a bit too stupid to know good from bad in this area, I think. The way he led us in there, I think he must have asked about as to what I might like and picked the first thing someone mentioned that had “art” in the sentence. We mostly walked in silence, him smiling like a dunce with a head injury. He kept asking, “Do you, erm, do you like this one?” whilst pointing at some plinth or other, and nonsense like that.”

“That’s a shame,” Garnet says, and then, in the casual tone one might ask after the weather in, “Going to marry him?”

“Maybe,” Irin muses. “It would be something to do with my summer.”

“One needs something to fill the days. And perhaps marriage would encourage him to buck up his ambitions.”

“Maybe,” Irin says, looking doubtful. “Like as not, though. He has money and his face is handsome enough – there are other men for the rest of it.”

“Tut tut,” Garnet says, and she laughs.

Denari’s almost finished with his plate, and now, having reached the natural lull in their conversation, they both look toward him.

“Do you wish to marry, Denari?” Irin asks.

“I don’t know anything about art either, ma’am,” he tells her, and her laugh is even more handsome as she laughs this time, her chin resting on her hand. Her teeth are a bit too perfect, too similar to the pearls she’s wearing in their whiteness and their smoothness, but it’s only her teeth that have been overworked like that – the rest of her face has a more natural, organic beauty to it, isn’t overpoweringly artificial in the way Garnet’s is.

“You’re a funny one,” Irin says, and Denari glances at Garnet, who leans back in his seat to watch the both of them speaking to one another, sipping at his wine. Denari’s never seen him look so at ease with a drink in his hands – in the whole time they’ve been in the house, he’s never covered his glass once. “Josep doesn’t usually socialise with his bodyguards much, let alone bring them here – most are stupid as mutton and smell almost as bad.”

Denari doesn’t know what to say to that, so he suffices himself to say, “He’s a good boss.”

“I bet,” Irin says.

“Was he a good husband?” Denari asks, his tone experimental, and he seems to have judged it rightly.

“Gods no, terrible,” Irin says, and her gaze flickers to Garnet’s unmoving face. “But he fucked well, and he was interesting. Made life quite exciting.”

When they make to depart, Irin kisses Garnet on the mouth, and Denari observes the want in her body, the way she presses her breast up against Garnet’s, tugs his hands to once more rest on her waist. He lets her kiss him, holds her as directed, but he makes no reciprocation, is cold as marble.

“Such a shame,” she murmurs when she pulls away. “You miss it, don’t you, Josep?”

“More than you do,” Garnet says with a bitter smile, and Irin’s laugh is airy, but has some scorn or schadenfreude in it, some slight cloud in her expression.

“Perhaps,” she allows. “But it’s a close thing.”

* * *

It’s an unpleasant afternoon. They evict two families in a row, each with young children and babes in arms – if it troubles Garnet at all, it doesn’t show in his face.

“Where am I to go!?” the second mother demands of him. The first had been the weepy, quiet sort, agonising to hear, to see, but at least passive – this one is a lot angrier. “Three children,” she hisses. “I tried to pay your instalments, but the interest kept going up – I’ve three children to shelter, to feed, to clothe. What am I to do?”

“Indenture the eldest,” Garnet suggests flatly, gesturing to the boy who has his arms around his sobbing siblings. He’s stout for his age, but round-faced – he can’t be older than twelve, and is probably younger. “Pay the others’ way with the price of him, if you can’t find work for him or yourself.”

The smack across Garnet’s face rings through the courtyard.

As they walk back to the lodgings in the evening, Garnet says without rancour, “You’re meant to guard me from harm, Denari.”

“It was one slap, she didn’t harm you,” Denari replies. “And you had it coming.”

“She shouldn’t breed so many mouths to feed if she can’t feed them.”

“If she doesn’t let her husband fuck her when he’s back from sea, she’ll not even have the pittance of his pay. And you know how unreliable contraceptives are on this island – better than me, I bet.”

“You’d win that bet,” Garnet murmurs.

Most contraceptives don’t work on the island for the same reason all the architecture is creative and non-magical, for the same reason there aren’t any mages around unless they’re obscenely powerful – Lesh and the surrounding islands are surrounded by heavy deposits of lassium, a heavy, dark ore that absorbs and interrupts magical flow. Magical contraceptives and charms, even herbs, are often sapped of their effect out here.

Lassium absorbs magic the same way that gold and other magic-conductive magics can channel it, and a lot of people can’t handle it directly without making themselves ill – the more magic that you naturally channel and carry through your body, the more damage it will do you.

Some assassins carry it – they have to be raised on islands like this, away from magic, to make sure they can handle their lassium-forged blades without the stress of it killing their bodies, and it’s a life-long commitment. They build up heavy magical resistance in their bodies, able to wield those blades, resist magical spells, but they can never be healed with magic either.

“Did she divorce you? Your wife?”

“Our marriage was dissolved.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

Denari shrugs. “Maybe not,” he says. “But I have my answer.”

Garnet disappears into the office to work through the last of the paperwork of the day, and it’s dark when he comes outside again. Denari’s shift is long-ended and he’s not on duty, but he’s sitting outside Garnet’s office just in case, and it turns out he’s right to.

Two of the bigger lads, Yett and Pul, see Garnet as he steps out of the office – they don’t see Denari, hidden in shadow where he’s leaned up against the wall, the hanging sign between him and the lantern’s light.

“Oh, here’s the pretty gem now,” says Pul, and Yett whistles.

“Look how tight he’s wearing those trousers.”

“Look at the cinch of his little waist.”

“Only seems little compared to that fat arse of his.” Yett raises his voice to ask, “You got pretty tits under that woman’s blouse too, boss?”

Garnet ignores the both of them, sweeping past – Yett’s features darken, and he gets to his feet.

Behind them, so does Denari.

Garnet grunts as his shoulders hit the stone of the modest bathhouse’s wall, one of Yett’s hands open over his breast.

“Hey, boss,” Pul scolds him, voice husky as he adjusts his trousers. “We were talking to you. Ain’t good manners to ignore a man saying hello.”

Garnet lets out a bitten out noise as Yett grips him between his legs, pressing his fingers up and between them – he’s stiff as a board and there’s a red blush on his cheeks, making his hair seem a darker purple under the dim lantern light.

He looks at Denari over the men’s shoulders, his expression unchanging, as Denari silently approaches from behind, grips Pul and Yett by each of their heads of hair, and knocks their heads together as hard as he can. He feels the hard clunk of bone on bone as much as he hears it, and they both yell then stumble, Yett dropping to his knees and Pul landing on his arse – with no further word at all, Garnet swiftly walks away from both of them and leaves the compound campus.

Denari goes inside for dinner.

* * *

“Thank you,” Garnet says tersely the next morning. “For last night.”

“You shouldn’t walk around here alone after dark,” Denari tells him. “You don’t see the laundry girls or secretaries doing that.”

“No,” Garnet mutters. “I just forget at times, that’s all.”

“Don’t see how you can forget.”

“I was thinking about work, not men roving about, wanting to swing their cocks as weapons to hit something with,” Garnet says quietly.

“You can’t afford to be distracted like that,” Denari advises him.

“Can’t I, indeed?” Garnet’s gaze is as scalding as his tone, and Denari breaks it automatically.

It’s raining as they go about their business that day, although they’re just in one warehouse, thankfully, reclaiming stock from a foreclosed carpet and furniture business.

Garnet doesn’t seem uncomfortable with the warehouse’s geography or how it’s laid out, seems to know it almost automatically – he’s as comfortable as he is in people’s homes, as he is in closed business, as he is anywhere.

A lot of bailiffs Denari’s worked alongside have been brisker, angrier men. It’s the sort of attitude you need in this line of work to stay on task over the grief and the fury and the mess of it all, something to distance you from everything, from everybody.

Garnet’s haughty distance is in many ways more frightening than a regular bailiff’s obvious and open anger and rage – it’s more off-putting, seems less human, somehow, and yet that control serves him frighteningly well.

Whether they’re taking the safes and staplers out of a closed-down bank storefront or turfing out an aged widow from her reclaimed family home and taking her heirloom porcelain away to pay off her husband’s debts, it’s all stock to Garnet, just listed numbers in blue and red columns.

What’s really frightening, sometimes, is how fair he is.

He has no patience for someone trying to barter with him, trying to assure him that certain items are worth more than they really are against their accounts, trying to blag a foreign currency off as if he doesn’t know every damn rate of exchange by rote – checks them twice a day.

But at the same time, more than once, he’s been in some family home with people in tears in front of him and barked, “Stop!” at the collectors as he points to a specific piece – furniture or a curio or a piece of clothing or jewellery.

“This cabinet,” he’d said a few weeks back, “is a Vex original. It will be worth two thousand crowns on the mainland with only minimal restorative work.”

“That? But it’s just an old cupboard, my grandma brought it with her when they came on the boat!”

“It will pay off the bulk of your loan and its dues, leaving approximately 8% of the account outstanding. With your permission, we will reclaim this cabinet only, and you can work out a payment plan for the remainder. Is this acceptable?”

It puts some people off, Denari knows. When somebody’s in desperate tears, trying to reckon with a lender’s cleaving through their life, the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen talking coolly about dues and percentages is a little too much to cope with.

Denari watches him now as he trails down the numbers on the board with his pen, his expression blank as ever. He wonders if that’s what makes it look so inhumanly perfect above all else, the fact that he barely fucking moves it, wears his face like a static mask.

There are bruises beginning to bloom on his neck where the carpet seller had grabbed him before Denari could haul him off.

He’d breathed into Garnet’s face as he’d clasped him by the skinny neck, shoved one of his knees between Garnet’s thighs – he’d been about ready to shove him back over a stack of red rugs.

Guy’s in cuffs now and outside against the wall.

Garnet looks rattled by it, Denari thinks. It doesn’t show in his facial expression, no, but his white eyes are moving up and down the board a few times too many, and his breathing is just a little bit faster than usual.

“You need to do much in the office today?”

“No, why? Want a reprieve?”

“Let’s get a drink,” Denari suggests.

Denari watches the blink of Garnet’s pearly eyes, the flutter of his pretty eyelashes, before he raises his head and looks back at him. “A drink?” he repeats, tilting his head to one side.

“We haven’t gotten one in a while. Seems a nice evening for it.”

“Fine,” Garnet says impassively, and looks back to the board. His breaths remain fast, he’s still a little bit distracted, but Denari fancies his shoulders have loosened just a little bit, and the set of his lips softens just a fraction.

Denari walks away from him to help the other guys haul shit out, but he always keeps Garnet in his eyeline.

* * *

“Mr Garnet,” says a rich voice as they approach the bar, and Denari looks at the man in front of them, old and liver-spotted, wizened. He’s very tall and was likely handsome in his day – he wears very expensive-looking mage’s robes, the golden embroidery alive and moving on his belt and around the hems of his skirts, the lacing on his boots and his robe front.

Denari can feel lit, can feel the magic that pulses through him and around him – he’s no sorcerer himself, has no real sense for the stuff himself, but after these four or so months on the island, he’s barely so much as seen any magic in operation, alone been close enough to feel its pulse.

The guy must be crazy powerful in order to command this sort of casual magic even on a magic-dead island like this one, and when Denari glances back at Garnet, he sees that the man’s eyes are down on the floor.

“Doctor Keenchild,” Garnet says with an overwhelming politeness, the deference not seeming right on him at all.

“Keenchild,” Denari repeats even though he’s suddenly distantly terrified, even though he wants anything but this guy’s attention – he only realises in this moment what a relief it’s been, living here on Lesh with no threat of spellwork or enchantment. He might still be indentured here, but at least no one can reach out with their magic and puppet him around, move his limbs for him, reach into his brains and shuffle his thoughts and feelings around – reach into his body and shuffle other shit around, too.

“That make you the boss of bosses?” Denari asks, looking the mage in the eyes, which are blue but pulse with crackling energy under their surface. “Keenchild & Co.?”

“Boss of bosses, what a curious turn of phrase,” he murmurs. “You’re Mr Garnet’s new guard, hm?”

“Yessir.”

“I believe I own your indenture,” Keenchild says with infuriating nonchalance. “Lew Denari, six-and-thirty, from good breeding stock, I think. A dockworker and a baker, hm? Your parents passed their strong muscle onto you, I see – and not too ugly, either.”

Denari doesn’t flinch as the old man tucks up his chin, his knuckles warm and tingling against the underside of Denari’s jaw. The magic radiating from him shoots through him, crackles under his skin and makes all the hair on his body feel like it’s standing to attention. He’s not surprised by the touch or the casual sense of ownership, but what does make him let out a grunt of surprise is a tiny zap of energy the old man sends into the sides of his jaw, compelling his mouth to open so that the old man can examine his teeth.

As Keenchild grips him by his face, peering at his teeth the way a farrier might examine those of a horse, he says in idle tones, “Very good, very good.”

Denari’s stomach churns, and he feels the awful ghost of Keenchild’s touch on his face even as he retracts his hand.

“That seems a nasty mark on your neck, Garnet. Caught in bed with someone’s wife again, hm?”

“A debtor, sir.”

“Of course.”

Keenchild’s hand withdraws very slowly, and even as it draws farther and farther away, Denari can feel the static weight of his magic lingering against him, the stubble on his face tingling, the hairs inside his nose, his ears.

“Best keep him out of trouble, don’t you?” he says to Denari, making a nod of his head toward Garnet. It should make his big stupid traditional wizard’s hat shift on his head, but he must keep it in place with magical pins. “Used to be no punishment could deter this young man from sowing his wild oats… We found a solution though, didn’t we? And aren’t you all the prettier for it?”

As he steps away from the bar, he leans in to murmur in Garnet’s ear, and Garnet stands very still to let him, then gives a brisk, short nod. Denari doesn’t think he imagines, based on the abrupt lurch of Garnet’s posture, the way he suddenly straightens by an extra half-inch, that the old man gives his arse a squeeze as he departs.

Denari and Garnet sit down at a booth separate from most of the bar – their usual spot in this place, a shadowed booth that keeps men from noticing Garnet as they walk past, keeps them from wanting to touch him – and there’s no space for them to sit at the table.

“Keenchild,” Denari says after they sit in silence for a few minutes, their drinks untouched on the table. “He did this to you. The, uh… That.”

“He did.”

“’Cause you were sowing your wild oats.”

“I think it was less the sowing itself and more the fields in which I ploughed,” murmurs Garnet, stirring his drink with a cocktail umbrella Denari’s pretty sure was intended as some kind of humiliation.

“Fuck does that mean?”

“Well, I fucked Keenchild’s youngest daughter,” Garnet says. “And the eldest. One of the sons, no idea which, don’t really recall. I’d previously lain with his first wife once while she was visiting the island – the third came to live here and we carried on an affair together for some time.”

Denari looks at him, wondering for a second if Garnet is joking, but it’s not like humour is ordinarily his strong suit. “How long?”

“Oh,” Garnet murmurs, scratching the nape of his neck and looking thoughtful. “Four years, thereabouts.”

“You were a shit husband to Irin.”

“But always an excellent lover.”

“And so, what, he took your cock away and put in a cunt instead?”

“Somewhere in between,” Garnet says. Maybe this frankness would be surprising from somebody else, but it’s not, not from Garnet. “What he did to me went a little… A little wrong, I think, because of the way magic is distorted, its flow blocked, here on the island. He wasn’t satisfied with his first attempt, so…” Garnet is still and silent for a few moments, and then he slowly brings his drink to his mouth and takes a sip. “The first was an attempt at emasculation – to replace the features I had with something more to his liking, that he might plunder me as I had plundered what was his. He wanted more, though, to add further punishment – a curse, then. For men to not only desire me, but desire me as men do women, to see me as a prize to take, to pillage. And to the nth degree, at that.”

“Men hate women on this island,” Denari says. “I’ve lived in a few kingdoms, different places – it’s the worst here I’ve ever seen. The rape, the abuse. All of it.”

“Mm, yes, so I’ve learned,” Garnet says dispassionately. “Magic is in many ways an equaliser, and all forms of violence here are exaggerated, those of class, caste, and economy included.”

“You been raped?”

“That was rather my point, yes.”

Denari nods his head.

“You don’t,” Garnet says.

“Rape, me? Fuck no.”

“You don’t desire me, either,” Garnet says. “You’re inverted in that way, are you? You like men only?”

“You’re a man still, aren’t you?” Denari asks, and Garnet looks faintly ill, but doesn’t answer. “I do like men,” Denari says. “Men mostly, I’d say – not only, but nearly wholly. Didn’t you say you’d fucked one of Keenchild’s sons?”

“Only from behind – he was pretty.”

Denari faintly laughs, because it just doesn’t match up with the man before him now, the way he speaks on his past. His entitlement, his haughtiness, that matches up, but… Well. As perverse as it is, he guesses that was Keenchild’s intention.

“I probably don’t desire anybody like I would have,” Denari adds.

“Like you would have?” Garnet repeats blankly.

“Were I not gelded,” Denari says. When Garnet seems uncomprehending still – he would have thought it was noted in his indenture papers, but maybe Garnet missed that bit, or just didn’t recognise the symbol – he adds, “They cut me when I was twelve. I was already indentured, and too unruly before I fully entered my puberty. They cut out the problem at the root, so to speak.”

Garnet has turned a few shades paler. “The whole thing? Rod and tackle?”

“Just my bollocks,” Denari says. “I’ve a cock, but it’s not developed in the way it should be, a little small. Still get hard, though, can still have sex after a fashion, I just don’t lust like a lot of people do. They did it slow, like you do with sheep.”

“I’m not familiar with sheep, or at least, not this element of their care. Is castrating a sheep so different to castrating a man?”

“It’s normally a quick cut, a little surgery. They still wanted me to grow, though, to toughen, put on muscle. They cut off the blood flow with a magic band, let my bollocks shrivel and die so they just fell off. No direct cutting, and they used some kind of magic to juice them of their essence, so I would still grow tall and hairy, but lose my wilful spirit.” He laughs darkly.

Garnet only looks more ill now, his skin tinged green.

“I could,” Denari says, and then, “I do.”

Garnet’s chalk-pale face shifts, his pretty brows furrowing, his head tilting marginally to one side. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I rather lost our conversational thread somewhere about the point your bollocks fell off.”

“Desire you.”

That puts a little colour back into the other man’s face – two pinpricks of pink initially show at the tops of his cheeks, and then the colour bleeds downwards and reddens his face. It’s a nice colour, healthy. His lips look a bit pinker too.

“Are you indentured or not?” Denari asks. He’d assumed before that Garnet was a free man, but he has his doubts now. It’s one thing to do this sort of modification on a slave or indenture, but on a free man? “In a way, you said before.”

“Not in the literal sense,” Garnet says. “Used to be I was saving to leave.”

“Used to be?”

Garnet nods his head, sliding his palm over his lips. “Irin and I – Irin’s from a wealthy family as you could see from the house, me, my family were fishermen, mostly. Her money’s tied up here on the island, so the plan was for us to retire in Nez. Warm, cultured, lots of magical conveniences – outside of Alexia, maybe.”

“Strict laws about indentures in Nez,” Denari says. “Slavery outlawed, no indentures, can’t even make prisoners labour.”

“Yes,” Garnet says. “What with the popularity of magical constructs there, in the libraries, the museums, the way constructs have been able to develop complex personalities and demand the rights that go with them, Nez is quite committed to all forms of liberty.”

“Don’t want that anymore?”

“When Keenchild caught me… Well. It’s a deformation, enough to dissolve a marriage, and my desire for women, for sex, really, evaporated. The intimacy is nice, but I lost the drive I once had, the hunger, the need, the craving. There used to be such triumph in it, too, but no longer. And now I can’t leave the island.”

“Why, Keenchild won’t let you?”

“It’s not a matter of let,” Garnet murmurs. “Retiring to the mainland with Irin was quite the thought once upon a time, but now? You think this curse is powerful here on Lesh, with all its interruptions and dampening of magical flow – on the mainland, I’d be torn to shreds in short order if I was lucky.”

Denari wrinkles his nose. It’s his turn to feel sick now, knows he probably looks pretty green – under the table, Garnet’s foot brushes against Denari’s, and their ankles touch against one another. His skin is warm, but not in the unnatural way that Keenchild’s had been. It’s nice.

“He fuck you?” Denari asks.

Garnet’s foot immediately withdraws, but he feigns ignorance as he asks, “Who?”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Denari says. “Just the, um, the way he touched you, the way he looked at you, Keenchild. You owe him a debt?”

“No. I’ve always been very careful about debts and loans,” Garnet says. “But he owns most of an island I cannot leave, controls the only protections I might reach for, so he has my leash in hand either way.”

“You ever want another line of work?”

“I can’t cope with offices,” Garnet murmurs. “I don’t like desks.”

“You don’t like desks?” Denari repeats with a short laugh. “What?”

“Sitting at them, the static expectation, the chairs. The paperwork. I hate it.”

“You do mountains of paperwork in a day,” Denari points out.

“Yes, but most of it is outside or somewhere different, with a clipboard. Offices, they’re stifling. I may not be a fisherman, but I retain my family’s natural inclination to free movement.”

“Bizarre,” Denari murmurs, though not without fondness.

“You must have a dream or two,” Garnet says. “What you’ll do when free of your indentures.”

“A few decades left to go.”

“You never think on it?”

“I try not to.”

“But when you do?”

Denari exhales. “Not this,” he says. “I hate moneylenders, hate enforcement. The violence of it. I’ve considered retirement to Nez myself.”

“You’re a very good fighter for disliking violence.”

“A fight can never be as violent as the process of a place like this,” Denari murmurs. “Homes held ransom, families made homeless. Children bought and sold as commodities – indenture, slavery, interest and due demands. Money itself seems to be a hangman’s noose.”

“Not so much as a lack of money is,” Garnet says, though he seems far from offended, “but I take your point. What for you, then, on retirement? Baking? Making candlesticks? Keeping bees?”

“Dunno. What does Irin do?”

“Enjoys herself.”

“I could give that a try.”

Garnet’s smile is a bright flash, and as warm as sunlight.

* * *

It’s an hour later that sees them in Garnet’s modest lodgings outside of the city centre, the windows double-barred, four sets of locks on the door, lights over every entrance.

Garnet’s pretty lips are well-practised at kissing, and his hands aren’t shy on Denari’s body.

Denari pushes Garnet back from him in the bedroom and falls on top of him on the bed, beginning to layer kisses on the side of his neck before Garnet can draw him into a kiss again. The other man sighs and arches his back as Denari eases him out of his clothes and drops them aside.

The bruises on his throat, beginning to darken now, look agonisingly obvious against the skin, the purple in them bringing out the colour in Garnet’s hair. He has some softness to his breast, and when Denari tongues over one pink nipple, Garnet lets out a keen.

His skin is sensitive, and Denari takes pleasure in mouthing over his body, tonguing over his nipples, tracing over his navel, and finally breathing hot air over his cock.

It’s on the smaller side, struggles to harden. He can see where the magic hasn’t taken full effect – he has bollocks only half-descended, soft and small, and in the midst of the sac flush to his body is the tiniest, shallowest cunt he’s ever seen. It’s wet, but scarcely deeper than Denari’s thumb.

Garnet howls when Denari licks his finger and strokes about the rim of it, and squirms desperately as Denari sucks Garnet’s cock into his mouth at the same time.

He comes easily, sweat a golden sheen on his body, and in the aftermath he looks up at Denari awed and exhausted.

“Your turn,” he says dazedly, reaching with a clumsy hand for Denari’s waistband.

“I don’t really spend,” Denari says. “I get hard, after a bit of work – but it’s more for the intimacy. It doesn’t satisfy me like I think it does you.”

Garnet’s expression is unreadable, his pearly eyes wide. “You’re sure?” he asks. His voice has urgency, solicitous and genuinely earnest, as he asks, “What can I do for you?”

“Let me hold you,” says Denari.

Garnet’s expression crumples, such vulnerability showing in his usually perfect marble features as Denari’s ever seen, and Denari cups one of his cheeks, kissing the opposite side. Garnet curls into him, moulds their bodies against one another, and Denari marvels at how soft and silky Garnet’s hair is under his fingers, at the warmth of his body.

“Keenchild,” Denari says after half an hour of this, dozing in the dark together.

Garnet, sounding half-asleep, grunts against Denari’s breast, one arm banded over the roundness of his belly. “What about him?”

“He going to fuck you? That what he said in your ear?”

“Mm.”

“You have to go?”

“Not tonight.”

“But you can’t… not?”

“No.”

“Sorry.”

“Jealous?”

“Sad. Angry for you.”

“I’ve not much space in me for anger any longer,” Garnet murmurs, his thumb stroking up and down Denari’s sternum. “That’s one more thing that’s been robbed of me – another modification to suit me to Keenchild’s preferences.”

“It’s the most fucked up thing about it, being enslaved or indentured or ensorcelled, even,” Denari says. “That you should be customised and tailored like a bespoke suit, your body owned by somebody else and changed out from underneath you.”

“Oh, yes, quite, a horror, all of it,” Garnet agrees dismissively, and curls all the closer. “But here, respite.”

“Respite,” Denari repeats, and closes his eyes as he holds Garnet tighter.

* * *

Denari sees Irin a week later while he’s picking up dockets from one of the lenders on the west of the island – Garnet had made the journey to Keenchild’s home, and said he was unlikely to return for a few days, if not a week. Four nights they’d shared a bed, and every night since, Denari thinks about it, about where Garnet is, about what Keenchild is doing to him.

“Hello, Denari,” says Irin when she sees him, moving directly through the market toward him, several bags over one of her arms.

“Call me Lew,” he says. “If it suits you.”

“You know,” she says, her eyes sparkling as she puts her arm confidently in his and draws him with her, “it does.”

He takes her bags and walks with no great rush, watching as Irin peruses the different market stalls, picking out this thing and that – a silk scarf, some hand-made earrings, a basket of apples.

“You don’t have to, Lew,” she says, her naturally mischievous features becoming more serious when he takes the third box from a trader and carries them under his other arm. “I can have all this delivered.”

“I don’t have to,” Denari agrees. “I’m free in this moment to do as I please.”

Her expression is a mask of distant discomfort, and he smiles at her hesitation. “You don’t live far, and I’m a strong man,” he says. “I’ve carried greater loads than this for farther distances, and with no choice in the matter at all.”

“Yes,” she mutters. “You have.”

After dwelling on this emotional dissonance, she finds a middle ground that seems to satisfy her – for every item she picks out for herself, she picks one out for Denari.

“Oh, new boots, these will be splendid for you.”

“What a handsome shirt, the same shade as your eyes!”

“Do you like to fish, Lew?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Irin, Irin, please. Would you like to start? I’m sure Josep would take you.”

“Does he fish?”

“No, but he likes to get himself wet and splash about. I’m sure you’d work it out together.”

An hour or so later, Denari stands in the hall, watching Irin remove her gloves and hat, laying them down on the hall table as a servant takes away the things Irin has bought for herself – the servant is a free woman, Denari sees.

“It’s how my family made their money,” Irin says when Denari watches after her leaving. Denari is packing the ridiculous number of gifts Irin had bought for him into a crate that had been brought out for him. “Centuries back, my great great whatevers were sorcerers of renown – they didn’t lend money or take debts, but they enchanted collars and made charms.”

“Slavery?” Denari asks.

“Mm,” Irin hums. “Not of men or elves, at first – they started out making saddles and bridles, began enchanting them for use on magical beasts, you know, magical elk and deer, great fae horses.” Her tone is quieter as she leads him through to the salon, pouring him tea before she pours her own. “They captured a centaur and wanted to modify a saddle, to “tame” him as punishment, and then when the war with the orcs started in the Bright Kingdoms, the same enchantments were modified for them, and soon enough…” She makes a sweeping gesture. “Moving to indentures over slavery was the moral choice, apparently.”

“Most places these days don’t allow for it,” Denari says. “Or they limit the duration – me, I was taken as a boy, and the time on me was most of a lifetime.”

“Your parents were taken in by a bad loan?” she asks with sympathy. “Or gambling?”

“Legal action,” he says. “My father worked on the docks, and there was a bad accident one day, a beam on a ship broke and landed into a flour store. The enchantments weren’t up to code – huge boom. The ship had been written off and abandoned a decade before, the company long-since dissolved, so they went for the dockers.”

“Fucking Hells,” she hisses, and it makes him laugh, how easily she swears with her posh islanders accent. “I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is. You out of that trade now, I guess?”

“My mother divested us when my father died – not sooner, mind you. Only when it became unpopular.”

“What do you think of Garnet?”

“What do you mean?”

Denari sips at the tea she’s poured for him, shrugging his shoulders. “He’s not exactly opposed to the practice, is he? Heard him suggest it to a family the other day.”

“He wasn’t always as he is now,” Irin says, pulling her legs up underneath her on the sofa and tugging a blanket over his lap. “He used to be angrier, used to be…” She stops, sighs.

“He told me about it,” Denari says. “That his personality was different, before, um… He’s at Keenchild’s at the moment.”

“I heard he was on the island. He pushed his luck too far with it – I used to tell him so, the way he used to be, so spirited, so… Well, so stupid. Keen with numbers, sharp, with this edge of justice to him, but rebellious.”

“Rebellious?”

“Oh, yes,” Irin says. “It wasn’t just the sex he was wild about, fucking people all around – that never bothered me anyway. No, he used to come home and would talk about what he’d done that day. How he’d fiddled the numbers here or there, helped a man out, made sure a child escaped indenture. That sort of thing. Now… It’s not that he doesn’t care. He does, still, it’s… It’s all distant for him compared to how it used to be. What that spell did to him, it didn’t just soften his features, make him pretty, it separated him from his heart, a little. From the passion he used to have.”

Denari’s nausea is a distant thing, but he’s very aware of it, of the bubble in the base of his stomach. “Broke his spirit,” he supplies, and Irin nods her head.

“Yes,” she says. “Exactly.”

“He can’t reverse it?”

“Keenchild’s the most powerful sorcerer from here to Nez, I expect,” Irin murmurs. “To leave the island would be difficult – to find a witch not just powerful enough, but willing to do the work, and not affected by the magic themselves… I’ve sent letters. Tried to invite people, even, but most of them wouldn’t risk the journey to Lesh, and without a way to guarantee Josep’s safety on the mainland.” She strokes a hand over the blanket in her lap. “No, no, he’s stuck that way, I think. It might die with the old man – or dissipate after his death, at least, it might take a few days. The physical changes, those are permanent.”

“You still love him,” Denari says, and Irin looks slightly surprised.

“Well, of course,” she says simply. “Why would I not?”

“He’s different. In personality, in body, in everything.”

“Not by choice,” she says. “We’re no longer man and wife, but of course, I love him.”

“He loves you,” Denari says confidently, and Irin smiles, her eyes shining.

“He does – quite adores me, really,” she says. “He fucked insatiably when we were married, women, mostly, but pretty boys too. Brought some home for us to share, at times – he’d bring gifts, mostly. Cakes, jewellery. He was so… You see him now, and he’s so reserved, so subtle in everything. He used to serenade me in the street, used to fall to his knees and sing.”

“That sounds awful,” Denari says honestly, and Irin laughs, and it’s a beautiful laugh, bright, easy.

“Oh, it was – his voice isn’t awful, but he’s no bard. He’d drop to his knees on the cobbles, kiss my skirts, grip me about the waist, sing me love songs or quote me poetry.”

“Other women too?”

“Not the serenades, I don’t think – I was married to him, after all, I had to put up with more than most.” She was smiling faintly. “But yes, he was effusive. With compliments, about his skills as a lover, about the beauty of the world. He was a very bright flame once.”

Denari nods, slowly. The past few nights, he has been surprised by Garnet’s passion on some things – it’s not effusive or loud or exaggerated, but it has been potent. He’s quoted poetry against Denari’s chest, talked philosophy, complimented him.

He wonders what he might have been like, had they gelded him later, or had he not been gelded at all – would he have been as bright as all that, laughing, singing in the street? Angrier, more wilful, a revolutionary?

“He likes you very much,” Irin says quietly. “He seems to feel very safe with you – it’s good to see. I’ve not seen him so relaxed since before Keenchild bound him up, seen him loving something. Someone.”

“He soothes me too,” Denari says. “I feel at liberty with him, I guess.”

Irin squeezes his hand. “Good,” she murmurs. “That’s good.”

“Will he interfere? Keenchild? He mentioned having my indenture papers.”

“I doubt it,” Irin says. “He already has what he wants from Josep, and takes it as he pleases.

The next sip of Denari’s tea is bitter on his tongue.

* * *

Denari returns to the lodge to find that his bunk has been tripped of its sheets, his meagre possessions – his boots, his towel, a few books, his clothes – have been packed into his travelling trunk and await him in the hallway.

“The fuck?” he demands.

“You don’t look pleased,” says the lodging warden – he’s a grumpy old sod most of the time, but now he’s got a faint smile on his face.

“Why would I be pleased? My rank as Garnet’s guard, my seniority, I deserve that bunk, I—”

The warden looks at him, laughs, and says, “Boy, you’ve no need of that fucking bunk. Your friend, Garnet, bought out your indenture – you’re a free man.”

The next argument dries into dust on his tongue, his indignation evaporating, and he stands still, frozen.

“Wh…” He looks about himself, uncomprehending – there are tousles for rank and territory from time to time, shuffles of power and struggles between indentures, and it had been natural for him to assume this was more of the same, someone taking the fucking piss.

More believable.

He muses it over in his head, what he’s going to do next, staying the night at one of the public lodgehouses, the ones for free men. When Garnet comes through, Denari is sitting on his trunk outside the bathhouse with Irin’s box of gifts beside him on the floor.

“I have your papers here,” Garnet says, almost shyly. “Officiation of our debt paid in full – ordinarily, upon completion of your repayment, you would receive a stipend of a fractional wage per year served, but—”

“How the fuck did you afford it?” Denari asks, looking up at him.

Garnet, clipboard in hand, shrugs his delicate shoulders. “Since my punishment, I’ve lived very modestly – I paid a third. Irin has a fund to pay off indentures as well, a reparations fund.”

“She paid the other two thirds?”

“Not her, no, but her charity. I took out a loan with them against my salary – at a very reasonable rate of return, I might add. My credit is more well-regarded than most, what with my profession.”

Denari stares at him, his mouth ajar, as he thinks of Garnet telling him he’s never been in debt before. As he stands over Denari now, he slowly crumples, his shoulders tightening, his perfect mouth twisting.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out. “I should have asked your permission, I acted on impulse, I—”

Garnet lets out a startled noise as his shoulders hit the wall. The clipboard and the officiation of Denari’s freedom flutter to the courtyard floor with a pouch of coin, and Denari focuses on the pleasant heat of Garnet’s cheeks under his palms as he cups the other man’s face.

“You’ve freed me, and you apologise,” he murmurs. “You are mad, Josep Garnet.”

Garnet’s lips part, and Denari delicately traces his lower lip with his thumb before he leans in and kisses him, brushes their lips against one another. It’s rather tender, lacking in urgency on either of their sides – it’s nice.

“I don’t own you,” Garnet bafflingly feels the need to assure him. “I don’t, you owe me no doubt, there is no obligation, and I was already working to pay off your debt, you must understand, it wasn’t only because we became intimate with one another, it’s—”

Denari’s never heard him speak so much in so short a time. “Yes, I know,” he says. “I see my papers there – I know how you are. You did a very kind thing, and you acted with all the fairness due the situation.”

He can feel Garnet’s pulse under his fingers. “Yes,” he says.

“You know, all of a sudden, I find myself with no place to stay at the fault of some stranger,” says Denari. “Without meaning to indebt myself to you, Mister Garnet, might I trouble you for a place to stay?”

Garnet stares at him, his lips thinning. It’s a perfectly severe look. “Are you making fun of me?” he asks, and Denari laughs, patting his cheek.

“Yes, Josep, I am.”

The simmering anger becomes something sweeter – irritation, with fondness mixed in. “You will not soften me by use of my forename, Lew.”

“Won’t I?” Denari retorts, and grabs his case.

* * *

“Suppose this means I’ve lost my job?” Denari asks.

“I’ve budget to pay you a modest salary,” Garnet says. He’s naked and laying on his belly, and Denari, lying beside him, traces his thumb up and down the line of his spine, down to the small of his back. “I thought you might not like to go on working with me. The work being what it is.”

“What do you do on your days off?” Denari asks, and Garnet glances at him.

“What do you mean?” he asks. “You know.”

“If I’m not here – before me. What did you do then?”

“Well, I might meet Irin for lunch at hers, or she might come here.”

“You like fishing, she said. Or, not fishing, but splashing in the water.”

“Too much risk in that, these days,” Garnet murmurs.

“Do you go anywhere? Alone? Or, with people, trustworthy people?”

Garnet looks slightly lost before he says, “Where should I go where there are no other men, but where men are welcome?”

Denari squeezes his hip, and changes the subject.

* * *

He used to swim as a boy before the debtors had come, living on the coast as they did. His father had insisted, said he’d seen too many boys drown for lacking the skill, had trained into him the strength and stamina to swim against decent currents.

He’s never had a real day off before, never truly and really and genuinely been at actual liberty and at his own command – natural, he supposes, that he should return to that which brought him pleasure before he lost his freedom.

He’s always swum when the option was available to him, and it’s natural enough for him to swim now, to dive. He searches the mussel beds with faint interest, looking at the shells.

Lassium is the colour of obsidian, but lacks its shine, its glassy shimmer.

It absorbs the magic that flows near it, about it, and thus has a strange effect on light as well – when he picks up a shard loose on the seabed, it makes his hand feel immediately cold, makes his body throb, shock with it. He’s never used magic himself, never even been taught enchantment – he knows that for some in richly magical places or for magical species like dryads or elves, even to brush their fingers against a shard like this would be such a shock as to kill them.

He's no magic user, and on the island, he’s had a good length of time to adjust.

He expects it’s the same for any change in environment – he’s heard men talk of dizziness when moving to a far higher elevation from sea level than they’d lived before, heard people talk of the shock not only of changing heat but humidity when travelling.

Denari surfaces still holding the shard in his hand – it’s no great dagger of a piece, small and sharp, threatening to crumble. It’s a hard stone, but it’s evidently been weathered by the currents, the sea, only a little bit bigger than a marble.

Doctor Keenchild is standing on the docks, his thumbs curled through the heavy belt that cinches in his robes, from which hang various magical accoutrements – golden instruments, a scope, a pouch of ingredients, maybe.

In his youth, he probably was a handsome man. His hair now is thick and shaggy, a few faint streaks of gold showing through the grey mane; he has a hard chin, a strong nose, and only light stubble on his aged cheeks.

“Hullo, free man,” he says. “Much luck to you on this auspicious day, hm?”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Denari says, swimming toward the dock and stowing the lassium stone in his pocket before he grips at one of the posts and hoists himself up to sit on the edge. “I thought you’d be pissed.”

“Why should I be?” Keenchild asks, tilting his head. “Young man, I take no pleasure in holding contracts of indenture – they are an unfortunate means to an end, the recoup of debts that might not otherwise be repaid.”

“Is that all indentures are to you” Denari asks. “Collateral that happens to be a little more active in balancing the debts incurred?”

“I don’t claim to think it pleasant,” Keenchild says. “On the contrary, it strikes me as rather tragic, parents selling their children and whatnot.” He clucks his tongue and slowly shakes his head, his great lion’s mane shifting in the breeze. “But there’s many a parent, young man, who would rather sell their child than offer their own labour, husbands offering their wives as chattel in order that they might pay for more drink or put money betting on cockfights or whatever else. The poor demand high loans, then cannibalise each other in their repayment.”

“And what would the poor do, if they didn’t take those loans? Starve? Lose their homes?”

Keenchild laughs. “I envy your expectations of your kinsmen, young man. Alas, I see more gambling debts and money wasted whoring or drinking than I do on such noble endeavours.”

“You’re leaving?” Denari asks, gesturing to the boat on the next dock over, which is loading up a ship via the gangplank. He recognises some of the stuff onboard – merchandise reclaimed from debts the past few weeks.

“Mmm, I visit a few times a year, when I can – my wife, she has a sensitivity to magic.”

That would be wife number three, Denari supposes, the one Garnet had carried on an affair with. Had she been there at Keenchild’s manse, whilst Garnet was there this week? How much of doing what he’d done to Garnet had been to punish him, and how much had been done to punish his wife?

“She has to stay here on the island, or she gets sick?”

“Here or elsewhere with high lassium deposits,” Keenchild says, gesturing with a heavily ringed hand. “Too much exposure to magic saps much of her energy, I’m afraid, makes her hair fall out. Quite awful.”

Denari is silent for a second, looking up at the older man, feeling the magic radiate out from him in faint pulses. They’re not touching, though within touching distance, and Denari can feel the heat and crackle of it on the air between them, a contrast to the heavy, cold weight of the lassium in his pocket.

He can’t stop himself from asking, even though he suspects the answer, even though the horror begins to churn within him even before the words take shape, “What does it do to her, as powerful as you are? When you touch her?”

For just a moment pure triumph shows in the old man’s expression, sly and dark and utterly sadistic. His eyes glitter, his lips twisted in a nasty leer that shows off his too-white, magically bleached teeth, even more artificial than Irin’s, and Denari feels the magic bubble off him.

All at once, the face is exchanged for a mask of theatrical disapproval, Keenchild’s eyes wide, his lips an O. “Young man!” he scolds, faux scandalised, and laughs as though Denari is an incorrigible child. “Such a forward question to ask of a man and his wife.”

“You like to hurt people,” Denari says quietly as he gets to his feet. “Makes sense – indentures, debts, they’re a way of trapping people, keeping them in their place. And even if you can’t indenture people, your wife, Garnet, they’re trapped here. Fish in a barrel.”

“Now now,” Keenchild says in a tone of warning, his rich voice cut through now with a note of steel. “Mr Garnet behaved badly, for which I gave him a well-earned punishment, bringing him to heel – he’s no prisoner, though. He can go wherever he pleases.”

“He doesn’t even leave the house when he’s not working,” Denari says. “Do you know that? He can’t go anywhere without someone trying to jump him, just goes between his house and his ex-wife’s.”

“A reversal of the previous state of affairs,” Keenchild says unerringly, with a quiet laugh. “He was such a tomcat before, wouldn’t leave the house without pouncing on some pretty girl, from in front or behind, so long as he could take his pleasure from her and corrupt her virtue, devalue her, besmirch her.”

“What you do, that isn’t corruption?” Denari asks. “Were any of those girls ever scared of Garnet the way that everyone you fuck is terrified of you?”

The old man takes a step closer, his eyes hardening.

Denari guesses, by the unnatural way he stiffens, the way his reflexes just don’t seem calibrated for it, that he’s just not used to being punched, that he’s not used to physical attacks at all. He lets out an indignant, wordless roar as Denari grabs him by the cheeks and forces his mouth open.

Before so much as a word can pass the old man’s lips, even a syllable of an incantation, Denari is forcing the lassium stone from his pocket past the cage of his teeth and onto his tongue. The wave of magic that had been ready to burst off of the old man, to burn or evaporate or throw him back, fizzles out.

It feels suddenly sapped out of the air, feels the rippling weight of burgeoning magic abruptly disappear the way that darkness flees a room when the lanterns are lit.

Keenchild stumbles back and Denari follows him, pushing his chin up. He holds the old man’s mouth closed – he’s obviously very magically powerful, but with age, he’s lost most of his muscle, any of the physical power his body might have had in youth. Denari pinches shut the old cunt’s nostrils and he snorts, coughs, his eyes wide and watering as he heaves in a choking, struggling gasp of no air at all—

Then swallows.

Denari watches the hard lump of stone slide visibly down his throat.

Keenchild’s blue eyes bulge outwards, white froth beginning to bubble up around his mouth as he tries and fails to heave in a breath. His knees buckle, and Denari catches him under the aged arm.

The same numbness he’d felt from the stone is now mirrored in the old man’s skin.

He’s trying to talk – trying to yell, probably – and can’t make any noise at all but breathy, whistled chokes.

Denari yells up the docks, “Hey! Help! It’s Doctor Keenchild, he’s having some kind of fit!”

He makes sure the old man sees his smile as he helps him down to the floor.

He filters through the crowd as some other mage rushes to help the old man, hears someone ask, “Filton, were you in the water?”, ducks under the shouts and the gathering crowd.

Josep Garnet is standing in the middle of town at the central crossroads.

He’s standing in place, his hands at his sides, his shoulders to a lamp post. People are walking past him with nary a glance in his direction – men are walking past. One brushes his shoulder, grunts a short, “’Scuse me, mate,” and keeps on walking.

His pretty face has a dazed expression on it.

He looks somewhere up in the clouds, but his eyes refocus as Denari approaches: his gaze fixes on Denari’s face, and the smile that draws across his pretty lips is slow and perfect and seems to come very, very easily to him.

“Don’t tell me I’ve paid off your indentures just so you can face a noose,” he murmurs, hand reaching forward. Denari cups the back of it, drawing it up against his cheek, kissing the palm.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Denari says, shrugging. “I don’t think he’ll be able to talk before he dies.”

“Should we be getting on a boat and fleeing town?” Garnet asks, raising his eyebrows as he adjusts Denari’s shirt collar – a gift from Irin and slightly too large for him but very comfortable, and a flattering colour.

“Nah, if they catch me, they catch me,” Denari says. “Let’s go invite your ex-wife out to dinner. Let’s go to a restaurant.”

Garnet sighs, pressing his lips together. “Lew, I can’t very well go out to a…” He stops. Blinks. Laughs. “Oh.”

“Yeah, we’re both free men, each of us at liberty,” Denari says. “Irin too, except for the man part. Let’s go out, have a meal. When’s the last time you got drunk?”

“A decade go.”

“You want to?”

“Yes,” Garnet says, winding his arms around Denari’s neck. “Yes.”

“And uh… His wife, Keenchild’s.”

“Miletta.”

“She’ll be okay, right?”

“I’ll go to her tomorrow,” Garnet says, and Denari kisses his cheek, wraps his arm around Garnet’s waist, and they walk along with almost no one looking their way at all.

Irin’s fiancé opens the door – he is a bit plain – and doesn’t recognise either of them.

“Irin, darling, we’ve come to take you out for dinner!” Garnet calls right past him as if he’s nothing, as if he doesn’t matter at all – Irin’s servant, who Denari had seen before, he greets with a pleasant, “Hello, Yuna.”

“Hullo, Mr Garnet.” She says, laughing.

“Won’t you join us? Just us girls.”

“I’ll stay home, but thanks, Mr Garnet. Congrats, I guess?”

“Thank you, dear.”

“What the fuck is happening?” asks the fiancé – he’s swiftly eclipsed by Irin, who stands next to her beau, looks at him to Garnet back to the beau, back to Garnet… then leaps into Denari’s arms.

“Oof, why me, woman!?” Denari demands, wheezing through his next laugh, but he shifts his hand under Irin’s arse and sweeps her over his shoulder, picking her coat off the rack and tossing it over top of her.

Yuna disappears down the corridor as Garnet picks out a set of gloves and shoes to complement Irin’s coat, and the three of them descend the steps into the street again.

“Irin, what the—” the beau starts, barely audible over Irin’s squeals of triumph and delight, her feet kicking.

“Oh, for Gods’ sake, Eric, come if you’re coming, we’ll explain on the way!” she says impatiently – over Denari’s back, she reaches to cup Garnet’s cheeks and kiss him on his forehead. “Close the door behind you!”

“Pass me her shoes, would you?” Denari asks as Irin starts to explain the whole thing to Eric the fiancé, and Garnet walks beside him as the two of them put Irin’s shoes on for her before setting her down on the floor.

“You’re a funny man, Lew,” Garnet murmurs in his ear.

“You’re a funny one yourself, Josep,” replies Denari, and kisses him on the corner before Irin impatiently grabs the both of them by their forearms and groans at them to hurry up.

FIN.

[uchitpatel11]

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

A social media blog for a human writer can focus on showcasing their personality, creativity, and insights into the writing process. Here's a guide on creating such a blog:

1. Define Your Niche

What kind of writing do you do? (Fiction, poetry, technical writing, personal essays, etc.)

Are you targeting fellow writers, readers, or a specific industry (e.g., marketing, journalism)?

Make sure your niche aligns with your long-term goals and interests.

2. Develop a Unique Voice

Your tone should reflect your personality. Whether you're casual, humorous, or more formal, let your voice stand out.

Consistency in tone helps followers connect with you and understand what to expect.

3. Post Content Regularly

Create a schedule for your posts (daily, weekly, bi-weekly).

Mix content: writing tips, behind-the-scenes of your writing process, your personal journey, writing prompts, book or article recommendations.

Share snippets of your current projects or short pieces of your work.

4. Engage with Your Audience                

Respond to comments and messages. Ask questions to encourage discussion.

Host writing challenges or prompts to get followers involved.

Create polls to ask what readers are interested in and tailor content to those topics.

5. Use Visuals

Break up text with engaging visuals: images, quotes, or graphics related to writing.

Share aesthetic photos of your workspace or writing routine.

Use creative writing prompts displayed as eye-catching images.

6. Promote Your Work

Share links to your published work (whether on other websites, books, or writing platforms).

Celebrate your milestones like finishing a novel or getting published.

Create a portfolio or showcase of all your work in one place for easy access.

7. Collaborate and Network

Guest post on other blogs or collaborate with fellow writers to reach new audiences.

Share posts from others in the writing community that resonate with you.

8. Leverage Multiple Platforms

Use different social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to drive traffic to your blog.

Each platform requires its own strategy: Instagram for visuals, Twitter for short thoughts or updates, and LinkedIn for more professional writing content.

9. Monetize (If Desired)

Set up a donation system (like Ko-fi or Patreon) where followers can support your work.

Offer writing consultations, editing services, or workshops.

Consider affiliate marketing for writing tools or resources.

10. Track Your Progress

Use analytics to see which posts perform well and adapt to what your audience enjoys.

Keep experimenting with new content ideas to keep your blog fresh and exciting.

[stucky-fic-idea-bank]

K so I had this idea for a fic, and I would love to actually write it but it's so far out of my wheelhouse that I'd do one (or more) of the following: push off writing it forever, spend ages researching, write it but never end up being happy with how it comes out.

But I would love love love to read it if someone else writes it!

So my idea is a modern AU, and both Steve and Bucky are on tiktok.

Steve (stevegrrr) is Skinny!Steve and disabled; he mostly adapts recipes for different dietary needs (often by request) but also sometimes reviews disability aids or shows how different things (baking, but also household, community, hobby, etc. things) could be adapted. He's in New York, baking from his college apartment, and has a successful Patreon where he posts unedited videos, outtakes, and videos of his roommates (Morita, Gabe) guessing which versions of his bakes are the original or the modified recipes and rating them.

Bucky (callmebucky) is broody Post-Azzano!Bucky; he bakes recipes from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He's in Indiana, maybe isn't super happy there.

Steve's and Bucky's followers keep saying they should do a collab, and eventually Steve reaches out and invites Bucky to come to New York for that.

Bucky likes NY and Steve, moves to NY.

They don't do any more collabs but Bucky is there off-camera sometimes when Steve is filming, and vice versa. And their followers start noticing clues, like someone thinks they hear Steve talking or laughing in the background of Bucky's video, or Steve wears a sweatshirt he stole from Bucky and someone remembers that Bucky once wore it in a video X weeks ago. Then all their followers become detectives, e.g. "It can't be the same day as the collab because the calendar is turned to the next month." or "Can't be the same because Steve's bruise is a different color." (if Steve is physical fighty and not just words fighty on the internet)

Eventually, Bucky and Steve announce that they are dating (maybe with another baking collab that's too cheesy for Bucky's liking but he'd do anything for Steve and Steve wants to do it, so).

And yeah, that's it.

The biggest reasons why I don't think I could do it justice is because I'm not on tiktok or any other video-based social media platforms so know little about them, and also because I think it would be best told in part via video transcripts and comments on the videos, and [see reason 1].

Thoughts?

^^^^

holy shit this sounds so good. And you’ve already fleshed like 90% of it out!! Fingers crossed someone picks this up because it sounds like a banger of a fic

[themyscrian]

just binged the whole of archive 81 and kinda sad to find out the last few episodes (Left of the Dial) which was meant to bridge seasons 3 and 4, came out in 2019 and nothing's been released on the feed since.

looking around online, there was rumblings of them releasing a new podcast called Wavelength that got reported on a bit when the bad Netflix adaptation came out, but that was over a year ago now.

Wavelength's official Twitter hasn't had any activity since the 8th of February 2022, where it apologised that the trailer would have to be delayed.

on December 13th, 2022, Archive 81's Twitter feed retweeted something that Marc Sollinger had posted to 'spread the word', but Marc's account has been deleted so it's impossible to tell what that was about. weirdly, there's a comment underneath from December 14th implying Marc's account was already deleted only a day later, so whatever the announcement was it didn't stay up long. judging by another tweet from December 10th also linking to Marc's deactivated account it may have been about getting funding for some project, which is odd considering their Patreon is still up and seemingly hasn't updated since May 2019.

the Facebook for Archive 81 hasn't updated since 2022 when they posted the trailer for the Netflix Adaptation, and the one for the Deep Vault last posted in June 2019. one of the last posts on A81's Facebook talks about the show and reassures fans that it "will NOT impact the production of the podcast" as they "still have complete creative control of that".

even Archive 81's tumblr stopped reblogging fanart and updates in February 2021.

so, uh, yeah… anyone got any idea what's going on with Dead Signals? at this point i'm just kinda concerned something bad happened to one of the creators, especially Marc given that Dan's Twitter is still active and posts semi-frequently. am i just missing some announcement somewhere?

[asksoldieron]

SO-18: Memory Bomb!

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but hopefully my eyes will improve enough to add some later!

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Peanut Butter Bubblegum (SO-18) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

There! They got him! Well, sorta. That's definitely not Erik but he's in there somewhere. They'll get him out! Eventually!

I had such a cool idea for a musical comic but I can't do it. You'll have to read and imagine David and Hyacinth having it out, while what he is now is slowly subsumed by what he once was... Or while an imposter who made a very bad decision becomes permanently trapped in a web of his own lies. Maybe both at once!

*sigh* I'm struggling, but I don't get real feedback from the eye doctor. It's like they don't think I can't handle any negativity, so everything is all smiles and "you're doing great!" while I'm dealing with shit they should've sat me down and told me about before I even had the damn surgery.

You see, I had the impression the surgery was the best option for not losing any of the improvement I spent all last year making myself sick to gain. Heh. Maybe it was, but I've still lost ground and I'll need to put in even more work to get it back. I have a different issue now: stamina. My eyes get tired of focusing on detail, near and far, and in certain situations they'll just stop. I'll be straining as hard as I can and I won't be able to tell you if that's a D, C, O or G. It won't shift in and out of focus like I might be able to get it eventually, it'll just be a static blur until I rest my eyes and come back to it. (Kinda think the doctor thought I was faking or playing it up, since I could read letters the first time she asked me to, and then I couldn't. But the tech just listened to me describe what was happening and said, "Oh, yeah. Your eyes are just tired. Take a break.")

I don't have much trouble reading - as long as it's black and white or close to that. Much like Erik, I can get it from context. I've always read the shape of the word, because my damn eyes never worked like they're supposed to. But art is not like that. Hell, even reading a comic is harder for me right now.

I'm getting my Xmas computer soon. It has a bigger screen than my tablet, and I should be able to draw on it. I might not get so tired so fast with a bigger screen, but I won't know until I try. I found a good enough refurbished deal that I can afford a pen display with an even bigger screen, if it comes to that, but I'll have to give myself some time to strengthen my eyes in any case.

I thought I was just going to heal from this - it would only be a matter of time until the wound closed and my corneas cleared up - I certainly got that impression at the start. But now they say I'm not going to get better without more work. I'm stuck doing pretty much the same exercises, only now they're hard in a different way. The dry-eye does seem to be improving, but there's no guarantee it will keep doing that. I have nearly a year to wait for the dryness and light tolerance to stabilize, those things are the slowest to heal. Well, they would be the slowest, if I didn't have this stupid vision dysfunction. I have no idea how long that's going to take to adapt.

Anyway, this is all too many words. I'm trying to explain why I won't be able to come back with more story after a two week break, even though I have the next six-pack almost ready to go. I can write. I can reorganize the site (and I need to do that, the theme and the global colours are just stupid, and all my pattern blocks are malfunctioning). I can open a new bank account and put together a Ko-Fi page (after Patreon gets rid of my data - they only have a couple more days to do that within their 30-day limit!!). I can't illustrate. Nobody's going to stop scrolling and look at this shit in their feed if there's no images, and I'm not resorting to stock photos or AI.

I want to get to the point where I can spam my followers with something I'm proud of that looks nice, and send them to a site that I'm also proud of and which looks nice. I want more readers, but I don't feel right asking for them when everything's falling apart, including me.

So, I'll be here, but there won't be more story for a while. At least give me until the 20th, that'll be three months out from the surgery and I should be fairly well healed by then. It's just that I have this stamina issue nobody warned me about and no timeline for that. Almost like it doesn't matter. Hey, you can see without glasses! 20/20! Like we promised! Does it really matter if it expires without warning? It works when you read off the chart the first time and that's all you need, right?

No. I told you people I was an artist. You don't seem to be reviewing my chart and god alone knows if you even wrote it down, but you did ask me and I told you. This is not enough.

We'll see what the next few weeks will do for me. I hope like hell I'll be back soon with another six - words AND pictures.

[Back to Site?]

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 20 Review

Originally posted on October 30th, 2015

Conflating anime with wrestling is, unsurprisingly, an amazing decision.

“Namekimania 2011” is my favorite episode of Dragonball Z: Abridged, and it is my favorite for very good reasons: the episode is packed to the brim with great jokes, Team Four Star experiments with their approach to adaptation in it, and it even manages to find time to focus on the heroism and honor that are the crux of the source material.

In fact, “Namekimania” is so good that I could just list off all the great lines from the episode and end the review here. But I’m not gonna do that, because that’s no fun (though the strays are loaded with quotes this week because I have no self-control).

Let’s start with the key joke/device of this episode. “Namekimania 2011” has Team Four Star making the bold decision to reframe a somewhat inconsequential fight between Vegeta and Recoome (played by Ganxingba delightfully mimicking the staged charisma of a professional wrestler) as a live televised pro wrestling match.

And it works wonderfully, because Team Four Star commits fully to this device, incorporating an audience track of cheering and booing, having Jeice and Burter serve as announcers/commentators, and giving us “recaps” of what we’ve missed on the few times they cut away to other characters.

The “anime fight as pro wrestling” device also works extraordinarily well because it captures the ridiculousness of both of the mediums. Fights in anime are generally ridiculous affairs, with characters breaking the laws of physics and rules of the established universe very frequently, coupled with over the top blood, screams, and emotions. Wrestling similarly is over the top, with heroes and villains appearing as ridiculous caricatures, as well as allowing the wrestlers to clearly and blatantly disregard the rules in order to get an audience response.

When combined, the ridiculousness from both mediums complement each other, with the unreasonable action and caricatured fighters blending seamlessly, and it’s especially fun to see how the live commentary of Jeice and Burter serves to enhance the thrill of the fight itself.

“Namekimania” also finds time to embrace the hyperemotionalism of anime (its other extreme) in two scenes. The first is Gohan’s speech, as he walks slowly towards Recoome, broken and battered, that he is the son of Son Goku, the one man who can kick Recoome’s ass, and the second is the scene where Goku steps out of the spaceship, which pairs an 80’s rock song with a series of slow clips showing him gradually exiting the spaceship. With that scene, we know something is coming, and some serious shit is about to go down.

Rating: 5/5

If you like this review, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

Stray Observations

Recoome’s introduction speech is the greatest thing ever, and I will fight you if you say otherwise.

Gohan: “Who are you talking to?” Burter: “The audience.” Jeice: “We’re doin’ commentary, mate.”

Recoome: “Because the name’s Recoome. And it rhymes with doom. And you’re gonna be hurtin’, ALL…TOO…SOON!”

Recoome: “Silly Vegeta. The only thing Recoome sells, is merchandise!”

Spokesperson: “Spacey’s. It’s good food. In spaaace.”

Krillin: “Hey, Gohan, look! He picked Vegeta, like a…” Gohan: “Like a Vegetable, yeah.”

Krillin Owned: And we’re up to 12 with a lovely Recoome Kick.

Krillin: “Seems he threw my nervous system out of whack there. Can’t quite feel the pain. There it is. Owwwwww.”

[perfectperfectiondaze]

Building Your YouTube Cash Cow Channel: A Step-by-Step Guide

YouTube has evolved from a platform for cat videos into a lucrative source of income for content creators worldwide. If you're looking to turn your passion into profit, building a YouTube Cash Cow Channel could be your path to success. In this step-by-step guide, we'll explore the key elements of creating and growing a channel that generates consistent revenue.

1. Find Your Niche

Before diving into content creation, identify a niche that aligns with your interests and expertise. Your niche should be specific enough to target a particular audience but broad enough to create a substantial following. Research competitors and trends to assess the niche's potential for growth and monetization.

2. Create High-Quality Content

Quality is paramount on YouTube. Invest in good equipment, such as cameras, microphones, and lighting, to ensure your videos are visually and audibly appealing. Develop a content strategy that provides value, educates, entertains, or solves problems for your target audience. Consistency is key; establish a posting schedule to keep your viewers engaged.

3. Optimize SEO for Visibility

To stand out on YouTube, optimize your videos for search engine visibility. Use relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Craft compelling thumbnails that entice viewers to click. Engage with your audience through thoughtful comments and encourage them to like, share, and subscribe.

4. Monetize Your Channel

Once you've gained some traction, it's time to monetize your channel. YouTube offers several revenue streams:

a. Ad Revenue: Enroll in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to earn money through ads displayed on your videos. To qualify, your channel needs 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months.

b. Channel Memberships: Offer exclusive perks to subscribers who join your channel as members. This can include access to behind-the-scenes content, custom emojis, and shout-outs.

c. Merchandise Shelf: Sell your merchandise directly through your channel using the merchandise shelf feature.

d. Sponsored Content: Partner with brands for sponsored videos or product placements. Ensure the products align with your niche and are relevant to your audience. The scribehow has more information about the cashcow.

5. Build a Loyal Community

Foster a sense of community by engaging with your audience. Respond to comments, ask for feedback, and take viewer suggestions into consideration. Hosting live streams or Q&A sessions can help strengthen your connection with your viewers.

6. Collaborate and Network

Collaborating with other YouTubers can expose your channel to new audiences. Look for creators within your niche or complementary niches and propose mutually beneficial collaborations. Attend industry events and connect with fellow content creators to expand your network.

7. Track Analytics and Refine Strategy

Regularly review your YouTube Analytics to gain insights into your audience's behavior. Understand which videos perform best, where your viewers are coming from, and their demographics. Use this data to refine your content strategy and improve your channel's performance.

8. Diversify Your Income

While ad revenue is a significant income source, don't rely solely on it. Explore additional revenue streams, such as affiliate marketing, merchandise sales, online courses, or Patreon memberships. Diversifying your income can provide stability and financial security.

9. Stay Informed and Adapt

YouTube is constantly evolving, with new features and trends emerging regularly. Stay informed about the platform's updates and adapt your strategy accordingly. Be open to trying new formats and approaches to keep your content fresh and engaging.

10. Stay Committed

Building a successful YouTube Cash Cow Channel takes time and dedication. It may be a while before you start seeing substantial income. Stay committed to your niche, consistently create high-quality content, and adapt to the ever-changing YouTube landscape. In conclusion, creating a YouTube Cash Cow Channel is a viable way to turn your passion into a profitable venture. By finding your niche, producing quality content, optimizing for SEO, and diversifying your income streams, you can build a thriving channel that provides a consistent source of revenue. Remember that success on YouTube requires patience, persistence, and a deep understanding of your audience's needs and preferences.

[soul-controller]

Life & Patreon Update (November ‘22)

Hey there everyone, hope everyone is doing well. I’m happy to announce that my mourning hiatus is over and the blog will become active once more starting this Friday with a new request story. I look forward to posting that story along with my submission for @thegreatstoryteller’s TF Exchange the week of Christmas!

Now with that little update out of the way, here’s a quick little summary of the stuff I’ve released over on my Patreon over the past month.

In case you missed it, my Patreon has now shifted to a new subscription method. Now instead of being charged at the first of the month regardless of when you signed up, you will now be charged 30 days from your sign-up date! Hopefully this can encourage more people to sign up to read my content now that the worry of being double-charged has been eliminated.

So yes, if any of the following stories intrigue you, please feel free to click on the title so you can sign up for the appropriate tier to read it! I’d love to have you join my Patreon and my Discord community, where you can view exclusive photo captions and also request future story ideas!

Sibling Rivalry

With her father's 60th birthday coming up, novice witch Kelly is eager to give her father a better gift than her rich lawyer brother James. After deciding to create a potion that will turn her dad into a 27-year-old version of himself while also altering reality to give him a second chance at his youth. Unfortunately, James figures out what Kelly is going to do and finds himself willing to do anything to make sure that he ends up with the best present for their father...

Tags: Gender Change, Age Progression, Muscle Growth, Reality Shift

The Great Change: College-Educated to Farm-Raised (Five Years Later)

In the five years since The Great Change put 65-year-old Cyrus in the body of 18-year-old Jackson, the former college professor has gone through several changes in both body and mind. While he believes this is all due to his own choosing, the reality is that Jackson's father and friends were just gaslighting him into becoming the Jackson they once knew and loved. Will Cyrus figure out what's going on or will he become perfectly content with his new redneck life?

Tags: The Great Change, Body Swap, Racial Change, Mental Changes, Sexuality Change, Gaslighting, Post-TF

Wrestling With My New Life (Part I)

This story was created due to a patron-voted poll that was meant to help influence who my new host body would become by picking a clothing item for me to base this new body on - the wrestling singlet option was the clear winner. Although this is a two-part story, I've set it up so each part of the story includes several transformations so hopefully everyone will enjoy!

After a long month-long delay, I finally receive my Halloween costume of a wrestling singlet. Upon sharing the news to my followers about the costume finally arriving though, they quickly turn the tables on me by making me the subject of their own transformation story. After magically forcing me to livestream myself while wearing the singlet, the devoted fanbase comment their desired changes towards me one-by-one and get to witness it before their very eyes...

Tags: Shapeshift, Twinkification, Mental Changes

Before Mac Jones’ Control (Part II)

In the final part of this prequel, Henry continued to try and adapt to the new life he's been given as Nick Bosa. This time around though, the man has the obstacles of going to training camp and both fixing Nick's relationships with his teammates and actually learning how to play football! On top of this, Henry dives in deep on repairing Nick's controversial image while also taking an opportunity to check in on the real Nick who has been forced into continuing Henry's simple life as a teacher and transformation writer...

Tags: The Mac Jones Series, Athlete, Body Swap, Mental Changes

Going All-American

This story is a complete rewrite / expansion of an old Tumblr request that I wrote back in 2021. I loved the concept so I ended up turning a 2k story into something that was much more erotic and longer (now over 9k words)!

Upon randomly receiving a letter informing him of a free trip to Los Angeles to visit the set of All-American, Arthur is quite excited about meeting one of his biggest celebrity crushes - Cody Christian. After getting a rude welcome from the hunky actor though, Arthur and an intern from the show come up with a plan to teach Cody a lesson that will also allow both of their fantasies to come true...

Tags: Possession, Revenge, Celebrity

Backing The Browns (Part III)

After accidentally trading bodies with Johnny Stanton and learning that he's been cut from the Browns, Henry has to think quickly and come up with a new plan so he can actually play football. Before long, fellow Browns player and Johnny's friend Myles Garrett comes into the picture and provides the man with the perfect avenue to get back into the sport and find his permanent new body...

Tags: Body Swap, Racial Change, Athlete

[colorguardsweetheartblurrsgirl]

Please tell me I'm not alone:

#writers on tumblr

Going what is intended to be a maybe 1 or 2 hour story ramble that had a set purpose. Start talking about situations, forgetting or being caught in the midn as you record or just ramble to think through the story. End up going past two hours as you describe only to yourself for notes intricate plot details, random facts on other characters, or more world building. Next you check another two hours goes but you are on such a streak you promise to go and get soemthingntoneat to your growling stomach soon as this thought finishes which is almost clearly done. But then over explaining the plot to no one but yourself more of what you know but want recorded down. Going I promise at this time to turn it off. Next you check it's an hour past that point of stop time you set fir yourself. But your finally wrapping it up! Just a little more, few more minutes you tell yourself. Only to check the clock realizing there is no stop and it's agin two yours since you made that comment this sesh keeps going what you were enar wrapping up only found a way to add m.j ro plotted scenes to your mind and dekwelling on what if scenarios for a story that hasn't yet been released.🤣😂

Literally describes me making recorded note from 8:40 PM-6:40 AM.🤣😂😅😭😢

I've got a headache now!!! It worries me that my recording program says only 3:47 (hrs/min) but it was continually recording. Makes me wonder if I missed and or wasted more talking and it will come out as jibberish.😢😭😅😂🤣

Heres the art work that kept me company during these long periods.

Note comic is not the actual comic, but another proof of concept to a later scene I wanted to play around with for some time now, and I'm near writting the chapter out for, fully. I've written certain scenes for it throughout to keep plot details consistent of what has to happen. Before I have written it. Although most of the outline has been written story elements ahve changed from my initial outline. Just was jotting down on paper before I tried anything with it digitally.

This is mostly a mess & not in anyway my best drawing (looking to the weird outstretched hand. That was just a random quick drawing without reference jsut trying tonmoce through the drawing quick. But leaving enough deletsik for me to hbderstandbthebintetion should I go with the same story movement here when implementing the chapter. This was me just trying out a few things I wanted to see out on paper to make sure what I was seeing in my head would translate well in a comic. Not all are detailed slides but with enough detail to what I for myself am going for and wanting at said times to understand with a quick glance.

E.g the quickly drawn hand is so not the best drawn hand just a quick render to know what I wanted. Or for reference I had one short box presenting a dark area of thhe short dialogues pacing between frames. This I later returned and drew the figures standing instead over the current dialogue given instead the same impression the short dialogue gave using perspective to shape this and drawing over dialogue that may be unnecessary. But instead make it in between two more prominent frames a similarly long one added pulled back image of the scene. Allowing for more emotion to be felt through the black space surrounding the characters.

Similarly in my first proof of concept I hinted to a while bsck in a previous update shwoing some images from it. Where elements have since been added like this change and added slides as it is like yg to make it into the story, but the concept remained to ensure the way I was intending things would work to be added. But it in itself may be as is or in an adapted way make it in the comic or stay outside it maybe to be posted as a side story alongside a rest period or just something I show later patreons, etc . This is just a frame of reference to use as I get further along and a way for me to ensure directions I'm headed would work in the way I intend.

The below is related to S.T.R.Y.

[megafreeman]

This post is fucking hilarious because these are insanely misleading and completely ignore user feedback in order to construct a gotcha.

So let's break it all down then!

Its a standard feature of a blogging platform. Tumblr DID not invent blogging.

Again, standard feature of a blogging platform. Would you prefer if we started saying you are copying Google's "Blogger" instead of Twitter?

3rd standard blogging feature. Any more standard feature expected from a blogging platform you wanna name?

The only premium upgrade Tumblr has is a paid ad-blocker. The announcement post for it is dated Feb 24, 2022, meanwhile the announcement post for Twitter Blue is dated Jun 3, 2021. That's 265 days before Tumblr introduced it. (In other words, this statement is a lie)

You both copied tabs from TikTok. You do not get credit for this. Its one of the most complained things yall introduced because it was a blatant attempt to be TikTok.

What was first on WordPress does not count since the topic here is Tumblr. Polls were on Twitter long before Automattic owned Tumblr, and the feature here on Tumblr isn't even a year old. I remember this very vividly because in August 2022, we had to host a Tumblr Sexyman poll on Twitter because this site didn't have a feature.

You copied this from Patreon.

This is the only thing Tumblr excels at. The search function is probably the best one remaining on the internet even with its flaws.

This point is completely redundant. The threat is supposedly about features Twitter copied off Tumblr. None of these features are on Twitter and serves no purpose being on this list. However, its extremely bad that yall are using custom themes and domains as a way to flex, when your new redesign is actively trying its hardest to phase out the personal site side of Tumblr, to the point where you can no longer even access custom pages feature from mobile (or even desktop, if you aren't fluent in Tumblr and know all the extra buttons you gotta click to open it because the site prioritizes the tumblr.com/username pages over username.tumblr.com, and there's no way to opt out of the former).

And the 4th standard blogging feature. God, remember when we could edit other people's responses? Or completely remove unnecessary comments like the parts of a reblog chain? (or speaking of that specifically, how yall removed the feature to go back in the reblog chain and reblog versions of the post without that comment)

Nice attempt tho! You missed a few other thinks Twitter also copied from you.

Banning people for posting about social justice (Here's Elon Musk doing it)

Banning people for criticizing the staff and decision making (Here's Elon Musk doing it)

Transphobia within staff (Here's Elon saying he bought Twitter because he hates trans people on it)

I don't even hate that yall are trying out new things, trial and error and all that. Whatever keeps the site functional in a long run. But this being a response to criticism just isn't it. Its not a competition of who did it first, its about who has a better functional site. The only thing yall are competing in with this attitude is whose site will get shut down first. Every lil bit of feedback is valueable, even the crazy loud ones, because all of them draw their opinions from their love for this site.

And the new layout just ain't it. A lot of people make amazing points about why, and they're all right. It's something that makes Twitter feel bad and bloated, and now it also makes Tumblr feel bloated too. Probably a bad idea to do a massive redesign before hiring designers though. I'd recommend listening to the massive amounts of feedback, find a proper designer (please no ex-Twitter or ex-Meta staff), stop pretending Twitter is copying you because you copied it off TikTok first, and stop copying bad features from sites and instead embrace the things that make Tumblr stand out. I promise you, TikTok users will never adapt to Tumblr because they're on TikTok for short video format, not blogging format and gifsets.

Twitter is Copying Us, not vice versa

I keep getting asks saying "stop copying Twitter." We're not! If anything it's going the other way with them copying us.

Long posts, which were on Tumblr first.

Mixing text and rich media, which Tumblr did first.

If we go way back, supporting images and embedding media in the first place, which Twitter didn't used to do. (Remember twimg and Photobucket?)

A premium upgrade, which we did on Tumblr first.

They copied our tabs.

Polls, which were on WP.com/Jetpack first.

Subscriptions to individual creators, which we did first with Post+.

Tags existed on Tumblr first.

We have Asks! And custom domains! And custom themes!

We supported editing first, you couldn't do that on Twitter until relatively recently.

Now obviously they have 20x the monthly users we do, so have executed better in a number of ways:

Their native ads provide much more targeting.

Per-post metrics.

Lists and communities.

Direct Messaging. (Though theirs is still not great.)

Much more robust and real-time search.

They did livestreaming first.

Their apps and web QA seem more stable. I've never experienced an app crash there.

It's easier to navigate RTs and comment/reply to them than reblogs.

What did I miss?

[coconutsplit]

Leveraging Open Educational Resources (OER) and the continuous output from creators on social media can be a powerful strategy for individuals entering the creative field. Here’s a structured approach to utilizing these resources effectively:

Leveraging OER and Social Media for Aspiring Creatives

1. Understanding OER and Its Benefits

Definition: OER are freely accessible, openly licensed materials useful for teaching, learning, and research.

Benefits: Cost savings, flexibility, accessibility, and the ability to adapt and modify materials.

2. Identifying and Accessing OER

Repositories and Platforms: Explore platforms like OER Commons, MERLOT, Khan Academy, Coursera, and OpenStax.

Types of Resources: Look for textbooks, courses, tutorials, videos, and interactive tools relevant to the creative field.

3. Combining OER with Social Media Content

Content Discovery: Use platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to find creators sharing tutorials, behind-the-scenes content, and creative processes.

Curated Lists and Playlists: Create curated lists or playlists of valuable OER and social media content for easy access and organized learning.

4. Building a Learning Pathway

Set Goals: Define specific learning goals and outcomes you want to achieve in the creative field.

Structured Plan: Develop a structured learning plan combining OER courses and social media content.

Daily or Weekly Schedule: Allocate regular time for engaging with these resources to maintain consistency.

5. Engaging with the Creative Community

Follow Influencers and Educators: Identify and follow key influencers, educators, and professionals in the creative field.

Participate in Discussions: Engage in conversations through comments, forums, and social media groups.

Collaborate and Network: Reach out to other learners and creators for potential collaborations and networking opportunities.

6. Creating and Sharing Your Work

Document Your Journey: Use social media to document and share your learning process and creative projects.

Seek Feedback: Share your work with the community to get constructive feedback and improve your skills.

Build a Portfolio: Create an online portfolio showcasing your projects, progress, and skills.

7. Leveraging Tools and Platforms

Free Tools: Utilize free tools like Canva, GIMP, Blender, Audacity, and others for creating and editing your work.

Learning Platforms: Use platforms like Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, and Skillshare for structured courses alongside OER.

Social Media Analytics: Track engagement and performance of your shared content to understand what resonates with the audience.

8. Monetizing Your Skills and Content

Freelancing Platforms: Join platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and Behance to offer your creative services.

Content Monetization: Use YouTube, Patreon, and other monetization features to generate income from your content.

Merchandise and Services: Sell merchandise, digital products, or offer workshops and consulting services.

Practical Steps to Get Started

Curate a List of OER and Creators: Start by identifying valuable OER and following relevant creators on social media.

Set Up Learning Goals: Define what you want to achieve and create a learning plan incorporating both OER and social media content.

Engage Actively: Comment on posts, join discussions, and reach out to fellow learners and creators.

Create Consistently: Regularly produce and share your work on social media, seeking feedback and improving iteratively.

Build Your Online Presence: Develop a personal brand and online portfolio to showcase your skills and projects.

Monetize Strategically: Explore different avenues to monetize your skills and content as you gain proficiency and audience.

By strategically combining OER with the dynamic content from social media creators, aspiring individuals in the creative field can effectively learn, grow, and establish themselves, even with limited resources.

[my-music-1460]

Live Streaming for Comedians: How to Make Your Audience Laugh Online

Live streaming has revolutionized how comedians connect with their audience, offering a unique platform to deliver jokes, test new material, and build a loyal fan base in real-time. In this guide, we’ll explore the essential aspects of live streaming for comedians, ensuring you can effectively engage and entertain your virtual audience.

Setting Up Your Stage

Creating a professional and appealing stage setup at home is crucial for a successful live stream. Here’s how to do it:

Background and Lighting: Choose a clean, uncluttered background that won’t distract your audience. Use good lighting to ensure your face is well-lit. Natural light works best, but if that’s not an option, invest in a ring light or softbox lights to achieve an even, flattering glow.

Camera Quality: A high-definition camera is a must. While most laptops come with built-in webcams, investing in a quality external camera can make a significant difference in video clarity and overall presentation.

Sound Equipment: Clear audio is vital. Use a good quality microphone to avoid any sound distortions or background noise. Test your equipment before going live to ensure everything works perfectly.

Delivering Jokes on Camera

Adapting your comedic timing and delivery for a virtual audience can be challenging but is essential for maintaining engagement and ensuring your jokes land effectively.

Pacing and Timing: Without the immediate feedback of a live audience, it’s important to pay close attention to your pacing and timing. Give each joke room to breathe and allow for potential lag in audience reactions.

Body Language and Expressions: Use exaggerated body language and facial expressions to convey humor. These elements can enhance your performance and help bridge the gap between physical and virtual comedy.

Interaction and Improvisation: Engage with your audience through comments and live interactions. Improvising based on viewer feedback can create a more dynamic and engaging experience.

Interacting with Viewers

Interaction is key to keeping your audience engaged during a live stream. Here are some effective strategies:

Reading Comments: Regularly read and respond to comments during your stream. Acknowledge viewers by name and address their questions or reactions to make them feel part of the show.

Live Q&A Sessions: Incorporate live Q&A sessions where viewers can ask you questions in real-time. This not only keeps the interaction flowing but also adds a personal touch to your performance.

Polls and Challenges: Use live polls or challenges to involve your audience in the show. For example, ask viewers to vote on the next joke topic or challenge you to improvise a joke based on their suggestions.

Promoting Your Live Stream

Effective promotion is crucial for attracting an audience to your live stream. Here’s how to do it:

Social Media Teasers: Use social media platforms to create buzz around your upcoming live stream. Share teaser videos, countdowns, and engaging posts to attract viewers.

Collaborations: Partner with other comedians or influencers to reach a broader audience. Collaborative live streams can introduce you to new fans and create exciting, dynamic content.

Email Newsletters: If you have an email list, use it to inform your subscribers about your live stream. Include all the details, such as date, time, and platform, and highlight any special segments or surprises.

Monetizing Your Live Stream

While live streaming can help you build your fan base, it can also be a source of income. Here are some monetization strategies:

Donations and Tips: Encourage viewers to support you through donations or tips. Platforms like YouTube and Twitch have built-in features for this, or you can use third-party services like PayPal or Patreon.

Merchandise Sales: Promote your merchandise during the live stream. This can include anything from branded T-shirts to digital downloads of your comedy specials.

Sponsored Content: Partner with brands to include sponsored content in your live stream. This could be as simple as a shout-out or a more elaborate product placement.

Conclusion

Live streaming guides for artists offers a unique and powerful way to connect with your audience, test new material, and grow your fan base. By setting up a professional stage, mastering your on-camera delivery, engaging with viewers, and promoting your streams effectively, you can create an unforgettable live streaming experience that resonates with your audience. Embrace the potential of live streaming and take your comedy career to new heights.

[janetrayo]

digital marketing can be designed to generate passive income, allowing you to earn money while you sleep 😴

📌 SAVE this for laterrrr & follow for more tips!

here are several strategies to achieve this: 👇🏼

1. affiliate marketing promote products or services through affiliate programs & earn commissions through your unique link

2. done for you digital products / master resell rights purchase a product that comes with a MRR license that allows you to sell a products to your customers. not only does this mean your customer can use this for personal use they can also resell it for 100% profits from any sales ** MY PERSONAL FAV 🙌🏼

3. automated email campaigns this helps nurture leads & drive sales [use tools like mailchimp or convertkit to schedule & automate your sequences

4. content monetization create valuable content such as e-books, online courses, or webinars [use teachable, udemy or IG / TikTok sell your digital products] * automate the delivery process 😉

5. subscription models create a membership site or subscription service to offer exclusive content & resources to subscribers [use patreon or substack to automate billing & delivery

6. SEO & passive traffic optimize your website content for search engines to attract organic traffic / use long tail keywords and create evergreen content that remains relevant over time

7. automated social media marketing schedule posts in advanced & use automation tools to engage w your audience, share content & drive traffic

8. invest in paid advertising [would recommend for established businesses] use paid advertising platforms like google ads or facebook / optimize campaigns for conversions and let them run continuously

9. chatbots for customer interaction implement chatbots on your website or socials to interact with customers use them to answer FAQs, guide users & even make sales!

just remember, achieving success in digital marketing does require effort & optimization. while automation can make processes more efficient, it’s essential to continue monitoring and adapting your strategies based on performance & market changes :)

comment “SLEEP” if you’re ready to make this a reality 💭

[ankitkrsingh-blog]

Unlocking the Potential: How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Earn Money

In today's digital age, social media has become a powerful tool for individuals and businesses alike. It's not just about sharing photos or staying connected with friends; social media can also be a lucrative source of income. This blog will delve into the world of social media marketing and explore various ways you can earn money through these platforms.

Understanding Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others to promote products or services. It encompasses a range of activities, from content creation and paid advertising to engaging with followers and analyzing performance metrics. The goal is to build a strong online presence, attract and retain a loyal audience, and ultimately drive sales and revenue.

Ways to Earn Money from Social Media Marketing

Affiliate Marketing:

How It Works: Affiliate marketing involves promoting other companies' products or services and earning a commission for every sale made through your referral link.

Getting Started: Choose products or services relevant to your audience. Sign up for affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates, ShareASale, or individual company programs. Share these links through posts, blogs, or videos.

Example: A fitness influencer promoting gym equipment or supplements, earning a commission for each sale made via their unique affiliate link.

Sponsored Posts:

How It Works: Brands pay you to create posts that feature their products or services.

Getting Started: Build a substantial following and high engagement rates. Brands look for influencers who can reach their target audience. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are particularly popular for sponsored content.

Example: A fashion blogger being paid by clothing brands to showcase their new collection in a series of Instagram posts.

Selling Products or Services:

How It Works: Use social media to market and sell your own products or services directly to your audience.

Getting Started: Set up a business profile on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, utilize shopping features, and regularly post content that highlights your offerings. Utilize tools like Shopify for seamless integration.

Example: An artist selling custom paintings or a consultant offering coaching sessions.

Ad Revenue:

How It Works: Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram offer revenue-sharing programs where you earn money based on the ads shown in your content.

Getting Started: Create engaging content that attracts viewers. For YouTube, you need to join the YouTube Partner Program, which requires meeting certain criteria like having 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.

Example: A YouTuber earning money from ads displayed in their videos.

Crowdfunding and Donations:

How It Works: Receive financial support from your audience through platforms like Patreon, Ko-fi, or direct donations.

Getting Started: Offer exclusive content or perks to those who support you. Engage with your community and show appreciation for their support.

Example: A podcaster using Patreon to provide bonus episodes and behind-the-scenes content to paying subscribers.

Creating and Selling Digital Products:

How It Works: Sell digital products like eBooks, online courses, or design templates.

Getting Started: Identify what your audience needs or is interested in, create the product, and use social media to market it.

Example: A marketer selling an online course on social media strategies.

Tips for Success in Social Media Marketing

Consistency: Regular posting helps maintain visibility and engagement.

Quality Content: High-quality, valuable content attracts and retains followers.

Engagement: Interact with your audience through comments, messages, and live sessions to build a community.

Analytics: Use analytics tools to track performance and understand what works best with your audience.

Adaptability: Stay updated with platform changes and new trends to keep your strategy relevant.

Conclusion

Social media marketing offers numerous opportunities to earn money, whether you're an individual influencer or a business. By leveraging the power of social media, creating engaging content, and strategically targeting your audience, you can turn your social media presence into a profitable venture. Start exploring these methods today, and watch your online influence translate into real-world income.