#thanked me a dozen times for sending her a copy ^_^;;;

[jtownraindancer]

Served as a canvas for some aspiring artists and made a new friend 🌈🎼🎨💚💙

[junkworldusa]

HI I love my copy of Junkworld btw!! Thank you!!

Idk I might have asked you this before or someone else may have but I was wondering if you would talk some about your art practice like. Routine and the like? I think I remember you doing Lynda Barry exercises?

Well either way thank you!!!!

Oliver!!! Yes!!! I'm so glad!

I have to preface this by saying that I don't even work on art every day, much less comics. Last October I picked up knitting on a whim and spent all my free time making hats while listening to an audiobook of Moby-Dick. I made a lino print for the first time while sending out JW #1, fell in love with it, and have spent the last month or so carving and printing and experimenting. I go on painting jags, collage jags, writing jags, and I have two (2) guitars that are sitting in the corner patiently waiting for asteroid Kiana to circle back to them. I've been this way my whole life, and I am trying to work with it and not against it. HOWEVER. There is a hardcore Type A perfectionist inside me that wants nothing but consistency. This part of me abhors the flightiness, the mutations, the bouts of melancholy -- if there must be a Quest, it cries, let it be towards a singular Goal!!!!

For recovering perfectionists there really is no better teacher than Lynda Barry. She has a list of materials, she has dozens of exercises, she has you set time limits. According to her books she is quite a strict teacher in-class, demanding a lot of time, effort, care, and attention. All of this is wonderful. She boxes you in and sets you free.

"Making Comics" is the essential text. My favorite exercise is Monster Jam.

Here are a few of mine, all done left-handed to minimize the influence of the Type A chatter who lives in my brain. I have dozens and dozens of pages of these monsters. Barry recommends this specific process a lot: lay down the lines under pressure before your brain can catch up, then add color/patterns/details, under no pressure at all, while watching/listening to something you like.

There are several iterations after this - you draw their parents, an older sibling, a lover. Then you go back to the beginning and draw, in 6 panels, the story of their life. It somehow always presents itself.

As valuable as they are, I don't use these exercises to actually make comics nowadays. I use them to loosen up and activate that aforementioned feeling. Most of my comics come from doodles or notes scribbled down in a tiny notebook I carry everywhere. The process of making a longform comic is something I have bashed my head against for YEARS, and now involves divination, random image generation, a deck of Nancy cards, a lightbox, and a ton of panels chopped up and spread out on the floor so I can move them around. This is why I still only work in grids!

[shanastoryteller]

happy birthday!

can I request some more hokage's daughter or marrying rich please? or anything else Naruto!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5

The first part of the exam is a joke.

Sort of literally, because thanks to Naruto the Konoha Twelve all know the real purpose of the test, but also because Sasuke is able to answer all of these questions without even cheating. He knows Naruto can too, and the only reason Sakura even passed is that her theoretical knowledge is so advanced that it carried her past her mediocre ninjutsu and truly abysmal taijutsu, so this is a walk in the park for her.

Hinata, Neji, and Shikamaru are able to answer on their own as well and everyone else had already decided on their cheating strategy beforehand. The answers might not really matter, but they have to keep up appearances here.

When they get to the Forest of Death, Naruto leads them up to the trees, then says, “I’d ask if you were followed, but I figure you’d find that insulting.”

Sasuke has no idea what she’s talking about until the air next to her shimmers and then Itachi is sitting there. “You insult me all the time.”

“Aniki?” he asks incredulously, then glares at Naruto. “I hate when you don’t tell me the whole plan.”

Sakura pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.

She shrugs. “He’s just backup. Just in case. Remember-”

“Keep an eye on Gaara, don’t let him kill any Konoha shinobi, and if he looks like he’s loosing control or if I need backup, send a clone,” Itachi says. “Are you going to tell me why you’re so worried about Gaara in particular? He’s got a high death count, but that’s not exactly unusual.”

At least she hasn’t told Itachi everything either.

“You can trust him,” Sasuke says, even though Naruto knows that, even though he wouldn’t be here if she did it.

Even with those she trusts, it’s hard for her to lay all her card on the table, to trust them with everything. In a lot of ways, she trusts her parents. But she doesn’t tell them – well, most things.

Naruto looks away guiltily, then gives a short nod, but doesn’t say anything.

Sasuke sighs. “He’s like Naruto.”

Itachi is a genius. He understands what he’s saying immediately and his eyes widen. “That’s not in his file.”

If Itachi doesn’t know, then Minato probably doesn’t either. He would have told his Anbu. Sasuke knows that Naruto had worried that he’d hid it from her deliberately.

“I could be wrong,” Naruto says, even though she’s not, even though she wouldn’t be this worried and going to this much effort if she doubted herself at all. “He’s not exactly like me though.”

“His seal,” Itachi says. “It doesn’t keep them completely separate like yours does?”

Sasuke keeps his expression relaxed from years of practice.

“Right,” she says. “So don’t try and fight him head on, okay? We’ll help you.”

Itachi presses his lips together then nods, disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

“Come on,” Sakura says, “the sooner everyone else collects a scroll, the sooner we can get to the tower ourselves.”

Naruto nods, forming the Ram and a half dozen copies of his best friend pop into existence.

Meeting up with everyone would draw too much attention to themselves and splitting up to keep an eye on the teams is asking for trouble. Luckily, Naruto’s shadow clones are able to bridge that gap.

Not that she’s supposed to know how to do those, but Sasuke has lost count of the number of Naruto’s secrets he’s keeping.  

[nerdyjournals]

SCORPIUS

Genre: mystery

Y/N Notes: they/them, female presenting

Ship: DECIDED BUT SECRET

Summary: After one friend is reported dead and the other reported missing, the remaining 7 have to put together their last actions in order to figure out what happened.

The group settled back into their seats as their phones dinged with a new message.

"How do we even know this is Minho?" Seungmin asked. "For all we know, this could be someone using his phone."

"But what if it's not?" Jisung hummed. "He may not be as active as we are, but I know Minho. If he's pressed for time, he's sending everything at once."

"What about these errands?"

"Y/N always talked about her G.O.D bag and Info-folder anytime she was about to go somewhere sketchy or meet a date off the internet. She drilled it into our heads every single time."

"G.O.D bag?" Felix asked.

"It's her Get-Outta-Dodge Bag. It has clothes, toiletries, and copies of all her documents in case she couldn't take them."

"As cool as it is they're prepped for doomsday, I think we're overlooking the high implications of something," Jeongin said as they turned to him. "Y/N's alive."

"If she's alive, where is she?" Felix turned to Chan. "Any ideas?"

Chan wasn't listening. His fingers were already typing in the number. His heart pounded against his chest, feeling like it was trying to burst with all the anxiety and worry filling him.

His laughter confused them. They couldn't understand how he was so giddy right now.

"Chan?" Jeongin caught his attention again. "What's our next move?"

"Do what he says." He slid his phone down the table, letting them all read it as relief began to fall on their faces. "We're about to play a game."

-

Felix and Seungmin pulled up to the Han River, silently scratching their heads. The place had over one dozen tteokbokki stands. How were they supposed to find the right one?

"Anything?" Seungmin asked, pulling out his phone.

"Nothing yet." Felix looked around before scrolling through Y/N's social media again. There wasn't much to work off of, but he believed there to be a hint hidden in there. "There!" He pulled up a photo. "It's the stand near the bridge."

"How certain are you?"

"Like 70%."

Their feet slapped against the pavement as they ran towards their next clue.

An older woman was closing up her stand for a break as they approached. Seeing their frazzled look, she waved them down and held out a small laptop case.

"You two are friends with Y/N, yes?" She asked as they nodded. "Her boy came and said you would be by for this. Told me to tell you 'fruit cove' too. Whatever that means."

"Thank you ma'am." Seungmin said, as Felix took the case. "Enjoy the rest of your day."

They walked back up to their car, settling in before Felix looked into the bag and pulled out a file.

"Min, you're gonna want to see what they put in here."

-

Han rocked on his feet half an hour later, watching as trains roared through the station. Y/N's duffle hung from his shoulder, filled with all her essential G.O.D items.

Someone tapped his shoulder. He froze before recognizing the familiar pattern being pressed into the muscle.

Turning around, he felt relief as Minho stood there with his hands in his pockets. The man was covered in bruises; one stemming from his left cheek bone and another blooming around his right eye. His knuckles were wrapped in gauze that still had speckles of blood covering them.

"Are you okay?" That was the first question out of Jisung's mouth. "How's Y/N?"

"They're safe. Alive and safe." He watched Jisung deflate with a deep exhale before holding out on arm. "Come here."

The boy melted into his side.

"You guys are gonna give Chan gray hair."

"Too late. I've seen them." They laughed as Minho took hold of the bag. "I gotta go. Y/N needs me."

"Why can't we go with you?"

"The less people who know about her right now, the better. Besides me, it's only her family and now you guys. Which brings me to the most important thing I'll say today," he grabbed Jisung by the face to make him pay attention, "DO NOT talk about them out loud after leaving here today. Someone is looking to finish what they started and if they do, it won't be pretty for anyone."

"Can you at least tell me why the secrets?"

"Not right now. Just go to the fruit cove with the others when you can, okay?"

With one more pat on Jisung's head, Minho went to board a waiting train and disappeared into the distance.

The boy on the platform reached up to tug at the chain around his neck. It brought him a sort of comfort to feel the two magnets on the side of the charm, knowing exactly who wore the matching pieces.

'Fruit cove,' he mouthed before gasping out in realization.

-

Tag list: @realrintaro @krisstheidiot @lucifers-silhouette

join the tag list

[sugudoe]

HI I am literally OBSESSED with your works and wanted to send in a match-up request after lurking for a hot minute <333 Please and thank you!! You are awesome!!!

I use she/her pronouns, and I'm of pretty average height with a pear-shaped body type. I have thick, wavy brown hair and moles all over my body. I wear thick plastic glasses and wear loose, comfortable clothes.

My personality type is INTP, though I'd describe myself as an ambivert. I really like talking to people, I just have a limited social battery and (medicated) anxiety. In public I'm cracking jokes pretty much all the time because I love making people laugh (I also think my jokes are funny asf so I'm usually laughing too). At home I just want to cuddle my cat and quietly recharge (parallel play rules!!). Also, if it matters, I'm a Pisces!

My hobbies include: playing guitar, D&D, reading comics and manga, and playing video games (though I'm lowkey bad at them). Mostly, I'm into nerd shit. I get really excited when I get to share it with someone, especially when they're just as into it!

I'm an adult, so I would appreciate if you could match me up with an adult too. Thank you again! Pls take your time writing this if you choose to and be well <3 looking forward to your next SMAU!

first of all, thank you for putting your pronouns and telling me to not pair you with a minor, sometimes i have to scratch my head with the other matches, fearing i might do something wrong or uncomfortable. anyways, thank you for enjoying my work, it means the world to me! hope you enjoy this!!

✶ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: geto suguru

How wonderful and scary it is to be your most vulnerable self with someone else? Geto Suguru had always hold his emotions into the deepest parts of his soul, trembling in fear of the face others would give when seeing his pure self. He should know that there is no way to hide himself from you, his best friend.

To his credit, he tries, at first. Holding his hands in a fist, letting his stoic voice shake while he recounts his life as of lately. That’s so out of character for him, it takes you no more than a second to hug him, desperately.

Truth be admitted, Geto crumbled into your arms and cried, cried. . . cried. Until, he begged you to take his mind away from this cruel world, let him be lighted by your presence, do whatever it takes.

And that’s what you do. Grabbing your guitar, you decide to stroke some chords, the soft melody blending with his quiet hiccups, before you decide to teach him to play.

“You have always looked like the type of guy to play guitar.” You mumble while you’re positioning your fingers on top of his. Geto laughs.

It’s like giving him medicine, if the world seems too chaotic, and his thoughts are spiraling terribly, he grabs your guitar. His emotions gallop around your room in the form of melodies, you dare not complain.

Suguru takes attention in other things you do, copying your way to cease his fears, have new hobbies and avoid the voices and fears plaguing his mind. He reads comics with you, even growing red in the face when you both disagree on a plot or losing a game. Unfortunately, he draws the line at D&D, not because it’s not his cup of tea, it’s just when you start to teach him how to play, his mind goes blank — not for bad reasons, his focus and thoughts goes only to you.

Your way of fixing your glasses, hands moving while explaining the game, your beautiful voice. And, once, you used a shirt that presented your upper body moles for him, and how beautiful it seems to be crafted with dozens of constellations, like a designed creature made by the universe itself. In that moment, he knew you were not his world, but much better you’re his whole sky, shinning bright the light of millions of stars.

He kisses you while you explained your character he could barely record the name.

It’s a habit he takes while your relationship is blooming and it will last until your very last breath. When you talk happily of your interests, and you move a certain way or the breeze flows into your body, he will kiss you, and you’ll let him. Geto kisses, specially, after your jokes, and he could get drunk on the sight of your lovesick smile mixed with your sweet laugh.

It shakes him. Your whole essence and presence, it all shakes Geto Suguru to a crazy extent. It can be admitted that love with him can be intense, but none of you would pick any other way.

──── ✎ ° ⋆ FUN FACTS.

◛ ₊· geto loves you to a whole extent, that being said, he would fight you for the chance to cuddle your cat.

◛ ₊· said cat also has a thing for your boyfriend, much rather preferring to be on his lap during hours to no end.

◛ ₊· you go to sleep and wake up in the same way everyday, peacefully into his loving arms, and his hands are always tracing your moles. he has been doing it for such a long time that he has them all memorized.

◛ ₊· if you leave your glasses anywhere and suddenly they are missing, chances are your boyfriend is using them and acting as if not. or maybe he forgets, he should be going to an eye doctor, actually.

[misandry-is-justified]

Proof Johnny Depp Lied

Johnny Depp lied in the trial and its proven both in the court recordings and in the transcripts.

Early on in the trial, Ambers lawyer asks if Johnny Depp sent the following text messages:

«Right. Exactly. Molly's pussy is rightfully mine. Should I not just bust in and remove its hinges tonight?»

«"I want to change her understanding of what it is like to be thrashed about like a pleading Mackrel.»

«I NEED. I WANT. I TAKE.»

He denies it, claiming that he never said these words, and when presented with the evidence, that he did not send those messages (even though they were sent from his device). Claims of impersonation are, at the best of times, convenient but during the same examination he proves himself a liar when another text message is presented, written in the same style and he admits to writing it.

He does not dispute writing the following text, admitting with a clear «i most certainly did» when asked if he sent it:

«She's begging for total global humiliation. She's going to get it. I'm gonna need your texts about San Francisco, brother. I'm even sorry to ask. But, she sucked Mollusk's crooked dick and he gave her some shitty lawyers. I have no mercy, no fear, and not an ounce of emotion, or what I once thought was love for this gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market.

I'm so fucking happy she wants to go to fight this out. She will hit the wall hard. And I cannot wait to have this waste of a cum guzzler out of my life. I met a fucking sublime little Russian here, which made me realize the time I blew on that 50 cent stripper. I wouldn't touch her with a goddamn glove. I can only hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her. Sorry, man. But, now, I will stop at nothing. Let's see if Mollusk has a pair. Come see me face to face. I'll show him things he's never seen before. Like the other side of his dick when I slice it off.»»

The idea that he did not write the first text message is proven by the admission of writing the second. The writing style is the same. The idea that he did not write the first was laughable to begin with, but for this bogeyman impersonator to replicate his texting style with such accuracy? If these two instances alone do not prove it you can keyword search «text» in the transcripts and see for yourselves what i mean, for this messaging style is quite consistent with all of the others he admits to sending throughout the trial. This proves his guilt and this was the moment i knew he is a liar.

If he lied about this, so minor a message (because lets be honest nobody cares if you say demeaning things about women) for the sake of his reputation, what else was he lying about during this trial? He so obviously lied about so much more but the charisma of the more experienced actor won in the end.

Transcript sections and a link to the whole transcript and recording are provided below. The sections i copied are from pages 67-75. The date of this part of the trial was 25th May 2022 (Trial day 22 according to the video but 23 according to the transcript.)

Mr. Rottenborn: Mr. Depp, these are text messages from you to Stephen Deuters on February 22nd, 2017, correct? Mr. Depp: No. This looks nothing like me. You might have mistaken... Mr. Rottenborn: Mr. Depp, we can show the full unredacted...you've looked at a number of text messages in this case, and the words "Him" as the identifier, that's you, correct, in every text message we've seen in this case? Mr. Depp: Yeah. Sure. It still doesn't mean it hasn't been screwed with. That's not anything that I've ever said or written. Mr. Rottenborn: You want to see the whole thing unredacted? We can look at that, too. Mr. Depp: No. It's because you could have typed it up last night. No. Mr. Rottenborn: I can assure you I didn't type it up last night, Mr. Depp. Your Honor, I move for the admission of Exhibit 883.

-gap-

Mr. Rottenborn: Thank you. Mr. Depp, you're aware these are text messages...you can see the bottom right where it says "Depp" and then it has a number, 8129? Those are produced by you in this litigation. You understand that, right? Mr. Depp: I understand that. Mr. Rottenborn: All right. Michelle, could you please...let's take a look at the top text first. Mr. Depp, on February 22nd, 2017, you texted Mr. Deuters, "Right. Exactly. Molly's pussy is rightfully mine. Should I not just bust in and remove its hinges tonight?" Did I read that right? Mr. Depp: You read it right. Mr. Rottenborn: And the one beneath that, you say, "I want to change her understanding of what it is like to be thrashed about like a pleading Mackrel." And then in all caps, you write, "I NEED. I WANT. I TAKE." That right?

Mr. Depp: You read it right, but I did not write that. Mr. Rottenborn: Okay. Mr. Depp: Perhaps someone [inaudible 02:41:52] phone. Mr. Rottenborn: You wrote every other text that you produced, that came from you in this litigation, didn't you? Mr. Depp: Not necessarily. Sometimes you give your phone to people and they...

-gap-

Mr. Rottenborn: My apologies, Your Honor. Mr. Depp, you sent this text

to Christian Carino on August 15th?

Mr. Depp: I most certainly did.

-gap-

Mr. Rottenborn: Thank you, Your Honor. And in this text, Mr. Depp, you said, "She's begging for total global humiliation. She's going to get it. I'm gonna need your texts about San Francisco, brother. I'm even sorry to ask. But, she sucked Mollusk's crooked dick and he gave her some shitty lawyers. I have no mercy, no fear, and not an ounce of emotion, or what I once thought was love for this gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market.

I'm so fucking happy she wants to go to fight this out. She will hit the wall hard. And I cannot wait to have this waste of a cum guzzler out of my life. I met a fucking sublime little Russian here, which made me realize the time I blew on that 50 cent stripper. I wouldn't touch her with a goddamn glove. I can only hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her. Sorry, man. But, now, I will stop at nothing. Let's see if Mollusk has a pair. Come see me face to face. I'll show him things he's never seen before. Like the other side of his dick when I slice it off." Did I read that right? Mr. Depp: You did.

[sjsmith56]

Always Bumping Into Each Other

Summary: Somehow a woman and a toddler boy seem to show up at the worst times possible during assorted Avengers operations.

Characters: Bucky Barnes (grumpy, then soft), Avengers team (various), original female character and 4 year old boy.

Length: 2.9K

Warnings: None, other than some violence in the name of self-defence and swearing.

Please do not copy and post this story to any other platform or translate it without my consent. If you like it please reblog. I’m new at posting on Tumblr and I need the encouragement.

“Do you see the contact yet?”

Sam was circling high overhead, watching the approach of a defecting HYDRA agent who said he wanted to change sides but would only give himself in to the Winter Soldier.

“Not yet,” replied Bucky, seated at the cafe table in front of the coffee shop. “I feel exposed just sitting here.”

“That’s what you get when you’re requested to be the person to bring him in. Hold on, he’s ducked inside of a shop. Stay alert everyone.”

There were check-ins from the others who were scattered around the immediate vicinity. Then, out of nowhere, Bucky could hear a voice.

“Corey? Where are you sweetie? No, don’t you run away from me. Corey … dammit.”

It was the kid he saw first, about four years old, with a look of glee on his face, coming towards him at full tilt, with a frantic woman chasing him, begging him to stop.

Standing up, Bucky stepped in front of the child, scooping him up in his arms and holding him until the woman caught up.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she exclaimed when she got to Bucky. “He climbed out of his stroller and took off like a bat out of hell. He’s faster than he looks.”

“No problem,” he replied, trying to hand the boy back as he noticed some people wearing masks and long coats suddenly appear in a perimeter around him. “Uh, would you get behind me for a moment?”

“Excuse me?” asked the woman, looking at him with puzzlement, then noticing the gloved hand. “Oh my God, you’re Bucky Barnes.”

He gave her a stilted smile in acknowledgment of her recognition of him at the same time as noticing the people in long coats were suddenly pulling out guns.

“It’s a trap,” he said, in his comms, pushing the table down and pulling the woman and the boy behind it with him. “I read at least half a dozen enemy. I have two civilians I have to protect.”

Several calls of “on it” reached his ears as he reached inside to his jacket holster and pulled out a gun. The woman shrieked slightly but stayed put, hugging the boy tightly and crouching as low as she could behind Bucky and the cafe table.

“Buck, sending the shield, on your nine,” said Sam’s voice.

Bucky looked left in time to put his hand up and catch the vibranium shield, holding it up between him and the intruders. They began firing anyway, making Bucky shake his head at the futility of them shooting at a bulletproof target. Firing back several times, he stopped when he saw Sam dive bomb the closet gunman, picking him up and dropping him into a fountain at the other end of the plaza. Peter’s webs encased the next man, then the young Avenger pulled on it lifting the man and hanging him in his cocoon from a lamp post. From his peripheral vision he saw another man rush towards him and stepped up, throwing the shield at his midsection knocking him over into a flower cart before the shield returned to him. Quickly, looking behind him to check on the woman and the boy he was shocked to see her in a tug of war with another gunman as he tried to take the boy. Shooting the man in the knee, he picked him up with his vibranium hand and tossed him about twenty feet away.

“Hold this in front of you,” he said to the woman, giving her the shield, then leaped into the air towards two others, meeting Thor who was doing the same thing from the other side.

Looking back at the woman he groaned when he saw another one of the gunman trying to steal the shield from her. Despite holding on to the boy with one arm she was doing a pretty good job of it, kicking the man in his legs, and using the shield against him as best she could. Striding quickly over he took the man by his collar and tossed him aside, letting Peter finish the job by immobilizing him in a web. Within another minute they had seven gunman covered in webs, and all of the Avengers on this operation visible in the plaza to ward off anyone else thinking of taking them on. Torres, still in the air, said the supposed defector took off in the other direction.

Walking grimly back to the woman Bucky tried to quell his anger at this obvious attempt to kidnap him and to use civilians as hostages. She stood up and held out the shield to him, smiling hesitantly.

“I hope I didn’t wreck a takedown or anything,” she said. “Thank you for protecting us.”

“They were after me,” he replied bluntly, accepting it, noticing for the first time she was kind of pretty. “Is your son okay?”

“Oh, he’s not my son,” she blushed. “I’m the nanny. He is a handful.” Sam and the others approached, making little Corey call out their names. “He loves you guys. I don’t know how I’m going to explain how we were caught in a shootout with the Avengers.”

“Well, you seemed to keep your head, Miss …?” smiled Sam, as he took the shield from Bucky.

“Oh, um, Jones, Cassidy Jones,” she said. “You guys are impressive to watch in action. My friends aren’t going to believe I was part of this.”

Bucky watched her with his usual stern face, but still impressed at how animated she seemed after being involved in two tussles with two gunmen, all while protecting the boy, Corey. As the police came to arrest the gunmen and take statements from the witnesses, including Cassidy, Sam looked at Bucky, who was still looking at her.

“She seems nice,” he said. “You should ask her out.”

Receiving a glare for his suggestion he chuckled then called the others for a quick debrief before they boarded the quinjet. Cassidy and Corey waved goodbye to them as they headed towards their transport. Almost everyone waved back, except Bucky who sniffed then turned away.

➿

“Corey, buddy, I know you want ice cream but you have to eat real food first,” said Cassidy, offering him a French fry.

“No, I want ice cream,” he pouted.

“One fry, just one, please,” she begged, putting it closer to his mouth in the hope of achieving a symbolic victory.

Opening his mouth he took it from her, while looking her in the eye. With a gleam that frightened her he chewed it then spat it out to the side, watching with a smile as it dropped to the floor inside the fast food restaurant. Cassidy sighed. There had to be a better way to make enough money for her Master’s degree than being a nanny to this particular hell spawn. Bending over with a napkin to pick it up, she stood up to put the half chewed food in the garbage and turned around in time to see Corey pushing against the door to the outside.

“Not again,” she groaned as she ran towards him, then found herself blocked by a family leaving at the same time.

By the time she got outside she couldn’t see him and began calling him. The sound of shouts got her attention and she started running towards them.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” she muttered as she ran towards what was obviously another Avengers operation gone bad, as she noticed Captain America and the Falcon swooping down towards a melée in the parking lot of a big box store.

As she got closer she could see Corey was being held in the metal arm of Bucky Barnes, laughing as the super soldier dealt one handed with several attackers. Several of the other Avengers were tied up with other attackers as she tried to get close enough to get Corey out of there so Barnes could be doing his job rather than doing hers. Without even thinking twice she ran up to him.

“Give me Corey,” she yelled, as he looked at her in alarm.

“Get out of here,” he yelled back.

“Not without him,” she cried, then yelled again. “Behind you!”

Barnes whirled, putting his right forearm into the attacker’s throat. Turning back and glaring at her he handed off Corey and she ran, trying to find cover that would keep them out of danger.

“No, I want Bucky!”

Corey was struggling against her as she ran, but she held him like a vice, restraining him as best she could. They both watched in fascination as the team took on about a dozen attackers, some of them armed with weapons that she recognized from martial arts movies but couldn’t remember what they were called. One of the Avengers, the new guy, Shang Chi, knew what they were and took them in hand as he disabled his adversaries, then used the weapons to support his team until once again, like at the plaza a few days before, they had everyone down and the sound of police sirens were approaching quickly. She must have relaxed her hold on Corey as he suddenly got out of her arms and took off towards the Avengers, running right to Bucky Barnes and throwing his arms around the big man’s legs.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as she approached him. “He got away from me again. We were having lunch nearby and ….” She stopped talking when she saw his exasperated face.

He picked the boy up then gave him to Cassidy. “You’re not following us are you?” he asked.

“No!” exclaimed Cassidy. “Honestly, we were eating at the fast food place, just over there and I turned my back on him for a just a moment and he was gone.” She looked down, almost ready to cry. “I’m not very good at my job, am I?”

She looked up at him, realizing how blue those eyes were and how they seemed to look right through her. Even though he looked fierce, with this prominent crease between his eyebrows, his voice was soft when he answered.

“You deliberately put yourself into danger to come and get him,” he said gently. “I’d say you’re doing a great job of protecting him. You probably need another pair of eyes just to watch him.”

They both heard a chuckle nearby. “I swear that boy went right to Bucky,” said Sam. “Almost like he was a laser guided missile. That kid has a nose for trouble.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” commented Cassidy. “I really am sorry. Come on, Corey. I hope your mom doesn’t see this on the news. I’ll be fired for sure.”

Holding her hand out, Corey took it and waved at all the Avengers as he walked with her back to her car in the parking lot of the fast food restaurant. Even Bucky watched her go.

“She’s got a good heart,” said Sam. “Next time, get her number.”

“There won’t be a next time,” replied Bucky, suddenly turning away, feeling warm inside.

➿

Even though she was trying to think positively Cassidy couldn’t stop the feeling of dread in her stomach. She was supposed to be taking Corey to a play date but when she got to the park it was eerily empty and quiet, almost as if everyone who were supposed to be there had disappeared en route. Her charge didn’t mind as he made a beeline for the climbing structure and crawled up the steps then posed at the top of the slide.

“Watch me, Cassie!” he called, before diving down the incline on his stomach.

Sliding off the bottom with a giggle he raced around to climb up the structure again before sliding down. Three more times he did it before running to the swings and asking to be pushed. Lifting him into the seat that supported him Cassidy pushed him several times, slowly allowing his laughter to improve her mood. Just as she started to feel better about being in the park alone she looked up, losing the smile that had been on her face, when she saw the strange aircraft hovering above them.

“What the fuck?” she muttered, then grabbed Corey when he swung back to her and began running to the parking lot.

Several people rappelled out of the aircraft, landing all around her but not doing anything. Holding Corey tightly she waited, wondering what they were waiting for. The aircraft went over to an open area of the park, landing and opening a ramp. A man in black came down and right away she knew this man was the one behind the last two attacks. There was just something about the way he walked and looked at her that made her think this “play date” was a setup as well.

“Miss Jones,” he said, his unaccented voice chilling her to the core. “I was hoping you would bring your friends with you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, defensively.

“Strange,” he said. “Twice they showed up in the same place that you and the boy were. Yet here we are and they are no where to be found.”

“Coincidence,” she replied. “They’re not my friends. They don’t know me or my schedule with Corey.”

“Pity,” he said. “We’ll have to do this the hard way. Take her.”

The shield came out of nowhere, knocking down three of the people who had rappelled out of the aircraft. Taking off through the gap those three had left when they fell Cassidy ran as hard as she could until she was aware of someone running with her. Looking to her side she was surprised when she saw it was Bucky Barnes.

“Trust me,” he said, then scooped her up in his arms without breaking his stride, carrying her quickly towards the quinjet, parked in an open space in a wooded area. Opening the ramp, he let her down at the base of it. “Stay inside, press the red button up there to close the ramp. You’ll be safe.”

Without waiting for an answer he raced back to where the action was and Cassidy did as she was told, pressing the red button he indicated then waiting. They left the outside security cams working on the interior computer screens, and they were able to watch the battle between the Avengers team and whoever the guys in the other aircraft were. It was exciting to be part of it, without being in the midst of it. When it was over she watched as Bucky approached the quinjet. Going over to the control she pressed the red button and waited for the ramp to completely lower. Corey immediately latched himself onto Bucky’s legs as he stepped up the ramp, and he picked the little boy up. She noticed his face was bruised and he had a cut over his eye but what was even more evident was the soft look he gave her as he approached.

“You’re both okay?” he asked. “We’ve been trying to get this guy for a while. He posed as a HYDRA defector but was trying to kidnap me in the hopes of reactivating the Winter Soldier. When he saw the footage of you at the plaza he figured we knew each other and he decided to use it against us, against me.”

“He was tracking me?” Bucky nodded. “How did you figure that?”

“When it happened again at the parking lot,” he replied. “Sam cloned your phone with Red Wing, that’s the flying drone. The play date was a setup, by the other guy, not by us.”

“So we won’t see you again?”

He coughed a little. “We could meet for coffee or go out together,” he said.

“You’re asking me out?” She looked at him, seeing those blue eyes focused on her. “Okay, when?”

He smiled, and Cassidy thought she had never seen someone so handsome as Bucky Barnes when he smiled.

“Tomorrow?”

The other Avengers approached as the police had arrived to take the attackers into custody.

“Did you ask her out yet?” asked Torres, receiving a glare from Bucky.

“Yes, he asked me,” replied Cassidy. “Tomorrow, 7 pm. I assume you know where I live. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just maybe somewhere without kids.”

Even Corey chuckled at that comment, although it likely went over his head. Since Corey wouldn’t let Bucky go he walked Cassidy back to her car, helping to buckle the little boy into his car seat. As they both stood shyly outside the car, Bucky looked seriously at her.

“You should consider a career in law enforcement,” he said. “Every time you got caught up in things, you kept your cool while everything was going down. I know the Avengers are always looking for agents in a support capacity.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she replied, moving closer to the driver’s side door. “It’s been nice bumping into each other.”

“It has,” he agreed.

Cassidy surprised him with a kiss on the cheek and got into the car, backing it up, then both of them waved goodbye as they pulled away. This time, Bucky waved back.

One Shots Masterlist

Tumblr Masterlist

[pekejscatbed]

Happy Birthday, Runaway | Jason Todd centric

Info/Warnings:

Translations:

Dios mío - oh my god, Padre Nuestro - the lord's prayer, Ave Maria - holy Mary, Gloria - glory be

set in the Runaway and Circus Boy universe

batman masterlist

------

The Gotham Clock Tower chimes from above as Robin ties up a wannabe purse snatcher, signifying a new day: August 16th.

"Good work, Robin." Batman doesn't sound impressed, and it probably has to do with Robin running off on his own, again, despite the many lectures The Batman has given him about not doing that exact thing.

Robin just grins at him, "Thanks, B-man."

And as the two crime fighters grapple away to finish patrolling the city, Robin swears he hears Batman wish him a happy birthday over the wind.

(When they finish patrol, after putting half a dozen new criminals in jail, and get back to the Batcave, there's a shiny black and red and yellow motorbike in the middle of cave that wasn't there before they left for patrol and that neither Robin nor Jason have ever seen before, and it has the Robin insignia on the side, and he thinks its brand new and-

"Custom made, for Robin."

(Jason gushes about it all the way up the stairs and the whole walk to his room and he wouldn't be surprised if he had talked about it in his sleep, too, because his dreams are filled of him riding his brand-new, custom-made Robin bike throughout the city and fighting crime, but on a motorcycle!))

------

"Happy fifteenth, Master Jason." 

Jason wakes up to the curtains in his bedroom being pulled open, the morning sun burning his sleepy eyes, and he immediately pulls the covers over his head and squeezes his green-blue eyes shut; said covers are snatched away only a second later by the same man who's just so kindly reminded him of his birthday.

"If you do not wish to open your presents, I can gladly send them back. I'm sure Master Bruce would agree." Alfred walks to Jason's bedroom door, only to pause, looking over his shoulder. "Not to mention, the breakfast I cooked up for you."

Alfred gestures to the boy's dresser before exiting the room, lightly shutting the door behind him, and it's only now that Jason recognizes the smell of food in his room and he rubs the remaining sleep out of his eyes before he looks over to his dresser to see a silver tray filled with all of his favorite breakfast foods and a glass of orange juice, no doubt fresh squeezed by Alfred himself. Jason wastes no time in grabbing the freshly cooked meal; birthdays are the only days Alfred will allow breakfast in bed, after all.

------

The day goes by slowly, school just as boring on Jason's birthday as it is any other day, and he doesn't have many friends to wish him happy birthday or receive presents from. The two friends he does have, though, have pulled their money together to buy Jason a new Nintendo DS game and a Playboy magazine one of the kid's older brothers bought for them (Jason laughs it off, trying not to show his discomfort; it's not like he could just tell his friends he's gay, who knows how they'd react?), and his English teacher gives him a brand new copy of How To Kill A Mockingbird, which his friends make fun of him for, but English has always been his favorite subject so he's never been anything but a teacher's pet when it comes to the sweet old lady who teaches his class. Plus, Jason's pretty sure she's a lesbian because she only ever refers to her spouse by gender-neutral terms despite the number of students and staff alike who seem to think she really intends to say "husband" and that she just "misspoke", and Jason's young, queer heart swells with joy knowing that there's other people out there in the world like him, especially older people. We've always been here.

(Jason spends all day wondering why Dick hasn't wished him a happy birthday, especially considering how the circus boy has always made such a huge deal about birthday in the past, and for a moment Jason panics- what if Dick knows I like him and he hates me for it and he never wants to speak to me again and- the final bell rings, interrupting Jason's thoughts, and the boy shakes his head as he grabs his backpack, making his way to Gotham Academy's front gates where Alfred picks him up in that ridiculous mini limousine that Jason hates because he just wants to feel like a normal kid and go to a normal high school, not this fancy, prestigious "academy" that Bruce and Alfred make him go to for a "proper" education.

Dios mío, I sound like a middle school girl.)

------

When Jason gets home (he only just recently started referring to Wayne Manor as home), Bruce is waiting for him at the door, a seriously serious look on his face, and Jason thinks he's in trouble for running off last night as Robin because he hasn't done anything else to piss the man off recently, at least, not that he can remember. Of course, instead of just asking what, if anything, he did wrong-

"You look constipated, old man. Seriously, who pissed in your Cheerios?"

"Master Jason!" Alfred looks offended for Bruce, though Jason's pretty sure it's only mock offense, if the laugh-disguised-cough is anything to go by; Bruce just rolls his eyes.

"Cave. Now." And Bruce is walking off, presumably to the nearest secret entrance to the Batcave. 

Jason sets down his backpack by the door, mumbling about "my birthday" and "one day off" and "I didn't even do anything", before following Bruce.

When he gets to the cave, Bruce- Batman- Bruce-Bat?- Bat-Bruce?- is already there, suit on except for the mask, and Jason wonders how the hell the man had enough time to change when Jason was only a whole ten steps behind him; Jason pulls on his suit as he speaks.

"What's up, B-man?" Jason looks at the screens on the Batcomputer, where he sees images of Joker and a woman with dark, curly hair and tan skin, as well as striking green eyes, and Jason thinks that she could be his biological mother if his dad hadn't told him she died during childbirth. "Who's she?"

Bat-Bruce doesn't reply right away, and Jason turns to the side to look at him, and only now does he see the deep frown on the mans lips and the far away look in his eyes. "Her name is Sheila Haywood."

He sounds... sad? Jason isn't sure what he hears in Bruce's voice, but he knows it's not good. "Okay...? What does Joker want with her?"

"Jason," Bruce pauses, takes a deep breath, then puts a hand on Jason's shoulder, "she's your birth mother."

The boy forces out a laugh, shrugging off Bruce's hand. "Ha. Ha. Very funny, Bruce. My mom's dead, died during childbirth, I never met the woman."

"She didn't die during childbirth, Jason. She was a doctor at Gotham General where she got caught preforming an illegal operation after her patient died, a girl no older than you are now, and fled the country to avoid jail time. She's been living abroad ever since." Bruce's frown deepens the more he talks, and his voice is flat, serious, and Jason knows he's telling the truth.

"How long have you known?"

"Jason," The man tries to explain, tries to calm Jason down, tries to do anything for the boy- but Jason-

"How long have you known, Bruce?" Jason is pissed, at Bruce for keeping this from him, at his dad for lying to him, at his mom for never contacting him, at himself for never looking into his birth mother but he never had any reason to so why would he have? And he raises his voice, "Why didn't you tell me my mother is alive!?"

Jason storms out of the cave, walking up the stairs, anger flooding his body and mind like the rainwater that used to flood the driveway of his old house with his dad during Gotham's raging storms, and he knows he needs to calm down or else he'll destruct and probably hurt himself in the process, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care because he's been lied to his whole life by the people he thought he could trust- the people he should have been able to trust- and if they never cared enough about him to tell him the truth then why should he care about himself enough to take a deep breath, and calm down, and think- 

I'm going after her. Joker has her so she's in danger and I have to save her because she's my mom and I need to know why she never- I need to save her. For the mission, for the job.

Jason turns around, heading back down into the cave and putting on his domino mask. Batman is already gone, and so is the Batmobile; Robin checks the Batcomputer for Joker and his moms- Sheila's- location, hops onto his new bike, and revs the engine, speeding out of the Batcave. 

(In his hurry and his still simmering rage, Robin misses the glitch of numbers, misses the static of an outside source hacked into the Bat-frequency.)

------

Dick Grayson flashes a smile at his coworker as he walks out of the bar, ready to drive the hour-long trip from Blüdhaven to Gotham to surprise his little brother for his birthday. He had originally planned to get the day off from work so he could spend all day with Jason, but he waited too long to be approved for a vacation day, though luckily, he was able to convince his boss to only give him the day shift instead night (it really makes his night job much, much easier that way), so a sleepover will have to do, and Dick was never scheduled to work tomorrow anyway. Before he leaves, the bartender triple checks the trunk of his car for Jason's present and the cooler containing the homemade cake he baked yesterday afternoon, following a recipe Alfred had given him after Dick had quite literally gotten on his knees and begged, ever the Drama Queen.

------

The location brings Robin to a warehouse at the outskirts of Gotham. The place is definitely Jokers, with balloons and party streamers all over the outside, and when he looks inside via an open side window, he sees the interior matches the exterior with dark, velvet purple and acidic green party decorations. He sneaks through the window, ready to beat Joker and save Sheila, only for the lights to snap on- Joker knew he was coming- and Robin glances at the window, fucking motion detectors.

"Welcome, welcome, little Robin!" Joker stands in the middle of the warehouse, sickly grin stretching wide across his face, staring directly at the 'little' vigilante. "I've been expecting you! Hah, hahaha!"

Robin drops down in front of the laughing lunatic. "What do you want, Joker!? Where is Sheila Haywood!?"

"What do I want? Hm? Why to see the look on a certain birdies face when Mama Bird betrays him, of course!"

A rag is shoved in his face from behind before he can respond and he turns to see Sheila- his mother- standing there, before his vision fades and his body collapses.

------

With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride You're toxic, I'm slippin' under With a taste of a poison-

Dicks about half-way to Gatham when his phone goes off, Brittany Spears serenading his eardrums. He answers the call at a red light, glancing at the Caller I.D. long enough to read "Alfred", and puts the phone on speaker before the light turns green and he's moving again.

"Hey, Alfred! What's up?"

"Master Richard," Alfreds voice is shaky as he speaks, and Dick's eyebrows furrow together in worry, "Master Jason is... missing."

------

Cold, wet.

Robin gasps awake, body shivering as ice-cold water is thrown at his face, soaking his hair and trailing down his forehead-nose-cheeks-chin until the liquid lands on his suit, soaking through his body armor. His can feel the rope around his wrists and ankles, and Robin realizes he's tied to a chair. He hears Joker before he sees him, that sickeningly sadistic laugh screaming at his eardrums and aggravating his already pounding head; he must have hit his head on the ground earlier when he fell, or maybe it's just a side effect of being fucking drugged in the first place.

"Jason Todd!" The Joker is directly in front of him, and it's only now that Robin- Jason- realizes his mask is gone. "Oh, don't look so surprised, little bird! How would I have known about Mommy Dearest if I didn't know about you?"

"Trap. This was a-"

"A trap!" Joker mimics him, screeching like a siren, before he throws the bucket he was holding to the ground, the sound ringing throughout the warehouse, suddenly angry. "God! How stupid are you? The other kid would've sniffed that out from the beginning! Seriously, how did Bats find you? Did you get dropped on your head as a baby? Oh, oh!"

The Joker grins again and walks behind Jason, sharply turning the chair he's bound to, and now Jason can see his mom tied to a support beam; duct tape covers her mouth, crimson slipping through the tape and dripping down her chin. Her curly hair is disheveled and sticking up at odd angles, and her emerald eyes are wide, shaking with fear. She struggles against her restraints and the clown laughs again, stalking over to Sheila.

"Why don't we ask her?" Joker rips the tape off of Sheila's mouth, cackling as she lets out a short scream, and Jason gasps once more, immediately noticing the long, jagged cuts on either side of her mouth, mimicking a smile. "Did Mama Bird drop Baby Birdie on his head?"

Sheila doesn't respond, just shaking her head back and forth, blood spilling down her tan cheeks and staining her clothes. She whimpers when Joker pulls at her hair and demands an answer. "No, no, no!"

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Jason knows he should be mad, Sheila betrayed him, her own son, but she's still his mother and he can't just sit back and watch as Joker abuses her- but he has to, because his utility belt is gone so he has no tools he can use to cut his way free and Joker is looking at him like he knows exactly what Jason is think and he just laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

"Aw, how sweet! Baby Bird wants to protect Mommy!" Joker lets go of Sheila's hair, practically throwing her head to the side. 

Suddenly, Joker is behind Jason again, and then Jason hears the screeching sound of metal dragging against concrete, and his brain pounds, pounds, pounds against his skull and he pulls against his binds, twisting and turning as much as he can and-

THUNK!

His head jerks back at the force and the next hit has him falling sideways in the chair until he hits the ground, and he swears he can hear his skull crack against the concrete. 

"Ha! HAHAHA!" The Joker is in front of him now, bending over to look at him, and Jason can see the crowbar in his paper white hands for a split second before he's being hit again, and again, and again, body being battered black and blue as his costume is ripped to shreds with each hit and his own blood is pooling around him in a puddle, and if he looks down, he can see his bones poking through skin like the jagged rocks of a mountain.

As his bones crack and break, Jason can hear his mother praying in her native tongue through her sobs, Padre Nuestro and Ave Maria and Gloria filling his ears enough to block out the crazy clown's gruesome giggles.

And as Jason takes his last breath, he realizes his dad was right all those years ago; he does look like the spitting image his mother. They share the same dark, curly hair, and they have the same naturally tan skin dotted with freckles, and Jason's eyes are a similar shade of green, though his are tinted the with the pale blue of his father's eyes.

(A load BOOM! shakes the foundation of the old warehouse, smoke and flames engulfing the building and spreading through the air, but Jason doesn't even flinch.)

------

Joker is long gone by the time Batman and Nightwing get to the scene, and his decorations are burned to a crisp from the explosion, minus a single balloon that reads "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" in big, cursive letters, tied to a bloody crowbar and surrounded by a multitude of custom Joker playing cards, stylized in the whitest of white and dark purple and acid green.

The two vigilantes run into the falling warehouse, shifting through rubble and searching for, screaming for, "Robin! Robin! Jason!"

They find Sheila first, she's hunched over, and her clothes are singed, barely covering her, allowing Nightwing and The Batman to see the extensive burns on her back, and she's muttering the same phrase over and over again, "Lo siento, lo siento mucho!" 

"Dr. Haywood?" She whips around at Nightwings voice, and both him and Batman grimaces at the carved smile on her face.

"Help! Help him!" Sheila sobs, turning back to what- who- she was hunched over. "Help my baby!"

Batman gives a sharp intake at the sight of Jason, kneeling next to Shelia to pick the boy up; she grabs at his arm, but her grip is weak, and he notices how shallow her breath is. "Nightwing, get her out of here. She needs medical attention. I've got Jason."

If the break in his voice is heard, no one acknowledges it. 

"He didn't deserve this! He was a good boy, he didn't deserve this!" Sheila cries as Nightwing helps her to her feet, but she does nothing to stop him, and he guides her out of the building; Batman follows behind them, Jason's bruised and beaten body laying limp in his arms, and he falls to his knees once they're all far enough away from the building, tears forcing their way out of his tear ducts and streaming down his face as he holds his deceased son in his arms.

"Sheila, she didn't- she barely made it out of the building before she..." Nightwing leans down next to him, voice trailing off and face painted in tears as he holds Jason's unmoving hand in his own. He whispers, "Happy Birthday, Runaway." 

The warehouse crumbles behind them, crashing down as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson mourn the loss of a son, a brother, and a friend.

[padfootastic]

Okay, so related to my ask about the only picture truly left of Sirius being the one of him laughing as he’s arrested, I have also decided that Narcissa sends him a copy of his and Bella’s arrest photos. At some point, Sirius gets an untraceable package and it consists solely of the photos of him and Bellatrix laughing as they get arrested (he can see the other 3 in the background but Bellatrix dominates her photo, just like she always has) and a note saying “I thought these photos were particularly fitting. For obvious reasons I couldn’t send them to you or Bella earlier, but I’m sure you’ll get the joke. Don’t die.” There’s no signature but Sirius recognizes Narcissa’s handwriting and he does indeed get the joke (it’s not particularly funny, but it’s “no matter how hard you try, you’ll never not be a Black. Nobody will ever see anything but our family when they look at you; you can never outrun the Black blood in your veins”). It’s also a tad cruel, as Sirius is very aware of how similar he and Bellatrix look in that picture and he’s just as aware that Narcissa would’ve been as well and wanted to make him think of it too, but the Blacks’ form of communication is about 20% jabs that everyone else would consider too cruel to ever be forgiven but they say those comments as conversation over breakfast so he’s not too upset. Sirius sends back an old newspaper scrap with the owl, making sure there’s no way to identify where he got it or track him with it, and scrawls “Thanks. You used to be a lot funnier” on it. He knows Narcissa will know this means he’s alive, he got the joke, and he’s not truly mad at her. I like to think that Sirius takes the photos with him to Grimmauld and the Order is rather confused about why he’s chosen to keep photos of him and his lunatic cousin laughing as they get arrested. I also choose to think Narcissa made a copy of the photos and she gives them to Bella when she gets out, and all three of them are aware just why Narcissa kept them and what her message is with them. For crack purposes, all the other Death Eaters have to see the photos and words cannot describe how unsettling it is to see Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange laughing madly as they’re surrounded by over a dozen Aurors; for all that they’re on opposing sides, they look near-identical in the pictures. Narcissa and Bella are the only ones who don’t find the pictures creepy (other Death Eaters have brought it up to Lucius who shrugs helplessly and rolls his eyes because he’s lost this argument 3 times and he won’t try for a fourth time so they’re on their own)

that this also lends credence to the androgyny of sirius’ appearance pleases me on a level i cannot articulate.

also the last point lmaooo i love how detailed ur stuff is bc i can imagine it happening perfectly. the look of resignation on lucius’ face, the alarm on everyone else’s, the mix of cruelty-humor that the blacks are known for (and that make them too abrasive for everyone else)

[ammg-old2]

When Megan Nolan published her first novel, fellow authors warned her in “ominous tones” about the website Goodreads. The young Irish writer looked at the book’s listing there in the winter of 2020, the day the first proof copy arrived at her house. “Nobody but me and the publisher had seen it,” she wrote recently. “Despite this, it had received one review already: two stars, left by someone I had inconsequential personal discord with. It was completely impossible for him to have read the book.”

The terrible power of Goodreads is an open secret in the publishing industry. The review site, which Amazon bought in 2013, can shape the conversation around a book or an author, both positively and negatively. Today’s ostensible word-of-mouth hits are more usually created online, either via Goodreads or social networks such as Instagam and TikTok.

Publishers know how important these dynamics are, and so they send out advanced reading copies, or ARCs, not just to independent booksellers who might stock a title, but also to influencers who might make content about it. “There’s an assumption that if you receive an ARC that you will post about it,” Traci Thomas, host of the literary podcast The Stacks, told me—“whether that’s on your Goodreads, on your Instagram, on your TikTok, tell other people in your bookstore, or whatever. And so that’s how it ends up that there’s so many reviews of a book that’s not out yet.”

Many book bloggers are conscientious about including a disclaimer on their posts thanking the publisher for giving them an ARC “in exchange for an honest review.” But disclosing freebies is far from a contractual requirement or even a social norm. So you can’t easily discern which early reviewers have actually read the book, and which ones might be reacting to social-media chatter (or, as Nolan suspected in her case, prosecuting a personal grudge).

That matters because viral campaigns target unpublished books all the time. What tends to happen is that one influential voice on Instagram or TikTok deems a book to be “problematic,” and then dozens of that person’s followers head over to Goodreads to make the writer’s offense more widely known. Authors who reply to these attacks risk making the situation worse. Kathleen Hale—who was so infuriated by a mean reviewer that she tracked down the woman’s address—wrote later that the site had warned her against engagement: “At the bottom of the page, Goodreads had issued the following directive (if you are signed in as an author, it appears after every bad review of a book you’ve written): ‘We really, really (really!) don’t think you should comment on this review, even to thank the reviewer.’” Most authors I know read their Goodreads reviews, and then silently fume over them alone. Because I am a weirdo, I extract great enjoyment from mine—the more petty and baffling the complaints, the better. “I listened to the audiobook and by chapter 3 it started to annoy me the little pause she made before the word ‘male,’” reads one review of my book, Difficult Women.

When the complaints are more numerous and more serious, it’s known as “review-bombing” or “brigading.” A Goodreads blitzkrieg can derail an entire publication schedule, freak out commercial book clubs that planned to discuss the release, or even prompt nervous publishers to cut the marketing budget for controversial titles. Last month, the Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert withdrew her upcoming novel The Snow Forest from publication because of the backlash she received after revealing it was set in Soviet Russia. The Goodreads page for The Snow Forest, which has since been taken down, accused her of romanticizing the Russian soul. “I’ll cut the job for you—they don’t have any,” wrote one reviewer. Another wrote: “Just like her characters in this nover [sic] are unaware of the events of WWII, Elizabeth Gilbert herself seems to be unaware of the genocidal war russia is conducting against Ukraine RIGHT NOW, because I’m sure if she knew, she’d realise how tone deaf this book is.”

The book had been scheduled for release next February, but in a video announcing that it was “not the time for this book to be published,” Gilbert essentially endorsed the Goodreads criticisms: “I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.”

Now, I don’t know whether The Snow Forest romanticized the Russian soul or would somehow have caused “harm” to Ukrainians. Like my colleague Franklin Foer, I find the allegations hard to believe. But the plain fact is that neither of us know, because—and this should be obvious, although recent events suggest it is not—you don’t know what’s in a book you haven’t read. You also don’t know what’s in a film you haven’t watched, an album you haven’t heard, or an article you haven’t clicked on. That used to matter. It no longer does, because we live in a world where you can harvest likes by circulating screenshots of headlines and out-of-context video clips, and where marketing campaigns are big enough that they constitute artistic statements in themselves. (Barbie, I’m looking at you.)

Unfortunately, the artworks most likely to run into trouble in this viral hellscape are those that explore complicated, incendiary topics such as sex, race, and identity. Another Goodreads drama played out recently over Everything’s Fine, a debut novel written by Cecilia Rabess and published on June 6. Its plot centers on a young, progressive Black woman who falls in love with a conservative white man in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s election. “It obviously tackles some lightning-rod issues about race, class, and politics and identity in America,” Rabess told me, and so she expected strong reactions on Goodreads and similar sites. “But I think people certainly hadn’t read the book. And so I don’t know how they came to the conclusions that they did—that the book didn’t handle these topics carefully or thoughtfully or intentionally.”

Chalk that characterization up as writerly understatement. “It’s not enemies to lovers if you use it to excuse racists,” a typical one-star review read, referencing a common romance-novel trope. “Some authors shouldn’t be authors bc wtf is this!?” another offered. “i haven’t read this book nor do I plan to but having read the synopsis, I’m rating it 1-star,” a third confessed.

In the case of Everything’s Fine, the pile-on appears to have started on TikTok, where a handful of prominent creators criticized the book. The swell of anger then migrated to Goodreads, where those creators’ fans could register their disapproval. “i didnt and will not even read this i came from tiktok to say i hope the sales are so bad the bookstores have to throw away all inventory because it refuses to sell. anyone who gets an ARC of this should be ashamed,” noted another one-star review.

For Rabess, the experience was brutal. “As an artist, you’re prepared for people to not resonate with the work,” she said. “But I think it feels different when people decide that you yourself are problematic, or you yourself are causing harm, or whatever language they use to describe it. It feels a little bit surreal.” The backlash might have flourished on Goodreads, but it soon escaped to the wider internet. Rabess, who is Black, received angry direct messages and emails, as well as abusive comments under any social-media posts she made. “They said nasty things about me, about my children. Called me coon, other really unpleasant slurs. Told me that I’d be better off dead.”

The anger was scattershot. The commenters using racial slurs clearly knew Rabess’s race, but she wondered if some other online critics assumed that she was a white author intruding on territory they felt should be reserved for writers of color. While authors are sensibly told not to read the reviews—and certainly not to engage with critics—that’s harder when the critics come right up in your (virtual) face and shout their opinions at you.

As it happens, the podcaster Traci Thomas was among those who disliked Rabess’s book—albeit after reading an advance copy, back in January. “It’s an icky book,” she told me. She objected to what she saw as the moral of the story: Love conquers all, even being a Trump supporter. “The boyfriend in the book, Josh, is wearing a MAGA hat and, like, saying racist shit to [the female protagonist]. And she’s like, It’s fine. And the big revelation for her is that she can still choose to love him. And I’m just like: Okay, cool, go off—and I’m gonna tear this book to shreds.”

Ultimately, Thomas concluded, “I don’t know that the book needs to exist.”

Despite her own strong feelings, Thomas told me that she sometimes felt uneasy about her own reviews being surrounded by knee-jerk reactions and “performative allyship,” even by people whose politics she shared. “There are people who are new to anti-racism work or supporting LGBTQ people, or disability activism or whatever. And they feel it is their job to call out things that they notice without perhaps understanding the bigger historical context.” To illustrate the point, she gave an example: Imagine an author writes a book about Black children riding tricycles, “and then I’ll see a review that’s like, ‘This book didn’t talk about Black preschoolers who ride bikes, and they’re also at risk.’”

That dynamic explains one of the most initially counterintuitive aspects of viral pile-ons: that many seem to target authors who would agree with their critics on 99 percent of their politics. A strange kind of progressive one-upmanship is at work here: Anyone can condemn Ann Coulter’s latest book, but pointing out the flaws in a feminist or anti-racist book, or a novel by a Black female author, establishes the critic as the occupant of a higher moral plane.

The net effect of this is to hobble books by progressive authors such as Gilbert, and by writers of color such as Rabess. The latter is philosophical about the controversy over Everything’s Fine, seeing the backlash as representative of the political moment she was exploring in the novel—of “people feeling a dearth of community and connection, and just wanting a way to connect, a way to express themselves or express their anger.”

Of course, if Goodreads wanted to, it could fix the review-bombing problem overnight. When services that rely on user-generated content are only lightly moderated, it’s always a conscious decision, and usually a cold commercial one. After Gilbert pulled her novel from publication, The Washington Post observed that Amazon, which reportedly paid $150 million for Goodreads, now shows little interest in maintaining or updating the site. Big changes to a heavily trafficked site can be costly and risk annoying the existing user base: Reddit has recently faced down a moderators’ revolt for changes to how developers can access its tools, and Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter—or whatever it’s now called—will one day be taught at business schools on a slide headlined “How to Lose Advertisers and Alienate People.” A purge of duplicate accounts might sweep up some fanatically devoted Goodreads users—people who can’t bear to share their opinion only once—and make the site feel less busy and exciting.

Goodreads spokesperson Suzanne Skyvara told me by email that the site “takes the responsibility of maintaining the authenticity and integrity of ratings and protecting our community of readers and authors very seriously.” She added that Goodreads is working to “stay ahead of content and accounts that violate our reviews or community guidelines” and has “increased the number of ways members can flag content to us.”

The main Amazon site has several measures in place to stop review-bombing: Reviews from verified purchasers of books are flagged as such to bolster their credibility, while the star rating is the product of a complicated algorithm rather than simply an average of all the review scores. Goodreads could adopt even more stringent measures—but then, it isn’t in the company’s interests to reduce volume in favor of quality, because its entire appeal is based around being a grassroots voice. “Goodreads really needs a mechanism for stopping one-star attacks on writers,” the writer Roxane Gay tweeted after Gilbert’s statement in June. “It undermines what little credibility they have left.” Traci Thomas agrees. In an email, she told me that she would like to see “verified users or reviews that get a check (or something) in exchange for proving they’ve read the book.”

If Amazon will not put the resources into controlling the wrath of Goodreads, then what fairness requires here is a strong taboo: Do not review a book you haven’t read. We should stigmatize uninformed opinions the way we stigmatize clipping your nails on public transport, talking with your mouth full, or claiming that your peacock is a service animal. A little self-control from the rest of us will make it easier for writers to approach incendiary topics, safe in the knowledge that they will be criticized only for things they’ve actually done.

[isaacapatow]

* * #walkie-talkies convo with @reneebrxndxn

ike: Come in, Renesnee. I got a serious medical question from out here on the line. You copying, Doc?

Renee: -deep sigh- Go for Renee.

ike: I think there's something inside me. Like some kind of parasite.

Renee: Okay. What symptoms are you exhibiting to think that?

ike: There's this weird bulge in my midsection.

Renee: Midsection like abdomen or midsection like your pelvis?

ike: Abdomen. It's sorta lumpy, it's … oh, fuck, Doc, it's moving--

Renee: It sounds like you're going to need to cut it out. How far from town are you?

ike: I'm about forty-five minutes …shit, shit, it's poking through -- [garbled noises] --he says his name is Kuato and he's got an important mission for you! [sound of Ike badly trying to stifle his laughter]

Renee: You're an ass.

You really radioed me to fuck with me?

ike: Awwww, c'mon. I'm bored to shit out here. I need somebody to keep me awake.

Renee: -deep sigh- You do realize faking a possible medical emergency is not the way to entertain yourself at the benefit of a doctor, right? I was ten seconds from gathering up gear and heading to your location.

ike: You'd do that for me? I'm touched, Doc. [some rustling] Hey, I'm sorry. It was a dick move, you're right.

Renee: Yeah, Isaac, because as much of a pain in the ass as you can be, I'm not that heartless. -stunned silence- Did….did you just apologize to me?

ike: [snorts] I am, once in a blueberry moon, capable of an apology, yeah. I mean… [nothing for a while]

I mean you're pretty goddamn important around here. Your time is.

Renee: Wow…..I'm actually speechless. But thank you….I'm just trying to help out where I can.

ike: Really? It's that much of a shock to you?

Renee: Yeah, actually, it is. You've kind of been an ass since I got here.

ike: Hrrm.

Not to get into a game of tit-for-tat, Doc, but you're kinda stuck-up.

Renee: Really? That's why? Because you think I'm stuck up?

ike: The way you figure you've got my number? Yeah, because I think you're stuck-up.

Renee: I figured you were an ass because you've treated me like an ass. -takes a deep breath- But yeah, okay, I've been a little hostile towards you.

ike: Is it because you wanna fuck me so bad?

[snickering]

I'm joking, I'm joking. That's really all you need to keep in mind when it comes to me, Renee.

Renee: In your dreams, Ike.

I will keep that in mind for the future.

ike: I'm not that complicated. There isn't much to-- [falls silent; sound of tree branches creaking, then faint walker noises]

Renee: Mmhm, of course not….-stops talking when hearing the tree branches and faint walker and proceeds to wait until Ike gives her the all clear-

ike: [walker noises increase; when he comes back on, it's more quietly] Well. Better keep supper warm for me. Looks like I'm gonna be up in this tree for a while.

Renee: -keeps quiet but definitely feels her heart racing as she hears the noises getting louder- Are you okay?

ike: I'm good, don't worry. I'm in one of my lookout eyries, there's no way they're getting to me. It's just… [long exhale] Fuck. It's a horde, and they're mobilizing away from us, but…

Renee: Do you need me to get Ermano to send out a patrol to get you back here safely?

ike: It's not that. They're … they're all kids. In hospital gowns.

Renee: -sucks in a shakey breath- KIds? -pauses to calm herself- How many?

ike: A good dozen. Maybe even twenty, they're still gathering. They're kinda-- [cuts himself off from saying something else, then instead] You okay? I can … I know it's hard to hear this shit. When you've got your boys to think about.

Renee: -there's a long pause as Renee works to keep herself from breaking down. She eventually comes back but her tone is a bit softer- No, it's fine. I'll…I'll be fine. We need to know, right?

ike: Yeah. We do. [coughs and then continues, without the pauses] They're in rough shape. Bites taken out of 'em, some with parts missing. They're moving erratic, for walkers. Some of 'em keep stopping and moving in circles instead of sweeping along with the herd.

Renee: Fucking Hell….-pauses for a moment to wipe her eyes with her sleeve and clear her throat- I'll, uh…I'll let the others know and you can show them where you found them when you get back.

ike: Copy that, Doc. Thanks for the assist.

Renee: Yeah, no problem. Now get your ass back here safely and in one piece.

ike: [quiet chuckle] You want me so bad. Ike out.

[kammartinez]

When Megan Nolan published her first novel, fellow authors warned her in “ominous tones” about the website Goodreads. The young Irish writer looked at the book’s listing there in the winter of 2020, the day the first proof copy arrived at her house. “Nobody but me and the publisher had seen it,” she wrote recently. “Despite this, it had received one review already: two stars, left by someone I had inconsequential personal discord with. It was completely impossible for him to have read the book.”

The terrible power of Goodreads is an open secret in the publishing industry. The review site, which Amazon bought in 2013, can shape the conversation around a book or an author, both positively and negatively. Today’s ostensible word-of-mouth hits are more usually created online, either via Goodreads or social networks such as Instagram and TikTok.

Publishers know how important these dynamics are, and so they send out advance reading copies, or ARCs, not just to independent booksellers who might stock a title, but also to influencers who might make content about it. “There’s an assumption that if you receive an ARC that you will post about it,” Traci Thomas, host of the literary podcast The Stacks, told me—“whether that’s on your Goodreads, on your Instagram, on your TikTok, tell other people in your bookstore, or whatever. And so that’s how it ends up that there’s so many reviews of a book that’s not out yet.”

Many book bloggers are conscientious about including a disclaimer on their posts thanking the publisher for giving them an ARC “in exchange for an honest review.” But disclosing freebies is far from a contractual requirement or even a social norm. So you can’t easily discern which early reviewers have actually read the book, and which ones might be reacting to social-media chatter (or, as Nolan suspected in her case, prosecuting a personal grudge).

That matters because viral campaigns target unpublished books all the time. What tends to happen is that one influential voice on Instagram or TikTok deems a book to be “problematic,” and then dozens of that person’s followers head over to Goodreads to make the writer’s offense more widely known. Authors who reply to these attacks risk making the situation worse. Kathleen Hale—who was so infuriated by a mean reviewer that she tracked down the woman’s address—wrote later that the site had warned her against engagement: “At the bottom of the page, Goodreads had issued the following directive (if you are signed in as an author, it appears after every bad review of a book you’ve written): ‘We really, really (really!) don’t think you should comment on this review, even to thank the reviewer.’” Most authors I know read their Goodreads reviews, and then silently fume over them alone. Because I am a weirdo, I extract great enjoyment from mine—the more petty and baffling the complaints, the better. “I listened to the audiobook and by chapter 3 it started to annoy me the little pause she made before the word ‘male,’” reads one review of my book, Difficult Women.

When the complaints are more numerous and more serious, it’s known as “review-bombing” or “brigading.” A Goodreads blitzkrieg can derail an entire publication schedule, freak out commercial book clubs that planned to discuss the release, or even prompt nervous publishers to cut the marketing budget for controversial titles. Last month, the Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert withdrew her upcoming novel The Snow Forest from publication because of the backlash she received after revealing it was set in Soviet Russia. The Goodreads page for The Snow Forest, which has since been taken down, accused her of romanticizing the Russian soul. “I’ll cut the job for you—they don’t have any,” wrote one reviewer. Another wrote: “Just like her characters in this nover [sic] are unaware of the events of WWII, Elizabeth Gilbert herself seems to be unaware of the genocidal war russia is conducting against Ukraine RIGHT NOW, because I’m sure if she knew, she’d realise how tone deaf this book is.”

The book had been scheduled for release next February, but in a video announcing that it was “not the time for this book to be published,” Gilbert essentially endorsed the Goodreads criticisms: “I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.”

Now, I don’t know whether The Snow Forest romanticized the Russian soul or would somehow have caused “harm” to Ukrainians. Like my colleague Franklin Foer, I find the allegations hard to believe. But the plain fact is that neither of us know, because—and this should be obvious, although recent events suggest it is not—you don’t know what’s in a book you haven’t read. You also don’t know what’s in a film you haven’t watched, an album you haven’t heard, or an article you haven’t clicked on. That used to matter. It no longer does, because we live in a world where you can harvest likes by circulating screenshots of headlines and out-of-context video clips, and where marketing campaigns are big enough that they constitute artistic statements in themselves. (Barbie, I’m looking at you.)

Unfortunately, the artworks most likely to run into trouble in this viral hellscape are those that explore complicated, incendiary topics such as sex, race, and identity. Another Goodreads drama played out recently over Everything’s Fine, a debut novel written by Cecilia Rabess and published on June 6. Its plot centers on a young, progressive Black woman who falls in love with a conservative white man in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s election. “It obviously tackles some lightning-rod issues about race, class, and politics and identity in America,” Rabess told me, and so she expected strong reactions on Goodreads and similar sites. “But I think people certainly hadn’t read the book. And so I don’t know how they came to the conclusions that they did—that the book didn’t handle these topics carefully or thoughtfully or intentionally.”

Chalk that characterization up as writerly understatement. “It’s not enemies to lovers if you use it to excuse racists,” a typical one-star review read, referencing a common romance-novel trope. “Some authors shouldn’t be authors bc wtf is this!?” another offered. “i haven’t read this book nor do I plan to but having read the synopsis, I’m rating it 1-star,” a third confessed.

In the case of Everything’s Fine, the pile-on appears to have started on TikTok, where a handful of prominent creators criticized the book. The swell of anger then migrated to Goodreads, where those creators’ fans could register their disapproval. “i didnt and will not even read this i came from tiktok to say i hope the sales are so bad the bookstores have to throw away all inventory because it refuses to sell. anyone who gets an ARC of this should be ashamed,” noted another one-star review.

For Rabess, the experience was brutal. “As an artist, you’re prepared for people to not resonate with the work,” she said. “But I think it feels different when people decide that you yourself are problematic, or you yourself are causing harm, or whatever language they use to describe it. It feels a little bit surreal.” The backlash might have flourished on Goodreads, but it soon escaped to the wider internet. Rabess, who is Black, received angry direct messages and emails, as well as abusive comments under any social-media posts she made. “They said nasty things about me, about my children. Called me coon, other really unpleasant slurs. Told me that I’d be better off dead.”

The anger was scattershot. The commenters using racial slurs clearly knew Rabess’s race, but she wondered if some other online critics assumed that she was a white author intruding on territory they felt should be reserved for writers of color. While authors are sensibly told not to read the reviews—and certainly not to engage with critics—that’s harder when the critics come right up in your (virtual) face and shout their opinions at you.

As it happens, the podcaster Traci Thomas was among those who disliked Rabess’s book—albeit after reading an advance copy, back in January. “It’s an icky book,” she told me. She objected to what she saw as the moral of the story: Love conquers all, even being a Trump supporter. “The boyfriend in the book, Josh, is wearing a MAGA hat and, like, saying racist shit to [the female protagonist]. And she’s like, It’s fine. And the big revelation for her is that she can still choose to love him. And I’m just like: Okay, cool, go off—and I’m gonna tear this book to shreds.”

Ultimately, Thomas concluded, “I don’t know that the book needs to exist.”

Despite her own strong feelings, Thomas told me that she sometimes felt uneasy about her own reviews being surrounded by knee-jerk reactions and “performative allyship,” even by people whose politics she shared. “There are people who are new to anti-racism work or supporting LGBTQ people, or disability activism or whatever. And they feel it is their job to call out things that they notice without perhaps understanding the bigger historical context.” To illustrate the point, she gave an example: Imagine an author writes a book about Black children riding tricycles, “and then I’ll see a review that’s like, ‘This book didn’t talk about Black preschoolers who ride bikes, and they’re also at risk.’”

That dynamic explains one of the most initially counterintuitive aspects of viral pile-ons: that many seem to target authors who would agree with their critics on 99 percent of their politics. A strange kind of progressive one-upmanship is at work here: Anyone can condemn Ann Coulter’s latest book, but pointing out the flaws in a feminist or anti-racist book, or a novel by a Black female author, establishes the critic as the occupant of a higher moral plane.

The net effect of this is to hobble books by progressive authors such as Gilbert, and by writers of color such as Rabess. The latter is philosophical about the controversy over Everything’s Fine, seeing the backlash as representative of the political moment she was exploring in the novel—of “people feeling a dearth of community and connection, and just wanting a way to connect, a way to express themselves or express their anger.”

Of course, if Goodreads wanted to, it could fix the review-bombing problem overnight. When services that rely on user-generated content are only lightly moderated, it’s always a conscious decision, and usually a cold commercial one. After Gilbert pulled her novel from publication, The Washington Post observed that Amazon, which reportedly paid $150 million for Goodreads, now shows little interest in maintaining or updating the site. Big changes to a heavily trafficked site can be costly and risk annoying the existing user base: Reddit has recently faced down a moderators’ revolt for changes to how developers can access its tools, and Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter—or whatever it’s now called—will one day be taught at business schools on a slide headlined “How to Lose Advertisers and Alienate People.” A purge of duplicate accounts might sweep up some fanatically devoted Goodreads users—people who can’t bear to share their opinion only once—and make the site feel less busy and exciting.

Goodreads spokesperson Suzanne Skyvara told me by email that the site “takes the responsibility of maintaining the authenticity and integrity of ratings and protecting our community of readers and authors very seriously.” She added that Goodreads is working to “stay ahead of content and accounts that violate our reviews or community guidelines” and has “increased the number of ways members can flag content to us.”

The main Amazon site has several measures in place to stop review-bombing: Reviews from verified purchasers of books are flagged as such to bolster their credibility, while the star rating is the product of a complicated algorithm rather than simply an average of all the review scores. Goodreads could adopt even more stringent measures—but then, it isn’t in the company’s interests to reduce volume in favor of quality, because its entire appeal is based around being a grassroots voice. “Goodreads really needs a mechanism for stopping one-star attacks on writers,” the writer Roxane Gay tweeted after Gilbert’s statement in June. “It undermines what little credibility they have left.” Traci Thomas agrees. In an email, she told me that she would like to see “verified users or reviews that get a check (or something) in exchange for proving they’ve read the book.”

If Amazon will not put the resources into controlling the wrath of Goodreads, then what fairness requires here is a strong taboo: Do not review a book you haven’t read. We should stigmatize uninformed opinions the way we stigmatize clipping your nails on public transport, talking with your mouth full, or claiming that your peacock is a service animal. A little self-control from the rest of us will make it easier for writers to approach incendiary topics, safe in the knowledge that they will be criticized only for things they’ve actually done.

[kamreadsandrecs]

When Megan Nolan published her first novel, fellow authors warned her in “ominous tones” about the website Goodreads. The young Irish writer looked at the book’s listing there in the winter of 2020, the day the first proof copy arrived at her house. “Nobody but me and the publisher had seen it,” she wrote recently. “Despite this, it had received one review already: two stars, left by someone I had inconsequential personal discord with. It was completely impossible for him to have read the book.”

The terrible power of Goodreads is an open secret in the publishing industry. The review site, which Amazon bought in 2013, can shape the conversation around a book or an author, both positively and negatively. Today’s ostensible word-of-mouth hits are more usually created online, either via Goodreads or social networks such as Instagram and TikTok.

Publishers know how important these dynamics are, and so they send out advance reading copies, or ARCs, not just to independent booksellers who might stock a title, but also to influencers who might make content about it. “There’s an assumption that if you receive an ARC that you will post about it,” Traci Thomas, host of the literary podcast The Stacks, told me—“whether that’s on your Goodreads, on your Instagram, on your TikTok, tell other people in your bookstore, or whatever. And so that’s how it ends up that there’s so many reviews of a book that’s not out yet.”

Many book bloggers are conscientious about including a disclaimer on their posts thanking the publisher for giving them an ARC “in exchange for an honest review.” But disclosing freebies is far from a contractual requirement or even a social norm. So you can’t easily discern which early reviewers have actually read the book, and which ones might be reacting to social-media chatter (or, as Nolan suspected in her case, prosecuting a personal grudge).

That matters because viral campaigns target unpublished books all the time. What tends to happen is that one influential voice on Instagram or TikTok deems a book to be “problematic,” and then dozens of that person’s followers head over to Goodreads to make the writer’s offense more widely known. Authors who reply to these attacks risk making the situation worse. Kathleen Hale—who was so infuriated by a mean reviewer that she tracked down the woman’s address—wrote later that the site had warned her against engagement: “At the bottom of the page, Goodreads had issued the following directive (if you are signed in as an author, it appears after every bad review of a book you’ve written): ‘We really, really (really!) don’t think you should comment on this review, even to thank the reviewer.’” Most authors I know read their Goodreads reviews, and then silently fume over them alone. Because I am a weirdo, I extract great enjoyment from mine—the more petty and baffling the complaints, the better. “I listened to the audiobook and by chapter 3 it started to annoy me the little pause she made before the word ‘male,’” reads one review of my book, Difficult Women.

When the complaints are more numerous and more serious, it’s known as “review-bombing” or “brigading.” A Goodreads blitzkrieg can derail an entire publication schedule, freak out commercial book clubs that planned to discuss the release, or even prompt nervous publishers to cut the marketing budget for controversial titles. Last month, the Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert withdrew her upcoming novel The Snow Forest from publication because of the backlash she received after revealing it was set in Soviet Russia. The Goodreads page for The Snow Forest, which has since been taken down, accused her of romanticizing the Russian soul. “I’ll cut the job for you—they don’t have any,” wrote one reviewer. Another wrote: “Just like her characters in this nover [sic] are unaware of the events of WWII, Elizabeth Gilbert herself seems to be unaware of the genocidal war russia is conducting against Ukraine RIGHT NOW, because I’m sure if she knew, she’d realise how tone deaf this book is.”

The book had been scheduled for release next February, but in a video announcing that it was “not the time for this book to be published,” Gilbert essentially endorsed the Goodreads criticisms: “I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.”

Now, I don’t know whether The Snow Forest romanticized the Russian soul or would somehow have caused “harm” to Ukrainians. Like my colleague Franklin Foer, I find the allegations hard to believe. But the plain fact is that neither of us know, because—and this should be obvious, although recent events suggest it is not—you don’t know what’s in a book you haven’t read. You also don’t know what’s in a film you haven’t watched, an album you haven’t heard, or an article you haven’t clicked on. That used to matter. It no longer does, because we live in a world where you can harvest likes by circulating screenshots of headlines and out-of-context video clips, and where marketing campaigns are big enough that they constitute artistic statements in themselves. (Barbie, I’m looking at you.)

Unfortunately, the artworks most likely to run into trouble in this viral hellscape are those that explore complicated, incendiary topics such as sex, race, and identity. Another Goodreads drama played out recently over Everything’s Fine, a debut novel written by Cecilia Rabess and published on June 6. Its plot centers on a young, progressive Black woman who falls in love with a conservative white man in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s election. “It obviously tackles some lightning-rod issues about race, class, and politics and identity in America,” Rabess told me, and so she expected strong reactions on Goodreads and similar sites. “But I think people certainly hadn’t read the book. And so I don’t know how they came to the conclusions that they did—that the book didn’t handle these topics carefully or thoughtfully or intentionally.”

Chalk that characterization up as writerly understatement. “It’s not enemies to lovers if you use it to excuse racists,” a typical one-star review read, referencing a common romance-novel trope. “Some authors shouldn’t be authors bc wtf is this!?” another offered. “i haven’t read this book nor do I plan to but having read the synopsis, I’m rating it 1-star,” a third confessed.

In the case of Everything’s Fine, the pile-on appears to have started on TikTok, where a handful of prominent creators criticized the book. The swell of anger then migrated to Goodreads, where those creators’ fans could register their disapproval. “i didnt and will not even read this i came from tiktok to say i hope the sales are so bad the bookstores have to throw away all inventory because it refuses to sell. anyone who gets an ARC of this should be ashamed,” noted another one-star review.

For Rabess, the experience was brutal. “As an artist, you’re prepared for people to not resonate with the work,” she said. “But I think it feels different when people decide that you yourself are problematic, or you yourself are causing harm, or whatever language they use to describe it. It feels a little bit surreal.” The backlash might have flourished on Goodreads, but it soon escaped to the wider internet. Rabess, who is Black, received angry direct messages and emails, as well as abusive comments under any social-media posts she made. “They said nasty things about me, about my children. Called me coon, other really unpleasant slurs. Told me that I’d be better off dead.”

The anger was scattershot. The commenters using racial slurs clearly knew Rabess’s race, but she wondered if some other online critics assumed that she was a white author intruding on territory they felt should be reserved for writers of color. While authors are sensibly told not to read the reviews—and certainly not to engage with critics—that’s harder when the critics come right up in your (virtual) face and shout their opinions at you.

As it happens, the podcaster Traci Thomas was among those who disliked Rabess’s book—albeit after reading an advance copy, back in January. “It’s an icky book,” she told me. She objected to what she saw as the moral of the story: Love conquers all, even being a Trump supporter. “The boyfriend in the book, Josh, is wearing a MAGA hat and, like, saying racist shit to [the female protagonist]. And she’s like, It’s fine. And the big revelation for her is that she can still choose to love him. And I’m just like: Okay, cool, go off—and I’m gonna tear this book to shreds.”

Ultimately, Thomas concluded, “I don’t know that the book needs to exist.”

Despite her own strong feelings, Thomas told me that she sometimes felt uneasy about her own reviews being surrounded by knee-jerk reactions and “performative allyship,” even by people whose politics she shared. “There are people who are new to anti-racism work or supporting LGBTQ people, or disability activism or whatever. And they feel it is their job to call out things that they notice without perhaps understanding the bigger historical context.” To illustrate the point, she gave an example: Imagine an author writes a book about Black children riding tricycles, “and then I’ll see a review that’s like, ‘This book didn’t talk about Black preschoolers who ride bikes, and they’re also at risk.’”

That dynamic explains one of the most initially counterintuitive aspects of viral pile-ons: that many seem to target authors who would agree with their critics on 99 percent of their politics. A strange kind of progressive one-upmanship is at work here: Anyone can condemn Ann Coulter’s latest book, but pointing out the flaws in a feminist or anti-racist book, or a novel by a Black female author, establishes the critic as the occupant of a higher moral plane.

The net effect of this is to hobble books by progressive authors such as Gilbert, and by writers of color such as Rabess. The latter is philosophical about the controversy over Everything’s Fine, seeing the backlash as representative of the political moment she was exploring in the novel—of “people feeling a dearth of community and connection, and just wanting a way to connect, a way to express themselves or express their anger.”

Of course, if Goodreads wanted to, it could fix the review-bombing problem overnight. When services that rely on user-generated content are only lightly moderated, it’s always a conscious decision, and usually a cold commercial one. After Gilbert pulled her novel from publication, The Washington Post observed that Amazon, which reportedly paid $150 million for Goodreads, now shows little interest in maintaining or updating the site. Big changes to a heavily trafficked site can be costly and risk annoying the existing user base: Reddit has recently faced down a moderators’ revolt for changes to how developers can access its tools, and Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter—or whatever it’s now called—will one day be taught at business schools on a slide headlined “How to Lose Advertisers and Alienate People.” A purge of duplicate accounts might sweep up some fanatically devoted Goodreads users—people who can’t bear to share their opinion only once—and make the site feel less busy and exciting.

Goodreads spokesperson Suzanne Skyvara told me by email that the site “takes the responsibility of maintaining the authenticity and integrity of ratings and protecting our community of readers and authors very seriously.” She added that Goodreads is working to “stay ahead of content and accounts that violate our reviews or community guidelines” and has “increased the number of ways members can flag content to us.”

The main Amazon site has several measures in place to stop review-bombing: Reviews from verified purchasers of books are flagged as such to bolster their credibility, while the star rating is the product of a complicated algorithm rather than simply an average of all the review scores. Goodreads could adopt even more stringent measures—but then, it isn’t in the company’s interests to reduce volume in favor of quality, because its entire appeal is based around being a grassroots voice. “Goodreads really needs a mechanism for stopping one-star attacks on writers,” the writer Roxane Gay tweeted after Gilbert’s statement in June. “It undermines what little credibility they have left.” Traci Thomas agrees. In an email, she told me that she would like to see “verified users or reviews that get a check (or something) in exchange for proving they’ve read the book.”

If Amazon will not put the resources into controlling the wrath of Goodreads, then what fairness requires here is a strong taboo: Do not review a book you haven’t read. We should stigmatize uninformed opinions the way we stigmatize clipping your nails on public transport, talking with your mouth full, or claiming that your peacock is a service animal. A little self-control from the rest of us will make it easier for writers to approach incendiary topics, safe in the knowledge that they will be criticized only for things they’ve actually done.



[yayneloveart]

Well, I have news that I know you all will be excited to hear.

After 3 long months of working at a printing facility full of fancy machinery, I finally gained open access to one of the printers.

Before I could only send files to the printer through a program dozens of employees use and monitor, so I couldnt slip any personal files in there without a huge risk of being caught.

I have my boss to thank for installing the software I needed to get a direct connection to the server that feeds the files into the printer. I can now send files with names like "Test_Page" and "Template_001" and I could be the only person to every see them (if I time it right) (I can also name the files after jobs I'm actually working on)

I sold all the copies of my RvB artbook, so now I can produce a new run at work at a lower cost (and lower quality, but not that much lower) (In fact, I think my coworker told me that she used to use that same machine to print comic books for her old company before it was bought by the one we work for)

I can also reopen custom stickers and keychains. I'll have to put a long turnaround on them since I never know when I'll have time to goof off at work. I always try to schedule goof off time, but my supervisor doesnt seem to like that.

[i-used-to-wear-the-fedora]

Claudia Starts to Notice Billy's Bruises

Claudia's husband Trevor Henderson was a rat bastard. The only good thing that came out of her marriage to him was Dustin. She put up with a lot to keep her baby boy safe and give him a nice, normal life. Trevor was barely home most of the time, and when he was, he was usually passed out drunk in the disgusting man cave he made of their basement. She only ventured down there when the smell got so bad, she ended up cleaning up dozens of half empty and moldy beer bottles. It was fine. Really. She could deal with a dead beat husband.

Then she came home one day to find her five year old son, hiding in his bedroom closet.

"Dusty honey, what's wrong?" Claudia asked as she pulled her child close to her chest. Noticing the aggressive red mark on his face, she frowned as be sobbed out.

"D-daddy got mad...called me a crip...cripple an-and..." The child cried as she rocked him. "I'm sorry."

"Shhhh, no baby, you don't have to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong." Claudia comforted her son. She was a patient woman, but she refused to allow anyone to hurt her boy.

When Trevor Henderson disappeared without a trace, the police chalked it up to him running off to avoid some of the people in town he owed money to. No one really asked about the new garden Claudia started in her backyard a few weeks later. When Dustin officially started to go to school she found that the house was far too quiet. Adopting a cat to fill the space but sometimes it wasn't enough.

When Karen said she was starting a new jazzercise class at the mall and couldn't take Holly to the swim lessons she already paid for, Claudia was more than happy to volunteer to take the young girl. Holly happily swimming with the help of a young lifeguard. Claudia didn't pay too much attention to the swimming lesson at first. Instead, reading the Stephen King book she borrowed from Karen when she heard some of the other moms talking.

"-e's so handsome."

"Did you see the way he flips his hair? It's like he knows we're watching."

"And a cute little butt. God. Imagine what he looks like without those swimtrunks."

"He's coming this way!" Looking up from her copy of Carrie, Claudia's eyes followed the other swim moms to the man they were talking about and she frowned at what she saw. Holly's swim instructor...Billy something or another. She couldn't remember exactly but she knew he was young. Like, around the age of Joyce's son, young. Sure he was a handsome boy. But still way too young to have the women her age eyeing them like they were. Mrs. Andrews from the PTA had her eyes glued to the boy's ass as he brought her son to the woman.

"Oh hi Billy." The woman fluttered her eyes at the teenager, leaning forward on her lounge chair and puffing out her swimsuit clad chest in a way so obvious, even Claudia knew what she was trying to do. "I hope my little Jay Jay wasn't too much trouble."

"No, but he does have a sunburn." Billy said as the child turned around to reveal the peeling skin on his back. "I'm supposed to remind you that we do require parents to provide sunscreen at all times before the kids get in the pool."

"I, ugh...right..." The woman was flustered for a moment before grabbing her son's arms and taking him to the nearby changing rooms.

Claudia waited until the rest of the class was gone, giving Holly a One and sending her over to the vending machine before approaching the blonde boy. He was cleaning off one of the paddle boards when she called out.

"Excuse me." She called and he looked up. "You're Billy right? The one giving the kids swim lessons?"

"Ugh. Yeah." He asked almost defensively. He looked way too skinny for a boy his age.

"Well I, just wanted to thank you. For helping. You don't see that many boys your age doing something like this. My name's Claudia by way. Claudia Henderson. "

"Yeah, well, gets me out of the house." He shrugged, not acknowledging her introduction.

After that they only talked occasionally between lessons and he seemed like a nice kid. He reminded her of Joyce's older son.

It was Thursday when he started wearing sunglasses, even in the water. One of the kids accidentally knocking them off to reveal a shiner on his right eye.

"Here." She handed him a bomb pop put off the box she brought for Holly and her friends. "Hold this on your eye, it'll help with the swelling. If it's still there in a few days, try a warm compress. That looks nasty." The boy hesitating before lifting his sunglasses again and holding the popsicle over his bruise. "How'd you get it?"

"Pulled a guy out of the pool. Accidentally hit me in the face."

She believed him at first. But then he kept showing up with bruises. The black eye lasted a little longer than it should have. Cuts and scrapes along his knuckles. Red marks on his back he claimed was a sun burn but Claudia knew that sun burns didn't have the distinct outline of a belt buckle on the side. Her suspicions were only confirmed when she came back one day as the pool was closing to retrieve the book she left behind when she pulled into the parking lot to see Billy arguing with an older man. Presumably his father. They were both shouting loud enough for her to hear from a distance. Watching as the Billy's father raised a hand and slapping him across the face. Snatching the keys out of his son's hands and driving off in Billy's camaro.

When you lived in Hawkins, you turned a blind eye to a lot of things but Claudia absolutely refused to ignore this. Pulling up to the boy still frozen in place and rolling her window down.

"Hey." She caught his attention. "I saw what happened." She admitted and he visibly stiffened. "How about you come home for a nice, hot meal? Then I can take you home...if you want."

The teen looked uncertain for a moment before nodding as he got into the passenger seat of her car. Claudia making mental note to find out the name of the bastard who thought it was okay to lay hands on his own son later.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Imagine if Meng Shi begged and bargained and collected favors till she was able to send her A-Yao to education with the Lan Sect, perhaps even become a cultivator with them. Would he take that change? Would he become a rogue cultivator? Would the strict rules help curb his inner muderimpuls or enrage him or teach him to hide better?

A Good Fit - ao3

“The…Lan sect?” Meng Yao said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure,” his mother said, her mouth tight. She looked upset, the way she always did these days when he referenced, intentionally or otherwise, the original plan that she had had to send him to join his father, sect leader of Lanling Jin. She’d raised Meng Yao on a steady diet of stories of what his life would be like when his father finally took him back the way he’d promised her he would, stories that had filled his days and nights for years and years and years, and then just last year she’d suddenly stopped talking about it entirely. It was as if the person who’d told those stories had nothing to do with her.

Meng Yao didn’t know what had happened, but he assumed it must have been pretty bad.

“It'll be a good fit,” she added.

“Then I’ll go to the Lan sect,” he said, and pretended not see the way his mother relaxed a little, relieved that he wasn’t asking too many questions. “I’ve heard they are gentlemen there, righteous but gentle; it will be the best match for my personality, I’m sure.”

A lie, of course. ‘Gentlemen’ were just as likely to come to the brothel as brutes, and they were all the same once they had a cup of wine and a beauty in their arms – Meng Yao tried not to have any illusions.

“Can we afford it?” he asked instead, since that was something he was sure his mother would have thought of, would have expected him to ask. “Gusu is so far away…”

“I have obtained a letter from the local sect recommending you to their sect leader, Lan Qiren,” she said. “He’s the one that teaches the classes – the one that sent out the summons asking the subsidiary sects to look for individuals with raw talent to join his classes and offering them an extra seat for their sects for each nameless orphan they find that lives up to Lan sect standards. Only the Heavens know why he’s doing something like that…I assume they’re trying to expand.”

That seemed like the most reasonable explanation. Meng Yao nodded. “So I’ll be traveling with the local sect?”

“That’s right,” his mother said, and raised her chin a little. “At least this much, your mother was able to do for you.”

She’d begged and bargained and traded favors for it, then, Meng Yao thought, and yet taking him along was to their own benefit: if they were looking for inherited cultivation talent sufficient for the Lan sect, then the bastard son of another Great Sect leader would be a better bet than some random nobody. She’d probably humiliated herself for nothing.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, more concerned with that – it was too easy for women of ill repute to disappear into the depths of the city if they didn’t have someone to watch out for them.

Even someone as young as he was. He wished he was older.

“You can come back to visit me during the Spring Festival,” she said, which meant no. “I’ll be all right, A-Yao.”

Meng Yao wasn’t so sure.

Still, not having him around would at least remove a visible reminder of his mother’s age – she’d been kicked out of the better brothels because of him, because no one wanted a woman who was a mother. Leaving would at least do that for her.

“I’ll write,” he finally said. “I’ll write as often as they let me.”

“And I’ll write back,” she promised him, kissing his cheek. “I promise.”

With that, Meng Yao supposed he had to be satisfied.

-

The Lan sect was both exactly like what Meng Yao expected and absolutely nothing at all like anything he could have dreamt.

For the first, his cynicism was almost immediately confirmed: the boys raised there were snobby as anything, looking down at the rest of them as little better than barbarians, and many of the adults were the same way. It was clear that this whole business of recruiting talented nobodies was a project of the sect leader’s – the interim sect leader, no less, not even the real thing – and nobody else’s; they were only just barely going along with it. Adding to that the fact that there were dozens if not hundreds of rules, and Meng Yao could glumly foresee a future of having his lack of knowledge held over his head as a fault, even with his marvelous memory to act as his backing.

For the second…

Well, there was Lan Xichen, who was – as unbelievable as it seemed – to actually embody all those things that people said about gentlemen, all kindness and gentleness and fierce upright pride, except only for real. There was Lan Wangji, who was basically perfect in every way and kinder than he gave the impression he was, willing to help tutor anyone who asked if only they dared disturb his solitude long enough to do so. There was the boy Meng Yao shared a room with, Su She, who’d punched the boy from the Yunping cultivator clan in the mouth for calling Meng Yao a son of a whore and pretended it was because they weren’t allowed to talk about that sort of thing, when actually it’d been because he hadn’t wanted rumors to get around that might make Meng Yao’s life harder in the future.

There was Lan Qiren, who was strict and a little boring but fair, painfully fair, handing out punishments with an equitable hand no matter that it meant that he was punishing the locals as often if not more often. It’d been his idea to bring people like Meng Yao into the Lan sect, and defending the idea was the only time he truly seemed moved to passion. Now that they’d passed the initial examination and been judged to match Lan sect standards, Lan Qiren announced, as far as he was concerned, they were Lan sect just as if they were born there, as if they’d been children of his own.

And he even seemed to really believe it, too.

Today, Meng Yao’s head was still warm from when the stern Teacher Lan had put his hand there, gentle and approving, and his ears still burning from the murmured “Well done, Meng Yao, as expected.”

“I think I would kill someone for him,” Meng Yao said dreamily to Su She, who snorted.

“You’ve got such father issues,” he said disdainfully, as if he didn’t have entire family issues. That was just Su She’s way, though – he bitched and moaned and complained without end, and he’d probably kill someone for Meng Yao if Meng Yao so much as hinted it was something he’d want. They’d made friends for a reason. “You know the bit about the poor kids being his own children is a lie, right?”

“I know which sect’s leader is my father, thanks,” Meng Yao said, rolling his eyes. “I’m well aware it’s not Teacher Lan. Like he’d ever have kids of his own, anyway.”

“That’d require noticing when someone’s flirting with him,” Su She agreed, all solemn for just a moment, and then he dissolved into sniggering giggles. Meng Yao couldn’t blame him: it was, in fact, extremely funny when women (and sometimes men) tried to flirt with Teacher Lan, mostly because of the way that he very genuinely and completely missed that that was what was happening each and every time.

“Laugh all you like,” Meng Yao said peaceably. “You’d kill for him, too.”

“Probably,” Su She agreed. “But only because of you.”

That was fair enough. After getting the lay of the land, Meng Yao had arranged for them to ‘accidentally’ be overheard by Teacher Lan while talking about the misconduct of one of the teachers who was the most biased against guest disciples, one of the ones that had been harassing Su She in particular for over a year before Meng Yao had arrived, and despite Su She’s initial nervousness about the plan, it had all gone splendidly. Sure, they’d been punished to do five copies of a treatise on upright conduct because they’d breached Talking behind the backs of others is prohibited, but the teacher in question had been sentenced to two hundred strikes with the discipline rod for abusing his position and three months of enforced seclusion to contemplate his misbehavior, and then, Teacher Lan had said, his expression dark and threatening, they could discuss what role would be the best fit in the future.

The other teachers had taken notice and shaped up very quickly, after that.

Comparatively, those five copies made in the nice cool Library Pavilion instead of having to do chores on the hottest days of summer? Practically a pat on the back for bringing it to his attention.

Su She would never have dared to raise anything if it was just him, Meng Yao thought; he had a strange fear of authority figures that combined envy and misery in an explosive combination – he would have just suffered and suffered and suffered until he’d been pushed too far and then it would have all burst out at once. He wasn’t like Meng Yao, who was unwilling to keep to his “proper” place and was more than willing to use his greater-than-average share of brains to get what he wanted, no matter what rules he broke in the process. He was the sort of person who was willing to do whatever it took to obtain his desires – no matter what it took.

Well, maybe not no matter what. He wouldn’t want to disappoint Lan Qiren too much.

(Okay, so maybe Su She was right and he had some unresolved father issues. So what if he did? Whose business was it but his?)

-

It’d taken Meng Yao a while to fully adjust to the Cloud Recesses.

Some parts he’d figured out right away – the way they all flattered themselves as gentlemen even if they were actually little more than hypocrites (Teacher Lan and his personally taught nephews exempted, of course), which of course meant that Meng Yao’s ability to act pitiful at the drop of a hat and cleverly turn black into white made him a teacher’s pet at once. The vegetarian meals were easy enough to adapt to, given that his mother hadn’t had the money for meat all that often, and the training and cultivation and all that wasn’t any challenge for his excellent powers of retention – he had ambitions of becoming one of Teacher Lan’s aides one day, and worked assiduously towards that goal. Even waking and sleeping early, which was practically the opposite of his schedule at home, was something he could adjust to, given time and incentive.

It was his mentality that took some time to adjust.

Meng Yao had perhaps grown up with too many of his mother’s stories, painting an image of a matchless paradise – at the start, he looked at everything around him, serene and elegant but not quite as rich and shining and thought that it would do, for now. When he’d first arrived, he had had every intention of making a good reputation for himself and using that reputation to get his real father’s attention – he’d liked Teacher Lan from the beginning, despite his best attempts to not let his heart be swayed, but he’d reasoned that if a teacher was like this, then a blood-related father would be even better.

And so, for the first half-year, he’d treated his time at the Cloud Recesses…not lightly, no. He was extremely serious about making sure to get the maximum benefit he could. And yet, at the same time, he still was not really committing himself to the place.

This wasn’t where he was going to live his whole life, he reasoned; it was just a stepping stone to a better future. That meant he would exert himself to point out things that made him look good, to eliminate obstacles in his path, to win himself allies, but not bother with those longer-term problems, the ones that really ought to be fixed but which would take a great deal of effort with little reward other than annoying people.

His feeling of superiority and emotional distance lasted right up until the first discussion conference.

From a distance, Jin Guangshan was everything Meng Yao could have imagined – perhaps a little too similar to the clients that his mother often saw, a little dissolute to pull off the air of a refined scholar he affected, but wearing more gold than Meng Yao had ever seen in his life, with a retinue of servants that dwarfed the other sect’s. Each of those servants were dressed more finely than even main clan cultivators in some of the smaller sects, and though Meng Yao’s Lan sect guest disciple clothing was of such quality that he didn’t need to fear their disdain, he couldn’t help but be secretly impressed.

He'd exerted himself more than usual to trade away all of his chores and duties, freeing himself up to take on patrol duty near the Jin sect. He’d perhaps daydreamed about some sort of encounter – nothing active on his part, of course, but he couldn’t quite resist playing through some fantasy of catching someone’s eye by chance, getting called over, a “You have a familiar set to your chin, who’s your father?”, a shy halting admission, recognition, a joyous reunion…

Instead, his father spent the entire night getting drunk and cursing the Lan sect’s hospitality for not providing him with girls to go with his liquor, calling Lan Qiren a miserable prude with a stick up his ass right in front of the Lan sect disciples that clenched their fists in barely concealed rage. He’d seen Meng Yao all right, ordered him to come forward, but it’d only been to mock him in front of all of his servants – and not even for being his bastard son, no, that would involve bothering to pick him out from the crowd or to ask who he was. No, he’d mocked him simply for being one of the poor disciples that Lan Qiren had taken in, all because his accent was marked with the distinct tones of Yunping rather than the sweetness of Gusu.

“Tell me, boy,” he said, breathing fumes into Meng Yao’s face and making him feel suddenly as if he’d never left the brothel – that the Cloud Recesses had all been a vague dream, and now he’d woken up and lost it all. “How does that old fart Qiren expect you to pay him back for all he’s done for you? I heard the Lan sect includes a pretty face as one of its standard requirements…”

Meng Yao put his gaze above his father’s head and pretended to be deaf.

“It seems like rather a lot of effort,” one of his father’s attendants remarked. “Even if Second Master Lan wanted a boy to warm his bed, couldn’t he just buy one like any normal person?”

“Bah, boys,” his father said, and leaned back, waving his hands in dismissal. “Why would anyone bother with a boy when you could have a soft woman instead? Just as long as they’re stupid enough – you know, there’s nothing worse than a woman who’s talented and knows it, too smart, always trying to get above their station…”

“You’re thinking about that whore in Yunping again, aren’t you? The one that interrupted your dinner and made a scene, claiming you’d promised to take in the son she bore you?” the attendant said, laughing. “I told you, you should’ve just killed her for her impudence rather than just having her beaten and thrown out. That way the matter wouldn’t still be bothering you…”

“Go away, boy,” another servant said to Meng Yao, who was frozen stiff in belated terror, nausea churning in his stomach as he realized his mother could’ve gone out one day and never come back, and he would never have known why – or maybe it was that he’d been spending his considerable time and brain on pleasing someone who would have done that, who nearly had done that. “Your accent’s brought back bad memories, don’t you see?”

Meng Yao left.

No, to be more blunt: he fled. He ran away, hot tears filling his eyes until he couldn’t see – belly full of regret and disappointment, crushed dreams feeling like broken shards of glass in his mouth and throat.

He tried to tell himself that it was better to find out now, when they were still distant, before he'd sold his soul for the futile chance to get that horrible man's affection, but he couldn't quite throw off the shame of knowing that if he hadn't heard such a thing up front, he probably would have done that. Would have humiliated himself like that, and for what? A man who regretted not murdering his mother?

He ran right into Lan Wangji, who was also on patrol.

Lan Wangji took one look at him and grabbed his wrist, dragging him away from the main pathway and all the way to his uncle’s rooms.

Lan Qiren was still awake despite the late hour, writing something at his desk, but he set aside his brush at once. “What’s going on?” he asked, frowning. “Wangji – Meng Yao – one of you report.”

“Meng Yao was on patrol by the Jin sect,” Lan Wangji explained as Meng Yao furiously tried to dash away his tears using his sleeve.

“Who permitted that? First year disciples aren’t permitted to patrol during discussion conferences,” Lan Qiren asked, his frown deepening. “It wouldn’t be proper – ah, but no, I recall now. I suppose it was inevitable. Wangji, well done, and thank you. You are dismissed.”

After Lan Wangji left, he turned his eyes on Meng Yao.

“You volunteered, didn’t you?” he asked.

Meng Yao felt his back go cold: Lan Qiren knew, then. It had never been said out loud by anyone as far as he knew, and yet it was clear that Lan Qiren knew who his father was – and probably his mother, too.

He knew that Meng Yao was – that he wasn’t anything more than –

“You are one of my most promising disciples, Meng Yao,” Lan Qiren told him, and poured him a cup of tea from his own pot, pressing it into his hands. It was finer tea than Meng Yao had ever had in his life, full of smoke and flavor. “The rules say Be loyal and filial, but they also praise reciprocity. You have not been recognized, and have not received your forefathers’ grace. You can fulfill your obligations to chivalry through your respect for the parent that raised you.”

Meng Yao stared down at the teacup. Lan Qiren had completely misunderstood the nature of Meng Yao’s concern – he was disappointed in what his father was, not worried about not living up to his obligations of being a filial child. And yet it was a little nice to hear that as far as Lan Qiren was concerned, the rules said that he could tell his father go hang for all he cared…

And that he ought to honor his mother, which was something no one who knew her had ever said to him.

“Even if she –” His voice stuttered. “Even if she’s a…”

He couldn’t say the word.

“Appreciate the good people is not qualified by class or profession,” Lan Qiren said, and his monotone voice was blissfully without emotion, as if this were just another lesson in class, and not the deepest hurt of Meng Yao’s life. “I have never met your mother, Meng Yao, but you are a good child – diligent, organized, sincere, with good judgment, and you clearly adore her. That tells me everything I need to know.”

Meng Yao burst into tears.

-

Meng Yao liked Lan Xichen a lot, but he also had to admit that sometimes, the older boy was, well…

“Dumb as a pile of rocks,” Su She announced.

“Do not criticize other people,” Meng Yao said piously, but then chuckled, shaking his head. “Say, rather, that he’s naïve and sheltered, and overly inclined to believe the best in people.”

“Like I said: dumb as rocks. How many times is going to get himself swindled into being someone’s sword or shield before he figures out that the problem is him?”

“Some people don’t have the capacity to understand the depths of humanity’s foulness –”

“Yeah, dumb ones.”

“Su She, please.” Su She held up his hands in surrendered. “At any rate, if Lan-gongzi is going to keep falling for people’s tricks, it’s beholden on us to help protect him.”

“You just don’t want Teacher Lan to be sad about something serious happening to his nephew,” Su She said knowingly, but he was already nodding. “All right, what are we going to do about it? He outranks us. We can’t exactly tell him to his face that he’s being…”

He paused.

Dumb as rocks went unsaid, but then, it didn’t need to be said out loud for the meaning to be clear.

Meng Yao sighed.

“You can only trick someone so many times,” he said. “If we want to keep him from getting tricked by other people, then we have to trick him first. And better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lan-gongzi likes to save people,” Meng Yao explained. “He really sees himself as a chivalrous gentleman – he puts chivalry first, even though Teacher Lan says Learning comes first. That’s why he always sides with whoever he perceives to be the underdog in a given situation, no matter how wrong that impression is. That’s how most of the people who’ve been tricking him have gone for it: playing the victim, appealing to his sense of righteousness, pulling the curtains over his eyes to obscure what’s actually happening.”

“Okay. So?”

“So, we’ve both got miserable backstories – you being taken from your family at a young age and then bullied, me with my mother and, even worse, father. If we get him on our side, early on, he’ll side with us over anyone else – that way we can keep him from getting roped into other people’s private grudges.”

Su She frowned. “That seems a little manipulative.”

“It’s for his own good, and that’s what’s important,” Meng Yao said, and smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t you agree, Lan-er-gongzi?”

Su She jumped, turning around just in time to see Lan Wangji, who had been standing in the shadow of a nearby tree, step out.

He had a serious expression, as always, but a thoughtful one.

Meng Yao waited patiently.

“You cannot take advantage,” Lan Wangji finally said, and Meng Yao knew he’d won the most important ally in the battle to save Lan Xichen from himself. “That would change it from a virtuous act to a selfish one.”

“Like we need anything from him,” Su She said haughtily. “Maintain your own discipline.”

“Arrogance is forbidden.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s justified! It’s just self-confidence!”

“Do not argue with family,” Meng Yao quoted, and was pleased to see both of them drop it at once. “Listen, we all share the same goal, and we have to start somewhere, don’t we? We’re stronger together than apart. Together, we can do anything, even protect Lan-gongzi.”

That and more, he thought as the other boys nodded, following his lead. Lan Xichen is just the start.

-

“The Wen sect will make trouble sooner rather than later,” Meng Yao said thoughtfully, one day. His friends turned to look at him. “Yes, I’m serious.”

Lan Wangji nodded, serious as always, but Su She scoffed.

“You can’t even convince that Wei Wuxian boy to leave poor Lan-er-gongzi alone,” he said snidely. “How exactly are you expecting to bring down the Wen sect?”

“I don’t convince Wei Wuxian to leave Lan-er-gongzi alone because Lan-er-gongzi doesn’t want to be left alone,” Meng Yao said. “Obviously. Isn’t that right?”

“You should call me by name,” Lan Wangji said, which wasn’t answering the question and definitely wasn’t denying anything. “You were saying, about the Wen sect?”

Meng Yao smiled.

-

“What brings one of Teacher Lan’s most promising disciples to the Unclean Realm?” Nie Mingjue said, peering at him thoughtfully. “You’re at the wrong time to be one of the usual messengers.”

Meng Yao smiled at him.

“I think you’ll find that we have similar goals, Sect Leader Nie,” he said. “When it comes to making sure that certain people in our lives don’t get hurt by the bad decisions of others, I mean. In your case, it’s your younger brother, who’s a friend of mine –”

Friend, source of information, it was all about the same thing in the end. Meng Yao didn’t have real friends outside the Lan sect, but he’d been very careful to cultivate good relationships with all his most important peers.

“- and for me, well. A teacher for day, a father for a lifetime. I’m sure Sect Leader Nie can understand the importance of protecting one’s father – right?”

“You don’t need to use any sophistry on me,” Nie Mingjue said, rolling his eyes. “If you have an idea on what we can do to stop the Wen sect before they go and burn someone’s house down, I’m all ears.”

By chance, Meng Yao did.

It was a good plan, too, daring and brave in equal measure. If it worked the way he hoped it would, he’d win enough fame to get Jin Guangshan to beg for him to join the Jin sect – not that he would, of course.

Meng Yao knew what he wanted, and he knew how he was going to get it, too.

-

“This is a lovely house, A-Yao,” Meng Shi said, running her hand along one of the soft tapestries on the wall. “Truly lovely. Whoever you rented it from has good taste.”

Meng Yao bowed. “Thank you for the compliment, Mother. I put a lot of thought into it.”

“You own it?” she asked, surprised. “But don’t you live up the mountain, with the sect?”

“I do. This is for you.”

“For – me? A-Yao! This is too much – how much must it have cost–”

“I saved the Lan sect’s core texts from being destroyed,” Meng Yao said. “I’m an inner sect disciple now – I could ask for a dozen houses like this, and they’d grant them to me without blinking twice. Teacher Lan would insist on it.”

“Teacher Lan,” his mother murmured. “That’s the one you’ve taken to treating as your own father, isn’t it? You’ve spoken so much of him, in your letters…”

“There’s no need to scheme,” he told her. “He wouldn’t notice your flirtations, anyway.”

His mother arched her eyebrows at him.

“He’s really oblivious.”

“Still…”

“Really no need,” Meng Yao said, and couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Lan Qiren pulling him into a hug when he realized that the books – and Lan Xichen – were all safe from the Wen sect’s attempt to burn down the Cloud Recesses, and, later, again, that Wen Ruohan was dead. He may have deliberately schemed for that second hug, and he might or might not have plans for more. “He already takes me as a son.”

His mother relaxed.

“Good,” she said, and smiled herself. “So, A-Yao, was I right, all those years ago? Was the Lan sect a good fit for you?”

“Yes, Mother,” Meng Yao said. “Yes, it was.”