#this awkward conversation involved me explaining to her how gay sex worked

[nohj3]

I challenged myself to write a post today.

But i have no idea what to say and nothing interesting happened to me today.

So this us all you get Dx

[d3nt4l-d4m4g3]

A few days ago, I emailed my former professor about a paper on women’s food practices in the middle ages. At least, that’s what I told him it was about, initially. 

But actually, I wanted to discuss heresy. This professor teaches a women’s rights course every year. Every year at the beginning of the class, he calls attention to why he, a man, is talking about women’s rights. He looks us in the eyes and says, no one else is doing it, and I’m sorry it’s me.

This man made us read the SCUM manifesto, Gerda Lerner, Maria Mies. He grazed the subject of the Lesbian Sex Wars, delicately, so gingerly, posing the question: “Can sex work ever be just work?”  And my  (all woman) classmates, generally mute—in a Women’s Rights class, they all seemed averse to saying the word “woman,” at all. Then one woman raised her hand. and she said, “Sex work is real work.”  A statement that, as I hope you know, is a deflection and a discussion killer.  

At the time I was non-binary. Hah. I submitted a comic at the end of the year of my final project. My thesis for that project was this: the very language female people have to use for themselves was constructed by the patriarchy. for example, the english word “vagina” comes from the latin word for “sheath”. so the vagina invokes the act of penetration upon its utterance. Whereas the word “penis” has no clear etymological root, implying that it is original while the vagina is constructed for him. Why should I carry the fact that I will always be a tool, the hole, of the human that is man? My solution, at the end of the comic, was to continue using they/them pronouns, to shield myself from the horror of being a wo-man, a s-he—an appendage of Him. 

I got a good grade. A stellar report. And it wasn’t a bad comic, for what I knew then. For my condition of blindness and deafness. I made a compelling argument, using sources from class.  But oh, how much older I feel now. I’ve always felt old but now I feel almost like I’m dying. Like I don’t have enough time to fix the world before I disappear. And women’s stories never survive. They are not surviving. networks spring up like mycelium and then every century at least they are burned. Witchcraft is in the air shared by women in a room of their own, and witchcraft is doused in gasoline.

I don’t have enough time to explain how the veil lifted for me. Maybe I forget the big moment. the days after were a blur of searching the no-no tags like radical feminist, GNC, gender critical. Amazed at the wealth of journals that these women linked to with real statistics showing that children are being sterilized for no reason. Mostly gay children. like me, a lesbian, who now lives in a house with three  “non-binary afabs”. This summer, one of these women, who I have known since freshman year, will start taking testosterone, a procedure I took up  for three turbulent months during my freshman year of college. I get to watch her become what I turned away from, knowing the experience fractured my sense of self to a point of  terror and estrangement. I get to watch her hide from her problems and cut herself off from womanhood the way I did for 3 years. I am not a woman, so do I not feel Woman’s pain, she is telling me, I told myself, when I was in a dream.  She has so many problems, she laughs. But trans is a separate problem that has nothing to do with those other problems. A coincidence.

 (For any trans people reading this, you may think: This transtrender fake-trans never-was-trans woman is treating these nonbinary people as if they were dead! as if they weren’t happy people finally living their truth! —well. I put my mom through the process of trying to convince her that I should have always been a man. and I did lose her, for months. For her it was the height of cognitive dissonance that I should want to go on a life-altering hormone to cure my lifelong social awkwardness and self-hatred and self-harm and depression. And I blamed her for not accepting my real self. I was basically made to shun her and my family because of transphobia.. It is disrespectful to anyone’s sanity and integrity for me to perpetuate that cognitive dissonance in this post.)

So I eventually got through to the professor. I knew because of the texts he had us to read for class. He is gay.  He has read all the theory, and lives by it.  And no (woman) student wants to speak to him. To bring the theory alive. They cannot breathe into it and it sits dead in his mouth.

Maybe it is because he is a man. because the presence of one man in a space of all women immediately sends up alerts.  lockdown. Certainly that is the case. Radical Feminists here: I know he’s a man. But I don’t have a woman. And I felt on the strength of the texts he’d given us that he would be my best bet. Maybe somewhere in the corrupted, rotting heart of my college there was a person who knew about thoughtcrimes and was thinking them anyway.

My professor starts with diversion. He starts by talking about my paper. I find it disconcerting that he starts that way. I worry that he won’t want to refer to my email. Where I say: I have woken up from a dream to the apocalypse—Does this man think I’m crazy? Chipper and kind of frantically, he lists off  primary sources of medieval nuns and women saints. for my paper.  Does this man think I’ve turned into a bigot?  Am I confessing lunacy, like a flat-earther?

But I steer the conversation to the meat at his first tentative encouragement. I tell him something like: “children, mostly gay children, a whole generation of gay children, are being sterilized. Porn is a symptom of late-stage capitalism—men’s ownership of women’s bodies. trans is an extension of this. I was part of this. I was in a cult.” I was shaking a bit. I don’t think I’d uttered those words out loud. They sound crazy. Some of the things I said did sound far-fetched. disorganized, remote. But I prayed that my professor would believe some of it, any of it. 

 What I will say is that he believes me.  Thank fuck, right?

He tells me something along the lines of this, vocalizing my fears: 

that all of academia is being scrubbed of anything that doesn’t support Trans.

And it is trans-identified female students and women who are reporting him to Title IX, who spend all their time in his classes fuming at the lack of validation for trans women in the  history of women. My sisters, footsoldiers for the cause. What cruel irony. This man is holding onto this class by his fingernails, speaking through his teeth, hoping any of the twenty young adult women staring blankly or angrily at him will hear him and listen.

 Looking back, the professor’s responses to my emails are vague, completely refusing to acknowledge a point of view other than “WOW. I look forward to discussing this.”  I think he thinks he could be blackmailed. Anything he says on gmail dot com can and would be used against him. It’s like, really, really, really that bad. 

No ideology should involve a cultural cleaning of women’s history feat. witch hunts. 

I will end here with an excerpt from my first email to this professor:

I'm sure you know what a total bummer it is to realize this. 

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 10

AO3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite

CW: Discussion of toxic relationship

Lucie was under the impression Alastair liked Thomas, but Lucies texts only made him more nervous. Even if Alastair smiled back, even if some things he said could hint at romantic feelings, Thomas had no clue how to make a move on people, much less Alastair. After dinner, they talked a bit more, about books, history, places they wished to travel. Alastair told him that he’d once read Machiavelli’s the Prince for comfort, but had since replaced it with Marx’ the Communist Manifesto. Thomas, who read mostly fiction, found it hard to imagine those books as something one read for comfort, but he promised he’d give the Communist Manifesto a try.

‘My ex recommended the Prince,’ Alastair explained. ‘In retrospect, the book suits him pretty well. It’s about power, manipulation, and he was all about that.’

‘As in, he manipulated you?’ Thomas asked.

‘He wants to get into politics, and I think he cares more about holding a position of power than about doing what’s best for the country. But he also manipulated me,’ Alastair said, showing no emotion. ‘He was very obsessed with his own social status and image, and would have done anything to improve that. I would not have reflected well on his image, so he kept me a secret and made me believe it was what was best for me.’

Thomas was certain he would be a better partner to Alastair than his exif they were in a relationship, but figured that was a pretty low bar. He didn’t know much about relationships, had never been in one, and wasn’t sure he knew how any of that worked, or how to be with someone with such a bad past experience. He didn’t want to hurt Alastair by accident. Perhaps his parents had some advice, but then he’d first have to tell them he liked boys. Which he planned to, but he had not yet figured out the right words, the right occasion.

‘How did you come out to your parents?’ he asked Alastair.

His parents were outside, they wouldn’t overhear. Thomas hoped they wouldn’t walk in out of a sudden, but if they did… Well, then at least they’d know and Thomas wouldn’t have to prepare a speech.

‘I only came out to my mother and aunt Risa,’ Alastair said. ‘Not to my father, nor do I care to.’

‘So, did you prepare a speech or anything?’ Thomas asked.

‘I did, because I suspected my mother and aunt Risa might not understand or know much about gay people, so I’ve mostly been educating them on various sexualities and gender identities. Risa actually discovered she is asexual and aromantic after I explained those concepts to her. Why do you ask?’

Thomas turned red, he laughed nervously. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell my parents I’m gay, but haven’t found the right time, or figured out how to tell them.’

‘You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. Do you want them to know?’ Alastair asked.

Thomas considered Alastair’s question for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. I think it would be easier if they knew and I would rather tell them before I am in a relationship instead of introducing a boyfriend. Since that would be awkward for him as well. Mainly, I just want them to know but I don’t want an awkward conversation.’

‘I think your problem is that you’re too determined to do it perfect,’ Alastair said. ‘Your parents seem very open and accepting, I don’t think you have to worry.’

‘No, I know that,’ Thomas said.

He felt stupid. Alastair must have had a much harder time telling people, he hadn’t known beforehand that his mother would be accepting. Thomas was fairly certain his parents would love him no matter what, and yet here he was complaining to Alastair about how difficult he found it to come out.

‘I know it can still be scary,’ Alastair said. ‘I was fairly certain Cordelia wouldn’t mind at all, yet I postponed telling her for a long time. Of course in my case it could have saved me a lot of misery, had I told her sooner.’

‘What do you mean?’ Thomas asked.

‘She realized almost immediately after I told her that my ex boyfriend was treating me badly, when I did not. It took her a couple of weeks to convince me, but I realized she was right and then I broke up with him.’ Alastair paused. ‘It’s nice to have someone to talk about it. For a long time, I had only him and he actively discouraged me from telling anyone else.’

‘I’m guessing he wasn’t out?’ Thomas asked. ‘He thought being gay would reflect badly on him as a politician?’

‘No, I don’t think that was the problem. He was private about his sexuality, but I think his friends and family knew. I don’t blame him for that, I understand it’s not always easy to talk about and there can be consequences when people know. But I think in his case, he didn’t want people to know about me because I was so much younger, he probably knew grooming a teenager would reflect badly on him. He always said it was because I wasn’t out that he wanted to keep our relationship a secret, that he wanted to protect me from judgement, but I doubt that was true. I never wanted to be someone’s secret.’

Thomas frowned. ‘Wait, how much younger were you?’

‘Six years. I met him when I was fourteen and entered a relationship with him at sixteen.’

Then Alastair’s ex must have been twenty two at the time? Thomas, at eighteen, considered sixteen year old boys children and had no romantic interest in them. He preferred to look at boys his own age, maybe a little older. Despite being a year ahead in his education, Alastair was only a couple of months older than him. He couldn’t imagine being interested in a teenager when he was in his early twenties.

‘I didn’t realize at the time that the age difference was a red flag,’ Alastair explained. ‘I felt very mature, to have caught the attention of someone older. He told me, over and over, that I was very mature for my age, that he couldn’t believe I was still so young.’

Thomas suspected most teenagers would be flattered to be called mature, to be taken seriously by an adult. It was a vile sort of manipulation, to seek out someone young and vulnerable and isolated, someone who would easily fall for such compliments, only to take advantage of them and treat them badly.

‘How did you tell Cordelia?’ Thomas asked.

‘She realized something was not right,’ Alastair said. ‘She realized I was sneaking out at night, that I was barely eating and losing weight because I was so nervous. She said I was “being even more difficult than usual, and that’s saying something”. So I told her not to worry about it and that I was just sneaking out to see my boyfriend. I said I’d wanted to tell her, but wasn’t sure yet if I was ready, and that he had recommended I don’t tell anyone yet. She started asking a lot of questions about my relationship. At first it was in a supportive way, what did he look like, what were his interests. She kind of freaked out when she learnt about the age gap, and the more she asked about how he treated me, the more concerned she became. She’s been very protective of me ever since.’

‘I’m so sorry. Not that it’s my fault, or there’s anything I could have done, but I’m just sorry. That it happened to you. I’m glad your sister is protective of you. As long as she’s not too protective, I mean,’ Thomas said. ‘I know from experience too much protection can be suffocating.’

A small smile appeared on Alastair’s face, and Thomas realized he so rarely did. He had a very pretty smile that lit up his dark eyes.

‘I found it confusing most of all. As the oldest sibling, I always thought it was my duty to protect her, not the other way around. But Cordelia is fierce, and I love that about her. This one time we ran into him while shopping, not long after the break up. He tried to approach me while Cordelia was getting us ice cream, and when she returned and saw him she threatened to expose him as an abuser and child groomer on all her social media channels if he didn’t back off.’

‘Isn’t what he did illegal anyway?’ Thomas asked. ‘Since you were a minor? Couldn’t you go to the police if he kept harassing you?’

‘Age of consent is sixteen, so even if he was much older it was legal for him to have sex with me,’ Alastair explained. ‘It would be illegal if he was my teacher or in any way in a position of power over me, but he was not. He must have been aware of how those laws work and I think perhaps he waited until I was sixteen so it would be legal.

Him harassing me might be enough to get a restraining order, but honestly I don’t trust the police to believe me over him. Besides, I have no intention of sharing something so personal with police officers. I expect them to not care at best and I think it is likely they will be racist and homophobic and will blame me for what happened.

Cordelia has enough followers on twitter and Instagram to get the story out if we wanted to and it’s a decent threat, but I’ve asked her not to.’

‘From what you’ve told me, he fully deserves to be exposed,’ Thomas said.

He was angry on Alastair’s behalf, and Thomas guessed Alastair was right that as an Iranian gay man he could not trust the police to help him.

‘It’s not so much about whether he deserves it or not. I’m still processing what happened, and I don’t want to be judged by strangers on the internet. I consented to everything sexual we did even if it was coerced, and not everyone will understand all the subtle manipulation involved. I know people will claim it was all my fault, and if I didn’t want it I should have just said no. Or that after breaking up I decided to ruin his life by telling lies. He has powerful friends, I do not. I admire the bravery of the people who expose rapists and abusers on the internet, but I can’t put myself through that right now.’

Thomas felt nauseous, the idea of Alastair being manipulated into having sex with a much older man was difficult for him to process. It made him angry, Alastair had given this man everything, had loved him. How could someone have taken advantage of such a beautiful and passionate man? People often accused Thomas of being too kind, too compassionate, of trying to empathize too much with people who did bad things, but he was fairly certain that if he ever encountered the person who did this to Alastair, he would feel nothing but anger and hatred towards him. And he’d make sure whoever it was would never hurt Alastair again.

He wanted to show support, he wanted to love Alastair, but wasn’t sure how. He knew it was a big step for him, to open up so much, he knew Alastair was very private and trusted him as much as he knew how to trust. Thomas was terrified of letting him down, of breaking his trust.

‘Did he at least back off after that threat?’ Thomas asked.

‘I haven’t seen him in real life again, but he has been texting me until I blocked his number. He is part of the reason I came here, something I needed to get away from. You have provided a decent distraction and I am grateful. I have never… had a friend like you.’

Thomas wasn’t sure how to feel about that statement. He liked being trusted, he loved that Alastair valued him, but at the same time he wanted to be more to him than just a friend. But Alastair needed a friend, Thomas told himself. And perhaps Alastair would fall in love with him over time, perhaps someday they could be together. If not, being his friend would still be worth it.

‘Now, would you want to play another game of ludo before I return to the Herondales? I am certain the dice will be on my side this time,’ Alastair said.

The dice were not on Alastair’s side. The difference in rolls were at the very least statistically improbable, but Thomas wasn’t great at math. He won by a landslide.

‘You’re older than me,’ Thomas offered as an explanation.

Alastair frowned. ‘Only by a few months, and what does that have to do with anything?’

‘I have a theory that dice games like this one favor the young,’ Thomas explained. ‘I used to play this game with my sisters and I always did better. Of course, Barbara would usually let me win with games, but that’s difficult with a game like this. But most of my friends are younger than me, and with Lucie I don’t have nearly this amount of luck. And when I played with my younger cousin Alexander, my rolls are as pathetic as yours. Of course, that’s for the best because he’s three and he throws the game across the room when he loses.’

‘Nothing you just said makes sense,’ Alastair pointed out. ‘The dice can’t tell how old you are.’

‘Perhaps there’s a little spirit in there,’ Thomas said with a smile. ‘Something that realizes if little Alexander loses, painful things will happen to it. It probably dreads the day Alexander will play against children his age.’

Thomas guessed that might not be the best idea, at that age all children were sore losers. Most three year olds didn’t play together yet anyway, it was more parallel play what they did. Alastair left after losing another game, and at the end Thomas might have convinced him of his theory.

‘I’ll meet you here after breakfast for another walk,’ Alastair said with a small smile that made Thomas’ heart race. He hoped he wasn’t showing that. Would Alastair suspect Thomas liked him, now that he knew Thomas was gay? He wasn’t sure if he wanted Alastair to. If Alastair returned his feelings, sure. But if not, what if Alastair would retreat in his shell again, what if he didn’t want to be his friend anymore?

‘See you tomorrow,’ Thomas said. ‘Good night.’

Thomas didn’t sleep well that night. He dreamt of a castle, surrounded by dark forest. He didn’t know where he was, or what was happening. On a surface level, it didn’t even seem so scary but a voice inside Thomas was telling him to run as fast as he could to get away from there, yet he couldn’t move. He wasn’t sure what he was running from exactly, but he woke up drenched in sweat at six in the morning. He didn’t feel rested exactly, but didn’t think he’d fall asleep again, so instead he changed the sheets on his bed and took a quick shower before putting on some clothes.

It would probably be some time until Alastair showed up, so Thomas made breakfast, and took his time to eat before settling in the garden. Gnomes were early risers, and Thomas liked watching them run around. Here they weren’t used to being seen though, and any indication that Thomas did see resulted in them running away and hiding, peeking out of the bushes on occasion to see if he was still there. Thomas put out a plate of cookies, perhaps they would become more trusting to humans who could see them overtime.

He sat there, reading a book Lucie had given him a while back. Ever since Thomas had told her he liked boys, Lucie had recommended books about queer men and right now he was reading Winter’s Orbit, a science fiction story about two men in an arranged political marriage. The amount of miscommunication and hopeless pining was almost painful to read, but also enjoyable. Thomas guessed he wasn’t much better, he still had no idea how to tell Alastair how he felt. Hopefully, he could finish the book before dying, he desperately wanted to know if these two could figure out their feelings for each other before it was too late.

‘What are you reading?’

Thomas looked up to see Alastair, dressed in a black Metallica t shirt and black jeans. He summarized the book he was reading.

‘It was a gift from Lucie,’ he said.

‘It sounds interesting,’ Alastair said. ‘I like books with some political drama. Can I borrow it when you finish?’

‘Sure. And in case I don’t get to finish it, I’ll write you into my will and leave you this book.’

Alastair groaned. ‘Please do not make jokes about you dying.’

Thomas sometimes felt like making jokes about it was the only way to cope. In reality, the idea that he was very likely to die was terrifying, even if the people around him kept assuring him he was going to be fine.

‘Sorry. I hope you’ll like this book. Although… one of the main characters was abused by a previous partner. Would that be an issue?’

Alastair tilted his head. ‘I think then maybe I should wait until I read it. That’s difficult with reading fiction, not all authors offer content warnings and going in unprepared can be devastating. When I know it’s coming… It’s easier, but I’m not sure if I want to do that right now solely to read a book.’

Thomas nodded. ‘I can imagine. If you want any books that don’t have topics that are triggering for you, I’ll try and see if I have anything. Or you can ask Lucie.’

‘I’ll think about it. Being able to read fiction while being prepared through content warnings is something I’m trying to work towards. No idea how long that will take, according to my therapist I’m too impatient. You coming? This early, there might still be some hedgehogs,’ Alastair said with a grin.

‘You really like hedgehogs,’ Thomas pointed out.

‘When I was a child I wanted one for a pet, but my parents didn’t think that was a good idea. Instead, I could have a goldfish. They’re very popular in Iran, people get them for the Persian new year celebration, Nowruz. People usually release them into a river or pond after the celebration, so that’s what Risa did. My parents weren’t too happy about it. At the time, I believed he would probably be happier there anyway than in a bowl, but it is likely he died within days. I don’t think it’s good for the environment either, and many Iranians are pushing back against the tradition because of that. Did you have pets growing up?’

‘Most of my childhood, because I was so sick, my parents didn’t think it was a good idea. They were afraid a pet might carry diseases I would be more vulnerable to,’ Thomas said. ‘But I hope I can adopt cats someday. And Barbara and Oliver have two guinea pigs.’

‘My cousin Jem has a cat,’ Alastair said. ‘Little beast hates everyone, but adores Jem.’

‘Do you see him often?’ Thomas asked. ‘Jem, I mean.’

‘Not really. My father never wanted him near our family, I think because he was afraid Jem would see right through him. But now that we don’t live with Father anymore, I see him occasionally. He offered me to come live with him, but I’m not sure. I still feel like I barely know him.’

They didn’t find any hedgehogs during their walk, presumably because the fog had gotten so thick they wouldn’t see any if they were there. Although Thomas was fairly certain they were taking the same route they had yesterday and during their first walk, everything looked different. He told himself it was probably the fog, but he couldn’t quite convince himself.

‘I don’t remember these ruins,’ Alastair said.

Thomas’ followed Alastair’s gaze and saw the ruins of a very old building. Of course, there were lots of old castles in Scotland, but Thomas hadn’t read anything about ruins in these woods.

‘Do you think we should take a look?’ he asked carefully. ‘I’m not seeing anything unusual.’

‘Apart from ruins that weren’t here yesterday?’

‘We must have taken a different path,’ Thomas said.

‘Sure,’ Alastair said and Thomas didn’t think he believed it. ‘Under normal circumstances, I would not take another step, but if we are to save your life we need information. Perhaps those ruins hold something of interest.’

[artificialqueens]

Taste of a Poison Paradise, Chapter 6 (Multi) - Joley

Chapter Summary: Lemon continues to cope poorly, Brooke Lynn, Kameron, and Vanessa realize that love triangles are out and triads are in, Nicky surprises Jan with a travel proposal, Jackie gets invested in Jaida’s OnlyFans, and Gigi is dealing with some unwanted attention (TW for mentions of stalking and sexual harassment).

ao3 link

Jan watched as Lemon packed her suitcases. “Maybe we should let the lease expire,” she remarked, hoping that distracting her friend with mundane conversation would keep her from getting upset again. “If you’re gonna stay with Rosé, and I stay at Nicky’s most of the time, it doesn’t make sense to keep paying for this place. And like, you’re always welcome to stay with us too, if you want.”

“No offense, but I don’t really wanna be around your beautiful, blossoming romance any more than I have to be. Also, don’t you think you guys are moving a little fast? I mean, it’s been like… a month. Vanjie’s a nut but even she waited a solid three months before rolling out the u-haul,” Lemon replied, throwing her body onto the suitcase to get it to close.

“You’re not wrong,” she conceded. “But her place is gorgeous, you can’t blame me for wanting to just stay there and get fucked for hours on end.”

She rolled her eyes but nodded. She couldn’t complain because she was the one that brought it up, but hearing how perfect things were for Jan and Nicky made her seethe with envy. “Guess we’ll just have to see if you guys can still stand each other once the honeymoon phase is over.”

Jan frowned. “Okay, I’m not gonna take that personally because I know you’re going through a hard time right now,” she murmured. “Is that everything?”

“Yep,” Lemon mumbled as she got up and dragged her suitcases to the front door. She then stopped and rifled through her purse, pulling out a flask and taking a swig, then offered it out to Jan.

“No thanks, not really up for day drinking today,” she said, then leaned over and sniffed the opening of the flask. “Is that straight vodka?”

She shook her head. “There’s sprite in there too,” she assured.

Again, Jan chose not to argue with her. She knew her friend was hurting and she hoped the worst of it would pass once she got settled in with Rosé. “Let’s get going,” she sighed.

Once Rosé had officially taken Lemon in, Jan’s nerves eased up, but her concern hadn’t. “I think this is the best place for her to be right now. Make sure she doesn’t fall off with her coursework, okay? This is her last semester and I’d hate for this to derail her entirely and–”

“Jan,” Rosé put her hand on her shoulders to try to focus her attention. “Breathe, baby. I love your love for her, but you don’t have to be her mom. I got it from here.”

Jan nodded, taking a deep breath in an attempt to quell the remaining concerns. “Okay, I’m good,” she told her. “How are you, by the way? Things going well with Denali?”

“Yeah, there’s not much to report,” she shrugged. “We’re just sleeping together, and neither of us has a boyfriend so there’s no downside.”

“You say that now.”

——-

Brooke Lynn sat in an uncomfortable silence of her own creation, her gaze fixed down on her plate. It was so much easier talking to Kameron when Vanessa was sandwiched between them – being alone with her made her feel exposed.

“I’m not trying to take Vanessa from you,” Kameron bluntly broke the silence. “I like her, I like spending time with her – with both of you – but I’m not interested in creating drama.”

She blinked, taking in what she’d said. Had she come off as threatened? Jealous? She supposed it wasn’t the most outlandish thought. “No, no it’s not like that. I trust Vanjie and I trust you. I’m just still kind of new to the world of relationships, let alone serious ones, you know?”

Much to her relief, Kameron nodded in understanding. “Listen, I get it. If you don’t have a lot of dating experience, someone like Vanjie can be… a lot. But I know you guys love each other, though I’m not gonna sit here and claim that I don’t have any feelings for either of you… I can get a little clingy after sex, what can I say?”

Brooke bit her lip and looked down. “I can’t say I expected this, but I’m not complaining,” she told her. “And I know you haven’t told Vanj yet, or I’d have already heard about it.

“I kind of figured you’d be a tougher nut to crack,” she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “I mean, I’m not oblivious, I know you weren’t thrilled with the whole open relationship thing at first.”

“You’re right,” she conceded. “But I’ve honestly warmed up to it… I’ve warmed up to you, anyway.” She pressed her lips together as she thought. “I think the three of us should talk. Because I don’t think she ever wanted an open relationship, she just wanted you. And I don’t blame her.”

Kameron arched her brow, a slight smirk tugging at her lips. “So, what, you’re thinking of trying a throuple situation?”

Brooke smiled and shrugged. “I think it’s an option worth considering.”

But to consider it properly, they did need Vanessa. So, once they were all together in their apartment, they opened the floor. “I think it’s a damn good idea,” Vanessa started. “Can’t believe it took us this long to think of it.”

The other two girls laughed. “I think we were expecting that answer,” Brooke told her. “I don’t think any of us are opposed to it, it’s more about working out the details. For example… Do we move Kameron in with us? I feel like it’s a bit awkward to have two-thirds of a throuple living together with the third somewhere else.”

“I’m not about to say no to not having to pay rent,” Kameron laughed lightly. “I rent month to month, so I just have to be out by the end of it,” she explained. “And besides, if I get sick of you guys, I could just crash in the guest room. Which, by the way, is like half of my entire apartment.”

“This feels like a business transaction,” Vanessa remarked, a bit of an annoyed whine in her voice.

“You know what they say, baby,” Brooke hummed, “business before pleasure.”

——

“Would you like to come with me to Paris?” Nicky asked as she laid in bed with Jan. “I’m going over there for a long weekend and I think you could use a little holiday.”

Jan beamed brightly and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like fun. What’s the occasion?”

There was a hesitation before her reply that wasn’t lost on Jan. “I try to go and check in on my mother now and then. But I don’t want to trouble you with that, there’s plenty of things to do and–”

“Do you not want me to meet your mom?”

Nicky quickly shook her head. “It isn’t that. It’s just… I have never brought a girl to meet her before. She means well, usually, but she can be… judgmental. I don’t think she ever fully came to terms with having a gay daughter. It is like… she loves me, but not who I am.”

“And her gay daughter bringing home a stripper would give her an aneurism?”

“This isn’t about what you do, Jan,” she insisted, “she’d react all the same if you were a doctor or a lawyer or the fucking president. But I mean, come on, what do your parents think you do for a living?”

Jan frowned and crossed her arms. “They know I’m still trying to find acting work during the day, and they know I work at the club at night… They just think I’m a waitress.”

“You guys do not have waitresses.”

“But they don’t know that!” she pointed out, then quietly followed up with, “I get it, whatever, forget I said anything.”

Nicky sighed and sat up, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you want to meet my mother that badly?”

This time, it was Jan who hesitated as she thought for a moment. “I mean, I don’t wanna make things more difficult or stressful for you…”

She reached out and took her hand, squeezing gently. “Come with me, we will burn the bridge after we cross it. But I need you to understand that I am not ashamed of you, okay? Not at all.”

Jan smiled softly, picking her head up and resting it on Nicky’s shoulder. Ever since she had started working at the club, she had made a promise to herself to never date anyone that made her question her self-worth. Truth be told, if her parents ever found out about her career, their response wouldn’t be one of anger, it would be pity. They would take her in, give her money, treat her like a poor, lost soul that needed to be put on the right path. And to her, that was so much worse. “I have always wanted to go to Paris.”

——

Having consciously been in the closet since she was sixteen, Jackie was well adept at keeping secrets. But this time, keeping a secret felt so much more difficult, because it involved more than just herself. And as inconsequential as the secret may be in theory, it weighed heavily on her conscience.

She had waited a couple of days before creating an account to subscribe to Jaida’s OnlyFans, lest it look suspicious. But once she was in, she was checking her page almost obsessively. Sure, she had seen Jaida in every state of undress, but this was different, more intimate. It came with the territory, but seeing Jaida’s body in ways she had only fantasized about drove her wild.

Then she decided to get bold.

Maybe it was the extra glass of wine, maybe it was an overwhelming bout of horniness. But something compelled her to send Jaida a private message, happy to pay the five-dollar fee.

NYCdude1985: Hi, do you take requests for personalized videos? How much does it cost?

Jaida: As in you want me to moan your name while I touch myself? Yeah, I do thirty-second clips for $20.

NYCdude1985: Done. My name is Jack. But I go by Jackie, so use that.

NYCdude1985: Please, sorry.

Jaida chuckled softly as she read the messages. Even through the brief exchange, she could sense Jackie’s anxiety, the trepidation she had. She found it endearing and she was proud of her for being brave enough to take that step, even if it was under a rather uncreative screen name.

How had she known it was Jackie? It was a simple oversight on Jackie’s end - she had left her laptop open in her office, where the girls would frequently enter if they needed to refill the snack shelves or replenish the bathrooms. Jaida had merely gone to see if she had any extra zebra cakes when she noticed the tab in the upper-left corner of her browser. Suddenly, snacks were the last thing on her mind.

And she had considered bringing it up to her but realized it would do more harm than good. Instead, she would give Jackie exactly what she wanted. She filmed herself rubbing her clit while she moaned Jackie’s name. She didn’t bother timing it, she decided she was going to give her the whole thing, start to finish. Her gaze fixed on the camera, wanting Jackie to feel like she was looking right at her.

When Jackie watched it, she felt the intensity. Her heart pounded in her chest, she couldn’t even touch herself the first time she watched it, so utterly fixated on how Jaida’s body moved, how her name sounded spilling from her lips, how desperately she wanted it to be for real. She had to consciously get herself to get off during her second watch-through, though she was actively imagining being there with Jaida, with her head between her thighs, eliciting those moans herself.

“I have to tell her,” Jackie said to Nicky the next day. The two of them had formed a friendship since Nicky first arrived, Nicky, finding comfort in a fellow French speaker and Jackie appreciating having a confidant. “It’s gonna eat me alive until I do.”

“You should tell her,” Nicky replied as she took a hit off her vape. “You said it yourself, it is the only way you are going to feel any better. Besides, what is the worst thing that could happen?”

Jackie looked at her as if she’d sprouted another head. “I lose a close friend and incredible employee, not to mention the potential ethical ramifications of buying porn from an employee.”

Nicky tilted her head, thinking, before asking, “est ce que tu l'aimes?”

Her eyes went wide and her face went red at the question, at the mere suggestion. “Je ne pense pas pouvoir dire que… l'amour est un mot si fort.”

“Maybe so,” she conceded, “but consider that you could not say ‘no’.”

“I’d rather not,” Jackie chuckled dryly. “Listen, I gotta send some business emails out before the girls start coming in. You should go pack for your little getaway tomorrow.”

Nicky nodded and kissed the top of her head. “I will bring you back a souvenir.”

Jackie wasn’t left alone with her thoughts for long, not a minute after she finished her emails, she looked up to see Gigi walking in and sitting down on one of the chairs. But what caught her attention was their body language – they were looking down, fiddling with their hair, and swinging their legs. “What’s wrong, Geege?”

Gigi sighed and looked up. “Okay, like, this is stupid and whatever, but Crystal thinks I should tell you that I think a client I had a couple of weeks ago is stalking me. I made a composite sketch,” they explained, opening their messenger bag and pulling out a piece of paper. “Do you think if I give this to Kameron, she could make sure he stays out?”

“Gigi,” she said firmly, “that isn’t stupid at all. This is serious. Did he hurt you? What happened?”

They groaned, knowing this would happen despite any attempt to avoid triggering Jackie’s maternal instinct. “He kept asking about the VIP room and I decided I could use the extra cash. So, we were in there and I told him I’d give him a handy and he was like, okay cool. But after he paid for that he kept trying for more and was being really creepy about it, so, I left. He just… really didn’t like that I blew him off instead of blowing him. He found me on Instagram and started harassing me there, kept making fake accounts after I blocked them and he figured out where I go to school.”

Jackie’s eyes widened in horror. “Geege, this isn’t a matter for Kameron, it’s for the police.”

“But I hate the police,” they crossed their arms and whined.

“We all hate the police, but this is a serious safety risk. Kameron can’t follow you everywhere to keep him away. I need to know that he won’t get the opportunity to hurt you.”

Gigi sighed, chewing on their lip. “I don’t wanna give him that power over me, I don’t even wanna waste the time or energy,” they explained. “But fine, just for you though, okay?”

Jackie smiled graciously. “Thanks, kiddo.”

After Jackie had taken Gigi to file the report, she had offered them the night off, but Gigi defiantly insisted on performing, though after one set, they found themself tired, laying on the common room couch.

Jan sat cross-legged on the floor beside them. “You know, gorge, it’s okay to not be okay. That asshole put you through a lot. I had to take off a week after… you know, the incident. We’re in an industry that can attract real creeps, we gotta put our mental health first.”

Gigi shook their head. “Your incident was different, it got physical. The only time this guy touched me was to try to push down on the back of my head.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Denali chimed in, sitting on the arm of the couch. “It’s about boundaries. You made yours clear and he kept crossing them. And you don’t know what this dude is capable of, any of us would be scared in that position. I’ve dealt with a stalker too – he never touched me, but I sure as fuck didn’t feel safe.”

“I just don’t see the point in dwelling on it. Feeling shitty about it isn’t gonna make it go away,” they replied.

Jan frowned, putting her hand on top of Gigi’s and squeezing gently. “It’s not healthy to ignore your feelings either way. It’s better to work through it than let it manifest into some nasty shit.”

“Who gives a fuck about feelings?” The three of them looked over to see Lemon stumbling into the common room, setting a freshly-emptied glass on the counter. “And who gives a fuck about men? All they do is get in the way and think the world revolves around their ugly dicks,” she ranted, a bit of slurring in her voice.

“Speaking of what happens when you ignore your feelings,” Jan muttered under her breath, then turned to face Lemon. “You’re not getting back on the pole tonight, are you?”

Lemon furrowed her brows. “Why wouldn’t I? I still have one more set,” she scoffed. But when she started to walk towards the other dancers, she stumbled, nearly losing her balance on her already precarious six-inch heels.

Denali and Jan exchanged concerned expressions. “I’ll call Rosie to come and get her,” she said before Jan could suggest it, turning on her heel and going to get her phone from her locker.

Gigi, meanwhile, nearly got whiplash from how fast their head moved back and forth from Jan and Denali to Lemon. “You know,” they said to Jan, “maybe I should start working through my feelings. Even therapy seems like a better alternative to…” they gestured to Lemon, “that.”

“As her friend, I feel like I need to intervene, but I think anything short of breaking up Pri and her fiancé is going to be a waste of time,�� Jan mused as she watched her sit on the floor and struggle to take her heels off, cursing and whining quietly. “Something tells me things are gonna get worse before they get better.”

“Maybe,” they shrugged. “Lemon’s stubborn and possibly a little unstable… she might need to hit rock

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

[gatheringbones]

Janelle M. Lavelle, “Turning The Glass Corner: Southern Sensibilities & Dykely Connectedness”, from Finding the Lesbians: Personal Accounts From Around the World, The Crossing Press, 1988:

["One ritual for dyke connecting is this kind of indirect, gradual establishment of "guilt"-by-association. Names, places, activities of an increasingly obvious nature are offered by each party, tit-for-tat, as trust builds: a carefully-danced step, individual to individual, touching ever so gently on shared connectors. Such skills are especially important to develop because many traditional avenues of conjunction like organizations and liberal social groups seldom work for meeting people here. The last Social Movement that successfully developed here was the formation of the Confederacy; it didn't work, the participants got burned, and southerners haven't trusted any idea that involves assembling more than ten people since.

The few groups that have struggled here are seldom fertile lesbian ground. Our National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter, for instance, was hopelessly homophobic for most of its existence (that seems, thank heavens, to have finally changed). They knew who I was; but they were profoundly uncomfortable when I appeared as an open lesbian, particularly with other open lesbians, at any of their events.

Such dyke-fearing groups seldom function as a bridge. But on one occasion, even NOW pulled through. The group's president called me one day, circling like a dog looking for a place to sleep as she told me about a woman, a recent transplant from Indiana, who had contacted her the night before. The woman was having "trouble with her roommate," the NOW lady said, "and you seem to know a lot of people with roommates...." Her voice trailed off into a panic. I feigned ignorance for a few minutes to see how awkward a place she would work herself into. Her embarrassment seemed so bottomless, however, that guilt got the better of me and I helped her out by explaining that the answer was yes, I am a lesbian, and that she could give the Indiana lady my phone number if she wanted to. 

She hung up in a grateful rush. The Indiana woman, accustomed to NOW chapters that were melting pots of lesbian sensibility, was indeed having "roommate trouble": her middle-aged lover of twelve years had taken up with a 19-year-old rugby player. She turned out to be quite pleasant despite the angst of the break-up, eventually accustomed herself to southern life quite well, and is still a friend.

Other unlikely means for beaming across the Carolina distances for contact with friendly women exist. Accepting a southern identity as a lesbian means many things, not the least of which is a respect for other people's limitations. We are graced with an easy intertwining life here that women in other parts of the country struggle daily to achieve. Sometimes such complex associations seem like a gift; other times it feels, as one friend says, more like living with bees in one's head— too tight, too confining, too hard to escape the stupidities of one's past because reminders (both human and non) constantly surround us. Everyone really does know everyone else around here.

This interconnectedness does have one important advantage: non-lesbian people, male and female, are a primary source for finding new and exciting dykes. Gay men, for instance, have been invaluable: my male Front Page editor has connected me to at least 30 wonderful new women of every imaginable lesbian description in the last year, often with me kicking and screaming about how I'm just "too shy" to call a total stranger on the phone about some lesbian news story. "CALL HER," he finally insists, demanding some woman's deathless comments on a pending story. It works every time.

Gay men are essential for snagging invitations to the most interesting parties; for supplying useful gossip about which female flower-shop patrons send flowers to other women with "love" and "forever" in the note; and for escorting lost lady lab technicians, whose sexual identity is in the formative stages, to post-theater restaurant dinners. Patricia, my Significant Other, often inspires a unique protectiveness and love in otherwise shallow fey young men. They reward her by taking her under wing and introducing her to other shy women who will benefit from a totally non-threatening lesbian presence (we call this her "lost puppy" ministry).

A fact of life in the Carolinas is that most gay organizations involved in useful, as opposed to merely social, activities are sexually integrated. This is always a horrific shock to women who come here from Smith College demanding female-only groups. We natives have to explain patiently, as often as necessary, that the transplants are going to have to learn to appreciate gay men’s particular virtues on some level, or their lives will be sadly limited. Gay men love to matchmake, are often better at spotting dykes than dykes themselves (conversely, I myself have yet to err in a suspicion about a potentially gay man; maybe one sex can smell that the other ain't the least interested), and will feed a person if she's broke if she will exert herself to be moderately entertaining. In the south, at least, gay men are an all-around useful concept.

Another important factor in forming lesbian associations here is non-gay women. Soon after I left my husband, a straight woman friend named Lola met me at the only predominantly-female bar in town. She liked to dance without getting hit on by leeches, so she periodically visits the gay nightspots. Having only recently been cured of my bout with the heterosexual virus, I did not know a soul there, so Lola introduced me around the place. The female bartender, in a state of passive lust for Lola's motherly body and bedroom eyes, was eager to believe that any friend of Lola's was de facto a friend of hers. She presented me to the other regulars, thus vouching for my acceptability, and the group of us eventually formed a loose confederation we called Phi Nu Delta (Friday Night Dykes) to support us through the early 1980s when Reagan took over and life as we knew it seemed in increasing jeopardy. (...)

None of these approaches rates high on the Political Correctness scoreboard. But there is a special radicalism in treating dyke-finding like any other social interaction. By insisting through our behavior that lesbianism falls within the wide realm of southern eccentricity, dykedom becomes part of the unique southern dailiness that allows life here to flow more mellowly than in colder climes.”]  

[amnachil]

The College Society Chapter 3 Part 3

4 days late is better than a week so be happy :)

I should be posting the next part of TP tomorow but you know me, I never do what I say :p

Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey Saturday January 26

It had been the worst three days of Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey's life. Maybe not exactly, but among the worst. On wednesday, he had tried to speak with Liam, but the freshman had avoided him, of course. Zack had told him to play it cool. To stay quiet a bit, and then talk with his "boyfriend". To stay quiet. Me. Stay quiet and wait ? What more ? Make the puppy ? And talk to him ? He meant apologise right ? Zack wants me to apologise. Me. Everything had happened because Amber and Theo had tricked him. She had got her hands on four tickets. She had gone on her own at the festival, and then she had waited the perfect moment. I can't express how mad I am. I can't say enough curse to calm down. After this horrible humilition, he had headed straight back home. He had wanked several times. Until he had felt pain and tiredness. And since then, he had met some old friends, some old and smart hunters. And he had banged them all. Some old preys too. He had been having sex, sex and more sex, but he still felt frustrated. He pictured Liam's smile. His soft voice. His cute booty. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey was a predator. The best of his kind. He had chased hundreds of people. Gay, hetero, even alleged lesbian. He had always succeeded. His thought went to Liam again. This lad had a lovable expression. When they ate together, he was so genuinely happy. Zack wants me to apologise. Fuck Theophile and Amber. And all those assholes who had bet against him. He was ruling the university for god's sake ! And Zack wants me to apologise. Fine. For the first and only time of his life, Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey would beg forgiveness.

The lad headed towards Pasta's Place, where Liam was working this night, when he bumped into Theophile. This... Man I don't know. Fuckin' shitty greedy idiotic douchebag ? Nah. Bally foolish bitchy rotten bastard, it's better.

"Hi Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey. Going somewhere ?"

"Go back in the bloody pussy you came from nasty stupid bitch. I'm busy."

"Sounds like you're a bit more vulgar than usual. Are you scared to lose ?"

The blond lad did his best to stay calm. At least to not be even angrier than he already was.

"You're sure talking a lot moronic asshole." he grumbled aggressively. "Still, you didn't catch the prey either. Maybe it's too much for your prick to handle ? Go back to these fatty shit of yours, idiot."

"I never realised how many curse words you were able to use in only one sentence." applauded Theo with a laugh. "It make me horny. Look, let's make a little deal. You let me Liam. And you let me bang you from time to time because I reckon, you're the best lay around. Oh, and you put on some pounds, because I like you more with a belly. In exchange, you can keep your 1000$."

"Here is my counterproposal. I take Liam. I put my dick in your ass or mouth or any hole you have when I want to. I keep my money. And you go fuck yourself somewhere I can't see you. It's the last warning, don't play with me."

"For now, I'm winning. So be it."

When Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey arrived at Pasta's Place, he was barely calmed down. Judy glimpsed him first. At start, she wanted to make him clear off, but when she saw his eyes, she just led him to Liam. Apparently, this one just finished his shift and was about to left. When they glanced at each other, the Dean's grandson didn't know what to say. He wasn't good to make apologies. He didn't even know how to apologise in the first place. And this baboon was just standing there, looking at him. Damnit Zack, I hate you. Why did you convince me to do this ?

"Listen to me Liam. I'll not say this twice. I'm..."

Damnit, it was harder than he tought. The chestnut lad openned his eyes wide.

"Are you gonna..."

"Shut up, don't make it even more difficult." interupted Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey. "All I want to say is I'm..."

I can't. I can't do this, it's so humiliating. It was Amber and Theo who should be apologising. Not him. Liam slowly took his hands. He had a wonderful face. And damnit, his touch was so soft.

"You're what Dami ?"

It's not my fuckin' name. Please stop it. Stop with this cute nickname.

"I'm sorry." he finally spilt.

And a moment of silent. Say something.

"You're blushing." whispered Liam. "You're cute."

Don't say anything more. Don't. The freshman himself was as red as a tomato. This whole situation was the weirdest Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey ever lived. Even when he had had sex in a field, on the back of a cow, it had been less embarrassing. (Not with the cow, of course, just on her).

"We never really said we were dating or anything." admitted Liam. "I guess you have the right to see other people ?"

"You mean I can't if we are a couple ?"

It's mortifying. How could he survive like this ? As far as he could remember, he had always be with several people at the same time.

"I don't want to force you to do something you won't like." whispered Liam. "Listen Dami, I think you're very nice. Maybe you don't know this, but in a way, you helped me when my world was falling apart. Deliberately or not, you made my life better, and I thank you for this. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure to understand what you see in me but... I'm okay, and I want to be your boyfriend. And I'm ready to let you have sex with other people like you're used too."

"Wait. How would you know I..."

"You've quite a reputation, but it's Theo who told me. But whatever, I don't mind this as long as your respect some conditions. Please ?"

Conditions. Is this baboon putting conditions at me ? Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey shook his head. What the hell was going on ? Why he felt so shy all of sudden ? Why I'm listening to him ? I should be leading the conversation.

"Which ones ?" he simply asked, much for his own displeasure.

"First, when I call you, you come, whoever you're having sex with. I'm number one for everything. Maybe it'll just be for a cuddle, or to see a movie, but I'm your priority." commanded Liam. "Second, you don't fall in love with any of them. Just sex, nothing more. I don't want you do be sentimentally involved with anyone but me..."

I'm not even loving you. You're just a prey. So why the hell I'm blushing everytime you open your fuckin' mouth ? Why ?

"Okay." the Dean's grandson agreed. "It works for me."

"Third, don't sleep with my relatives. Not my roommate, not my friends nor people I used to know in my past... It would be awkward. And four, you call me. I'm your boyfriend so if you need help with something, I'll be there. If you're sad, happy or angry, I wanna know."

Damnit. That's not what I planned at all. Things were getting out of hand. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey tried his best to rationalize. To be his former self. But he just felt butterflies in his belly.

"And I've one last request. It's very important to me."

"Whatever it is, I'm fine with it." quickly promised the lad.

No ! What did I just say ?! What's wrong with my body ? With my brain ? I'm broken ! Someone needs to help me, I'm fuckin' broken !

"All the pastries and the plates you're making ? All for me. No sharing. I want them all."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Sure. All my cooking is for you."

And then they kissed.

Liam Sunday January 27 – Monday January 28

My mother was right, with each piece of good news come a piece of bad news. Yesterday, Dami had agreed to be his boyfriend. (They still had some stuff to work on, like how to be faithful). (He had what ? Two or three lovers, no more right ?). But Liam wanted to be comprehensive and to respect Dami. If his new boyfriend needed to have sex to feel happy, Liam didn't want to stop him. As soon as I will be ready, I'll have sex with him too... But the chesnut lad wasn't feeling confident enough for that. I don't even know what exactly we are doing. Anyway, this late morning, when Liam woke up, he discovered Theo. He first thought the dark-haired junior had crept into their flat in order to devour Nick. He was ready to hit him with a baguette when his roommate said they had sex. Sex. Liam didn't even know Nick was interested in men... The ogre is having sex with his preys. It was bad, really bad. Liam understood the long-run plan of the monster : he intented to make Nick addicted to him. But can I do something ? I don't know what...

"You look worried." smiled Theo. "Have you some problems I can help with ?"

At this point, Liam wanted to hid under his bed with the unicorns. (They were friends. They would protect him). But he couldn't let Nick alone in this dangerous situation.

"By the way, I heard your father sued your mother." continued the ogre. "I think I can help you with that, since we all are friend here."

What ? Now it was sure. Theo was sent by the forces of evil to harm them. Liam had to find a way out !

"My father is your dad's lawyer. I'm surprised you never realised it. Anyway, I think we can talk to him. Maybe find an arrangement ?"

"Liam dude, it would be nice." added Nick.

"I have one question." interrupted Liam. "It's unrelated to the topic but... Ain't you bothered by cheating on Laura ? Does she know what you're doing ? And you Nick ?"

"We have an agreement." explained Theo. "I'm free to have sex with cute and sweet men like Nick, she's okay with that. I can sleep with you too if you want."

Oh. That's straight. Liam didn't want to sleep with an ogre. And he already have a boyfriend. Not the most faithful in the world but... he was cooking very well at least.

"You should try." excitedly said Nick. "Theo is like... very good ! Trust me, you'll quickly understand why I did that !"

"Uh well... I'm not interested." Liam diplomatically said. "But I'm okay to meet your father and negociate."

The whole conversation felt surreal. I didn't know Nick was interested in men. Or that Laura was aware... This is sooo weird. (Weirder than believing in unicorns, yes).

"Nice, let's say next saturday ?" suggested Theo. "I know the trial is in early february."

"Okay..."

Liam still needed help to save Nick. But he had had an illumination. His boyfriend was someone important after all, maybe he could help. (The chestnut lad had heard something about the Dean, but still couldn't remember what).

The young freshman went to work at 4pm. Judy welcomed him with a concerned look. Exactly like the last time they had talked about the forces of evil. While he got ready, she mumbled :

"Big guy, there's something you need to know."

"What's the matter ?"

He was captivated by his suit. The waiters here had cool suit, nice and warm. He tried once to steal one, but she had stopped him.

"I saw you kiss Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey yesterday. And I don't think it's a good idea." she said. "I know you're a grown-up man, and it's your call but... Do you know how awful he can be ? I think you're only another prey for his tally to be honest."

Liam had already thought about this. And he asked Nate's advice. After all, if Dami was actually sleeping with two or three other person at the moment, he probably had also a lot of ex. (And the freshman was known to be naive so maybe his boyfriend played him). (But he was trusting Dami, he felt it was the right thing to do).

"Thank you Judy but... I don't know. I think I can trust him. He's sweet with me. I've a gut feeling about this. And I appreciate him."

"You sure ? I thought this at first too. Then he ditched me."

It took Liam a moment to undestand. So... they used to be a thing. Okay. Now he was wondering, who had slept with Dami ? Stop it Liam. Stop it now. As Nate said, he shouldn't think about his boyfriend's past. After all, he didn't want his own past to resurface.

"I'm sorry to hear that Judy, because you're a nice girl." he assured. "But I still think it's different. Maybe I'm a fool, and maybe I'm really stupid, but I want to try."

The next morning in class, the professor of macroeconomics gave them an important information. They would make a journey in France. It would take place during the winter holidays. It was unusual for first year students, but the Dean and the administration decided to chose the thirty best students in economics, and give them this opportunity. It appeared Nick was the major of their promotion, so he would be part of it. Rebecca, Barbara and Colton aswell. But Liam never expected to heard his name. Apparently, he was among the best ? I can't believe it. For real ? He felt really happy about it. (In case some people wonder : Liam was bright. With focus, he could probably be a very good student). (But the chestnut lad wasn't thinking about it at all). Some of his friends weren't really pleased with the group, but he was. Plus, the professor anounced they would select some junior and sophomore to come with them. All I need to do is convince Dami to come. Easy-peasy.

Barbara Wednesday January 30

At first, she had thought it would a piece of cake. All she had to do was convince a professor to support her more than Summer. But Ms. Weber wasn't cooperative at all. It was already hard to find the hunters among thousands of students and staff in the university. Barbara discovered some names thanks to Javier, but not enough. And now, one of them, Linda wouldn't help her.

"Look, I'm not sayin' I won't be in your side at the end." she explained. "But for now, I'm trusting Summer. The girl's good. She knows what she has to do to maintain order."

"But isn't she a kind of rival ?" asked Barbara. "For the hunt I mean."

"That's right, we're looking for the same kind of prey. But there are plenty of young male around here. I don't have any gripe against her honestly. Prove you're better or worthier and I'll support you."

I already am... The short blonde just smiled. Obviously, the hunters weren't glad to see her. According to Javier, it took time to build a name in their society.

"Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey himself was my very first support." she reminded. "Does this count for nothing to you ?"

"It depend. Did you ever sleep with the man ?"

"No."

"Well, it's normally easy to turn him on. The man only love his prick you know ? If he hadn't sleep with you, it means he doesn't have much interest for you. And Summer knows how to talk with him. She's the head of student for the second year in a row, it mean something."

"Yeah, I understood this. Thanks you Ms. Webers. See you soon."

Damned. Such a waste of time. It wasn't the firt person she tried to convince. But the hunters were all supporting her opponent. Summer was useless and definitely not smart, but she had numerous great allies. I need to make a move to impress them. An important move. She was heading towards the library when a dark-haired lad approached her. He was tall and ripped, pretty imposing.

"Hey there." he greeted. "I'm Theo Meyers, nice to you meet you."

She knew him. Javier had said he had challenged Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey for his title of best hunter. And whoever is the best hunter is likely able to be the king.

"I heard you were trying to take Summer's position ?" he asked. "I guess you need a little help to make all these hunters work with you ? I mean, powerful people don't really like rookies. Are you a rookie ?"

Barbara smiled prudently. She had already met people like him. Psychopaths.

"I'm not." she replied. "And I'll figure out something."

"Why not beat the most famous and feared hunter ? You could win some respect that way."

Now it became interesting. But she had to be cautious. Obviously, Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey had a lot of ressources. And he didn't seem to have a weakness.

"You've only one thing to do for me, and it's a win." explained Theo. "Distract him on saturday. I'm gonna win the bet this day. Can you do that ?"

"Yes."

She already had the start of a plan.

To be continued

Quite an important part becaure YAY They are finally together !!!! It’s not like... the perfect couple yet, but here they are. Liam is a very eager feedee, he wants the cook to feed him and only him ;) But they’ve still many problems to solve and many hardship to face. The happy end is far away, count on me for that.

And speaking of problems, Barbara and Theo made a deal. Which is not good news...

[makomaragi]

I!! finally!! finished it!!!

I started this fic in 2011 or 2012 when I first got in to Scientificshipping. People had asked me about how I thought they got together, and I was always like “lol I’ll just write a fic about it one day it’s too hard to explain”

This is that fic!!! my magnum opus. 

It’s long, and awkward, and definitely not perfect. But I’m pretty pleased with myself to finally be able to put this out in to the universe.

Pairing: Professor Aurea Juniper/Fennel

Rating: G/PG?? No sex or anything, just dumb gay babbies being useless lesbians.a lot of drawn out feelings. gets pretty straight to the point. 

song recs: 

the mountain goats - old college try

blue october - picking up pieces

blue october - the follow through

Try as she may, Fennel simply couldn’t concentrate on the paperwork in front of her. The thought of telling Aurea of her feelings was beginning to overwhelm her, and she couldn’t avoid the paperwork nor the woman she thought of so often forever. Not that she ever needed an excuse to speak to Aurea, but lately she was beginning to make them to herself. Aurea was far busier than she ever was with this or that, and Fennel felt selfish for interrupting her schedule with her own business, even if Aurea had said repeatedly that she didn’t mind. Aurea had always said that when something was bothering her, she threw herself in her work instead, but Fennel quickly realized the solution to her problem wasn’t as simple as it was for Aurea. It seemed that the harder she tried to concentrate, the more her thoughts drifted off to thoughts of her.

She had tried once before. She invited her to lunch at the Striaton Cafe a month or so ago. It was innocent enough, meeting for coffee and brunch as they had countless times before. Fennel had showed her a few things she was working on, none of which she had much much progress towards at the time. Her intention had been to make her aware of her feelings, but the timing it didn’t seem right. So they went back to talking about science, as they always did, the professor far more involved in the project than Fennel was in the moment.

There were points that she decided that, maybe it should stay a secret. But that didn’t feel fair to herself, or even to the professor, somehow. Fennel began to look at it as if she were on the receiving end of someone’s unrequited love, she would want to know. Feelings she had been harboring since they had studied together, though she managed to keep them at bay. They would come and go by her own doing. As of late, Fennel wouldn’t say the thoughts or feelings were consuming her, but weighed more heavily on her mind than they had before. The only reason she could conclude was that they had simply been spending much time together than usual, though not nearly as much as they had in college.

She had moved back to Striaton about four months ago now, having spent the few months before that living with the professor in the apartment above the regional lab after the explosion at the Dream Yard. It had been the most traumatic experience of her life, losing her lab, losing her life’s work and everything she had been working toward, leaving her without anything and relying on the kindness of her best friend to get her out of the city it all happened in. She didn’t want to move back – Aurea had offered her various jobs at the lab, none of which she felt qualified for in having destroyed a lab already. No, it was her younger sister that moved to the region from their home in Kanto, and in to the apartment that Fennel still had a lease on for another six months, that led her back there. Mentally, she wasn’t prepared to return, nor did the professor pressure her to. But her sister did, and she decided a distraction was the best answer.

It all seemed distant now. Maybe it was the medication that was helping her, or the combination of that and the project she began developing. The idea for it had come to her long ago, in college, but she never had the time or resources to invent something until now. She had told her sister and the professor about her idea, both who encouraged her to go forward with it, but even months after the fact, she didn’t have much to show for it besides mountains of paperwork containing her drawings and diagrams of how she thought it might work. It was the money that was the problem, nor did she feel comfortable asking her family, let alone Aurea, for anything towards her idea that might not come to fruition. Especially not after everything she had done for her already.  

No matter how she looked at it, however, the repercussions would change them both completely, and she fought herself with wondering if she was ready to handle whatever the effect would be of her confession. It would be perhaps the boldest thing she had ever done. Nor did there ever seem to be an appropriate time or place for the conversation.

It happened much too quickly between the phone call and organizing her own thoughts that Aurea was seated on her couch, looking over the paperwork Fennel had put a half hearted effort in to. Fennel usually would have been seated next to her, leaning over her shoulder and translating her messy hand writing to her, but instead she rested on her desk, deep in thought how to approach this. There was a pang of guilt in using the paperwork as her ruse, but it hadn’t been completely irrelevant either. She had completed enough to have something to show for her work at long last, and truly had wanted the professor’s opinion on it before moving forward.

“This all looks really good, Fennel…” Aurea started, flipping a few pages over to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. “Have you submitted your paperwork to the League to get funding for your project?”

“Err…no…I didn’t know that was something I had to do,” Fennel felt embarrassed, having not even thought of doing so when it seemed like such an obvious task to Aurea.

“If the League approves it, they’ll give you a budget for it. How else do you think I have enough resources to work on the machines at the lab?” Aurea gave a small laugh and a smile to follow. “It’s not too hard, just time consuming.”

As Aurea turned back to the blue prints before them, Fennel couldn’t help but to hold her stare on her a bit longer, even if Aurea wasn’t looking at her anymore. The way she carried herself, ever the professional when it came to discussing the meticulous details of the machine Fennel wanted to build, but a caring smile between glances of paperwork was all Fennel needed to see. Even the way she pushed her hair out of her eyes with her delicate fingers when it slipped out of place when she was leaning down had a sophisticated air to the simple motion.

They were all mannerisms she had grown used to concerning her best friend over the years, but in recent weeks, it was becoming more and more difficult not to be entranced by them when she was with her.

“Fennel?” Aurea’s voice interrupted, and she realized she had been staring. Fennel cleared her throat in a weak attempt to recover.

“Hmm?”

“I was just asking what your plans were for this. Do you plan on eventually making it available to trainers?”

“Oh…I hadn’t even thought of that yet. Er…are there benefits to that?”

“The League is more likely to approve of it,” Aurea shrugged, winking.

Fennel let out a small laugh, blushing ever so slightly. Was she teasing her? “Right, then. Yeah…I don’t see why trainers couldn’t use it eventually.”

“Anyway, you need to come up with a budget. Figure out how much you think all of this will cost. All of it, including paying your assistants should you choose to hire any to help you in this endeavor.”

Fennel caught herself starting to stare again, and put a stop to it as soon as she felt her eyes glaze over. She could tell by the seamless confidence in Aurea’s voice that she believed her project was worthwhile; she knew her well enough to tell when Aurea was disappointed by something, not being sure if it was familiarity in her stance of if the professor was too forceful in faking sincerity. “Um, okay,” was all she could manage, not entirely sure how to go about completing such a task.

Aurea laughed. “I can help you. Next time we get together, we can sit down and figure it all out.”

“Thanks. That would help me a lot. I’ve…I’ve never done anything of this magnitude before, is all. Not on my own, anyway.”

“Of course you have. The Dream Site project was all your own, yes?”

“Yeah…but…I never had to take this much initiative with it.”

“I do have a few pointers for you. Well, first I think that you need to clarify what you’ll be doing with the Dream Mist, and how it affects the Pokemon. Be sure to emphasize that it won’t hurt them. And I know it’s obvious to you, but make sure that you clarify why the Pokemon has to be in the REM stage of sleep for this to work.”

“Okay,” Fennel said with an accidental dismissive tone, looking at her feet.

“Anything else, then?” Aurea looked up at her, concerned by her friend’s shift in body language. “Err…I hadn’t meant to offend you. This is all written well enough, you just need to elaborate on those few statements, is all.”

Fennel let out a deep breath. “Aurea…” Why hadn’t she had a drink or two before this, if only to give herself any sort of imaginary courage?

The professor held her gaze on her, only moving to push her bangs out of her eyes, the action in itself throwing off Fennel’s concentration on what she wanted to say. She bit her lip, standing up from where she was seated. She wanted to go sit next to her, to take her hands in her own, it would make it more meaningful. But it didn’t feel right, not now, not with how flushed she was sure her face was becoming.

“I…I have these feelings for you…I’m not sure what to make of them. I think about you more than I should, in ways I know I shouldn’t.” Fennel turned away, pretending to organize some papers on her desk.

“I don’t know what that means.” Aurea gave a deadpan reply, too quickly for Fennel's liking. The professor’s mind was still on the research in front of her, surely.

Fennel stopped shuffling the papers, her hands now planted firmly on the edge of the desk, hanging her head down, her shoulders tensed. She could feel Aurea's stare on her, even though she wasn't facing her. The option of choosing her words carefully came and went, completely over Aurea's head. "I think I'm in love with you," she surprised herself how easily the phrase escaped her, not once even having the thought in those words to herself.

There was a long silence, Fennel was half tempted to turn to see if the other woman was still seated, though she hadn't heard her move. Aurea had only subtly re-situated herself, learning forward on the couch, her hands folded together on her knees.

"When, um..." There were a million more questions on her mind, why was this the one she chose?

"A long time. It took me a while to realize it..."

“I see.”

“I’m…I’m sorry..I…I just…you have a right to know. I can’t help how I feel. But I have feelings for you, and I’m pretty sure I always have….” As difficult as it was, she forced herself to face Aurea. Aurea still carried a blank expression, taking it all in. Fennel leaned back on her desk, tilting her head to the ground, smiling to herself, thankful her hair had fallen in her face. This was it, right? This was when the object her of affections realized their own feelings in return, and they’d kiss, and live happily ever after.

“I think I’m going to go,” Aurea stood up, the noise catching Fennel off guard. She picked up her coat off of the back of the chair, throwing it back on haphazardly, staring at the ground. “I…”

“I’m so sorry, Aurea…” Fennel felt the tears started to slip down her cheek now. She wanted to run after her, to grab her hand, and as she turned to take her leave to kiss her gently. But all she could do was watch as Aurea silently gave a small nod before she was out the door.

“I…I don’t know if this is a good idea, Fennel,” Aurea’s eyebrows were raised, eyes wide as if she were frightened, a force driving her out of the room.

No, this certainly hadn’t gone the way Fennel had thought it would. In a perfect world, Aurea would have admitted that she, too, had harbored such feelings for so long, but instead, she was gone before Fennel could imagine the rest of the scenario.

Where Aurea had gone off to, Fennel had no idea. She tried calling the lab after two days, only to be told she wasn’t there – or maybe she had been told to tell her, specifically, just that. But it didn’t make any sense, especially from a scientific point of view.

She tried her Xtransciever. She tried her phone. She went as far as to take a taxi to Nuvema one day, only to find her lab apartment seemingly abandoned. Her Jeep wasn’t in the driveway, she was gone. Her interns and assistants were of no help in knowing where she went exactly, just that she had left in a rush.

Fennel told herself she had gone too far too quickly out of desperation for any sort of answer. What did “not a good idea” mean?

Carrying on with the project Aurea helped her with brought her both frustration and a sense of purpose. Would it impress her? Or would the thought of working on something she helped her with drive her to insanity? She forced herself to fill out the paperwork the professor had encouraged her to do so, giving her some sense of accomplishment.

There was no point in dwelling on her feelings for the professor in the moment, let alone the professor's feelings for her. She allowed herself to cry once over it, realizing how selfish she was, and there was nothing left to do except allow Aurea to come to her own terms on how she felt. Worst case scenario, she wanted nothing to do with her ever again. It would be difficult, especially seeing as how their work often led them to collaborate together on projects; but Aurea was ever the professional and would be able to set anything personal aside far better than Fennel ever would. She wasn’t sure what she considered a positive outcome anymore, besides Aurea agreeing that they would forget entirely about the encounter. Fennel decided, should this be the case, she would move back to Kanto. It would be the best possible outcome for both of them with only herself to blame.

A few thousand miles away, Professor Juniper hovered over some ancient Pokemon bones sprawled out before her.

The more she worked, the less she would have time to think about what was going on in Unova. The team of scientists she was assisting didn’t seem all that surprised by her sudden appearance, nor did they ask any questions. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last that she caught wind of an excavation and decided to take part – Lenora always gave her the best tip offs.

She was quite good at keeping herself busy throughout the day and well in to the night, keeping thoughts at bay for as long as she could. Going home would mean facing Fennel again and she still had no idea what that would entail.

Aurea told herself she had taken the trip to clear her head, but truly, it was avoidance. She had no idea why she left the way she did that night, not even giving Fennel, or herself, any chance to talk about any of it, rather than being driven by fear far away to other regions in avoiding it all.

Until one day, four or five nights in to her research expedition, the weight of it all collapsed down on her. Fennel had surely wondered where she was – they had a habit of speaking at least once a day in their normal lives, sometimes multiple times. It wasn’t right of her to disappear like this. Fennel had tried to reach her, multiple missed calls, some even forwarded from the lab, all of which she didn’t know how to handle yet.

This had been a mistake on her part, one of which she mourned having not had handled better in the moment presented rather than almost a week afterward.

The professor had never considered the idea of being in a romantic relationship with Fennel, or any relationship at all for that matter. There was a thought that if it had to of been anyone, she supposed it may as well of been her. She was the most comfortable with her. They had lived together on and off for their entire adult lives.

The thought that continuously crept up on her was that of hurting her if things didn’t work out. Just because they were friends didn’t mean that they would be compatible romantically.

The more her thoughts were left to linger, the more she realized she wasn’t entirely opposed to it. There were certain qualities in Fennel she always deemed adorable,  now realizing it may have been some hint of unconscious attraction. Was she attracted to women and simply never considered it until one presented herself to her so openly? She had never looked at women exclusively, but the idea of looking at Fennel romantically seemed more realistic once the realization crossed her mind. Simple motions that were simply part of Fennel’s personality came to mind – the way she tapped her fingers together under her chin when she was unsure of something, the way she shoved her fist against her cheek when in deep thought, but mostly, the way her face looked when she was presenting something she was passionate about.

This was certainly no way to begin a relationship – she wasn’t sure of anything herself.

But Fennel was.

And it went back to what she feared, in hurting her if this didn’t pan out. What was Fennel’s endgame? She couldn’t imagine a world in which she didn’t speak to Fennel – besides the circumstance she found herself in now, of her own doing – the worst case scenario of them having a bad break up didn’t seem realistic for some reason. They had disagreements over the years, like any friends, but always patched things up rather quickly. She supposed this maturity of their familiarity with one another could carry over romantically.

If she was being honest with herself, it was the subject of intimacy, let alone sex that scared her the most. It was embarrassing to admit even to herself that she never had any such encounters, nor did she ever find herself in a position that they were ever presented to her, until now, hypothetically.

The longer she waited, the worse it would be when she arrived home. Fennel was hurting right now, she was certain of that, and to her own doing. They weren’t even involved romantically and she had already hurt her, just as she feared.

There was a distinct, determining thought that the idea of Fennel hurting, and worse yet, because of her, left her sitting up in her tent in the dark.

Maybe she’d make other mistakes, should they pursue this, but reflecting on her thoughts in all of it only made her promise to herself that she would never hurt Fennel ever again. There were still many bridges to cross when she returned home, and maybe they wouldn’t be together forever, but if she was still thinking about it and not dismissing it entirely, there must have been some merit.

If she was going to do this, she needed to be honest with her. Honest with why she left, and honest in all of her uncertainties.

The professor didn’t feel in control of her actions when she booked the flight back to Unova for the next morning, surely confusing the research team more than anything. They never asked her any questions, probably assuming she came out of boredom in a lull of trainers stopping by.

She had hardly made it off the plane when she turned on her Xtransciever, finding Fennel’s name and initiating the call, her stomach in her throat.

Fennel was preparing for bed when her Xtransceiver buzzed. Who would be calling her at this hour? At the name appearing on the screen, she hesitated. Was she okay? Was she just going to ignore what happened and everything would go back to normal? Certainly it couldn’t after their last skirmish, but she couldn’t avoid her forever, and she didn’t want to.

“Aurea...” she couldn’t help but smile at seeing the other woman’s face appear on the small screen.

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, but I’m going to sleep soon.”

“Can we talk?”

Fennel became suddenly alert, “Right now?”

“I’m on my way. I’ll see you in a bit, if that’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Aurea had hung up the call before she could ask any questions, supposing it was best to have whatever conversation they would in person, even if it was quite late.

She wanted to lash out at her, tell her how upset she was at her for disappearing, but it didn’t seem fair to, either. Aurea had a right to distance herself from what she had suddenly dispelled on her at their last meeting, and Fennel accepted she wasn’t the one that had any right to be upset.

The drive from the airport in Nuvema to Striation City didn’t make sense, especially as it was now past midnight. Was she sure about what she was doing? Fennel didn’t deny seeing her, nor did she seem angry or even upset. Surprised was the only adjectives that came to mind. Nothing was making sense anymore. Were her feelings simply in vain now?

Knocking on her door seemed to be the loudest noise heard throughout the city at that time of night. Fennel must have been waiting close by, answering within a few seconds.

“Fennel...hi.”

“Hi.” Fennel held the door open in her night gown, rubbing her eyes as if to emphasize how tired she seemed to be. She ushered her inside, quickly closing the door, both of them standing in her living room now awkwardly.

They both started talking at the same time, interrupting each other continuously a few times before Fennel realized what was happening and conceded. She was the one that caused this, it seemed fair to hear what Aurea had to say first.

“I’m sorry for the way I left, um...last time.”

“I’m sorry for coming on so strong to you...that wasn’t fair of me...to put you in that position...”

Aurea was staring at her for a long minute after she had trailed off, Fennel unable to read the exact expression etched on the professor’s features. She wasn’t angry, or even upset, she just seemed...oddly calm.

“We can forget it ever happened. I should have never done that to you,” Fennel’s eyes darted to the floor, no longer able to suppress the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, nor was she sure what there was for her to say that could rectify where they found themselves now.

Before she could decipher her friend’s expression further, she was cut off by the professor’s lips against hers, the force of the sudden push knocking her back a few steps.   Without thinking, she had put her hands around her, in those short few seconds, if it was even that, before Aurea had pulled away.

Fennel’s eyes were wide, her cheeks stinging with tears, still unsure if she was seeing correctly through the saline blocking her vision. It was incredibly forward and out of character of the professor, never one to be so direct in much of anything unless it involved scientific theories or discoveries.

“Is...is that what I was supposed to do? I’m sorry if that was inappropriate, it just seemed-”

Her thought wasn’t finished, in a daze the scientist’s lips pushed against her own again, this time Fennel wasn’t holding back, wrapping her arms around her torso to bring them closer together. She had thought about what it would have been like, kissing her best friend, her sense of urgency taking priority over relishing anything tactile about it. Maybe she would regret it later, but in some way, this seemed oddly perfect.

“I always thought I’d kiss you first,” she let out a laugh through her sob.

Aurea was smiling, but still stiff and trembling to her touch, Fennel quickly releasing her hold on her at the realization.

“Are you okay?” the dream scientist asked, increasing the space between them.

“Yeah.”

“What….what happened? Where did you go, what made you do that?”

“I went to Sinnoh for a while...I don’t really have an answer why. I just needed to get away from here, give myself some time to think.”

“I still regret how I acted the last time I saw you. I shouldn’t have put you in that position...you had every right to never speak to me again.”

“I shouldn’t have disappeared on you, though...”

“This is no way to start a relationship,” Fennel chuckled a bit. “Wait. So...are together now?”

“If you want to be,” the brunette was giving way to a sheepish smile.

“You know my feelings on it,” Fennel directed her eyes to her feet again. “So, are we?” Maybe she was being persistent, but she needed to hear Aurea say it, if it was indeed what she wanted.

“Yes.”

Fennel felt as though all she had been doing since Aurea entered her home was cry, the tears that were beginning to dry being replaced with fresh ones again.  “Okay,” was all she managed to say for some reason. In front of anyone else, she probably would have been embarrassed, but she was far past the point of feeling foolish in front of her anymore.

Aurea still had the remains of upturned lips, placing her hand on the door handle. “I’m going to go home now and go to sleep.”

“You can stay if you want, it’s pretty late,” the dream researcher proposed without realizing what she was saying.  “You certainly don’t have to if you don’t want to, or if you aren’t comfortable, but you know you’re always welcome.”

For whatever reason, Aurea hadn’t considered this as an option. She supposed it did feel weird coming over to her apartment past midnight, confirming the direction of their relationship, and then going their separate ways.

“Okay,” came her delayed reply. It meant a trip back out to her Jeep to retrieve her suitcase, but at least she had been prepared for what came of the evening. Far preferable than making the evening even more awkward by having to borrow some of Fennel’s clothes, if it had come to that.

Settling in to bed next to Fennel felt natural as it had the countless times before. They lay a bit apart, facing each other for some reason, Fennel’s grin not wavering, fixated on those emerald eyes across from her. She had turned her lights out, save the night light plugged in next to her night stand.

“So you’re my girlfriend now,” the dream scientist couldn’t help but grin when she said it out loud.

“Yeah,” the professor confirmed with a small smile.

“I’m your girlfriend,” Fennel repeated, reaching for the other’s hand and giving it a light squeeze, her grin becoming more defined when Aurea returned the gesture.

Aurea’s smile feigned, though her eyes were still vibrant as ever. “I, um..I don’t know that I’m going to be any good at this, Fennel. I’ve never done this before.”

“It’s okay. We can figure it out together.”

Aurea was certain Fennel had a boyfriend at some point when they were in college, it not seeming like an appropriate time to question her about it. Nor did it at all seem like a fair comparison to the situation they found themselves in now by any stretch.

“We need to take this slow,” the professor added.

“I think so, too,” Fennel nodded. But there was still the obvious question that weighed on her mind. “What made you change your mind?”

“I didn’t change my mind, I just realized it was something I needed to think about.”

“It’s okay if you still don’t know how you’re feeling. I don’t want to pressure you in to anything. But please tell me now if you want to just….forget this ever happened, and we can go back to how it always was”

“I don’t think it’d be that simple,” the professor replied calmly. “When I was gone, all I was thinking about was how hurt you were, and I never wanted to be the cause of that. I’m not perfect….and I’m sure I’ll still make mistakes...but I promise, I’ll do my best never to hurt you.”

“You’ve never hurt me, Aurea. But you can’t just go running off to other regions to avoid things anymore, not if you’re going to be my girlfriend. You have to talk about it with me, okay?”

“Okay,” came her hazy agreement. “I told you I wasn’t good at this stuff.”

“I don’t think I am, either. And I don’t want you to be with me because you feel you owe it to me or something.”

“That’s not it,”

“Then what?”

“I...when I was thinking about it...I did realize that I’m….attracted to you. I guess I just never put it in that context before. Nothing of this sort ever crossed my mind until you brought it up.”

Fennel couldn’t hide that she was reeling in that moment,not able to hide any blush that came across her face, or how her toes curled upon hearing the object of her affections for so long admit such a private sentiment. She hid her face under the covers for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut, biting her lip.

“Are you alright? I can go, I’m sorry-”

“So you think I’m pretty?” Fennel revealed her face, flashing her most charming smile she could muster through her elation. It was childish, she felt that she should be about ten years younger having this conversation in her childhood bedroom with a crush, not with her long time best friend in their mid twenties.

“I just said that.”

The dream scientist let out the giggle she had been holding. “Well, I’ve always thought you were pretty, too.”

Aurea gave way to a slight chuckle at that, not sure she ever heard such a direct compliment as such from someone that wasn’t family.

“What do we do now?”

“Go to sleep,” the brunette stated, her thoughts on any of it were interrupted by a yawn, now realizing how exhausted she was now that she was lying down in a bed proper. She had not meant to be as dismissive as she was over what Fennel had said, but the traveling and what unfolded afterward had left her simply wanting to sleep.

“Are you okay with me staying here, or do you want me to go on the couch?”

“You can stay.”

Fennel didn’t want to push any boundaries, but she supposed her boldness had already landed her in hot water once. All Fennel wanted to do was push herself the few inches over, wrap her arms around the professor, snuggle in to her back, and fall asleep to the scent of her hair against her face. But, she hoped there would be other nights for that closeness. She certainly didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, especially with how tired she was, she best give the professor her space for the evening.

“Good night, Aurie.”

“Night, Fennel.”

The professor had closed her eyes almost immediately, Fennel feeling a bit scandalous still staring at her. At the thought, she forced her eyes shut, finding herself too excited to fall asleep as easily as she usually did.

Aurea woke up as early as she always did, an internal alarm set for the sunrise even without a literal one. Fennel had her arm around her, she could feel her breath against the back of her neck, her hair moving in time with her breathing. They had slept in close quarters before, but this was different. Her knees were pressed against the back of her legs, becoming aware of it when she went to stretch.

It felt wrong leaving, at least until she woke up.

At the sense of the other woman stirring, Fennel pulled her limbs off of her to stretch as well. “Mmm...you’re still here. So it wasn’t a lucid dream,” the dream scientist purred, eyes still closed, probably still mostly asleep and unaware that she had said it out loud.  

There were questions Aurea wanted to ask her later about that.

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day One! (6/18)

Welcome to the first day of my LGBTQ visual novel recommendation week, in honor of Pride Month 2018! Every day from today (June 18th) to Sunday (June 24th), I’ll be talking about four visual novels with LGBTQ themes, characters, and/or creators that have stood out to me and explaining a little bit about why I like them! I also reached out to a handful of those VNs’ developers and talked with them about their work, so you’ll be seeing a casual interview tagged onto the end of every post, too. ✨

To kick things off today, I’m highlighting four visual novels that are practically bursting at the seams with personality, all in their own ways — Saturn’s WORST DATING SIM, Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top, Brianna Lei’s Butterfly Soup, and Madeleine’s Inverness Nights! 

Hit the jump to read about watching Animal Planet with punks, beta-testing hookup apps, Mario fire alarms, and why it is that so many visual novels seem to use character archetypes.

One note before we get started! This list isn't meant to be reflective of "the objectively best LGBTQ visual novels" or anything like that, which I want to be ultra-clear about upfront. It's not a list of all the ones I've ever played, either. There are plenty of visual novels with LGBTQ characters/themes that have been recommended to me frequently — while I was working on this list and over the past couple years — that didn't make it onto this list because I couldn't afford to buy them, or because they just weren't for me when I did buy them, or because of a million other reasons.

To give an example of this in action: I barely have any originally-Japanese language visual novels on here, because the number of M/M ones that get translated is already so low and already nearly 100% commercial, and I'm way more inclined to pay for M/M than anything else. (Reason: I'm gay and I like looking at hot guys.) For the purposes of this list specifically, I've also cut out a fair few BL-marketed VNs — from both Western and Eastern developers — that skirt around the issue of whether or not the protagonist is gay/bi/etc awkwardly.

I also tried to limit myself to one VN per team, picking the ones I thought were best representative of their output and leaving space to mention other works of theirs that I'd liked, with the aim of keeping this list from being totally dominated by studios who'd put out a lot over a long period of time. And then personal taste for other genre and content details comes into play, so it cuts out even more from what's left! In the originally-Japanese BL category alone, that left me with a single nominee, which was... Well, you'll see!

Basically, I went over a lot of different options to settle onto a list that's ultimately only supposed to be things that I, personally, would recommend! And I don't want to recommend things I didn't enjoy, one way or another. Nobody wants to sit through multiple paragraphs of a slog where I'm trying to talk about a game I didn't actually like (or, in plenty of cases, a game I couldn't afford) without acknowledging that I didn't like it. To be totally honest, that sounds like it would suck to try and write.

So if your favorite LGBTQ visual novels aren't on here, but you want to give people an excuse to play them, I'd love to read anyone else's personal recommendation lists! I'm not a journalist or a reviewer and this isn't anything close to a formalized games review blog that I'm planning to update ever again; I'm just a VN dev who felt like sitting down and making a list of other LGBTQ VNs I liked one day, so I went and I did it. And I felt like giving those other devs a platform if I was going to talk about their work, so I took my own Patreon earnings to pay for as many as I could, then I went and did some interviews, too.

Thanks for sitting through (or skimming, as the case may be) that wall of text! Without further ado, let's talk WORST DATING SIM!

WORST DATING SIM (SATURN)

Itchio Tagline: “MRGRGR.” Genre(s): Slice of life, shitpost. Release Date: January 22nd, 2018. Content Warnings: Brief depiction of blood; violence.

Out of all the visual novels I’ll be covering over the next week, WORST DATING SIM is the only one I haven’t seen nearly all the content for, and not for a lack of trying! Saturn’s debut visual novel, a challenging conversational simulator where a punk named Etsuji decides to follow you home and hang out with you purely because he can, features a grand total of 69 ways you can get a GAME OVER. By and large, these endings come at the hands of your newfound friend (?), who’s got a temper and a sensitive streak a mile wide. If Etsuji doesn’t like what you’re saying, he’ll knock your lights out, and you’ll get booted back to the title screen.

The way WORST DATING SIM doubles down on this challenge is by intentionally removing Ren’Py’s default save feature — if you piss Etsuji off, you’re back at square one, period. You have to either somehow retain the information yourself or turn to someone else’s successful run for help, because it’s deliberately designed to be done in a single playthrough without reloading. Even a fair few jokes in the script, like “I’m sure in several alternate universes he’s punched my lights out, but so far I’m safe,” are dropped in to acknowledge the fact that beating WORST DATING SIM is more akin to powering through a run of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. (But don’t worry, the Skip Text function is still there to help you out!)

As someone who does turn to guides frequently to find out what I’m missing on my third or fourth playthroughs of visual novels, I assumed from the start that at some point that I’d want to find a walkthrough in order to see any real endings. But the sheer charm of Etsuji’s responses and, to be completely frank, how much fun I was having just trying to scale Etsuji’s emotional mountain meant that I never really hit that point while playing. WORST DATING SIM’s distinct personality struck exactly the right chord in my brain that made me want to keep playing by myself, tunneling away at it persistently, and it made the ending(s!) feel all that much more rewarding.

WORST DATING SIM is available now for free on Itchio, and you can follow Saturn on his Itch.io or Twitter (NSFW) for updates on more potential WDS content or his other upcoming visual novels.

COMING OUT ON TOP (OBSCURASOFT)

Itchio Tagline: “The erotic comedy gay dating game that'll make [you] laugh, cry, and get a little boned up! Hot dudes included.” Genre(s): Comedy, romance. Release Date: December 10th, 2014. Content Warnings: Nudity; mentions of homophobia; sexual content; seriously there’s a lot of sex in this.

If you’ve played M/M dating sims in the English language sphere any time in the last five years, you’ve probably heard of Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top — drawing more from the Western tradition of porn by and for gay men than anything else, it tells the story of newly-out college senior Mark Matthews and his run-ins with hot guy after hot guy (after hot guy, after... you get the picture). With the help of his roommate Penny, he also takes on the hookup app scene and delves into a sea of bonus dates funded by Kickstarter backers, which were released steadily from January 2015 to December 2016.

Coming Out On Top’s steady stream of humor never goes so far as to be totally derailing from its focus on sexuality and Mark’s genuinely sincere approach to relationships, casual or otherwise; Obscurasoft manages to infuse the numerous sex scenes with enough awkwardness, humor, and personality that actually playing through them back-to-back feels less like a string of pinups and more like scenes Mark is actively involved in or growing from. As a character, especially one whose archetype has gotten a lot of mileage in gay porn since the dawn of mankind, it’d be narratively easy to let Mark remain a generally undefined slate for players to project themselves onto.

And while there is a degree of personalization, especially when it comes to how blatantly horned-up some of the dialogue is compared to other options the player can choose, Coming Out On Top is still very distinctly Mark’s story. His specific insecurities from years of being closeted don’t vanish as soon as he comes out, and hookups don’t always work out for him the way they might in ten minute long “first time” AVs. His grades still matter, and his friends still exist, and he’s still got his own sense of priorities the player can disregard (at their own fish-related peril) or see through on the slow climb to the end of his senior year.

Coming Out On Top is available now for $14.99 on Itch.io, and Obscurasoft’s website; to get early updates about what they’re working on next, you can follow their News & Updates blog or their Twitter.

BUTTERFLY SOUP (BRIANNA LEI)

Itchio Tagline: “Gay girls playing baseball and falling in love.” Genre(s): Comedy, slice of life. Release Date: September 16th, 2017. Content Warnings: Parental abuse; violence; racist language; homophobic language; ableist abuse and slurs.

The strength of Butterfly Soup’s personality, from beginning to end, is founded in its four point-of-view characters — kindhearted Diya, reckless Min, sharp Noelle, and carefree (?) Akarsha. As a group of ninth grade friends with different priorities and different reasons for joining their shared baseball team, which are as obvious as the hugely-varied color schemes of each girl’s clothes, they play off of one another easily. Lei uses her fair share of actual memes, but never ones that feel like the speaking character — usually Akarsha — wouldn’t say them, which holds true to the rest of Lei’s dialogue writing. It feels distinctly ninth grade without ever being mocking or trivializing the way everything is so extremely important all the time when you’re a ninth grader.

Part of that strength definitely comes from Lei’s willingness to lean on each character’s archetype and unpack it at the same time; Diya’s physical strength and sheer skill, combined with her reluctance to talk to strangers, could have easily seen her shoehorned into a much more detached character than she’s written as. Instead, she’s thoughtful, expressive, and deeply concerned with the people she cares about, even if she can’t always necessarily communicate that to them very well through her ever-present anxiety. Exactly how their own differences manifest and each of the three other girls’ reasons for being that way are slightly trending into spoiler territory, but I think Diya’s fellow main characters also each have their own similarly-smart tweaks on familiar archetypes that make their joke-filled banter all that much more personalized and memorable.

Although there’s a lot to love about the positive, hilarious moments in the protagonists’ everyday lives, one of the things that I think worked just as well narratively were the scenes that required all those content warnings up there. They're very much going to be a YMMV situation for different players, especially with my own caveat that my relationship to dysfunctional families is coming from white Irish ex-Catholicism rather than those two specific Asian cultures’ values — trying not to give any spoilers about which characters I’m referring to, here! — but in-text, they’re never situations without any future, because we can see that future where the group has each other, and they always have room in the moment to be angry, or upset, or hurt without the narrative itself punishing them for failing to be perfect. Instead, they get to play baseball and fall in love and set off fire alarms, and they do pretty okay.

Butterfly Soup is available now for free, and you can follow Brianna Lei on Itch.io, Twitter, or Tumblr to learn more about her upcoming work.

INVERNESS NIGHTS (MADELEINE)

Itchio Tagline: “Every relationship ends.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy, drama. Release Date: June 30th, 2017. Content Warnings: See Itch.io page.

There are a lot of things about Inverness Nights that worked for me in a way I don’t know that they would have in another visual novel — in particular, Tristram’s character is difficult in ways that pretty directly pertain to some of the content warnings linked above, and I was personally interested in seeing the text unpack that bit by bit. The eventual turn the story takes further on in your playtime, to try and phrase that in a way that isn’t super spoilery, was something I personally didn’t mind taking a little longer to get to.

Curious to hear what its developer Madeleine had to say about the story, their thoughts on character design, and what they’re up to next, I reached out to them for an interview!

IVAN: Thanks for having me, Madeleine! To get this conversation started, how would you sum up Inverness Nights to everyone reading this?

MADELEINE: Inverness Nights is a game about queer isolation and the importance of queer community outside of romantic relationships. Set in 18th c Scotland you play as Tristram Rose, an immortal gay man who has just broken up with his mortal boyfriend, and decide how he’ll cope with the loss as someone unable to tell the world around him that he’s magical and queer.

Sounds spot-on! And definitely a great summary of all the things that made it super appealing — to me, at least, haha. Before anything else, I want to note that it's been just about a year since you released Inverness Nights! Congratulations! How's the experience been, and what particular highlights or lowlights over the past year stand out to you?

It was good actually releasing a game, I enjoyed that part a lot! Aside from that, I really appreciated a couple of thoughtful reviews it got where people connected with it as a game where being queer is difficult, but not bleak. I think that because AAA games love tragic gay stories indie games can sometimes feel they need to be ultra-positive to balance that in the other direction, which is cool, but as someone who likes stories that’re more in-the-middle it was a gap I wanted to fill. There was a good reaction to that, albeit a quiet reaction. It’s a very ‘first game, niche game’ complaint but the lowlight would probably be that not many people played it — however, there are a lot of understandable reasons why it worked out that way so I’m not too hurt overall.

Haha, getting something finished and released is definitely a great feeling; I'm personally really glad you stepped in to fill that niche, as someone who likes things that are honest about their characters' pain without feeling exploitative or endlessly hopeless! In the fantastic (but spoiler-filled) Medium postmortem you wrote on your process, you say that "an important part of marketing visual novels is selling your characters"; the postmortem goes into that in fairly great detail, especially as it pertains to ensemble casts, but would you care to expand upon that observation in the scope of the visual novel genre (and how you're keeping it in mind for future projects) a little bit here?

People make fun of visual novels sometimes for their reliance on archetypes — you know, look up the average dating sim and you can probably tell in an instant who the bad boy is, who the smart girl is, so on — but when you’re selling a character driven game to people, you can’t give away the cast’s backstories and quirks up front or there’s nothing to play for, so you’ve got to find some sort of shorthand to suggest what an audience wants will be there, and that usually comes back to telling them which archetypes you’ve got. When I started Inverness Nights I kind of laughed at that reliance on archetypes and tried to do something different but I learnt the hard way why it’s important. At the moment I’m finishing a game called Catacomb Prince with my didn’t-quite-finish-it-for-a-jam group Skeleteam, and when our character artist Roxy was doing the designs I gave her very broad notes on who the cast were so they’d be more archetypical. Consequently we have a very recognisable cool girl/frat boy/petite NB slate of romance options that people’ve connected with waaay more easily and way faster than anyone did with the IN cast, which I think speaks to why it’s a sound approach.

I definitely agree in the importance of finding a good balance with archetypes; I've had people who've instantly bonded when I invoked "shy genius" or "lovestruck best friend", which ironically has given me a bit more of that freedom in telling their stories more uniquely! Could you shed a little light on what Catacomb Prince is, without too many spoilers, and what your storytelling influences for a visual novel like that have been?

Catacomb Prince is a Gothic comedy; you are Prince Vitali, trashy heir to a fantasy Renaissance kingdom, and you have woken up dead five years after a raging party. Your parents still expect you to inherit the throne despite your new skeletal appearance, but your kingdom’s laws require the King to be married. Find love, find your killer — or die again trying.

It’s mostly inspired by Animamundi: Dark Alchemist, which is an old kitschy BL VN about a guy named Georik taking up alchemy to make a new body for his decapitated (still living) sister while hiding his hobby from his friends. Animamundi has some very gloomy stuff happening but it’s so over-the-top about it that it loops around to being a very funny game, and I wanted more experiences like that in the world, so here we are. There’re also some aspects of other goofy Gothic stories in there, like Hammer Horror movies and EC Comics, though the romance aspect of it means it’s not all rib-ticklers all the time. We took care to make the love interests more than just fodder for jokes and/or horror. They’re complete, kissable people, with flesh and everything.

I am not doing a good job of easing up on the skeleton jokes but please believe me on that last point.

Glad to hear the love interests have skin! Not super fussed about that, personally, but I'm sure some players would have logistical concerns about things like skeleton-on-skeleton kissing. (I'd like to go on the record and say I'm pro-skeleton and extremely pro-skeleton puns, so I'm waiting with bated breath to get to play as your not-breathing protagonist.) Other than what we'll be seeing in Catacomb Prince, what kind of genres and themes are you interested in exploring more of in the future?

After Catacomb Prince I’m going to work on finishing an IF game I started last year called Captain Dracula, about being the last survivor on a submarine after your Captain reveals he’s Dracula. That’s also a comedy. I spent three years making Inverness Nights so taking a breather to make funny games for a while seemed like a good plan, and I’m really into classic horror, so I’ve gravitated in that direction with it. I’ve also got a regular no-pictures no-choices fantasy novel I’m several drafts through at the moment which I’ll hopefully be releasing later this year. Once those’re off my plate, I’m keen to try making either an 80 Days-style narrative travel game or a Clock Tower-style point-and-click horror for a change of pace. I want to do something that’s more about exploring a place; I do academic stuff as well as indie development and all my academic work has been on how we explore places in games, so it feels weird that I haven’t made anything that utilises my research.

It sounds like you've got a lot coming up! I'm looking forward to seeing how you can combine your academic studies with your fiction work, which already have such strong settings of place from the get-go. And last but not least, what LGBTQ visual novels from other developers would you like to recommend?

It's IF rather than a VN but I love Heart of the House by Nissa Campbell, which is a Gothic game about an exorcist trying to remove an evil presence from a Victorian manor house, and maybe also wooing some of its residents. It’s very atmospheric and you can be NB, two things I like a lot. With caveats I’m also really keen on Animamundi (like I mentioned earlier — fun, funny MLM but warning for violent horror elements and sexual abuse), and The House in Fata Morgana (a dark romance about a trans man trying to rescue his girlfriend from a cursed manor, there’s an extensive content warning list on its website). Lastly, on the lighter side, Butterfly Soup and The Duenkhy are both good VNs about queer people making friends :) probably play them when you need to smile after all the grimmer suggestions I’ve made.

Awesome — and thanks again for your time, Madeleine! It was a pleasure.

Inverness Nights is available now for $12 USD, and you can follow Madeleine on Twitter or Itch.io to keep up with all the skeleton romances and Dracula adventures they're setting their sights on next!

Thanks to everyone who read this far! Keep an eye on the Twitter thread or this blog for tomorrow’s post, where I’ll be talking about four more visual novels that I think do some crafty things with their creative design!

[4626songs]

Everyone deserves a great love story. This one is mine.

So. Here’s the thing.

Is it even appropriate for a 38-year-old guy to obsess over a major studio teenage rom-com flick? People my age who saw it usually say they wish they had something like that when they were that age – like, 20 years ago? I probably should behave like a proper adult, too: just love the movie and wish I had it back then when I was seventeen.

The problem is that after watching the movie and reading the original book, I feel seventeen once again. In all the right and wrong ways.

The case in point: Love, Simon.

I mean, yes. I’m done keeping my story straight.

When it comes to the emotional intellect – i.e., empathy and ability to recognize others’ as well as my own emotions – I am a certified piece of dumb and voiceless deadwood. I mean, I even officially have it in my DNA. But it also did not help that I grew up with emotionally detached parents and had very few friends during childhood. I’ve been struggling with the lack of emotional intellect all my life.

But when I hit adolescence and started to feel something big, it was the worst. I could not recognize and understand what the fuck was going on. And definitely I could not talk about it with anyone. Not even because I was scared. Simply because I literally did not have the words to describe it.

Eventually, it was music, movies and, ahem, slash fanfics that helped me find those right words that explained me to me. That big thing was me being helplessly and hopelessly in love with my best friend.

Curiously, I did not have any struggles with my sexuality or identity after this revelation. I sort of accepted me being gay as a matter of fact and moved on.

Telling anyone – and especially my best friend – about this was a completely different matter. Obviously, I was scared. As Simon says in the movie, announcing who you are to the world is pretty terrifying. But it was not just this fear. Once again, I did not have the words to tell my story. My go to sources of emotional cognition – music, movies and books – were failing me. You know, there was not a lot of coming-out, coming-of-age films or songs or books quarter of a century ago. Except maybe for Smalltown Boy. The most beautiful song. But do you remember the video? One more reason to be terrified and NOT come out.

So, I was silent. It also did not help that I knew for sure from our conversations that if I told my friend about me being gay and my feelings for him, pretty much everything good in my life would end.

I was correct. After suffering for several long years feeling increasingly cold inside from not being able to speak up and express what I feel, I finally managed to confess to him somehow. And yes, it went almost as bad as I expected. I was told that I was a misguided fool, and that I should never speak up about it again. Never speak up.

See. My first coming out experience was pretty bad. But not something objectively bad. I was not beaten up or bullied or outed, thank god. That was out of question, I knew him too well for that. But still. Somehow I was left even more dead and frozen on the inside than I was before. Not something to look for in the future.

But eventually, things got better. I found new funny and geeky hobbies, through which I met great new friends-for-life. I got three university degrees, including a PhD, and became a scientist. I started a music blog, and eventually freelanced as a music journalist. Finally being able to talk about what music meant for me was a liberation.

On a personal front, things were also moving somewhere somehow. There were other unrequited loves. Deeply engaging epistolary relationships with anonymous penpals. (Hi, Blue!) Casual sex. Proper offline boyfriends, and even serious long-term relationships. Some drama along the way, of course. But, until recently, no great love stories coming along with that. Somehow, deep inside, I ached for a great love story to happen in my life.

And then there were those other coming outs. Nothing objectively bad. Always insanely awkward. When I told my mother, she said that I had an irrevocable right to ruin my life and do whatever I want, and we hadn’t talked about me being gay for the next twelve years. A roommate did not believe I was gay at first, and then, when I insisted that I was not joking, he cussed and stopped talking to me for two weeks. A girl who had a crush on me laughed with relief that there’s something wrong with me and not her as I didn’t return her feelings. But there were other friends, who accepted me unconditionally, sometimes even without fully understanding what I was talking about and what it meant for me. I am so grateful to them. But in the end, it was not enough for me to shake that feeling of permanent awkwardness and fear of being me. I chose to remain in the closet for the rest of the world.

But you know what’s (not really) funny? That the same happened with all other important things in my life. It’s like I was permanently living in a giant ball of awkwardness. I had to keep mostly silent about my geeky hobbies at my wonderful science job, even though these hobbies were the main source of my creativity and inspiration. In turn, my wonderful geek friends could not care less about my music tastes. My music friends kind of respected me as a science guy, but I could never talk with them about actual science. And beneath all of that was this big-ass gay secret. It’s like I was living at least four parallel lives, but never a complete one.

I guess once you decide to remain in the closet about one thing, you cannot fully be yourself about other stuff. I became so used to self-editing. Self-censorship. Strategic omissions. And, worst of all, being mute about most important things with most important people.

There are all those reasons why you should continue doing so. It’s dangerous to come out in my home country. It could harm me. It could cause collateral damage to my colleagues, students, professional networks, projects I worked on. It could hurt my family.

But the truth is, people can get no less hurt when you choose to be mute. I know I hurt people by not speaking up about something important to them and choosing silence instead. But there is even a bigger danger. Once you start to pile up silences, little white lies, and strategic omissions, they may grow up to the size of a mountain, and one day simply crumble under their own weight. There will be a lot of pain and harm involved. And I wonder: what if there was no mountain from the very beginning?

Still, the worst is what you are doing to yourself. When you cannot make yourself talk about things that are important to you, you either become a pressure cooker and explode one day – or they slowly die within you, freezing you in the process. And these may be too precious things to lose.

I have thought that eventually, I became better at talking. I have a group of wonderful friends with whom, I thought, I could be more or less myself in every sense, including gay stuff. But somehow, even after all these years, I still cannot do it all, even with them. I cannot even reply to a Facebook challenge about 10 favorite albums, because, like, at least 3 of them would be too gay. I cannot make myself talk about my favorite movies that made an impact on me, because, again: gay. I mumble something unintelligible about my career goals in science, because, in truth, what I mostly care about is how to solve not a grand scientific challenge, but a classic academic “two-body problem” further complicated by a gay twist.

Then one day I saw Love, Simon. That same night, I immediately bought Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, devoured it in two sleepless nights, and re-read it twice since then. I went to see the movie, like, another seven times. And have listened to the wonderful soundtrack and the score, like, a hundred times already, and don’t plan on stopping any time soon. I simply cannot get enough of this movie and of the Simonverse. And all the time I’ve been trying to sort out why did it hit me so hard and sweet? Why have I suddenly turned into an obsessed teenage fanboy?

Then I realized, I am just so fucking sick and tired of not speaking. I simply cannot stand it anymore. I need to speak. I have to speak. I must speak. Somehow, Simon and his story made it so obvious. Why I was so stupid not realizing it before?

But there’s another twist to that. Everyone deserves a great love story.

I’ve never seen a movie in my life to which I could relate so strongly. Yes, I was that “just like you” kid back then. Living a normal life without any really big problems. Obsessed with music and friendships. Awkward and unable to speak about important things. Alone.

(Oh god. Do you even realize how lonely Simon should have felt if his favorite song is Waltz #2??)

Unfortunately, my great first love story never happened. Instead, I shut myself up for decades to come. But somehow, Love, Simon movie and incredible writing by Becky Albertalli put me right there, back into my seventeen year old me, and finally showed how that first love story could have happened differently, retroactively replacing those long-buried feelings of sadness and despair with joy about the things to come.

And, boy, they did come. Who knew that you can finally get your own very personal great love story when you are at 34, almost ready to give up on happiness? It was wild, it was unpredictable, it was fateful, it was insane, it was unbearably romantic. It was – and, four years later, still is – love.

This story also physically moved me across oceans and continents to, out of all places, the city of Atlanta, Georgia. So, imagine this extra little level of relatability in Love, Simon / Simon vs. (That damn Radiohead, April 2 concert that I did not get to! That gay bar scene!) And now I’m dying to tell my story. Because that’s the most important and amazing thing that happened in my life. Because it is about hope. Because it is about breaking through. Because it is about believing that you deserve everything you want. Because love is a game we deserve to play out loud.

The problem is that I still haven’t quite figured out how to tell my story. Old habits die hard. But I will try. As I said, I cannot stay silent anymore. I need to come out. And I’ll start here.

[acidblackpirate]

A Broken Codex (Part 3)

Yasu was busy being lazy as his mobile rang. He lay on the couch, skimming through a magazine without really reading his, his legs resting on Hyde’s lap. It was their lazy afternoon routine.

Without hurry he put the magazine aside and picked up the phone.

“Hello”, he mumbled.

“Hi, yasu. It’s ka-yu.”

Nervously, yasu licked his lips. They had exchanged short messages now and then lately, but it had been weeks since the last time he had heard his voice.

He felt guilty for not calling first and a little scared of what ka-yu might want from him this time. Usually, it was about his girlfriend and for all he knew, he might just as well want to ask if yasu wanted to be his best man.

“What’s up, ka-yu?”, yasu asked.

He emphasized his name to make Hyde look up. With him listening he already felt saver.

“Nothing special”, ka-yu said. “I just wanted to know, if you are free tomorrow.”

Yasu hesitated.

“Why?”

Ka-yu laughed, but it sounded a little taken aback.

“Why? We’re friends. I just wanted to meet up. We didn’t have a good talk in ages.”

“Mmh”, yasu gave a confirming noise.

“You want to go out?”, he asked after a moment.

“I thought you’d just come over and have some snacks and drinks. Just you and me, like in the old days.”

Yasu smirked. The old days had been more drinks than snacks.

“So, just the two of us?”, he assured.

Hyde had taken hold of his foot now, running his thumbs over the sole. He tried to hold back a pleased moan, but it escaped him anyway. It felt very relaxing.

“You okay?”, ka-yu asked.

“Sure”, yasu replied. “Oh, yes, there.”

“What are you doing?”

Ka-yu stretched out the syllables and he sounded as if he assumed the worst.

Yasu giggled.

“Sorry, Hyde’s massaging my feet for some reason.”

“So, you guys are still …?”

“Yeah”, yasu confirmed.

He smiled while he did.

“Anyway, ka-yu, can you hold on a minute?”

He pressed the mute button on his phone and turned to Hyde.

“Ka-yu wants me to come over to his place tomorrow to hang out. What do you think?”, he asked.

Hyde shrugged as if he didn’t really have an opinion on it at all.

“Do you want to see him?”

Yasu thought about it for a moment.

For a long time after moving out the idea of seeing ka-yu had made his stomach feel sick and his skin itchy. But the weird feeling was almost gone now. He seriously wondered how he was doing. What he had been up to lately since they weren’t working on anything in terms of music at the moment. He wanted to see ka-yu. Not the one he had been lusting after for so long. Not the one who made him angry and sad all the time with his girlfriend. He wanted to see his best friend, the one he had grown up with, the one he had started a band with.

“I do want to see him”, he stated, a little surprised by it himself. “He’s my best friend.”

“Then you should go”, Hyde pointed out.

Still, yasu hesitated.

“You don’t mind?”, he made sure.

Hyde rolled his eyes at him.

“Of course, I would prefer it, if your best friend was a really ugly creep”, he joked. “But no, I don’t mind.”

Yasu went back on the phone.

“Okay, ka-yu. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

***

Their greeting was a little awkward. For a moment neither yasu nor ka-yu seemed to know what to do. Hug? Shake hands? Exchange a friendly nod?

In the end ka-yu clapped his back shortly as he led him to the living room.

Yasu looked around. The place did not look quite like he remembered it, but the changes were not as big as he would have expected them to be with a woman living here. If anything, the room looked emptier.

The table held a few bought snacks and a lot of beer.

Yasu laughed.

“Oh my, you were serious about the good old times.”

Ka-yu joined in with his laughter and they both sat down.

“So, how are you doing?”, ka-yu asked.

“Good”, yasu said and looked around some more. “Where’s Miho?”

Ka-yu made a face.

“We broke up about a week ago. Living together was more difficult than I expected. We didn’t even make the first two months.”

Yasu’s stomach went uncomfortable tight. A week ago, and he only told him now, as if they were nothing more but distant friends.

Lightly he boxed against ka-yu’s chest.

“Why didn’t you call sooner, idiot?”, he scolded him.

Ka-yu shrugged.

“It was pretty busy and complicated when Miho moved in. You have to adjust to each other and we just didn’t manage. I thought you and Hyde would have to do the same, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Kazuyuki”, yasu said sternly. “I want to be bothered.”

Ka-yu just shook his head.

“You didn’t like her anyway”, he reminded him.

Yasu winced, feeling guilty because it had been so obvious.

“No, but you did”, he said. “How are you holding up?”

Ka-yu avoided his gaze.

Yasu had nearly forgotten how beautiful his profile looked, or how soft his lips appeared to be.

“The first days were pretty bad”, ka-yu admitted. “But by now, it’s getting better. We’ve been fighting for weeks already, so it wasn’t such a hard blow.”

Yasu nodded slowly.

“You should have called immediately, though. I would have come over and made sure you’d eat properly or whatever.”

He could almost see it before his eyes. He would have come over, cooked for ka-yu, nursed and comforted him while he was heart-broken. He could have been his saviour.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Hyde?”, ka-yu changed the topic abruptly.

Yasu grabbed a handful of chips. He would have preferred alcohol, but he was careful not to drink with the way their conversation was heading.

“I was afraid you’d be weird about it”, he admitted. “And you were weird about it. You felt uncomfortable seeing us together, I could tell.”

Saying it out loud brought back some of the pain and panic. Ka-yu had tried to hide it, but he could tell he didn’t really approve of Hyde and him.

“Of course, I heard about it for the first time when you moved in with him! You never even told me you liked men in that way.”

Yasu swallowed hard.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know”, he spit out.

Ka-yu exhaled shakily.

“I wasn’t entirely sure about it”, ka-yu said. “Even if I did assume it, it would have been nice to just hear it from you only once. How can you claim to be my best friend when I hardly know you?”

Yasu shook his head. Suddenly, he felt too exhausted for this argument.

“I was scared it would change our friendship, if I told you directly”, he confessed.

“You should have told me about Hyde, though. It’s been so long already!”, ka-yu insisted. “You had first year anniversary already, didn’t you?”

Yasu had to smile at the memory of it without meaning to.

“We weren’t really dating then, so it was more of a sexiversary. We celebrated, though”, he explained.

He had completely forgotten about it, but Hyde hadn’t. Yasu was surprised he had remembered, since at the same time he had been seeing other people as well. He had taken him out for dinner that night and their sex had been tender afterwards.

“He really makes you happy”, ka-yu observed, studying yasu’s smile closely.

“I don’t deserve him”, he mumbled.

Ka-yu reached out to run his hand over his upper arm. Yasu expected him to pull back again fast, but instead his hand lingered, making him feel very hot all of a sudden.

“If anyone deserves to be happy, then it’s you, yasu”, he said warmly.

“I’m glad you know now”, yasu exhaled.

It was the truth. It was a relieve he could talk about Hyde openly now. He just wished ka-yu would take his hand off his body. From his arm he had went downwards and was now drawing circles on the back of yasu’s hand. Ka-yu’s fingertips were a little rough but firm and it made his heart pick up more pace than was appropriate for the situation.

“I don’t want you to feel like there is anything you can’t tell me”, ka-yu said. “Please, tell me all the things you tell your best friend.”

Yasu shrugged. Ka-yu was right. They had both gotten out of practice at being best friends, but yasu was willing to open up a little more. He was in a fulfilling relationship now. It was time to go back to friendship.

“What do you want to know?”, he asked.

Ka-yu leaned in a bit and he did look curious now. His hand had finally stopped touching yasu and concentrating was easier again.

“When you guys have sex, how do you usually do it?”, he inquired.

Yasu burst out laughing.

“Do you need an anatomy lesson or what?”, he joked. “You can’t be that ignorant, ka-yu.”

Ka-yu laughed and shook his head, rolling his eyes at yasu.

He hadn’t done that in a long time already, although he used to do it a lot. Only now did yasu realize that maybe it was him who had stopped teasing him for too long.

“Not that, stupid. But you know about my preferences with girls. It’s only fair to tell me how you like it. You take the woman’s part?”

“No, no, no!”

Yasu waved his hands eagerly.

“There is no woman’s part. The whole point about gay sex is that there is no woman involved, ka-yu.”

Ka-yu laughed but boxed his shoulder.

“Shut up! You’re not taking my questions serious.”

Yasu inhaled deeply and nodded.

“Okay, okay. I’ll answer seriously. Yes, ka-yu, I prefer being at the receiving end, mind me. But we also switch, it’s not like you have to stick to a certain role.”

Ka-yu furrowed his brow.

“Do you talk about it beforehand? I mean, like before going to bed, or …”

This time it was yasu, who rolled his eyes.

“It usually comes more naturally than that. There are only so many options. Two, in fact.”

He winked.

“Or three, if you ever care to join us.”

Once again, ka-yu showed a lot of teeth while laughing.

“I missed the pervy, goofy you”, he said.

Yasu nodded in agreement.

“I missed him, too.”

He hadn’t felt relaxed enough to be entirely himself in a long time.

“It’s Hyde, you know. He makes me feel save. I can just talk to him about anything and goof around and he will make me laugh.”

Ka-yu’s expression turned more serious now, a little rueful even.

“We used to be like that, too”, he pointed out.

“We did”, yasu confirmed.

It was him who had closed down on ka-yu.

“We had a lot of fun, huh?”

Yasu nodded, he had the feeling that ka-yu was hinting at something specific, but he couldn’t tell what it was yet.

“You know, seeing you with him like that. It was a weird feeling”, ka-yu finally owned up. “You looked so happy with him. But I made you happy, too, right? I mean, we made each other happy. And I just started to wonder, if …”

He broke off and yasu’s heart took a weird little leap.

He had fantasized about a conversation like this so often. That ka-yu would realize he had feelings for him and everything would end up well.

“I just missed you. I missed you like crazy. I think that’s partly while living with Miho didn’t work out. I always compared it to living with you and … I just wanted you back. I wanted to be the one that made you feel goofy again.”

He swallowed soundly and looked for a reaction.

Yasu stayed silent because he did not know what to say. He had waited for this so long and now it didn’t feel real. He had kept his distance to get over ka-yu. Could that really be the thing that finally brought them closer?

“I’m sorry, I’m just babbling”, ka-yu mumbled.

“It’s okay”, yasu whispered, hoping for him to go on; hoping he would say the words that he had longed for so desperately.

“I think I never realized what I really wanted”, ka-yu said. “Because I always had it. Only when you left …”

He stopped short again and gave him a thoughtful look.

His brown eyes were always deep, but now they seemed extremely dark.

“Yasu, can I try something?”, he asked.

Slowly he put his hand against yasu’s cheek, cupping it with a very light touch.

Yasu nodded, almost too numb for anything else. He felt so many things at once, that none of it really got through to him. Was he excited, happy, scared? He didn’t know.

Ka-yu leaned in and when they kissed all the doubts and worries stepped back. Yasu opened his mouth against him, kissing him for a time that lasted longer than both of them had probably intended. Ka-yu’s lips tasted like everything he had hoped for.

The bassist pulled back, but only a little. Their noses were almost touching, still.

“I was so blind”, ka-yu whispered. „Tell me it’s not too late.”

Yasu took in a deep, shaky breath.

There were a million reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, but right now, he couldn’t think of even one.

“It’s not too late”, he said and kissed ka-yu again.

He leaned in and ka-yu let himself sink backwards. He was lying on his back now, yasu on top of him, his hands against ka-yu’s chest and his lips still busy with kissing him.

Quietly he sighed into the kiss, wondering if he should stop to catch his breath; if ka-yu needed a break and if things were going too fast for him. But instead he sensed a hand slipping under his shirt, stroking over the small of his back and holding him close while they went on kissing.

Yasu’s mind had gone entirely blank. Ka-yu’s lips felt soft and he tasted a little of peppermint and chocolate. The heart inside his chest was beating violently, trying to burst through his ribcage from the inside. He was making out with ka-yu. The ka-yu with the great humour and the beautiful smile, with the dark eyes and good grades in high-school, although he kept pretending to be too badass for studying. The ka-yu with the bass guitar and the one that always left the dirty dishes in the sink. The perfect man.

Underneath him ka-yu’s chest heaved slightly with each breath and his body felt warm against him. Their legs were entangled and yasu’s dick was already pressing hard against the inside of his pants. He wanted ka-yu to touch him more, to not stop at his back, but take off his shirt entirely and preferably also his pants.

But the situation – the happy excitement in his chest – seemed too fragile to risk it by a sudden move. Maybe ka-yu was just confused. Maybe they would go on kissing all night long. Being allowed to kiss him at all was good enough for yasu.

“Hey”, ka-yu interrupted their kissing with a gentle whisper. “I might be misreading the signals …”

He brought up his leg, so his thigh was pressing against yasu’s crotch, making him suck in his breath sharply.

“… but do you want to take this to the bedroom?”

“Are you sure?”, yasu wanted to know, running his fingertip across ka-yu’s lower lip.

He had wanted to do those little things to him for so long.

Ka-yu kissed his finger playfully and smiled.

“Absolutely.”

Yasu got up, pulling ka-yu up to his feet after him.

Just for brief moment he was confused. His room or ka-yu’s? Only then did he remember he didn’t have his own room here anymore and a pang of regret rushed through him. They could have had this so much earlier.

He followed ka-yu into his bedroom. He knew this place well, although he had never spent much time here. Every time he had, it had been as messy as today, though.

He smiled into the kiss as ka-yu pulled him in once again.

“Mmh”, he mumbled pleased, allowing ka-yu to lift the hem of his shirt and raised his arms so he could slip it over his head.

Ka-yu’s hands were caressing his bare chest and his lips had somehow found their way onto yasu’s neck.

He moaned quietly and grabbed the fabric of ka-yu’s shirt, signalling for him to take it off. Ka-yu followed the silent instructions and then began to fumble with yasu’s belt.

He signed with relieve as the tight pants came down. They still hadn’t made it to the bed yet, but now he walked over, pulling ka-yu after him.

“Please, take off your clothes”, yasu asked quietly as he sat down.

He was scared ka-yu would back off, if he acted too aggressively, so he wanted to leave the decisions up to him.

But the bassist did not even hesitate. Instead he just stripped bare entirely, crawling onto the sheets completely naked. His body was beautiful, slim and with colours playing on his skin here and there.

He picked up kissing yasu again, his fingers trailing down his body. Through the fabric of his shorts he started to stroke yasu’s erection, drawing an uncontrolled moan from his lips.

Never had he imagined things to go so fast. Ka-yu had had a girlfriend only a week ago. Was that really what he wanted?

As if he had heard his thoughts, ka-yu’s lips brushed against his ear.

“I want to fuck you”, he whispered and a chill went up yasu’s spine, giving him goose-bumps.

“Yes, please”, he agreed a little shakily, finally reaching down to take hold of ka-yu’s boner.

The hot, hard dick twitched a little in his hand and he grinned as ka-yu gasped loudly. He started flicking his wrist, now and then running his thumb over the tip of his erection, adding light pressure and feeling the first drops of precum leak out.

Ka-yu swore softly, his eyes fluttering open and shut several times.

“Fuck, you really know what you are doing”, he mumbled and yasu placed a kiss on his cheek.

He had rolled over to his side, facing ka-yu, watching his aroused expression that turned him on even more.

Now ka-yu placed his hand on yasu’s hip again, sliding to his backside from there. He slipped it down the back of yasu’s shorts, his finger rubbing over the rim of his butthole.

Yasu hadn’t expected him to be so straight forward, so he gave a surprised noise as ka-yu pushed a finger into him without warning. His friend chuckled at it and yasu’s whole body felt so hot and feverish that he knew he could wait no longer.

He pushed ka-yu’s hand aside and sat up.

Ka-yu was watching him curiously as if he just wondered what would happen next.

Yasu bend down, taking the head of ka-yu’s dick into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue and letting his drool run down the shaft freely.

Pleased he noticed that ka-yu’s moans really went loud this time and he flicked his tongue once more, enjoy the bitter taste in his mouth.

Then he got up again, using his hand to spread the mixture of drool and precum on ka-yu’s hard-on to make it wet and slippery.

Ka-yu seemed to watch him in amazement and only when yasu went to take off the last piece of clothing, he obviously realized what was going to happen next.

He sat up again as well, capturing yasu’s lips once more and then making him lay down on his back.

Yasu spread his legs widely, wrapping them around ka-yu’s waist as he slipped in between them.

Once more they kissed and then yasu shivered all over as ka-yu’s dick first entered him. He groaned and brought up his hips to meet with his movement and take him in even deeper.

“Oh god, yasu”, ka-yu exhaled and yasu reached up, digging his nails into his back.

He had waited to claim him for so long, wanted to make him feel good and wanted to claw his way onto that body to stay with him.

Ka-yu started thrusting his hips forward, hitting a spot that made yasu scream out his name. He clung to him even tighter, making sure ka-yu knew he was there, that they were in this together.

Heat was raging inside his body, and sweet shivers ran over him like waves.

“Don’t hold back”, yasu whispered and ka-yu’s thrusts became more fiercely.

His voice sounded so sweet when he moaned, the dark hair clinging to his forehead, his lower lip trembling slightly. For so long, yasu had wondered what he would look like during sex and now he knew. He looked incredible.

Their eyes met, ka-yu’s so dark with lust they looked almost black. Yasu managed to give him a shaky smile but was cut short by a small outcry as ka-yu pushed his hips forward hard.

Yasu reached down, starting to stroke himself, because his dick was almost throbbing with want by now. He tried to keep his motions slow, not to spill himself to soon, but only grant himself a little satisfaction. But then ka-yu hit just the right spot again and a firework of white went off behind his eyelids. His voice went loud and he came into his own hand, waves of bliss washing over him as ka-yu kept moving. He wanted to beg him to slow down, to give him a break, but the waves kept coming and a hot tear ran down the corner of his eye, just because he felt so good.

Then ka-yu’s body went tense in his arms and he pulled back with a last moan, leaving a warm glow behind inside yasu’s body.

The bassist fell onto the sheets next to him, exhausted but smiling.

Yasu wrapped his arm around his waist, his own breath still coming fast and hard.

“Amazing”, he mumbled and ka-yu gave a small laugh that sounded like agreement.

For a while they just lay there silently, yasu cuddled up against his best friend. He had dreamed of this for so long and now it was perfect.

“I’m so happy”, ka-yu finally said next to him.

Yasu hadn’t stopped smiling since they had kissed for the first time.

“I’m happy, too”, he said. “You have no idea how much.”

***

Yasu woke up, filled with warmth and content. Only when he realized where he was, did the smile on his lips make sense.

Still sleepy he rolled over, just to find the sheets next to him empty.

But well, that wasn’t really a big deal. Maybe ka-yu had went to take a shower or he had been hungry or had an appointment or something. It wasn’t his duty to stay in bed until yasu woke up.

He stayed for a few seconds longer, inhaling ka-yu’s smell on the pillow. Then he got up, curious where his friend had went.

He slipped on his underwear and then hesitated. There was no point in getting dressed already, was there? He intended to stay at the apartment anyway. So, he left his shirt and pants on the floor and tapped out of the bedroom.

The living room was empty, but his stomach made a noise that told him the kitchen ought to be his first stop anyway.

He pushed open the door and found ka-yu sitting at the table, typing on his mobile and just finishing a piece of sweet bread. He was fully dressed already and looked up only with mild interest as yasu entered the kitchen.

Overplaying his irritation, yasu bend down and placed a short peck against ka-yu’s temple.

“Good morning”, he said cheerfully, wishing he had put his clothes back on.

“Morning”, ka-yu said without paying much attention.

Yasu decided not to make a scene, but went over to make himself some bread, too. Ka-yu only had sweet things at home, but that was alright with him for now. He could go grocery shopping later on.

He took his plate over to the table and sat down.

Almost at the same time, ka-yu finished his breakfast and got up to place the leftovers in the sink. Then he moved towards the door.

“Ehm”, yasu said with a frown. “Aren’t you keeping me company?”

Ka-yu turned around again, looking either confused or guilty, it was hard to tell which.

Of course, they did not use to eat together. It was too bothersome to wait around, when both of them had their own life, their own schedule. But things had changed last night between them.

Yasu would have waited for ka-yu if it had been the other way around.

Hyde always made breakfast for two.

The thought went through him like a cold blow of wind.

Hyde. He hadn’t thought about him for at least 14 hours. He hadn’t directly forgotten, just carefully paid attention not to remember. Now the thought was there, sudden and unwanted. He pushed it away immediately, before the guilt could set in.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to be rude”, ka-yu apologized and sat down opposite to him again.

“Did you sleep well?”, yasu changed the topic and started eating.

“Yeah”, ka-yu answered, staying silent otherwise.

He was checking his mobile again.

Yasu cleared his throat and he put it away.

Something like that wouldn’t have bothered him a few months ago. But they had been friends back then. It was different now, wasn’t it? Or was yasu being overly sensitive?

“So”, ka-yu said after a while. “When are you going to get your stuff to move back in?”

Yasu nearly choked on his bread and started coughing. Then he inhaled deeply.

“I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about that yet, have we?”, he pointed out.

He was staring down on his plate, not sure if he wanted to meet ka-yu’s eyes. The question had been asked so naturally he wondered if ka-yu would be hurt by his hesitation.

“I don’t really understand”, ka-yu said slowly. “We had a break, yes. But I chose you, yasu, and you chose me, so I thought we could go back to normal now.”

“Normal”, yasu repeated numbly.

Very slowly it started to dawn on him that he might have made a giant mistake. That ka-yu’s words and actions last night had not been what yasu needed them to be.

“Don’t you think a lot of things have changed between us?”

He forced himself to look up now and watch ka-yu shrug. He seemed to be as uncomfortable as yasu was.

“I don’t really see why”, ka-yu replied. “We were happy before you left. When you move back in, we can be happy again. I just want it back the way it was.”

Yasu swallowed. The next words wouldn’t be easy.

“I wasn’t happy, ka-yu. And I don’t want it back the way it was. I want a relationship. With morning cuddles in bed and breakfast for two. Do you understand that?”

Ka-yu shrugged again. This time, it was him avoiding yasu’s eyes.

“We can make it work”, he said. “I mean, it worked with Hyde. You said so yourself, he makes you happy, he makes you laugh, he has sex with you. I can have sex with you. Last night was fun.”

He sounded desperate now and yasu realized what he was doing. He was begging for him to come back. Even worse, he was bargaining. He could have sex with him to not be alone anymore. Yasu felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach and he wanted to throw up.

“I’m not just having sex with him”, he forced out calmly. “We are in a romantic relationship. I thought you understood. I thought you had feelings for me.”

He could see ka-yu winced. Then he looked at him with very sad eyes.

“I do have feelings for you, yasu. I think, I do. I need you.”

And yasu understood that he wasn’t even aware of what he had done wrong. He had been convinced that yasu could make him happy again and that it was the same the other way around. He had believed it was the right thing to do.

“Needing someone is not loving them. Not in the romantic way”, he whispered flatly.

Ka-yu chewed on his lower lip.

He still looked beautiful and yasu still had feelings watching him. He had been crazy about him for so long, but something had changed within the last minute.

Deep down, he had always hoped. He had hoped ka-yu would change his mind and realize how he felt about yasu. But that hope was gone now. Ka-yu would never love him and that wasn’t his fault. He had tried. But he would never understand what it meant to be romantically interested in another man. Again, it wasn’t his fault. He had just been mistaken.

He thought of Hyde. Of the way he smiled at yasu like he was special, how he would hold him before falling asleep or always buy his favourite food at the grocery store without needing an extra reminder.

“With Hyde it’s …”, he mumbled, but ka-yu cut him short.

“Yasu, I don’t like to be the one reminding you of this”, he said. “But you cheated on him. And you did not exactly hesitate about it, either. Don’t tell me about how it’s love between you two.”

He was right. There was no denying it. Yasu had cheated on him. And he had not hesitated.

His chest throbbed like an open wound. He felt ashamed. Not because of the guilt. But because he had been so stupid.

“I need to go home.”

***

Yasu’s hand was a little shaky as he unlocked the front door.

Hyde had called three times last night, but he hadn’t heard his phone buzzing somewhere on ka-yu’s bedroom floor.

He was probably the worst person in human history.

“Hyde? I’m home”, he called out, but found the living room empty.

The door to the bedroom stood open, though, and he went in

It wasn’t early anymore, but not quite noon, so there was a change Hyde hadn’t even gotten up yet.

He was awake, though, but still in bed. The curtains were drawn, but in the light falling in through the door, yasu could see him sit upright, blankets still around him.

“Hey”, he said quietly. “Can I let in some light?”

“Sure”, Hyde sighed.

Yasu went over to pull back the curtains and turned around. In the light he could see Hyde better and it made him feel like shit immediately.

He had dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept much and yasu noticed some crumpled tissues on the bedside table.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t pick up your calls last night”, he said and sat down on the bed, keeping a little distance between them. “I should have let you known that I was going to stay overnight. I’m sure you were worried.”

Hyde ran his fingers through his hair. He seemed embarrassed by his looks.

“No, it wasn’t such a surprise. I feel ridiculous now. I was overreacting. But when I couldn’t reach you, all those worst-case scenarios started playing in my head.”

He laughed apologetic.

“Well, I came back home safely”, yasu managed to say.

Hyde’s eyes were scanning his face.

“Did you sleep with him?”, he asked out of nowhere.

Yasu flinched.

“What?”, he assured to win time.

“I just kept thinking about it, I’m sorry, I need to make sure”, Hyde said.

And for a moment yasu thought about lying. Hyde was tired and worried and he already felt paranoid, that was easy to tell. He wanted yasu to tell him that nothing had happened.

“Just don’t lie to me”, he added softly as if he had read the thoughts on his face.

Yasu swallowed hard.

“Does it make a change if I know that it was a mistake?”, he asked quietly.

He met Hyde’s eyes head on and he found no surprise written in them.

“It doesn’t”, Hyde said.

“He … he broke up with his girlfriend”, yasu stuttered. “I don’t know, he told me he needed me and I thought … but he didn’t mean it that way. He was just scared of being alone, I guess, so he wanted to use me as some magic cure, because he is happy with me around. But it wasn’t real and now I feel like …”

Hyde raised his hand to stop him.

The words came out hurriedly. Yasu was still confused about his own feelings, about ka-yu, about what had happened. He needed to talk about it, needed comfort urgently.

“I don’t want to hear about this, yasu”, Hyde made clear. “I used to listen to you, because I cared for you, but you hurt me. I just don’t want to hear about it.”

Yasu bit his lip.

Hyde was right. He had no right to tell him, to play the victim and hope for comfort. He was the villain in this tale. One of them, he guessed.

“It was a mistake”, he repeated. “I didn’t realize what I had with you. Please, Hyde, give me one last chance. I will never make that mistake again.”

Hyde inhaled deeply, folding his hands in his lap as if preparing for a very difficult task.

“The problem is not so much that you cheated on me, yasu. But that you wouldn’t be here if ka-yu had acted differently afterwards. And that you entered this relationship knowing full well you would cheat on me with ka-yu if you got the chance. How am I supposed to be with such a person?”

Yasu took in a few deep breaths. He wanted to protest, wanted to tell Hyde he was wrong. But he couldn’t. If ka-yu loved him, he wouldn’t be here.

“I’m sorry. But now I know what I want. You make me happy, Hyde.”

The moment the words were out, he realized what he had just said.

Hyde smiled a sad smile.

He had realized, too.

“I’m not a magic cure, either, yasu. And you are not in love with me.”

Yasu had made the exact same mistake. He had entered a relationship with Hyde because he had been scared of being alone. He had mistaken being happy around someone for loving them.

“What about you?”, he wanted to know.

He meant a lot of things by that. Are you in love with me? What will happen next?

“I’ll get over it”, Hyde said.

They were silent for a moment.

“And what about me?”, yasu wondered out loud. “Will I get over it?”

Hyde nodded, his smile still sad, but more genuine now.

“You should be alone for a while. You need to learn how to do it. I needed to learn it, too. And you will develop your own codex, see what works for you and what doesn’t. And eventually, you’ll meet someone and you’ll just know.”

Yasu snorted in disbelieve.

“And will that codex help me not to fuck it up that time?”, he asked doubtfully.

Hyde laughed and it sounded so open and honest that yasu was surprised by it.

“No, not at all”, Hyde said. “But you’ll know it’s someone special, when you break every single rule you made up and you don’t regret it.”

Yasu smirked, feeling a calm sadness inside of himself.

“I bet you regret it now”, he pointed out.

“I don’t”, Hyde said softly.

Yasu looked into his eyes and felt even more sorry for having let him down.

He took hold of his hand and gave it a short squeeze.

“Thank you, for everything”, he said.

Then he let go of his hand again, the body contact feeling to intimate all of a sudden. He had no right to long for his touch right now.

“Give me just one night on the couch and by tomorrow I’ll be gone to look for a new apartment on my own.”

Hyde shook his head lightly.

He did not look angry, but very determined.

“No night on the couch”, he said. “I want you to go to a hotel tonight.”

Yasu just nodded, because the rush of regret made his throat feel too tight to speak.

One night. That was how it had started. He had no right to want to go back to the way it had been. He longed back for happier time just as ka-yu had done. Probably, Hyde now did, too. But the happy times were in the past now.

In the future, all of them would have to create their own happiness.

***

Yasu was a little late for the meeting and dashing out of the elevator now.

It would be weird to have a meeting at the company on his own, without the other guys around. But on the other hand, he was pretty glad about it.

It had been about six months now since he had moved into his own apartment and it was still weird meeting ka-yu. They were still friends and they were still doing music together, but the atmosphere between them was a little tense.

Ka-yu was the reason for the very first rule he had put down in his codex: Don’t get involved with someone you are working with. It just got awkward.

He knocked on the door firmly.

Avoiding Hyde had been a lot easier, although lately they had met at a friend’s birthday. They had exchanged greetings and even shared a few jokes, but he had seen the anger and hurt behind Hyde’s eyes. He hadn’t thrown a tantrum, even on the day he left, but he was mad at yasu.

Hyde was the reason for the second rule: Don’t get involved with someone if you even have the slightest doubts about it.

A voice called him in and yasu opened the door to step into the office.

Behind the desk a tall man got up. He was handsome in the conservative kind of way. Glasses, turtleneck.

“Hello, I’m yasu from Janne Da Arc”, he introduced himself. “I’m here to talk about going solo today. Nice to meet you.”

Going solo would be a huge step and around this time last year yasu would not have thought it possible. But living alone had showed him how good he was at handling himself. He enjoyed the freedom an own apartment granted him and had made him realize he also longed for this creative freedom with his music. He wanted to try new things, wanted to go his own way.

Yasu wanted to figure out who he was, and that was the reason for his third rule: No serious involvement with anyone in the meantime. Casual sex would be alright, but he wanted to focus on his career. He would not do anything that looked too much like an actual date.

“Hello, yasu, nice to meet you. I’m Shintaro and I would like to support you with your new project.”

He had a nice way of speaking, calm and friendly. Again, yasu noticed how handsome he looked. He had a strange feeling about this as if deep down he already knew the answer to a question he hadn’t figured out yet.

But whatever yasu felt there now, it was a bad idea.

They would work together.

He had serious doubts if it would work out between them.

He did not have time for dating.

“Hey, Shintaro”, he said. “Can I invite you for dinner sometime?”

[gwynne-fics]

Silver Lining

chapter forty-three

Father waited for him and frowned when sat down. “This is the second month you are late. What is wrong with the company?”

“Nothing,” Young-Do said quickly as he set his empty briefcase down beside his chair. He kept his head bowed because that was what Father liked. “Our stock is up another three percent from last quarter. I…I need to be more careful. I was informed that we’re being watched.”

“I always assumed that. That’s why you aren’t stupid and bring anything with you.” Father sounded disgusted with him. At least he didn’t make any snide comments about Hyo-Shin. “Do you have the software yet?”

“No. I’m working on a proposal. Abeoji, my relationship with Cha Eun-Sang is not adversarial. I would like to keep it that way as I hope to have children with her and make this last.” He caught Father rolling his eyes and it made him angry. “Our shareholders like her. It is because I am selling my relationship to her the right way that I have recouped the losses from my mistake. If I am caught cheating on her, it will devastate the company all over again. I am being careful for good reasons.”

“Real men aren’t careful. They take risks to get what they want. You shouldn’t let this woman have any kind of control over you. I’m not surprised, given your poor judgment in the past. I heard your precious wife fucked him, too. You must be so jealous of her.”

Young-Do breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He slowly stood up and bowed. He wasn’t going to let Father convince him to do anything that might hurt his relationship with Eun-Sang. It was the only thing he had that wasn’t tainted by Father.

“If you had your way, I would be the one in that jail cell. My judgment was poor because you deliberately withheld vital information from me about that account. I never would’ve tried to use it or guaranteed it if I had known it was empty and useless. I am a real man. Even if I was gay, Abeoji, I would still be a real man. I will see you next month.”

He left before Father could get worked up and yell at him. He still didn’t trust that glass to hold Father back. Young-Do went out to his car and thought about never returning to the prison. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to cut Father out of his life. Good sons did not ignore their fathers in prison but he didn’t want to be a good son right now.

Young-Do pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. He took a long, slow drag and exhaled smoke in the autumn air. He didn’t know how Eun-Sang felt about smoking so he decided he would wait to see her until the smell of it faded.

He picked up his phone when Eun-Sang texted him an invitation to have lunch with her and the bird girls. Young-Do briefly closed his eyes and called Hyun-Shik. “I need a full day that keeps me out of Seoul. I don’t want to get home until after ten.”

His secretary didn’t even question his demand. “There are two properties that need site inspections. Will that work?”

“Yes. Thank you. Send the details to my phone. I’ll leave from the prison.”

“Of course, sir.”

Young-Do texted his apology to Eun-Sang and was relieved that she didn’t push him. After their painful conversation last night, he didn’t know how to handle being around her. He wanted, more than anything, to go back to the moment before he made love to her on the couch and they both cried. He wanted Hyo-Shin to…stop being a part of their relationship. He wanted to be a better man to Eun-Sang but he didn’t know how because the only example he had was the very man he was trying to avoid.

He didn’t even know why he cried. He tried to convince himself that sex he had with her yesterday wasn’t the best he’d ever had. It didn’t work because it was the best sex he’d ever felt.

His first site inspection was one of his clubs on the edge of one of the less reputable parts of Seoul. Part of the reason Hyun-Shik wanted him to look at it was because of rumors that it had become a front for some drug runners. Hyun-Shik thought Young-Do’s presence would spook them off.

Part of him was grateful that the inspection took all day and revealed that there had been a staff change hidden from the Zeus managers. It allowed him to get intimately involved with their records and make some calls to clean up the club. He closed it down before going home. It almost worked to keep his mind off of Eun-Sang.

When he arrived home, he was surprised she was in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove. Wook greeted him at the door and took his briefcase and jacket. “President Cha requested that your driver inform her when you were on your way home. She wanted to wait up for you.”

Young-Do tried not to gape at the stoic butler as he was herded to the kitchen table and Eun-Sang set…beef and bean broth soup in front of him. Once they were alone, she met his eyes and he caught the familiar glint of determination in her.

“It would be easier to avoid each other after last night,” she said frankly. “I’m not dissuaded by hard things. So we’re going to talk about our days at work instead of our awkward sex. Work might not be a safe topic but it is something we’ve got in common. I’ll start.”

“Eun-Sang—“

“Eun-Hee put together a gift for you as a thank you for the toy you got her.” She pointed at…a very detailed drawing of a standard car engine. Everything was labeled correctly in a child’s handwriting. It included a thank you note for both the gift and the movie about talking cars. Young-Do picked it up with reverent awe. “She wants to impress you. I think she has a little bit of a crush on you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few seconds. “I really couldn’t come to lunch.”

“These girls really do understand that. They saw how busy you were at the movie.” Eun-Sang reached over and took his hand. Her fingers were cold. “The bird girls like you, Young-Do. They don’t know anything about you except that you are nice to them. I just want you to know that even if things are weird between us, there are three little girls who think you are the coolest man they’ve ever met. Jae-Hee called you Tower Ahjussi. Even Sung-Hee, who hates everything right now, likes you.”

His throat hurt and he had to clear it several times as he let out a low breath. “I don’t want things to be weird with us. I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know how to…” He didn’t know how to love her the way Hyo-Shin had loved her. That was her standard for everything important.

“I just want you to feel secure in our life. We are building this together. We’re both bound to make mistakes. I’m sorry I hurt you last night.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry I misunderstood your attempt to explain your feelings. I’m sorry I’m not…”

“I’m glad you’re not him. You don’t have to be sorry for that. How were your site inspections? I hear those can be scary on both ends.”

He took the out she offered him and tried to concentrate on the amazing soup she’d made him. “I have a drug dealer trying to use one of my clubs. I didn’t even know that the management had changed. Sometimes it feels like every time I put out one fire, another three spring up in its place.” He paused and then set down his spoon. “How do you feel about spending a weekend in a small, country hotel?”

“Incognito or with bells on?” She put some kimchi on his rice bowel and he automatically ate it before she could take it back.

“I don’t know if it is possible for me to go incognito but I want to try. The manager is making excuses for his bottom line and I want to see if they’re real or not. It’s going to involve a lot of market research and it might be boring. There is supposed to be a tour package offered by the concierge but he claims not to need one. A concierge is—“

“Part of the Zeus hotels experience.” She smiled faintly. “Hyo-Shin would only stay at hotels under your umbrella whenever we went on a small holiday. It wasn’t often but we went to the one in Jeju and it was amazing. I’m only bringing it up to show you that I have a basis for my perspective and opinion.”

He had to be able to show her a better time. It would be difficult to pull off but he might be able to do it if he put enough time into researching the area himself. “Do you enjoy hiking?”

“I’m not a camper but a day hike can be fun.” He tried not to show his disappointment. He owned a camping ground that he held employee events at once a year.

“I’ll set it up and have Hyun-Shik work with your assistant on your schedule.”

“Alright.” Her smile didn’t seem forced so he chose to believe that they were relaxing around each other. “Is the soup okay? I don’t make this often enough to be good at it but Hee-Jin said you request it at the beginning of the month.”

Young-Do blinked and looked down at his empty bowl. “This tastes like home to me,” he said after a minute. It was the last thing his mother made for him before she left. “It’s my comfort food. The beginning of the month is when all the problems rise to the top. I’m sure you know what it’s like as a president.”

“I do. I ate about six rolls of gimbap today.”

“Gimbap?”

“There’s a stall close to my offices. They are amazing. I’m sure you’ve had gimbap.”

“Of course I have. I just…”

“He hates it.” Eun-Sang grinned cheekily as Young-Do ducked his head. “He hates it so much. He likes to pretend he isn’t a food snob but he won’t touch it.”

“But it’s so easy when you’re busy and there are stalls everywhere.” For the first time, it didn’t hurt. He found himself smiling at her. She smiled back and placed a piece of braised potato on his rice. He reached out and did the same with the fried zucchini. “No fish?”

“I can’t handle the bone crunch. There are some in the fridge. Would you like me to get it?”

“No. It’s not my favorite either.” He swallowed and reached for another bowl of soup. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “It’s nice to feel like someone waited up for me.”

Eun-Sang’s eyes softened and she reached across to squeeze his hand. “Tell me more about your country hotel.”

[onrainynights]

So I'm about to tell y'all a tale, buckle up. Everything here is 100% true, except names are changed or shortened because duh. Also warning there is slightly nsfw content, nothing explicit and only mentioned but still warrants a warning.

So, I'm 17, almost 18. I'm a high school senior. The story starts almost two years ago, in the fall of 2018. I was a sophomore. One of my best friends, V, was in our school's show choir for the first time, and had made friends with a new guy one year our senior who was also in slow choir. I knew before I met him that he was gay, because V told me. This guy can be called E. One day, he sits at our lunch table and I'm not really paying attention to his conversation with V, I'm just eating my lunch. But then I look up and my first thought when I see him is "eyebrows" because he has really thick eyebrows and then "wow he's actually really cute." He was the first person I was attracted to in over 2 years. I proceed to ask V all about him while admiring him from afar for several months. At this point its nothing more than attraction because I've never really had a conversation with him. Then, in the spring, I volunteered at the show choir competition my school hosted. I ended up talking to him (yay), and he hugs me within minutes of meeting me. One of the first things I ever say to him is "I like your eyebrows." Things are slightly awkward, because I'm an awkward person, and so is he, but it's pleasant. Unfortunately I don't get to spend too much time with him because we both had things we needed to do and there was A LOT of drama that night not involving either of us.

After that point we would talk occasionally but never really got to know each other, UNTIL fall of my junior year and his senior year. By this point I had a crush, but it wasn't more than that and I didn't feel we knew each other well enough to warrant me telling him my feelings. We were both in the fall musical. At auditions, we were friendly. Except he asked me about J, a guy one year younger than me, who was also just as gay as both me and E. The way he asked me "Who is that?" I knew, immediately, that he was attracted to J. He sounded exactly like I did when I first asked V about E after seeing him for the first time.

Regardless, E and me talked a lot more during rehearsals, though we usually kept our conversations light in topic. We flowed well, and he was just as physically affectionate as I was. After a few weeks, I see him cuddling with J during rehearsal, and a friend informs me they started dating. I asked them both questions about how it started—a Snapchat story, go figure. At first I was jealous, but I saw how happy E seemed, and that was all that mattered. But I didn't really know J, like at all other than his name, so I started spending as much time as I could with the both of them. They were a cute couple, I have to admit, but they always did PDA because of J's homophobic family. They only ever saw each other at school.

The first time I talked to J without E there, we bonded. I don't remember over what. The next time, we were alone because I pulled him aside after he made a dirty joke that I honestly couldn't tell if he meant (he did. It was hilarious, and I told him up-front that I wanted to be friends with him. He enthusiastically agreed.) The time after that, it was because I decided he should know about my feelings for E. I didn't want him to potentially find out later on and think I was trying to steal his boyfriend. He was amazingly mature. He said he felt bad for taking E from me when I had liked him longer, but I assured him that E didn't belong to me by any means and besides, J made E happy and that was all I cared about. I think I was already in love with E by this point but I didn't know it yet. J and I joked about my feelings for E whenever we were alone. We got along really well and it was a great time.

One time I cuddled with them, and it was nice, and when E had to get up J and I kept cuddling and talked about how much we both just wanted E to be happy. It was really nice.

And then, closer to the opening night of the show when the set was being built and there were more places to be out of sight, something strange happened. Now, earlier when I said PDA I meant they made out in front of others frequently, and the first time they did anything sexual with each other was in a well-known security camera blind spot in the upstairs math hall after all the teachers had gone home. I know that because J and E (mostly J) liked to tell me about their sex life. In fact, I knew more about their relationship than most people probably did.

So we were backstage one day, when E wasn't needed on-stage much despite playing a main character. There were two prop chairs between the three of us. J sat on E's lap on the chair that had a higher back and I sat as close to them as I could in an office chair. They weren't kissing or anything, just talking.

It was innocent, at first. But then J started working E up, if you know what I mean. It wasn't really uncomfortable for me, because J somehow made me feel ~included~ in their activities. He would whisper something lewd to E, who would blush or say something back, and then would tell me about how affected E was, how hard he was. At some point I think E mentioned not wanting to come in his pants, but I'm not sure. I kinda forced myself not to look into this event after it happened, so the details are a bit fuzzy. Eventually, E made J stop because he had to go on stage soon and didn't want to have a boner while pretending to be straight. J and I talked afterwards, but I don't remember what about, and it was never mentioned between us again. I'm fairly sure that J was a bit of an exhibitionist, and that E wasn't really one but wasn't opposed to what J was doing, either.

Honestly, in hindsight, I'm not sure what to think about this, because I was always so certain they both viewed me 100% platonically, but then they included me in their "sexytimes" without hesitation. In fact, at one point a plan was in place for me to room with them on an overnight trip so that they could do the do without making their roommate uncomfortable. They were both fully aware that I was probably the only person who didn't mind their PDA, and that sentiment may seem incongruous for a love triangle such as this, but I never questioned it. I loved E selflessly, and so it made me happy to see him happy, no matter what—or who—was doing so. Also, I think perhaps I was crushing on J at some point, but I'm not sure. These screenshots are of me explaining the event to a very close friend a few days ago after the shock wore off that I hadn't told her about it as soon as it happened.

At some point, a mutual good friend of mine and E's, who we'll call A, hosted a party for the cast of our musical. I'm not sure if this was before or after the casual exhibitionism incident, but I'm inclined to think it was before.

This party did not involve alcohol of any kind because theatre kids don't need any to make a party unique, wild, and totally unforgettable. It was small, with maybe 20 people at its peak. E and I were there and J was not, because his family thoroughly sucked ass. Anyway, at that party E told me he was in love with J, and wanted to marry him some day. I, obviously, thought that was kinda crazy to say after knowing each other for two months, but I held my tongue because E smiled so widely when he said it. Later that same night, everyone was sitting around a fire, playing a game somewhat similar to truth or dare. Due to a lack of seating, E ended up sitting on my lap for most of the game, which lasted over an hour, my hands around his waist. It was very nice, and when he got up he laughed and said he forgot he was sitting on my lap. He forgot little things like that a lot. I always found it endearing.

Then the show performed and then it was over, and I didn't get to talk to E again until a few months later, and I never talked to J again. Unlike most teens, I do not talk to people online /through text unless I already know them super super well. I hate getting to know people over text. By the time I see E again, because he's the student assistant in my choir class that semester, he and J have broken up. It was messy, and E is hurt. They're on-again-off-again for several months, but I can never forgive J for hurting E, not when he had talked about only wanting E to be happy. Despite that, I wish I could have spent more time with J. He was a good person, but he and E had a toxic relationship after the honeymoon stage, I think because J simply was not ready to be in a serious relationship. (A agrees with me fully on this.)

So E talks with me and a mutual "friend" (we're all friendly but I wouldn't consider this person a friend. Funnily enough, he also had a crush on E at some point, and we bonded over this. Funny how that happens.) about his relationship, and the things he says raise some red flags about J (including J doing something E didn't like during sex and then not stopping when E asked him to. I was very very angry at this but tried not to show it). It became clear to me that their relationship was toxic, but I didn't feel like I could do anything about it. In hindsight, I should have known their relationship was doomed a lot sooner.

Specifically, there was one point during the musical that J had to resolve things with his ex, who was a friend of mine (who I didn't know was queer and wasn't supposed to until E accidentally let it slip.) While J and his ex talked, I cuddled with E and reassured him that everything would be ok. He was convinced that J would cheat on him or get back with his ex. This lack of trust should have been a sign for me, but I didn't realize it until much, much later. I was focused on comforting E at the time and J couldn't have been farther from my mind.

Then, after E and J got back together again for the last time, covid happened, and school closed. I haven't spoken to E since, and no one knows what's going on with J. The only thing anyone knows is that they're not together anymore, and from what I can tell, they're not in contact at all and aren't going to get together again. E graduated, J is at a different school, and despite everything, I miss both of them.

Every day, I pass by a photo of E and A in the hallway of my school, and my heart swells, and I feel like crying. A graduated too, and she's moving thousands of miles away at the end of October for college. E is still living in our town, going to community college, but I never get to see him.

Our school is doing a fall play instead of a musical this year, and E and A are coming to visit and see a rehearsal before A moves away. It could be one of the last times, if not the last time, I get to see either of them. I'm going to tell E about my feelings, because for the first time since I realized my feelings for him were not skin-deep, he's single and not recovering from a nasty breakup. I'm not expecting him to return my feelings, but I'm expecting surprise. I've been very careful up to this point to keep my feelings from him—I thought it would be selfish to tell him when he wasn't emotionally available. A loves the idea—apparently she thinks someone confessing feelings for her after years would be sweet—but I know that if someone did that to me I might not be so happy. I would be shocked and surprised first, and then my reaction after that would depend on the person.

Also, to complicate all of this, I'm trans and he has expressed confusion about that before (poor guy is uneducated in that department, but not bigoted and certainly better than some gay men can be, but I still have no clue if my trans status would deter him from having feelings for me)

My feelings for this guy are deeper than anything I've ever felt before. I really love him, and I know that I'll regret it forever if I never tell him. His visit feels like it's as close to the right time as I'm gonna get, and it might be my last chance on top of that. I don't need him to return my feelings, but I need to know that I did everything I could to take my chances.

TL;DR: I'm a gay idiot but I'm finally gonna tell him how I feel

[matildainmotion]

Mothers Who Make: The Unofficial Job Ad

           Mothers Who Make are recruiting. You may have seen the job ad we put out for a producer. ‘We put out…’ - I always find the use of the 1st person plural uncomfortable in a context like this. It feels like a grand lie, because the truth is that it is just me, sitting here in a café with the baby asleep in her sling, on a Saturday, which is when I do my writing. It was while the baby was asleep that I wrote my proper job ad for MWM– I had never written one before. I had no idea how to do it and so I had to crib from another, roughly equivalent, job advert that Improbable’s Executive Director was kind enough to share with me. Since then, rather to my surprise (what did I think would happen?!) I have begun to receive very properly worded applications. They start with things like, “Dear Sir/ Madam” and end with, “Thank you for your kind consideration of my application.”

           On the one hand I am glad to be going down this official route, glad to be accessing new networks by advertising the post properly, glad to be giving the position status. On the other hand the process runs counter to the very principles that underlie Mothers Who Make. I have written about this before but it strikes me with new force now: as a culture we polarise the personal and the professional, and the personal gets a bad name – it is ‘unprofessional,’ somewhat embarrassing or downright outrageous. Motherhood is hopelessly personal. It is messy and emotional – I was in tears only this morning because I am tired, my son was being difficult and I had run out of patience. I have a literature degree, a circus diploma, two M.A.s, several teaching qualifications but I have no qualifications for the work that is taking up most of my time, of being a mum, because they are my children and I did not have to train to get them. I had to do the far more awkward thing of falling in love, leading to that most intimate and unprofessional of all acts – sex. As I said, motherhood is hopelessly personal.

            However more and more women are handing over their children to ‘professionals’ to do the caring, so that they themselves can maintain their professional identities.  Mothers Who Make aims to challenge this strong cultural trend. We – and I do mean ‘we’ this time, because there are increasing numbers of groups being run across the UK – hold rare spaces to which women are welcomed and are valued as much for their mothering as for their making, as much for the nights they have spent helping a child back to sleep, as for the famous play in which they have performed at The National. I want “5 years spent in the role of full time mum” to be something any woman could be proud to put down on her CV, instead of it appearing like a worrying hole, a time in which she ‘dropped out.’ So I am simultaneously grateful for the applications I am receiving and disturbed by them.

           Today then, to counter the proper job ad, I thought I would write this. This is the unofficial job ad. This is the lonely hearts/ lonely arts ad because it feels like that – I am internet dating. I am looking for a partner to support me with MWM. In fact what I really want to write is not an advert at all – I am not trying to sell myself or MWM. I want to write you a letter.

           When I turned 40 I vowed I would write more letters – I got a proper writing case, not professionally proper, but proper paper, a proper place for a pen, for addresses, stamps. I love letters because as a genre I think they can most wonderfully dismantle the great ‘professional versus personal’ divide of our times. They are by someone, a person – me – for someone, a person – you. They are personal. And yet there is a kind of formality that comes from the process of writing that feels not so much ‘professional’ as in someone wearing a suit, but as in someone with a profession – someone engaged in doing a thing they care about enough to sit down and write about it. Here then is a letter to you, whoever you are, the person I am looking for….

Richmond, London, 3rd Feb ‘18

Dear Ms Right,

           I am calling you ‘Ms’ – I do not know whether you are married, single, in a civil partnership, broken-hearted, in love, gay or straight. I am however right now imagining that you are a woman or someone who identifies herself, more or less, as female. I did not put this on the proper job ad. I have already had some men apply – I applaud and welcome them. But right here and now I am thinking of you as female because MWM involves, in part, holding women-only spaces, for reasons I have written about elsewhere, and I would love for you to be able to come to our meetings. I hope that you are someone who would want to be there anyway.

           The odd part about a proper job ad is that it requires you to tell me about yourself, but I feel it is only fair that you know at least as much about me. Let me start with the basics. I am small. I have short dark hair and brown eyes. I am 43. I have a tattoo of a snake on my left shoulder. I am married. Instead of sending over my CV I will simply give you a list of the main roles or identities I have assumed in my life, not in any strict chronological order. Here they are: daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend, student, teacher, collaborator, dancer, aerialist, actor, director, writer, facilitator, lover, wife, and, for the last 6 years, mother.

           I have two children. They are 6 and 1. You will meet them. There is a point in a new romantic relationship when you are taken back to ‘meet the family.’ This usually happens a few weeks in, at least. I need to warn you that with me it will happen right away. When we first meet I am likely to have my daughter with me and I will breastfeed her through our discussion. She will be shy but glad to meet you. I may have my son with me too – he will be loud and rude, which is his way of being shy. He will probably refuse to tell you his real name and may sing, “I am the Walrus” from the Beatles to you too loudly. Or he may have chosen to be with his Granny, my mother, who you will also meet very soon – she is amazing. Mothers Who Make and all the work I have done since becoming a mother is entirely thanks to the support of my mother. So you see why I am passionate about mothers – in part because of my own, and the difference I know committed mothering can make.

           You will also meet my husband, Phelim McDermott, though not for a while because this morning he left for New York for six weeks, to do a show there. He helped me to run the Mothers Who Make crowdfunding campaign before Xmas. He encouraged me to write this blog. He started Devoted and Disgruntled, the revolutionary Open Space events for the performing arts community, without which Mothers Who Make would also never have come into being.

           What I am trying to tell you is that I take my family to work with me. I firmly believe there can be no single solution to the current ‘how-to-do-it-all’ crisis in which many new parents find themselves, but for me the ‘drop the kids off at a crèche/ nursery/ nanny’ model has never worked. They have come with me to meetings, rehearsals, shows, conferences and workshops.  I have felt first hand the shame of it, of being ‘unprofessional’ by bringing them along, as well as the radical pride – because it is possible.

           I was recently asked what my workdays are, and I did not know what to say. It was a perfectly valid question that comes from the ‘normal’ world – the one that labels roles as professional or personal and calls one work and the other not. I do not have any workdays and every day is a workday. I work weekends. I work evenings. I work nights too. All day long, every day I am working on my mothering and my making. This means I am both highly organised and extremely disorganised. The house is a mess. I struggle to get the laundry done, the hoovering, the dishes. I try to do most of my emailing at weekends – it means you may have to wait a week to hear from me but you will hear. I can hold onto the thread of a conversation for a long time and whilst many other things interrupt it. Did I warn you that we will be interrupted? The children will do this but we will still get the work done. I promise you it is possible and if you do not like the sound of this then that is good. I am trying to scare you away. If you are still interested by the end, then this job is for you.

           What else? I should probably explain that I never intended to found a national network. MWM is a response to a need. I started a small local group and it grew. Like any mother I am making it up as I go along. I am growing new skills along the way – that is what mothers do: we do what you can, we do what the next part of the job seems to require, we often feel out of our depth. I feel this right now with MWM, which is why I am seeking your help.

           Let me tell you my strengths and my weaknesses. I am an artist – I like making things up. I like writing things. I like listening to people’s stories and sharing my own. I like asking questions. I care deeply and that makes me reliable: I will respond; I will turn up; I will make stuff happen. I am not however very good at numbers. Budgets scare me. I leave bank statements unopened for weeks. I am not good at sleeping either. I get over tired, overwhelmed. I am not good at spending too much time on a computer  - it exacerbates the insomnia.

|||            So what would I like from you? You do not have to be a mother, but it would make sense if you are. I would like you to be good at some of the things I am not good at – budgets, planning, evaluations, emails, the ‘professional’ stuff. But under it all, at the end of the day, through most the night, it comes down to the personal, it comes down to love, to the old meaning of the word ‘professional’ – what you profess to do, what you care about. I want you to care about the things I care about. I do not however want this work ever to get in the way of your caring work – of whoever is in your care. Please put them first. Then do the rest, and let it be work that you love.

           If you love the sound of all this then please be my Valentine. Send me your application by Feb 16th, or before. You can send me your C.V. but you can also write me a letter. I asked for this in the proper job ad too – a covering letter. Let it cover whatever you want me to know about you. And if by any chance you missed the official job ad, you can find it here: http://www.improbable.co.uk/motherswhomake/

           Thank you for reading my covering letter to you.

Yours sincerely professional, faithfully personal and radically questioning,            Matilda

[aselkie]

My journey to my current orientation.

So I currently identify as on the asexual spectrum. But there is a part of me that almost feels like I am ‘faking’ or ‘attention-seeking’ by trying to be different. And it makes me nervous about speaking to people about it or about seeking out new people to connect with over this.

I feel like one of the reasons for this is probably how I discovered this. For a long time, I have been quite interested/fascinated with the sheer number of different sexualities and identities that there are. I think that this first came about when I began questioning myself because I felt quite different to the rest of my friends.  During my 3rd or 4th year of high school (age 14-15, I think), I started to wonder why when all of my friends started talking about people who they thought were “hot” and talking about “sexual” topics, I always began to feel quite uncomfortable or awkward. My friendship group consisted of about 8 individuals, including me, split evenly with 4 girls and 4 boys, so it wasn’t like it was strictly about “hot” males or “hot” females.  Something then sparked it in me to look up the different sexualities and I was fascinated by all of the different terms. I would spend ages looking through the lists, reading the definitions and just being really curious. 

Around this time, I also began to think that I wasn’t completely straight. I wasn’t sure what I was exactly, but I didn’t think I was fully straight. And while there was a part of me that adopted the attitude of “Fuck it, it doesn’t matter, why use labels?”, there was another part of me that just wanted some... descriptor? Something that I could use to identify myself or define myself. I still have this internal debate to this day. 

Anyway, I looked through all of the lists of sexuality definitions that I had bookmarked and looked for one that described me. Eventually, I looked at pansexual. And this is what I defined myself as for about 2 years.  I had come to this conclusion because I thought about it and decided that “sure, I would have sex with a guy or a girl. I don’t think I would mind what bits they had.” For me, that was that. Just thinking that I “wouldn’t mind” meant that I would. Obviously, I don’t think I fully understood the whole sexual attraction thing. I just thought if I wasn’t put off by the thought then, that what I was. 

Later on, when I was 17-18, I came to the conclusion that maybe I wasn’t pansexual. I can’t exactly remember what caused me to rethink it, I just remember a specific conversation I had with a friend when I had identified myself as demisexual, instead of pansexual (though I think specifically, I identified as demi-pansexual, but whatever). I feel like there is a probability that I had ended up thinking about my sexuality again and then dived back into the bookmarks to scroll through lists that had since been updated to include a whole lot more. 

To give this story a bit more context, around the time when I had this conversation, I had gone out with one of the other guys (we’ll call him Guy A) in my friendship group on maybe 2, 3 dates. In our friendship group, everyone was quite close (except me but that’s another story), and Guy A was good friends with all of the other guys.  During the conversation, Guy B (the one that I probably spoke with the most) was giving me a lift home from one of our ‘parties’ because my parents were out of town and he was saving me from having to get a taxi. While we were driving, he asked me if I liked Guy A, as in like-liked him. And I immediately felt awkward because truthfully, I didn’t. At least, not in the way that I felt I should of. But instead of being a good person and explaining this to Guy A? I kind of just dropped off the face of the Earth and tried to avoid him. Don’t judge me. I hate myself for that too.  But I felt like I could explain this to Guy B. So I said that I identified as demisexual and that I thought there were feelings but I needed to let them get deeper before I felt anything real. He seemed cool with it and then the conversation changed. But that was the time when I distinctly remembered identifying as demisexual. 

Now fast forward a year and I am starting university. I have probably been stressing and thinking hard about how to identify and whether I am lying through my teeth and how I am going to cope meeting so many new people. This change also marked the next change in how I identified myself. I now thought that I was asexual. The first time I remember identifying myself as such was when I was walking one of my school friends to my car so I could drive her home. Now, I knew that she was bisexual, she hadn’t tried to hide and was open about it. So when the conversation about how she had been flirting with a guy on her course, I felt a little bit weird. I then remember her mentioning how she “hated” being bisexual because “both guys and girls are hot” (or something to that effect), and I just responded, “yeah, not sure I fully understand, because I think I’m asexual but okay, whatever you say”. I can’t really remember how she reacted, but I think it was very nonchalant and she carried on as if I hadn’t just casually outed myself for the first time. Maybe it wasn’t the best reaction but whatever, I’ve always tried to be very casual about my sexuality and if I found a new label, I just tried to use it and not address the change unless specifically asked about it. 

The next time I ‘outed’ myself was to my best friend who I think I was more honest with. The conversation we had was more in depth and more open than any other that I might have had in the past. And this might have been the time when I thought that maybe I didn’t fit into a label neatly. Basically, it came about because of a job application form. My friend was working in the hospital and had recommended I also apply because of how good they were at working around university timetables. So she got me a form and we were filling it out on her bed while watching some tv show. The form had a section to ensure against discrimination where it asked questions about nationality, religion and sexuality etc.  Under the sexuality heading, I think there were only the basic options; straight, gay and other. So I ticked the box for other. She asked about it and then I just explained it to her. About how I thought I was asexual but that I wasn’t completely sure. She was accepting and didn’t make a big deal of anything, which I think I am grateful for. 

And that basically brings it to now. Almost a year on from my conversations with my best friend. And I don’t think I’m that much closer to a definite answer on what my orientation is. I am still questioning so much and I nowhere near a definite answer.  And it feels hypocritical that I am here feeling bad about not being certain when on my main blog, I am reblogging so many posts saying “it’s okay to question” and “take your time, there’s no rush”. 

But I think it’s because there is still a part of me that feels like a fraud. That feels like I am just ‘adopting’ this descriptor because it makes me more interesting. That feels like I’m just trying to jump on some bandwagon. 

And I hate that feeling. It makes me like I can’t really get ‘involved’ (I guess that’s the right term) with certain things. Like I see posts about LGBTQIA and there is a debate inside me on whether or not I am included. And I worry that if I tried to include myself, that there will be someone there to make me feel bad or point out that I don’t belong which I think would feel worse than just never having belonged at all. 

Anyway, I have rambled enough and I should probably go to bed. But as it stands right now at 23:41 on the 25th of August 2017, I identify as on the asexual spectrum, or if asked, I would say the label that I feel fits the best is demi-pansexual demiromantic

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 1x04-- Henceforth Known As Property

Thoughts on 1x04 under the cut!

The episode begins with an image of the schtup list from last week, which is… fine but not engaging. Maia is annotating it in a crowded elevator. That makes sense! Why wouldn’t you take a confidential document, which you obtained illegally, pertaining to an ongoing investigation on to a crowded elevator at your workplace?

A woman offers Maia unsolicited cooking advice. She’s confused. Another woman jumps in to dispute the first woman’s advice. Maia remains confused. She exits the elevator, and Lucca greets her with information about a fertility case she’ll be working on.

Maia says that’s good, but Lucca realizes she’s a bit shaken and asks if she’s okay. Lucca needs Maia to find precedents for the case, then adds, “And tell me if you’re getting some bad-mouthing.” “If I’m getting…?” Maia asks. “Well, people say things. You know, sometimes people don’t know better,” Lucca explains. When Maia asks if people are talking, Lucca responds, “No. I mean, no more than what you said.” Sorry, does this mean that Lucca, who actually knows Maia, believes that an unverified twitter feed with the bio “Daddy’s little lesbian” is an account Maia is involved with?

Before Lucca can explain further, Barbara pulls her into a meeting.

Marissa knows what’s up: “It’s not your twitter feed, is it?” she says to Maia. Maia is still confused, so Marissa shows her.

“It’s hard to get excited about work when people call you lesbo behind your back.” -- @MaiaRindellSays. Yes. Because real Maia would definitely tweet about her workplace in the middle of a scandal under her real name. This sounds believable.

(I won’t get stuck too much on this point; I was in a fandom once where a 12 year old impersonated someone on Twitter and frequently tweeted about her own middle school homework and people still believed she was a 40 year old celebrity.)

(I don’t know where this music is from!!! Someone find it, please!)

The profile for @MaiaRindellSays (which is not a real account, boooo! The writers USED to make real accounts for their featured twitter trolls, like @Upriser7!) reads: “Daddy’s little lesbian. Love life and never change. YOLO.” I mean that sounds totally fake but okay.

This twitter account—which we later learn is a bot set up years ago—must be a super smart bot if it knows to tweet Maia’s feelings about her dad going to jail.

Fake Maia also tweets about canning fruit, and I wish they’d given her a different hobby because every time anyone says “canning” I think they’re going to summon Louis Canning and I’d rather they didn’t.

Fake Maia talks about sex too!

“Do you have any enemies?” Marissa asks Maia. Maia has a lot of enemies, Marissa! (Here’s a better question: does Maia have any friends? I understood when Alicia—who was in her early 40s in TGW season 1 (which took place in 2009-2010), was technologically inept, and was kind of a loner—didn’t know when internet things were happening. But would Maia really be so disconnected? Is she making an effort to unplug after those harassing calls? Are friends not willing to trust her? Do they think it’s too awkward to reach out? Are Amy’s friends reaching out to her? Why aren’t we seeing more about this side of the scandal? YMMV but to me, these questions are far more interesting than tracking down a twitter troll.)  

“It’s the scandal,” Maia realizes. “What do I do?”

Marissa says the way to track down the fake is to tweet to her. “I’m gay and like canning, too. We should meet up. :-)” Marissa DMs fake Maia.

COTW time! Case stuff happens!

I’m amused that the client’s last name is Salano, which I kept hearing as Solano at first, and her case is a dispute about eggs. Jane the Virgin, anyone? I’m sure that show could find a way to connect Laura Salano to Raf and Petra.

One thing I like about the case: Laura is a friend of Barbara’s. Another thing I like: the RBK team on this case is all female.

Barbara calls Diane in to help on the case, and once Diane leaves, Barbara moves closer to the client. That’s when it becomes clear they’re friends. “So you’re expanding?” Laura asks, referring to Diane. “Girl…” is all Barbara can say. “Explain,” Laura says. And then we cut away from them, and that’s fine, because we already know how Barbara feels about this. But this is one of those little “throwaway” scenes that end up mattering a lot to a show. Seeing Barbara around a long-time friend clues us in on who Barbara is outside of the office, even if all the information we’re really getting here is that Barbara has friends. (And, uh, that means a lot in this universe, because a lot of the characters don’t seem to have friends.)

Diane spies a man in Adrian’s office. She asks Marissa who it is. She has a suspicion, but needs Marissa to confirm. Marissa tries to be inconspicuous… and knocks a painting off the wall. Adrian and the man—Mike Kresteva, the Lying Liar—turn to look at her.

“Mike Kresteva,” Marissa tells Diane. (It makes sense for Marissa to recognize him; she’s Eli’s daughter after all.) Diane gets worried, and instructs Marissa to pull Adrian out of the meeting.

Marissa and Mike make eye contact. I wonder if Mike recognizes her. It would make sense if he did.

“Mike Kresteva. What’s he doing here?” Diane asks Adrian once he’s left the meeting. Adrian doesn’t know yet and wants to know why Diane is alarmed. “One of the partners at my firm, Alicia Florrick, knew him. He made her life hell,” Diane explains, accurately.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen Diane interact with Kresteva before, though he would’ve been a figure she’d heard a lot about, both through the gubernatorial race (she represented Peter in that voter fraud case!) and through Alicia. This Alicia reference is a necessary one. Diane doesn’t fear Kresteva because she disagrees with his politics; she fears him because she’s heard Alicia’s stories. I doubt Diane knows the anecdote about Alicia calling Kresteva Hitler and to his face and then telling him to die chocking on his own blood because she knows what she actually says to him doesn’t matter one bit, but, yeah. Kresteva’s that awful.

Anyway, Diane is warning Adrian that Kresteva is a Lying Liar.

The scariest thing about Kresteva, I think, is that he’s totally aware he’s lying. He just doesn’t care. He’s not gullible or easily confused. No—he’s calculated and cruel.

“I can handle myself,” Adrian tells her. Yeah. Sure. Diane isn’t satisfied with that answer and absentmindedly hands Marissa a sheet of paper. Marissa has to remind her to explain—a nice way of conveying how consuming and intense Diane’s dread of interacting with Kresteva is.

Kresteva is now on a task force about police accountability. He’s a fictional character in a fictional world, but that still makes me want to cry. The first time we met Kresteva, in W319 (Blue Ribbon Panel), he was making excuses for and shutting down inquiry into a cop shooting and then framing an unarmed black man. (That’s still one of the most eerily prescient episodes of TGW. The cop in that episode was named Zimmerman… and the episode filmed right before Trayvon Martin was murdered.)  

Maia and Marissa are still waiting for a reply from the Twitter account. (Wouldn’t a bot reply instantly? HOW DO TWITTER BOTS WORK? I’m almost curious enough to go down a Google rabbit hole!)

FakeMaia tweeted back. She wants a picture. So, Marissa goes into her “photostream,” which she keeps on her work laptop for occasions like this (what are you into, Marissa!?), and selects a picture of some random stock image girl. Maia wants Marissa to get a photo back from the bot. The bot sends one back instantly. Several, actually. They’re artsy images of a naked woman who doesn’t look like Maia but whom Maia says is really her.

So wait. There’s a bot on Twitter that carries on conversations, is up to date with the news, has hobbies, and just sends nude pics of Maia if you ask!? And it was created by some random photographer, on his own, several years ago? Is this supposed to be a play on that racist Microsoft bot from a while back?! Ohmygod I’m gonna stop nitpicking. Or, at least, I’ll try. I’m not sure if I’m more concerned that this could happen or skeptical of the plot.

At least Maia knows who’s behind the account now: she remembers the photographer. (Hey, they did this plotline on Desperate Housewives!)

“This feels like old times,” Kresteva remarks as he steps into Diane’s office. Again, not sure they ever met on screen. “And what line are you selling today, Mike?” Diane asks. “Why is everybody so suspicious of me?” Kresteva wonders. Hmmm. Why indeed.

He informs Diane of his new position. She refuses to give advice or say much. Kresteva says he’s changed. Sure. “How is your son doing, Mike?” Diane tries to change the subject. Turns out Kresteva’s son (named Jax; I remember this because I’ve been thinking about characters named Jax because of the Rindells) passed away. Kresteva almost seems like a human being telling his story.

The second he leaves her office, Diane Chumhums (HIIIIiiI CHUMMIE I LOVE YOU YOU SILLY LITTLE GOPHER) to determine whether or not Kresteva’s son really died. She hates that she has to look it up, but she does. Turns out Kresteva was telling the truth about that, sadly.

Diane goes to the fertility clinic to follow up on something COTW related. The doctor mistakes her for a patient. Diane laughs that off—“I’m not here for myself.”

Case stuff happens.

There’s a joke that goes on for way too long involving a doctor who’s hard of hearing. It’s supposed to be funny. It is not funny.

Sleazy Twitter Bot Bro is now a photographer who specializes in portraits of children. Gross.

Maia is, in theory, on the case of the week, but aside from the one scene where Lucca asks her to do a bit of research, her main work task seems to be investigating her personal life and using firm resources (computers, support staff) to do so. Either that, or she has a really generous lunch hour.

Marissa is comfortable being very assertive around Bro. When she speaks up on Maia’s behalf, Bro wonders if she’s Maia’s new girlfriend. Sounds like someone’s precious masculinity was wounded when Maia came out. Boo hoo. Marissa explains she’s not, “but that doesn’t matter.”

They broke up four years ago. I wonder if Maia’s bisexual or if she realized after (or during) the relationship she was gay?

The twitter bot was set up two years ago, which means Bro was bitter and resentful for two years. (Also means that Amy and Maia, if we believe the writers requested a photo of Amy and Maia for the icon, have been together at least 2 years.)

“What’s a Twitterbot?” Maia asks. … exactly what it sounds like, Maia. What weird sort of bubble does Maia live in!? (Alternatively: writers, it’s never a good look to make your characters more ignorant than they realistically should be for the sake of exposition.)

The bot will duplicate itself if he turns it off. Wha?

When Bro tells Maia to “tell your girlfriend to fix it,” she slaps him. Yay, Maia! (If this happened in the first episode of the show, I’d be worried about the series finale. I think we’re safe because it’s episode four.)

Maia and Marissa return from their non-work related adventure at the same time Diane and Lucca get back from working on the case. The subpoena guy (I’m sure there’s a technical name for this—process server?) who’s a crew member or something is in the RBK lobby, subpoenaing everyone who worked on the police brutality case in F1x01. (At least, I assume that’s why he’s serving them, since he doesn’t subpoena Barbara or anyone else.)

There’s something missing from the Maia subplot—and, really, from the way Maia’s been written so far in these first four episodes (well, mostly just these last two, so there’s hope!). Whenever the show could explore how Maia’s feeling or what she’s thinking or how she’s doing at work, it instead goes for a plot-driven conspiracy. Twists and turns are fun, but Maia’s a new character. These plots don’t give me much of a sense of who Maia is or how she’s coping with the aftermath of the scandal. Consider, for a minute, what the show would look like if Maia’s parents were obviously guilty. Instead of having to wait for the reveal of what really happened (which I don’t care about at all), we’d be dealing with Maia realizing the betrayal that definitely occurred. We’d be seeing her lose her innocence and rebuild instead of watching her investigate various family members we as the audience have no reason to trust. Maia would be the focus, not the facts of the scandal. Same goes for the harassment. Why can’t it just be some random person on Twitter who made an account, and Maia has to learn to steel herself against it? Why does it have to be an elaborate Twitter bot that also makes Fake News?

I keep coming back to the way TGW season 1 worked for Alicia. First, and I didn’t realize how smart this was until TGF began, Peter committed two crimes: one against the law and one against his family. Alicia even makes that distinction in the pilot. She doesn’t care as much about the crimes he allegedly committed, and she (and we) don’t know if he really did it. What she does know, and what we do know, is that he cheated on her with prostitutes. Since there are two scandals there, Alicia can lose her trust in Peter because of one (the cheating) while the writers are free to play around with the mystery/conspiracy of the other. But we don’t have that with the Rindells. Their scandal is all doubt.

While I’m on this kick of comparing the writing for Alicia to the writing for Maia, I’d also like to mention W109, Threesome. That episode has a plot that’s similar to Maia’s in this episode. Alicia is the last to know about Peter’s call girl’s appearance on Chelsea Handler’s show. Zach and Grace know about it. Peter’s legal team and publicity team know about it. Everyone in the office knows. It’s not until Alicia’s assistant pulls up the video that she finds out. We see Alicia react to the interview; how much it pains her to be called “frigid.” Alicia’s called to meet with Will and Diane before she can even finish watching the clip, and we get a great little sequence of Alicia walking through the firm, her confidence waning as she notices everyone’s eyes on her. Her whole demeanor changes completely from what we saw as she walked in to work. Will and Diane are talking about damage control when she arrives, and we can tell from the way Alicia’s moving she expects that they’re going to talk to her about the video. (I’m rewatching this now, and holy shit, guys, she even does the thing with her hands to calm herself down. You know, that thing she does in the last minutes of the series finale. SHE DOES IT HERE TOO.) She only relaxes, slightly, when she realizes they’re talking about Stern’s scandal, not hers. And the whole episode plays out with Alicia trying to figure out what’s going on with Peter, how to make Amber stop, and how to talk to her children about their father’s sex life. And, oh yeah, she’s on a case the whole time, too. I could talk for hours about Alicia’s arc in W109, and how the episode deepens the audience’s understanding of Alicia by forcing her to shift between so many environments, and how the central problem of Amber Madison’s eagerness to spread lies is resolved as an issue between Alicia and Peter, not as a convoluted plot. But I won’t, because I think the example of that first scene (which you really should rewatch!) illustrates my point: the writing for Maia lacks this nuance. The writing for Maia is mostly about plot. The writing for Alicia used plot to develop the character.

Lucca waits for Colin in the bar near the courthouse. She’s already ordered a burger and cut it in half for him. What’s their ship thing going to be? Burger and Fries? Onions and Peppers? (Note: this is not a serious question.)

Colin thinks Lucca’s there to flirt, but she’s there for work. But they don’t get to work before Colin invites her on a date to get milkshakes. Something about his therapist. This is cute, but not really anything I need to get into in-depth.

Lucca asks Colin about the subpoena; he says he’ll look into it.

Marissa made a breakthrough in the Twitterbot fiasco. She contacted Twitter and they froze it right away, which is definitely how Twitter deals with harassment. (I actually don’t know if this is realistic, but I’ve seen so much about how ineffective Twitter is at suspending trolls that this seems too fast, even though it also seems totally logical.) (But won’t the bot remake itself?)

Maia and Marissa high five, adorably.

Case stuff happens. This case is interesting.

Alma Hoff is back! So is just Stanek, who is still collecting electronics in a trash can.

Yesha gets a news alert from Chumhum about Maia being fired. She phones Maia to ask if it’s true. The news source is obviously fake, but I can’t tell if it’s Fake News or Real News For These Characters But Fake Because Copyright Laws.

Maia asks Adrian if she’s being fired. “I barely even know who you are,” Adrian replies, shooing her away. Heh. Wouldn’t Maia know it’s a lie from the fact that she didn’t call her workplace anti-gay?

Now there’s a story about Maia buying $350,000 in jewelry. Ah, it’s one of those sites. The ones that generate ridiculous stories about famous people that have no connection to the truth at all.

Now a Grand Jury is in session, and I think this insert of “GRAND JURY IN SESSION” is lifted from a TGW ep, probably 314 or something from season 7.

Diane is on the stand; Kresteva is questioning her. He starts off by framing her answers as uncooperative, and then begins to flat out lie. “What could be wrong with my motives?” he asks. LOL. I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING. (Even if it weren’t Kresteva specifically… there are still a lot of good reasons to be suspicious!)

“I think you tend to lie,” Diane responds. Kresteva goes after her about the money the firm makes off of the police brutality cases. It’s 30% of the firm’s annual income. Well that’s a cynical suggestion.

Kresteva asks Diane if she said that the problem was that “the people of Cook County hated African-Americans.” Wait, I thought she refused to answer in his version of events? Also, what does he mean by the People of Cook County? Does he mean in the legal sense (The People vs. ___) or does he mean that Diane said that Cook County residents are racists? What narrative is he trying to spin—that Diane was uncooperative, that Diane wants police brutality to continue so she can profit, or that Diane made sweeping accusations of racism? All of the above? Does it matter? Is the point to scare the firm away from these cases or to actually accomplish something with the Grand Jury? (I think it’s the former.)

Anyway, the real point of this scene is that KRESTEVA IS A LYING LIAR.

“Are you saying that my notes from our meeting are incorrect?” Kresteva asks. THIS GUY IS SO FULL OF BULLSHIT, I NEED TO WATCH THE GIF OF ALICIA TELLING HIM TO DIE CHOCKING ON HIS OWN BLOOD, PLEASE A FEW TIMES NOW. Kresteva is so full of shit that his lies don’t even make sense! His whole shtick rests on the hope that the grand jury finds him trustworthy! If they don’t, then why shouldn’t Diane suspect him? What should it matter that his “notes” don’t match what Diane’s saying? They’re his notes. He could’ve written them whenever he felt like it; he could’ve written down whatever he wanted! It’s not a video. It’s not an audio recording. It’s not a print-out of an email. The people who say “believe me” (or variations of that) the most are the ones to watch out for.

Kresteva’s lies, which seemed outrageous back in 2012, play differently in 2017, don’t they?

This scene is very hard to watch because of the emotional toll it takes on Diane as she realizes nothing she says or does will help her out of this hole. Kresteva will just make up more lies, and when he does let the truth through, he’ll spin it to make Diane look bad. Diane’s mistake about Jax seems malicious when he questions her. Her denial of the conversation reads as guilt. How could Kresteva have made up all of that information, the jury must wonder. Isn’t it more to this lady’s advantage to lie than it is to the head of the task force?

Diane says Kresteva was in her office for six minutes. I don’t get why she says this, since we saw the full meeting and it wasn’t six minutes, so…

Diane’s furious when she gets back to work. “He’s setting us up,” she announces to the others. Adrian understands why: Kresteva wants to reduce the number of police brutality cases by having fewer cases filed. I presume this means not just shutting down RBK’s cases, but also making other firms fear taking them on.

Lucca goes to Colin to investigate further. “Yeah, he lies,” Colin acknowledges. “Does your boss know that?” Lucca wonders. Good question. Colin agrees to help out, which is very nice of him. (So far, Colin feels a lot like a flirtier Finn Polmar to me.) Lucca says he seems like a good guy and reminds him they have a milkshake date. They can’t have sex yet because it would seem like a quid pro quo. “Fuck, I hate being a good guy,” Colin jokes as Lucca leaves.

Case stuff happens. I like Judge Stanek.

Colin does bring Kresteva’s methods up with the boss. The boss hears Kresteva’s strategy for how to reduce the amount of cases and doesn’t care about (agree with?) the ethics of it. Colin tries a different angle: the firm is all African-American; won’t that look bad? Kresteva argues it’s not all black because of Diane. LOL DIANE IS ONE PERSON. (And even if you include Maia and Marissa, that’s still a small fraction of the total employees.)

Colin must have pretty high standing/be pretty good at his job if he can bring this up at work. Kresteva gets a small warning, but he’s allowed to continue.

“It’s fake news,” Jay tells Maia. The original twitter monster has morphed into a lot of fake news all across the internet.

Yesha tries to stop it by getting a TRO against Bro, but he says it won’t work because his servers aren’t in Cook County. Yesha tells Maia there’s nothing more they can do. “Not legally,” Yesha repeats. Then she leaves, as Maia, Marissa, and Jay all think of illegal ways to stop Fake News.

Marissa has an idea—create fake news about Bro. Wouldn’t it be easier to just phone his boss? WHY ARE YOU GUYS USING YOUR WORK COMPUTERS TO CREATE FAKE NEWS WITH EXPLICIT CONTENT? WHY AREN’T YOU GUYS WORKING?! (Yes, this has gotten under my skin, why do you ask?)

Bro’s boss buys the fake news. Would that really happen? I can see him being fired because it looks bad, but being fired because your boss believed ILoveFakeNewsDotCom or whatever seems strange.

Case stuff happens.

Bro shows up at Maia’s office to announce, “You’re ruining my life.” HYPOCRITE. (Though, I do have a question: if the fake news is no longer spreading because of him, what is this accomplishing other than revenge?)

He calls her a bitch. Hell. No.

Luckily, Adrian intervenes and Bro calms down. “You drop your news articles and I’ll drop mine?” Bro says. So they are his news articles? What happens when someone else gets the same idea?

“At this firm, we stand up for each other, Maia,” Adrian tells Maia after she thanks him. Awwww. (So does that mean he’s cool with her doing all of this on the clock, using work computers, and pulling Marissa and Jay into it, too?)

YES!!! A break from the Diane/Barbara tension!!!!! This week, they’re drinking together after a rough day in court. Diane’s sad. Barbara, too.

“Do you regret not having children?” Barbara asks Diane. I can’t believe we got through seven seasons of TGW without Diane ever answering this question. That’s cool!

“Sometimes,” Diane responds honestly. “Not often.”

“When are the sometimes?” Barbara wonders. This feels a lot to me like Barbara trying to decide if she should try to have kids before it’s too late.

“With my husband. I mean, it’s too late for us now, but, uh, but I look at him and I wonder what, you know, what his son would be like. Or my daughter,” Diane explains, breaking my heart. (She and Kurt are totally going to reconcile, right?!)

“Yeah. It’s interesting,” Diane continues, unprompted. “Most people think I didn’t want kids, and that’s why I made my work my life. What they don’t realize, it’s… it’s really just the opposite.” I definitely assumed that Diane prioritized work over having kids. I’m not entirely sure what Diane means by “the opposite” but I think she’s saying that kids didn’t seem to be happening for her, so she had time to throw herself into work, and then it was too late. I wonder if Diane would’ve considered IVF if it had been more common when she was in her 30s/40s.

Diane and Barbara talk a little bit more, then Diane finishes her drink and goes back to her office. She phones Kurt. He doesn’t pick up (or does she hang up too quickly? I think it’s the former but compressed for time). I CAN’T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK.

Then Diane has an epiphany: ENGLAND.

“We dialed 44 and then the number,” Barbara retorts when Alma asks how they called an agency in England. LULZ.

Case stuff happens; Laura wins! (Also, who knew Alma Hoff had a pottymouth?)

I barely talked about it, but this was a very complex and compelling case.

The Fake News hasn’t stopped. Shocker. Yesha has figured out that now Reddit is making fake news because people on the Internet also hate Maia.

Now Yesha and Marissa both advise Maia to drop it. So she does. But… Fake News has Real Consequences.

Someone brings the Fake News about Maia, which is now in the Cook County Vindicator which I thought was supposed to be a legit paper with actual reporters but whatever, to Kresteva’s attention. He’s looking for any ways to go after RBK, and this news article—real or fake—plays right into his story.

His white board of RBK targets consists exclusively of people we know (and excludes Reddick—who is Reddick, anyway? Is he still there?), including Amy. “Hired for SA ties?” reads a post-it next to Maia’s picture.

So… that’s what’s coming next. All the conspiracies come together! That means it’s time for ELSBETH TASCIONI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Seriously, Elsbeth is the one good thing about the unnecessary conspiracy plots The Good Shows like to do.)